Godzilla Battles for the Earth

Godzilla and Mothra: Battle for the Earth (Gojira Tai Mosura, 1992)

DVD Description:
Released by Sony/Tristar; additional material: trailers

Directed by Takao Okawara

Starring Tetsuya Bessho, Satomi Kobayashi, Megumi Odaka, Keiko Imamura, Sayaka Osawa, Takehiro Murata, Saburo Shinoda, Akira Takarada, Shoji Kobayashi

Rating:

The Heisei-era Godzilla films (1984–1995) began on a promising note, with Return of Godzilla (a.k.a. Godzilla 1985), which—though flawed—unfolded as much like a contemporary disaster film as a monster story. The following film, Godzilla vs. Biollante, was equally flawed, but it ventured into some new territory for the series; featured a redesigned, fierce-looking Godzilla; and brought the suitmation technique for endowing monsters with life to a more sophisticated level. Then...Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah happened, which might have been a spectacular visual treat, but was a holy horror in the plotting/internal logic department. The film was a box-office success, however, and Toho rushed the following film, Godzilla vs. Mothra, right into production.

While the Heisei films generally maintained consistent continuity, the plot mostly ignores the events of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, for which one may well be thankful; however, the story rates among the most didactic of the Godzilla films, with an environmental theme so overbearing that even if you buy the message you wouldn't be averse to clocking the messenger. From its opening moments (an overt homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark), the film feels derivative, with much of its storyline lifted from 1961's Mothra and 1963's Mothra vs. Godzilla. Numerous environmental disasters wrack the earth simultaneously, from typhoons to volcanoes to landslides due to over-development. In response to the ecological damage, Mothra and its darker sibling, Battra, are awakened—the latter with the aim to put things right on Earth by force. The more gentle Mothra opposes Battra, but its caretakers—the ten-inch tall fairies (now known as the Cosmos)—are kidnapped by the profiteering Mr. Tomokane of the land-grabbing Marutomo Corporation, and Mothra turns its ire on Japan in attempt to rescue them. In the meantime, Godzilla is not particularly happy with either monster, and comes around periodically to tangle with them—until, in the end, they team up and do a little whooping of their own.

The two main characters—rogue archaeologist Takuya Fujita (Tetsuya Bessho) and Masako Tezuka (Satomi Kobayashi)—provide slightly more engaging personalities than some of the other Godzilla films of the era; they are divorced and not amiably so. Some of the acrimonious interplay between them is convincing if not always appealing. Takehiro Murata, as Marutomo representative Kenji Andoh plays a corporate beanpod who almost has a conscience well enough, and even provides a touch of comic relief now and again. The greedy head of the Marutomo Corporation, played by Makoto Otake, is an amalgamation of notorious exploiters Clark Nelson from the original Mothra and Jiro Torahata from Mothra vs. Godzilla, but Otake's performance tends to be a bit over the top and devoid of any depth. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the cast stands around and offers nothing to the story, especially Heisei series regular Megumi Odaka as psychic Miki Saegusa, whose appearance in this film is solely to look worried.

While some of the special effects work may be impressive, the Mothra and Battra designs and execution are anything but. Mothra, in both larva and imago form, never appeared so artificial; despite the advances in SPFX technology in the intervening years, the Showa-era Mothra in all its various incarnations appeared more convincing, especially in the original 1961 film under the supervision of effects director Eiji Tsuburaya. Battra is a suitably evil-looking creature, but the puppet could hardly be less animated, and in many scenes its supporting wires are clearly visible.

During his tenure as special effects director, Koichi Kawakita had a tendency to overdo the optical effects, with an abundance of fiery rays constantly crossing the screen, sparkling flashes erupting over the landscape, and brilliant halos surrounding the monsters. In Godzilla vs. Mothra, there's scarcely a scene with the monsters that isn't optically enhanced, and though the light show occasionally highlights the raw power of the monsters' deadly exchanges, for the most part, it simply distracts.

Unquestionably, the movie's single most effective feature is Akira Ifukube's musical score. While most of the themes are familiar, especially the Mothra motif used in the original Mothra vs. Godzilla (based on Yuji Koseki's score for the original 1961 Mothra), the richness and variations of the orchestrations add a poignancy the soundtrack, particularly the ending theme as Mothra flies into outer space to intercept and destroy a meteor on a catastrophic collision course with Earth.

Overall, Godzilla vs. Mothra doesn't hold a candle to the Showa-era Mothra vs. Godzilla, to which it must inevitably compare, and at the time of its release, I would have called it the least entertaining of the Heisei-era Godzilla films, for despite its inane plot, at least Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah offered something unique. Unfortunately, there would be at least one other entry in the Heisei series to make Godzilla vs. Mothra look like a classic....

Drat! It's Ghidorah Again!

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (Gojira Tai Kingu Gidora, 1991)

DVD Description:
Released by Sony/Tristar; additional material: trailers

Directed by Kazuki Omori

Starring Kosuke Toyohara, Anna Nakagawa, Megumi Odaka, Katsuhiko Sasaki, Akiji Kobayashi, Tokuma Nishioka, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Kenji Sahara, Kôichi Ueda, Robert Scott Field, Chuck Wilson

Rating:

Back in 1991, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah created something of a stir on this side of the water because there were rumblings that the film had distinct anti-American overtones. However, it would be several years before it received a domestic release (which was straight to video), and overall, the American audience found the fuss to be much ado about nothing.

For fans, the far bigger deal about Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah was Ghidorah's new origin and the convoluted storyline, which took the theme of time travel to new heights of ridiculousness. No longer an awesome, planet-destroying monster from space, Ghidorah is now the product of a weird combination of time travel, small critters, and radioactivity. The story goes like this: a time-traveling flying saucer lands in Japan in 1992, bringing with it an international crew from the year 2204. They claim that, in their age, Godzilla is running rampant and must be destroyed. They have discovered that Godzilla was birthed on a Pacific Island called Lagos during the U.S. nuclear experiments, so their plan is to go back to that time and move the dinosaur that will eventually become Godzilla to a new location. They succeed in doing this; however, they leave behind some cute little doothingies called dorats, or drats, which have features that suspiciously resemble King Ghidorah. And in the 20th century, Godzilla is gone from history (even though everyone somehow remembers him), and King Ghidorah has replaced him. Shock of shocks! The future people have planned all along not to save Japan but destroy it, thus preventing it becoming the dominant economic and political world power.

However, in the 20th Century, radioactivity apparently exists in profusion in every corner of the world, and in the Toho universe, radiation plus critter equals daikaiju. So the dinosaur is once again transformed into Godzilla, even bigger and more powerful than before. Godzilla and Ghidorah battle, and Godzilla prevails, casting Ghidorah's body—now minus one head—into the ocean. As Godzilla begins a devastating attack on Japan, future person Emi, who disapproves of her people's motivations, returns to the future, has the dormant Ghidorah reconstructed as a cyborg, and then returns it to the 20th Century to do battle with Godzilla. This time, Mecha Ghidorah whoops on Godzilla sufficiently to send him into the ocean, but in the process the cyborg is terminally damaged and sinks into the ocean as well.

With rare exception, I've never cared much for time travel stories, and after the relatively dark, disaster-themed scope of Return of Godzilla and the nightmarish topicality of Godzilla vs. Biollante, the fantastical excesses of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah come off as outright silly—particularly its half-baked time-travel aspect. Beyond that, the alteration of King Ghidorah's origin—making it, in essence, a Godzilla changeling—serves to void the metaphorical power of the original Godzilla story; in essence, diminishing Godzilla himself. As a powerful alien entity from the stars, King Ghidorah worked. As the mere tool of an advanced but decadent future civilization, a deliberate product of technology, it falls flat on its face.

On the flip side, despite its very serious dramatic shortcomings, the pacing of the film is among the best of the Heisei series. The cinematography is colorful and well composed, and Akira Ifukube's powerful score, which reprises the original Ghidorah theme, is beautifully orchestrated. The Godzilla suit, only slightly modified from its design in Godzilla vs. Biollante, appears very impressive. Surprisingly, despite a Western cast with the acting ability of elementary schoolchildren, the backstory of the "Godzillasaurus" on Lagos Island plays out remarkably well. Yoshio Tsuchiya, portraying loyal-Imperial-Japanese-soldier-cum-industrial-magnate Shindo, turns in a superlative performance, and with Ifukube's score providing a poignant backdrop for his character, almost single-handedly elevates the movie to respectable status.

Whatever its failings, and they are many, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah does succeed at being an entertaining movie, and when it comes to portraying Godzilla as a truly powerful, virtually unstoppable force of nature, it hardly gets any better.

There's No Fest Like No G-Fest

Right now, G-Fest is happening in Chicago, and I'm not there again...drat it all. It's been five years, I believe, since I've been able to go; I'd so like to return one of these days, what with Godzilla being an old personal friend, and all that. Ah, well, we do what we can, so I had my other old friend Bill Mann over for a day-long monsterthon, which I dubbed "There's No Fest Like No G-Fest 2"—the first having occurred just about this time last year.

This year, we ran Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, War of the Gargantuas, Gamera III: Revenge of Iris, and Godzilla Against Mothra: Battle for the World...which reminds me, I still need to review a few of these for the Daikaiju review page on my Web site. In time, no doubt.

Well...maybe next year. If not, there will doubtlessly be another No Fest.

My God, What a Rigorous Exam

When I was in high school, I performed a portion of this skit at the senior class assembly. It was a hootin' hollerin' bunch of fun, and the original, by Peter Cook, is a comedy classic. Enjoy.

Cleared for Takeoff

Gearing up for flight: Douggum, Kelroy, Jared, and Rodan (Damned)

Ever been ziplining? First time for me today. You get into a harness; hooked to a cable running between trees, anywhere from ten to a hundred feet above the ground; and then you go flying through the tree canopy or over sprawling meadows, for distances up to 1,500 feet. You can reach exhilarating speeds; 1,500 feet takes about 20 seconds. Went with a group of eight today up to Carolina Ziplines, near Hanging Rock, NC, and even the most acrophobic didn't have any problem tolerating the altitude. At the establishment where we went, everyone from three-year-olds to blind senior citizens have enjoyed the activity, and one of our number was pregnant (still is, as far as I know). Mind you, there were some pretty big blood splats on a few of the nearby trees, but if you pay no attention to those, you'll probably do all right. I highly recommend it. (Click on the pics to enlarge.)

Aaaaand we're off. Brugger takes flight.

Kelroy comes up short, necessitating a rescue by our intrepid guide.

Chapman and Douggum making re-entry from the stratosphere

Brugger hangs on for dear life (yes, she's out there
hollering for all she's worth).

Happy landings, old boy.

Chocolate-Covered What?

I kind of overbooked myself for the Fourth of July weekend, but I reckon that's all right as, otherwise, it's been an uncomplicated week, at the office and in my brain, which is sometimes the best you can hope for. Last night, headed up to Martinsville to visit Mum and my friends, the Albaneses, and had an excellent dinner at the Dutch Inn. This morning, it was up early and down to Durham for some caching and the Festival for the Eno (nothing to do with Brian; it's a benefit for the conservation of the Eno River). Yeah, there's all kinds of food, arts & crafts, food, music, food, hiking, and food. I sampled some very spicy jerk chicken, black beans & rice, fried plantains, chocolate-covered bacon, chai bubble tea, and ice cream, all of which was quite tasty. Well, chocolate-covered bacon may not the world's best idea ever, but at least I can say I tried it...once.

Happily for me, at West Point on the Eno, a portion of the extensive Durham City Park, there are several caches, and I was able to wander away from the festival to go after a couple, and I also grabbed several on the trips coming and going. As of this afternoon, I've logged a total of 2,600.

One of the highlights of the festival was listening to the music of Lizzy Ross, from Chapel Hill. Kind of country but kind of not—"not" being the operative word, since I'm anything but a fan of country music. She's a most talented young singer and guitarist, with a unique sound and an excellent stage presence. You can check out her Web site here: Lizzy Ross.

Go forth. Wherever.

Anne Elk?

I tend to be rather fond of jerky. You know, dried salted delicious dead animal hide. There's beef jerky, turkey jerky, chicken jerky, even buffalo jerky. I used to particularly enjoy my ex-wife's homemade spicy beef jerky. Once in a while, especially when I'm out on a long trail hike, I'll pick up a bag of the Jack Links ("Messin' With Bigfoot") peppered beef jerky, which isn't exactly the world's finest fare, but I have to tell you, it'll do in a pinch.

Better back up. Early this afternoon, while gathered with some friends, a spontaneous and mutual decision to vacate Greensboro took us to Chapel Hill, where in years long past I hung out with some sort of frequency, and where friend Jenny spent a significant if rather hazy portion of her life. We ended up at this blasted place called A Southern Season, where you can find everything from Klingon cookware to Evil-brand wine to insane-looking ceramic frogs to massive, erupting mountains of dark chocolate truffles. It was here that I found a bag of elk jerky ("Made from Natural Elk"), and since it was on sale, I did what I had to do and bought some.

Pretty good, that elk. Not as good as Mrs Death's spicy beef stuff, but definitely okay as a novelty.

We tooled around Chapel Hill for a while, stopped at a handful of bars, and had dinner at the Spotted Dog, where all the items on the menu give you the impression that you might be better off if you're a canine; however, the human fare is actually quite decent and very reasonably priced. I enjoyed a bloody mary and a turkey burger that made me almost as happy as an unsalted elk. Interestingly, nearby is an establishment called The Southern Rail, which is built around a couple of old train cars. Back before the turn of the century, those particular cars were home to Green Monk Studios, the film company that belonged to my friend Storm Williams...and that served as the setting for my story, "Eye of the Devil," the sequel to my perhaps more well-known novelette, "Fugue Devil."

Of course, there were some caches in the bargain. Of course there were.

New Interview at The Authors Speak

Probably the most fun I've had doing an interview. Nicely conducted by Mr. Eric Mays. A bit of blathering about everything from Dark Shadows to Deathrealm, from Godzilla to the publishing business, from Cthulhu to modern education. Check it out at www.theauthorsspeak.com.

Also...writer Gail Martin made a neat little video of the guests, including ye old Rodan, at ConCarolinas a couple of weeks back. It's on YouTube, here: Gail Martin's Visions of ConCarolinas.

No caches today. Just martini. Martini good.

A German and a Scholar

Spent the better part of the day yesterday in Selma, NC, at the home of multi-tentacled Bob "Crypt of Cthulhu" Price, who has been hosting Joe "The Pulverizer" Pulver (author of Nightmare's Disciple) for several days. Joe is soon to be leaving these shores for the alien spawning grounds of Berlin, Germany, where he will be residing in an abandoned shopping mall, penning new nightmares and chowing down on the local populace. Always a treat to see Joe — a rare one, alas, and soon to become rarer. Here's to many new, foreign horrors for the Pulverizer.

Naturally, I occupied myself on the trips coming and going by snagging bunches of geocaches — about thirty, give or take a handful. Would have bagged more, but the heat was so oppressive, if I didn't find it in about a minute or so, I didn't bother hunting further. Did quite a bit of caching both Friday and Saturday as well, including a big old nighttime hike with a couple of fellow cachers on the Owl's Roost Trail in NW Greensboro, and a slightly challenging tree-climb on Saturday. By the time I hit the hay last night, I was feeling danged near exhausted...so tonight, I'm taking care of the indoor chores, of which there are many.

Unfortunately, the lawnmower and I have a date looming on the near horizon, and aren't I just thrilled?

Time Passages

Mercy; today would have been my dad's 80th birthday. He passed away in 2001, which sometimes seems ages and ages ago...and other times so recent that I can recall every detail of that very difficult time. For many years, our family would go to the beach around the time of Dad's birthday, so most of my memories for this week in June are of sun and sand. Good times indeed. And suddenly, I have a hankering to go to the beach.

Today is also my great-uncle's 94th birthday. He's still getting along; hope I do so well if I ever manage to make it to some ripe old age. Of course, I was never sure I'd make it to 50, and now I'm past that, the future seems closer but less predictable than it used to. Of course, I've never been any good at predicting, and not being much of an optimist, that's probably a good thing. Well...I suppose you could call me a glass-half-empty kind of optimist. Yeah.

Stumpage

Most afternoons on my drive home from the office, I listen to Allan Handelman on the local talk radio station (WZTK, 101.1 FM), whose show covers a wide spectrum of subject matter, from politics to rock-n-roll, mainly because it's a little more thoughtful than the shallow, earache-inducing noise of brainless bozos like Michael Savage and Neil Boortz on the same station. This afternoon, Allan's guest was Chris Alexander, the current editor of Fangoria magazine, which was an old favorite of mine back in the 80s. Callers were encouraged to challenge Chris to identify old horror movies they might half-recall from days gone by...and if they were lucky, maybe even stump him. I was enjoying listening to the many descriptions of familiar old movies and Chris promptly identifying them, so I figured, well, if I could get through, just maybe I could stump him. Surprisingly, I got on the show with little trouble, summarized one of my least-favorite old Japanese horror movies—about the survivors of a plane crash being terrorized by a parasitic blob from outer space that takes over its host by splitting his skull and oozing into his brain—and by gummy, managed to stump ye editor right good and proper. The movie, of course, was the 1968 Shochiku monstrosity, Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell, which I saw on the drive-in circuit sometime in the mid '70s. It's obscure enough, for sure; I don't believe there's an authorized domestic DVD release, though I do have a VHS copy lurking somewhere in the vault.

With cheap special effects, lurid cinematography, nihilistic tone, and infuriatingly unlikeable characters, Goke is one of those movies that stands out because of its high annoyance factor; I'd even go so far as to say its glaring flaws are its most endearing feature. Hopefully, it'll get a respectable DVD release one of these days, and I can review it on my Daikaiju site. Alas, no prize for stumping Mr. Alexander, but I did get a whole heaping helping of pleasure getting into some horror on the radio. Thanks, Allan.

Space Pirate Captain Harlock: Endless Odyssey

Back in the days of yore (1979–1980-something), I was a knocked-out, die-hard fan of Japanese animation, particularly the work of Leiji Matsumoto (Space Cruiser Yamato, Galaxy Express 999, Queen Millennium, and—above all else—Space Pirate Captain Harlock). I still enjoy the stuff, though I really haven't been much into anime over the last couple of decades. Still, figuring I could put a free trial membership to Netflix to good use, I checked out part 1 of Matsumoto's 2002 series, Space Pirate Captain Harlock: Endless Odyssey, and dang if it wasn't a good bit of fun. The Harlock series has always been among the grimmest of Matumoto's stories, and this one is no exception. It features a rather Lovecraftian slant, which I must say I appreciate, and the visuals are, as always for a Matsumoto production, quite striking. By all appearances, by the end of episode 3, the earth itself has bought the big one, which even the Great Ugly Azathoth hasn't yet succeeded in doing.

During my college days in the late 70s, it was actually the musical score for Space Cruiser Yamato by Hiroshi Miyagawa that drew me to giving the series a try, and after all these years, I still love those Yamato scores and the original Space Pirate Captain Harlock score by Seiji Yokoyama. The soundtrack music for Endless Odyssey is by Takayuki Hattori (Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla, Godzilla 2000), and it's very different from both earlier Matsumoto anime scores and anything else I've ever heard by the composer. Much of it is rather bluesy, quite a departure from the grand, orchestral scores of the original series and the Harlock film, My Youth in Arcadia (as well as its follow-up TV series, Endless Road SSX). It's not my favorite, by any stretch, but it does complement the action pretty well and is overall rather enjoyable.

Continuity between the various Captain Harlock series is at best spotty, and at worst nonexistent. Endless Odyssey is ostensibly a sequel to the original 1978 Harlock series (which is essentially a different continuity from My Youth in Arcadia, Endless Road SSX, Galaxy Express, and the others), and for the most part it works in this capacity, although the young protagonist, Tadashi Daiba, is by all indications meant to be the same character (with a few variations in personality) from the original series. Why Matsumoto does this is anyone's guess, but as someone who does enjoy at least some slim binding threads between various related series, I find my teeth gnashing pretty furiously when things don't fit together...really at all.

Regardless, I've got a good many more episodes of the show to watch—once they're available—and I've no doubt that the viewing will make for happy times. Yay for me.

Caching, ConCarolinas, and Critters

Ed Schubert (editor of Orson Scott Card's Intergalatic Medicine
Show), and Old Man Rodan looking festive.

It was a wicked hot, eight-hour trip down to Charlotte from Greensboro yesterday. Yes, I said an eight-hour trip; I was geocaching the whole way. Picked up 39, which I think is a one-day record for me (yes, I realize this is child's play for many of the harder-core). So far at the con, I've been on a few panels, all well-attended (and one a shade beyond lively), sold and signed a few books, and grabbed a few additional caches.

At one of the caches yesterday, I came uncomfortably close to getting a face full of bees. I was on the hunt, trudging through some woods, and since I was in fairly rugged terrain—and in a veritable garden of poison ivy—I was watching my step, not so much where I was going. I looked up just in time to find myself three feet from a massive and highly active beehive, with all kinds of honey dripping to the ground. For a second, I prayed mightily that this was not a hive of those legendary killer bees, because I was a fair haul away from my car; fortunately, these little folks paid me no mind and carried on about their business, so I went on and carried out mine.

This evening, I headed out to a nearby park, where a half-mile boardwalk takes you out over an expansive marsh. Although there were muggles aplenty gathered at the park itself, I was alone on my hunt for the cache at the boardwalk's end, and I got to see plenty of native wildlife, including numerous frogs, a couple of cute lil beavers munching on some wood, and a very large, exceedingly homely six-legged fiend, the likes of which I've never seen and hope to never see again.

Heading home tomorrow. I expect it'll be another eight-hour journey.

Authors Gail Z. Martin and James Maxey

Marietta Publishing's Bruce Gehweiler

Tera Fulbright in full regalia

Lil Godzilla jumps for joy over Blue Devil Island!

HorrorWorld's THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER Review

I would weep if my heart were not so heavy with joy. Check it out here: HorrorWorld Reviews. Scroll just shy of halfway down the page to read the review.

You can also check out the book info at my Web site; click on the cover image for the whole prevue: The Realm of Stephen Mark Rainey.

Stay tuned for further news on The Nightmare Frontier, which may yet come out as an audio book from Macabre Ink/Crossroads Press. I like this idea, as I more and more hear things like, "Well, I'd 'read' your book if only it were an audio book!" Axe and ye shall receive, peoples.

Make no mistake, I've no doubt the e-book format is here to stay, particularly given the increasing accessibility of readers such as the Kindle and the iPad. I believe it's a good thing to be in on the early stages of its evolution. Still, it'll be a celebratory day in the dungeons of Poenari Castle before my preference for the good old paper-and-ink format gives up the ghost. It feels like one thing to have an honest-to-god physical book in circulation, and a whole nuther thing to have an electronic file residing on various transient storage media. Be it book signings, appearances at cons...live promo of any kind...the e-format to a great extent removes the product from the writer, the person. Having come up through the years, both as a reader and a writer, in the arena of traditional book publishing, I can't help but believe that something in the process...the environment...is missing. Whether the future can fill in that nebulous something remains to be seen....

Making the format ultimately lucrative...that's a whole different animal. And a growing challenge for writers and publishers alike.

Caching Craig Creek

Click on pics to enlarge.

A beautiful Saturday, so I made a really excellent day trip up to Craig and Montgomery Counties, VA, to do some caching. My brother, Phred, used to live in the area, and for quite a few years, we regularly went camping along Craig Creek, about 15 miles out of Blacksburg. I have frequently used this area as the setting for my fiction, as it's picturesque and atmospheric, with lots of hidden corners where all kinds of mysterious things can happen. Happily, nowadays, you can find geocaches in a lot of these corners, and I racked up several on the trip today.

Most of my activities here ranged from the late 80s to mid 90s; it's been about seven or eight years since I've actually visited the area. Last time I camped up here, a flash flood took out our campsite and tent, and the little gravel road along the river we used to access the area is now blocked off — although you can still get back to the site on foot. It's a gorgeous place, with shale cliffs rising a hundred or more feet over the stream, and a forest full of oaks, pines, and hemlocks (most of which are dying due to a parasite, unfortunately). I used to enjoy waking up early in the morning, brewing some coffee, and going up to the top of the cliffs to watch the sun come up over the nearby ridge. Today, I went all around the area, including the little place where my brother used to live, not too far out of Blacksburg.

Couldn't have asked for a better day...particularly for some quality caching.

ConCarolinas Schedule

ConCarolinas/DeepSouthCon is coming up in just over a week—June 4–6—at the Hilton University Place in Charlotte. Below is my schedule for panels; I'll also have a table for selling and signing books. Feel free to drop by and berate me to your heart's content.

Friday
07:00 PM — Collaborations University (Ballroom A)

Saturday
12:00 PM — The Future of Publishing & Book Selling (University Ballroom A)

05:00 PM — What Happened to My Magazine? (Keynes)

Sunday
11:00 AM — Censorship (Keynes)

I will have copies of Blue Devil Island, The Lebo Coven, and Other Gods on hand, and possibly some rare back issues of Deathrealm.

Happily, there are a bunch of caches in Charlotte as well....

Star City Stashes

Team emvirginia and Mr. Rodan

Headed to Roanoke, VA, this morning to meet up with three of the world's least despicable souls — Ms. Beth Massie, Mr. Cortaid Skinner, and Mr. Ben My-Name-Is-Not-Linus-Rothman — to do some serious geocaching. If you're visiting here, you probably know that Ms. Massie and I have collaborated on a couple of novels, including Dark Shadows: Dream of the Dark, and nowadays, most gratifyingly, we can occasionally collaborate on some serious geocache hunts. It was a gray day, and we had to dodge some raindrops now and again — particularly later in the afternoon — but we managed to make a most enjoyable circuit of southwestern Roanoke, snagging lots of park-n-grabs as well as a few more terrain-intensive cache hides. One of the best, if the not the best, aspects of caching is visiting all kinds of places I'd never find if I weren't hunting a little container with a piece of paper to sign inside. We discovered some beautiful neighborhoods, a fabulous mom-and-pop pancake house, and a patch of woods where certain of our party absolutely refused to go pee, despite a pressing need. Only got moderately wet as the rain set in, and the excellent company made this a day to remember fondly.

I'll never see a Hamricks' sign the same way again, that much I can tell you....

Mr. Mountainview and Team emvirginia

An emergency chopper arrives at Roanoke's Carrillion Hospital

Under the bridge downtown is where he logged his find.

Gam(M?)era, the Invincible!

Gamera: The Giant Monster (1966)

Released by Shout! Factory

Directed by Noriaki Yuasa

Starring Eiji Funakoshi, Harumi Kiritachi, Junichirô Yamashiko, Yoshiro Uchida, Michiko Sugata, Yoshiro Kitahara, Jun Hamamura

Rating:

Well, I reckon it's time to take on Gamera, Japan's most famous flame-spewing flying giant turtle. Till now, the original Japanese version has never been available domestically on DVD (though in 2001 Neptune Media released superb editions of both the original Japanese and U.S. versions on VHS; the U.S. version has had a few substandard DVD releases and is currently available at Hulu.com).

The Showa Gamera series has its charms, especially the first three entries (Giant Monster Gamera, Gamera vs. Baragon [War of the Monsters], and Gamera vs. Gaos [Return of the Giant Monsters]), but I just can't say I've ever been much enamored of the big turtle—at least until the Heisei Gamera series, which put a whole new spin on the critter. The original series' overt aim at young audiences put me off even as a very young member of said audience, and only as an adult delinquent have I managed to derive much enjoyment from the antics of the inkorrigible kame.

Gamera: The Giant Monster plays things considerably straighter than most of its successors, but there's no getting past the little kid, Toshio (Yoshiro Uchida), who just looooves turtles, continually popping up just when you think the filmmakers have come to their senses and forgotten about him. The story goes like this: A flight of Soviet jets on maneuvers over the Arctic Circle trespasses into U.S. airspace, and American fighters shoot down one of the bombers, resulting in a nuclear explosion, which frees Gamera from its eons-old icy prison. After sinking a ship and whooping up on the survivors, the beastie hurtles its way to Japan, where it attacks nuclear power plants to consume the energy they produce. Assaults with conventional weaponry have the usual effect on the kaiju—nada—so the brain trust devises a last-ditch plan aptly named Plan Z: lure Gamera to Oshima Island, where the critter is contained inside a mammoth rocket and then launched into outer space, thus ridding the world of another city-trampling menace (at least until the next movie, Gamera vs. Barugon, in which the rocket crashes into a meteor, releasing Gamera to return to Earth and commence a whole new path of destruction—and fight another big, bad lizard to boot).

As I mentioned, in the overall, the original Gamera is actually enjoyable, with a significant amount of monster vs. miniature action and a marginally palatable storyline. Though obviously patterned after Godzilla, the movie serves up no serious subtexts; the whole nuclear element is just a device to rationalize the monster's appearance, and Gamera itself is played more as a novelty than any sort of metaphor, even a lightweight one. Its rampage through Tokyo is pretty spectacular for its day, and there's no denying Gamera is a meanie; the filmic carnage is a little more graphic than in most of the Godzilla movies—which, despite the fact the Gamera films are aimed at a younger audience, is true throughout the Showa series. The monster's ironic rescue of young Toshio (the kid falls from a toppling lighthouse, into Gamera's waiting claw; rather than eat him, Gamera gently lowers him to the ground) seems more a result of the monster's curiosity about little people than a display of authentic compassion.

The Shout! Factory edition features the original Japanese version with subtitles. While it's certainly superior to the 1966 American release (titled Gammera, the Invincible — don't forget the extra "m"!), the scenes added by World Entertainment Corp./Jack Harris Associates, which feature Albert Dekker, Brian Donlevy, Dick O'Neill, and Alan Oppenheimer, for the U.S. release are agreeably whimsical. The scenes they replace—a bunch of military and scientific posturing by some very poor western actors—in the original Japanese version are far less engaging.

Shout! Factory plans to release the rest of the Showa Gamera series in order, continuing with Gamera vs. Baragon in July 2010. I'm actually looking forward to these, since it's really high time that Gamera—or at least the celluloid on which it appears—was treated with a little more respect on this side of the water.

Dragons Under the Stars

Or more like under the clouds. A big rainstorm last night kind of put the damper on the double feature, but regardless, sometimes there's just nothing more satisfying than the good ol' drive-in movie experience. Cruised up to Eden last night to catch How to Train Your Dragon and Iron Man II at the drive-in picture show, and we had just gotten through watching the dragons when the big storm started. We soldiered on for a while, but actually seeing the second feature was an exercise in futility, so we headed on home, figuring we'll have to make another attempt, probably at an indoor theater, to catch the Iron Man.

Growing up, watching movies at the drive-in was just a fun fact of life. We had several outdoor theaters in Martinsville, where I got to see so many of my all-time favorite movies for the first time — Godzilla, James Bond, Dark Shadows, and many more. My folks had to have the patience of saints to take me and several friends on these outings, but they usually did it without complaining (except in the case of Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster, which came on a double-bill with Night of the Living Dead, and even thinking about seeing the latter in those days was right out for young Mark). Sadly, there are no more drive-in theaters in Martinsville, here in Greensboro, or anywhere nearby except for Eden, and I really hope it has a long lifespan. There had been two others in reasonable traveling distance — Mount Airy and Durham — but both of those have recently closed down, succumbing to the prohibitive cost of operating such niche enterprises. I occasionally hear things about a resurgence of drive-in theaters because so many people enjoy the experience and want to support them, but at least in this neck of the woods, unfortunately, they continue to diminish rather than proliferate.

Although I love the whole drive-in experience — particularly the part where we scarf down the world's most delicious cheeseburgers and fries while lounging in our camping chairs — nowadays, you're still getting the first-run movies, whereas back in the day, it was the premier venue for your classic horror and monster movie roadshows. That experience, I fear, has simply gone forever. Particularly in Martinsville, just to get to the drive-ins, you had take some creepy old roads to get out in the country a ways, and that was all part of the build-up to a good scary movie....

I tell you, if you've got a drive-in theater anywhere nearby, and you don't avail yourself to it, do so now. Please. The drive-in experience is cheap, fun, and unique, but I suspect it's going to die out before the current young generation even has a clue of what it's missing. Support the theaters — and take some friends with you.

Yongary's Got Seoul

Yongary, Monster From the Deep (Taekoesu Yonggary, 1967)

DVD Description:
Released by MGM; additional material: none

Directed by Ki-duk Kim

Starring Yeong-il Oh, Jeong-im Nam, Sun-jae Lee, Moon Kang, Kwang Ho Lee

Rating:

Unlike 1999's Yonggary (a.k.a. Reptilian), which was so awful as to be unwatchable, the original 1967 Yongary definitely falls into the so-awful-it's-fun category. It's a low-budget South Korean daikaiju film wannabe featuring a goofy dancing monster (whose open mouth frequently reveals a metal flame-shooting nozzle); cheap but occasionally compelling special effects; and several nondescript characters, most of whom are never named. The DVD cover shown here is of the inferior Alpha Video release, but I recommend the MGM DVD (double-billed with Konga), which offers a wide-screen, virtually flawless print of the film (though the sound is a bit tinny). The movie was released in the U.S. by A.I.P. Television—there was never a theatrical release—but apparently the original wide-screen presentation was preserved intact (reputedly, the original Korean negative was damaged so that it is no longer salvageable).

The film begins with the wedding of two of our occasionally seen but never-named characters, but the groom—an astronaut, and the only one who can "do it"—is called away to undertake a reconnaissance mission. He flies skyward to witness a nuclear bomb explode in the Middle East, which results in a "traveling" earthquake...which heads straight to Korea. Needless to say, the source of the quake is Mr. Yongary, who pops up near Seoul and begins tromping on the city, resulting in numerous shoe boxes, which are painted to look like bricks, falling on people's heads. Astronaut groom now goes off-screen for most of the rest of the movie, and a scientist named Ilu takes over, ably assisted by his nephew Icho, who is "oh, about eight years old." Ilu has invented a device that resembles a flashlight but whose beam makes people itch. No, I am not lying. As Yongary strolls about, smashing plenty of model buildings, Ilu runs to town "to help," though in what capacity we are never quite certain. Turns out, he's the one who ends up needing help because one of those falling, painted shoe boxes whacks him a good one. Meantime, as the monster trounces a chemical storage tank, Icho notices that the chemicals irritate the beast, causing it to dance—and prompting Icho to dance along with it. The chemicals knock Yongary senseless, but brilliant Icho steals Ilu's itchlight and shines it on the beast...who, quite riled, promptly gets up and tramples a bit more of downtown Seoul. After an aerial and missile assault that results in total failure, Ilu suggests hitting Yongary with a concentrated dose of chemicals, which finally brings the critter down once and for all. Our main characters laugh and clap, though Icho soberly reminds us that Yongary was actually a damn fine dancer and didn't really mean to hurt anyone.

While generally considered a Korean rip-off of Godzilla, Yongary actually follows more in the footsteps of Daiei's Gamera series. The parallels between Yongary and the original Giant Monster Gamera are many and unmistakable—from the nuclear blast that awakens it to its preference for ingesting flammable materials to its juvenile co-star who is menaced by the monster and yet still finds it all quite groovy. Probably coincidentally, Yongary's roar sounds a lot like Gyaos's, stepped down a couple of octaves.

While the people scenes are mostly tedious, the movie features more monster scenes than most of its Japanese counterparts, and though the miniatures are nothing to brag about—most are hollow and fall in on themselves without much effort on the monster's part—the atmospheric backdrops and variety of compositions make for an interesting visual fest. Yongary actually whomps on human folks from time to time, something that is rarely shown in Toho's daikaiju realm, though not that uncommon in the Gamera series.

Numerous scenes prove to be a screaming hoot, such as Yongary's nose beam (yes, I said nose beam) slicing a jeep in half, revealing a small supporting wheel under the front half, which couldn't be more obvious if there were cartoon arrow pointing to it. During the stampede of fleeing humans, most are carrying nonsensical items, the most notable being an empty picture frame and a large world globe. Funny the things that people are compelled to rescue from giant marauding monsters....

Yongary is absolutely silly enough to be a hootin' good time. I'm pleased to have such a good print on the MGM DVD, so I can give it a look about once every decade or so.

Another Barfday Come and Gone

Ranger Fox and Rodan (Damned) at Hidden Falls

How these blasted days keep coming around so fast boggles my hornswoggled mind, but there it is: 51 frakking years old, yesterday. True to the past two years — since I took up geocaching — it was a weekend dominated by hiking and caching, and I took today off from work to recuperate (which sometimes takes longer than it used to). Friday, headed to Mom's in Martinsville, had a great seafood dinner at the Dutch Inn, then took a nice long nighttime hike to snag a cache. Saturday morning, it was up at the crack of dawn, off on another hike at the Smith River Sports Complex to grab three more, and then hit the road to Hanging Rock, NC, for Sunday's 10-year geocaching anniversary event. Yes, went hiking and ran into Ranger Fox, so we trekked to several of the waterfalls in the park to get credit for a virtual and a couple of earth caches. Come evening, it was hot dogs (Nathan's) over the campfire and some brief socializing with other cachers who were also camping out for the weekend event.

Yesterday, more hiking to more waterfalls, and then the Geocaching 10-Year Anniversary Event at the Hanging Rock picnic grounds. Lots of faces familiar and some new to me, a bit of food, and a door prize: won a new NCGO geocoin, which made for a nice little birthday present. More caches on the way home, and then a fine Thai dinner. This morning, a brand new, terrain-challenging cache popped up at the nearby Reedy Fork trail, so I managed to snag a first-to-find (which required a special geotool that would have no doubt amused any passersby on the trail, though I didn't actually see any). All in all, a helluva nice barfday, and a relaxing day to rest and regroup.

At least for now, another day closer to death hasn't been too danged bad.

Yeah, it looks kind of like a smile. Go on, make something of it.

Mr. Pyrotechnics in Outer Space

The War in Space (Wakusei Daisenso, 1977)

DVD Description:
Released by DiscoTek Media

Directed by Jun Fukuda

Starring Kensaku Morita, Yûko Asano, Ryo Ikebe, Masaya Oki, Hiroshi Miyauchi

Rating:

Sitting down to watch The War in Space—a.k.a. "Star Wars in Japan"—was actually kind of cool because, even after all these years, I had never made it through the entire picture before. Way back when, I'd started it a time or two, but in my impatient youth, I couldn't get through the first 15 minutes without either yawning or rolling my eyes. The movie is more or less a rehash of every other Toho alien invasion movie ever made, and borrows very heavily from 1963's Atragon—with a dash of Toei's Space Cruiser Yamato for good measure. A few of the good ol' regular Toho cast members appear here to raise a smile, such as Ryo Ikebe (Battle in Outer Space, Gorath) as the stoic-to-the-point-of-sleepwalking captain of the spaceship Gohten; Akihiko Hirata, best known for his role as the tragic Dr. Serizawa in the original Godzilla; and Goro Mutsumi, the alien leader in both Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla and Terror of MechaGodzilla, back in this one as...an alien leader, now dressed like a sparkly garbed gladiator. For the appreciation of heterosexual males, we have the very hot Yuko Asano, who doesn't do a whole lot but does appear in an appealing bondage scene that almost pushes the limits of a G-rating.

The direction by Jun Fukuda, who directed several of the later Showa-era Godzilla films, comes off as either breakneck or altogether stalled, which largely accounts for my past inability to sit through the movie. The hysterically bad English dubbing—typical of many 70s' Toho films—often has characters reiterating (at least once) the same lines that another character has just spoken. The real draw, though, the special effects—by Mr. Pyrotechnics himself, Teruyoshi Nakano—are a scream. High-tech the movie is not, certainly compared to Star Wars, which was made the same year; bobbing miniatures, stock footage, and sparse sets abound, yet Mr. Nakano does provide a true extravaganza in the area where he always excels: big old fiery explosions. There are lots of them, and they never fail to impress. There's something about watching actual miniatures blow up into blazing fragments that the most sophisticated CGI in the world simply can't rival.

Whereas all this cheese once stoked my ire—you know, being a serious SPFX movie fan—I find that, in my old age, they come together in a mix that is really quite fun. It'll probably be a while before I sit down to watch The War in Space again, but by God, I did it. I finally, really did it.