G-FEST Movies Announced

It's the announcement G-FEST attendees like me (more than slightly obssessive) look forward to with great excitement: the movie line-up has been announced. The films are arranged around a cool "old school" theme that is very thoughtful--and I think it will likely lead to increased attendance at the theater.

The first two movies on Thursday represent Godzilla's cinematic origins. First up is 1933's "King Kong," a movie that needs no description, yet in the context of kaiju filmography is well known to have been an inspiration to none other than Eiji Tsuburaya. That will be followed by "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms," the Harryhausen stop-motion tour de force that clearly gave some shape to what would become "Godzilla." Incidentally, this is the first monster movie my dad remembers seeing, so it would be pretty special to see it with him in this setting.

The evening will feature a first look at Godzilla's rivals, a non-obvious but interesting choice in "Gorgo," which blends elements of "Godzilla," "King Kong," and "Gappa: the Triphibian Monster." Thursday is capped off by "Gammera," the only kaiju that come close to challenging Godzilla's popularity, in his first on-screen incarnation.

Friday night will see a screening of "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," a great choice given the fact of Mr. Takarada's anticipated presence, yet not a total repeat of the festitivities from two years ago. Saturday night's movie has yet to be announced.

The key word with all these films is "accessibility." They should have broad appeal and bring lots of folks out to the Pickwick. This is shaping up to be a classic G-FEST!

"Finding Bigfoot" Feedback

This was a fun postscript to our "Finding Bigfoot" encounter in January. I shared a link to Monsterland Ohio on Ranae Holland's Facebook page, and her response is displayed in the above screen shot.

Mad Scientist # 24

Inertia and general busyness prevented me from getting my hands on Mad Scientist # 24 until just last week. It is another strong issue (two articles in this issue were nominated for Rondo awards), highlighted by a "Smog Monster" retrospective and Martin Arlt's memories of G-TOUR II. I was also amazed at the article about the Scholastic Monster Movie book--I still have my copy (or to be more precise, it now proudly resides in my son's library).

It was also cool to see that in the letters section, someone really enjoyed the article I submitted for issue 22 about "The Legend of Boggy Creek." When you write and put things out there for the world to see, whether in print or on the internet, you always wonder how your work is being received--especially a blog of this nature, which is by nature whimsically esoteric. To know that there is another "Boggy Creek" fan out there who cared enough to write in to Mad Scientist is kind of miraculous...and pretty gratifying.