I have a confession to make; I’ve always loved Godzilla, ever since the days that he appeared in badly-dubbed Japanese movies and was obviously played by someone in a rubber suit! Godzilla fans have endured a variety of outrages over the years, including a series of increasingly lame and outrageous adversaries (e.g., the “Smog Monster”), bad storylines, and even alteration of the character’s gender. The last major studio film treatment in 1998 portrayed Godzilla as an iguana-like creature, focused on a human love story, and was almost universally hated by fans. It appeared that Godzilla might have fallen to bad treatment rather than an oxygen destroyer, but we who believe have maintained our faith.
The upcoming reboot of the Godzilla franchise by Gareth Edwards promises to take Godzilla back to his 1954 roots. Co-produced by Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. under license from Toho, the new movie will be live action while Godzilla will be computer-generated. Unlike the 1998 film, Godzilla will again fight several monsters rather than just the military. The opponent monsters, referred to as “mutos,” will fly and be multi-limbed. Godzilla himself will stand 350′ tall, the biggest incarnation ever.
The plot should delight conspiracy theorists. It seems that Godzilla’s existence has been covered up by the U.S. government (like aliens, ‘ya know), and nuclear tests of the 1950’s were actually attempts to kill the creature. Godzilla’s face is supposedly modeled on elements of features of bears, dogs, and eagles. The big guy’s fighting style is based on that of bears and komodo dragons. His roar is the original one pioneered by Toho, with improvements and enhancements.
Godzilla is conceived as “a terrifying force of nature,” and his kung fu should be the best. He’ll be stomping his way into theaters this May, hopefully a monster for our times…
– – I hate to see mythological creatures exploited, and one usually doesn’t want to mess with dragons. But the Starburst “giggly juicy dragon” is not your typical dragon, even among a race of extraordinary creatures. The dragon in question also seems to dearly love his videos, and apparently is easily entertained by them. The dragon must live under a rock not to already be familiar with the “keyboard cat” video, but then again, dragons are reputed to at times live under rocks, or at least in caves. For that reason, the giggly juicy dragon is probably starved for entertainment, or at the very least doesn’t get out much. The “keyboard cat” apparently can really tickle the dragon’s funnybone, or whatever he may have that passes for one.
– – We can remember Chevy Chase’s classic SNL “land shark” routines, and it sounds like a plot for another outrageous Syfy channel movie, but this one’s real…a shark was found on a New York City subway car! I swear that I am not making this up…
– – You’ve probably heard certain types of vehicles referred to as “dinosaurs,” or perhaps as “big boats” or “land yachts“- -Well, in a commercial for the 2013 Buick Encore, the crossover vehicle has to navigate around a variety of dinosaurs including a stegosaurus, triceratops, and possibly an apatosaurus as they go plodding along city streets and even trying to park. The message is that the time of “big luxury” cars has passed, and the next big thing in luxury vehicles is small and nimble. This is somewhat ironic in that Buick in its day has made some of the biggest and softest luxury cars around; we also continue to burn fossil fuels aplenty, so perhaps the dinos shouldn’t be mocked. The commercial’s voiceover is by Kevin Bacon, and the music in the spot is “The Guitar” by They Might Be Giants…
– – Many of us yearn for a furry transformation, but there are those who wish for a more uncommon conversion. Among these rare and exotic types are those who are into mermaids, or their male counterparts, mermen. Both according to legend are alluring and seductive sea creatures who possess the upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish. They tend to make themselves visible to ships during storms, using their siren-like singing to lure the opposite sex into the water.
– – Back when special effects were a lot less special in the 1960’s, we were treated to an episode of Star Trek (The Original Series) called Arena where a young William Shatner’s James T. Kirk fought a powerful but ponderous and slow-moving reptilian creature called a Gorn.- –Well, 46 years after their original encounter, Shatner is again rematched with his scaly rival in a commercial for a Star Trek video game debuting this month. The duo is comfortably seated on a sofa in a cozy living room, each one armed with a video controller and engaged in virtual on-screen combat!
– – Something’s fishy here! A few years back in 2009, McDonald’s produced an irritatingly memorable singing fish commercial, with the fish modeled after the singing “Billy Bass” novelty item, an electronic mounted fish that sang and moved about on its mounting. It was the kind of thing that you got tired of after seeing about twice. The earlier McDonald’s fish commercial could haunt you. “Gimme back that Filet of Fish, give me that fish!,” sang the McDonald’s spokes-fish. It took me some time to get that commercial out of my head…(shudders!) 
– – The month-long python purge is in progress in Florida, with about 800 intrepid hunters in pursuit of the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Burmese pythons who live in the Everglades where they are an invasive species and decimate natural populations. The pythons are elusive, however, and not that many carcasses have been turned in to date. Recommended methods of dispatching them include shooting or cutting off their heads with a machete; the “captive bolt” method is also mentioned if the device can be attached to their heads to destroy their brains as one would a zombie. 
FOXSYLVANIA 
You must be logged in to post a comment.