Postcards from G-FEST 18: CKC in the Place to Be

Tom and Don were on hand in the Dealer's Room, offering new CKC and Android M-11 T-shirts (and other kaiju goodies) to Fest-goers. It is really cool to go to G-FEST knowing that you'll see people you consider your friends there.

Hiroyuki Watanabe on the Drums

Mr. Watanabe and Mr. Matzke had a little hands-on fun at the Field Museum.

Postcards from G-FEST 18: Backseat Buddy

This photo, taken with Hiroyuki Watanabe's cell phone, is a fun reminder of the whirlwind Friday we spent with the guests of G-FEST 18. Andy brought out the "Dad" in Mr. Watanabe; one of my penultimate memories of this experience will be the two of them doing Donald Duck voices on the way back to the Crowne Plaza. I'll always be grateful to G-FAN and G-FEST for making this special day possible.

Postcards from G-FEST 18: Fest Guests at the Field Museum

Talk about making a memory; here's the entire group that enjoyed the Field Museum on Friday. Left to right: Robert Scott Field; Carl, our other driver and Chicago street expert; Hiroyuki Watanabe; master sculptor Hiroshi Sagae; Andy, Mark, and Sue Matzke; Shinji and Noriko Huguchi.

Postcards from G-FEST 18: Explore & Roar

With about two hours to get around the Field Museum, we had no time to lose. However, Scott and Hiroyuki Watanabe were not low on energy. Sue the T. Rex featured in a number of photo opportunities, with this one being most memorable. The look on Andy's face here says it all.

Postcards from G-FEST 18: Field Fun III

As usual, Andy became fast friends with everybody he met at G-FEST, including the Guest(s) of Honor, Shinji and Noriko Higuchi. Here they are in the main hall of the Field Museum. All of our guests went out of their way to make him feel special, and, to be candid, we are still amazed that this really happened to us!

Postcards from G-FEST 18: More Field Fun

Here is a picture taken by Shinji Higuchi of Hiroyuki Watanabe taking a picture of a pteronadon and us with Robert Scott Field. If it looks like we were having a blast, it's because we were.

Postcards from G-FEST 18: Fun at the Field

I told you Friday wasn't low-key. We had the privilege of taking Special Guests Robert Scott Field and Hiroyuki Watanabe to Chicago's Field Museum for a fun-filled afternoon. The other guests of G-FEST came along in another vehicle. It was a day my family will never forget!

G-FEST 18: Kaiju Film Festival

This year's G-FEST began Thursday, with a "double-double feature" at the Pickwick Theater in Park Ridge, Illinois. First on the bill was "Gamera: Super Monster," which apparently received its North American big screen premiere with this showing.

"Gamera: Super Monster" is an exceedingly strange movie, but I still found it oddly enchanting. It was made at a time when Daiei Studio was closing, and it shows. New footage of Gamera is almost nonexistent, save for a couple rather static flying shots. All the monster battles (and there are plenty) consist of edited footage from previous Gamera films, which are knitted together by a nonsensical story about spacewomen and kids who use Kawasaki keyboards to save the planet. Oh, and then an evil spacewoman who finds redemption. No, seriously. But it is all done with enough heart to make it something I would willingly watch again. There are a couple of shots (one quite blatant, one recurring) that reveal a clear Star Wars influence (GSM was released in 1980).

Next up was the original "Mothra," (1961) a wondrous film that finds Toho's "dream team" of director Ishiro Honda, writer Shinichi Sekizawa and spfx master Eiji Tsuburaya operating at the peak of their creative powers. Intentional humor, exotic music, an incredible cast, crazily detailed miniature sets and one big moth add up to a moviegoing experience that is still transportative fifty years after its release.

After the dinner break, it was time for the second double feature, beginning with "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II," which benefitted greatly from being shown on the big screen. Released in 1993, this entry in the Godzilla pantheon is one that I have never seemed to connect with very strongly, but this viewing brought out its strengths. The effects work is actually quite impressive. Godzilla gets his tail handed to him by Mechagodzilla, and it seems possible that he could actually lose the duel. Akira Ifukube returns with a score that is intense and sounds fantastic in the theater. Most of the Heisei films seem about forty minutes too long to me, and this is no exception. In this setting, though, it was undeniably enjoyable, and the crowd, which had grown since the afternoon shows, laughed at the silly parts and cheered in the right places, too. There is nothing like watching a movie at G-FEST when the crowd is really "live."

Last on the list was 1995's "Gamera, Guardian of the Universe," regarded by most fans of the genre as a masterpiece, and you will get no argument from me on that point. A clear, crisp print only enhanced the meticulous effects work created by G-FEST guest of honor Shinji Higuchi, a real treat for all in attendance. The intensity of the day (combined with the shift to the Central time zone) caught up with us, and we returned to the Crowne Plaza before the movie's conclusion. But we perked up once back in the room, thanks to "G-TV," the in-house tokasatsu channel that is the unsung hero of the G-FEST experience, enjoying "Gomess" episodes of Ultra Q and Ultragalaxy.

It was great to be back on the G-FEST scene. It was a fun, exciting, yet relatively low-key day. That was good, because Friday would be anything but low-key!

G-FEST 18: All Kaiju, All the Time

Another G-FEST has come and gone. I wasn't sure how last year's show could be topped, but it was...at any rate, it will be fun to relive the experience here on the blog.

Three years ago we made it to our first G-FEST. We were rookies, and didn't know anyone else in attendance. This year we were truly among friends, which makes for a richer experience all around. So come along with us as we share virtual postcards from G-FEST 18, which promised "All Kaiju, All the Time," and did not disappoint!

CKC "Kaiju Chat" This Sunday

Kaiju fans who are on Facebook are invited to chat this Sunday, July 10, at 10:00 P.M. EST. Once you're on Facebook, just search for "Cuyahoga Kaiju Club" and join the conversation! This is a very informal discussion, but chances are there will be some talk about G-FEST, upcoming monster movie releases, and more.

Mad Scientist # 23

Our copies of the latest Mad Scientist arrived this past Wednesday. Great cover, isn't it? More about the contents in a future post. Order yours today!

June 2011: A Memorable Movie Month

Thanks in large part to Turner Classic Movies, June has been a banner month for fantastic cinema around these parts!

It all started with TCM's "Toho Night," the kickoff to their Drive-in Double Feature programming. Buried way in the wee hours of Friday morning was "Valley of the Gwangi," which we recorded and watched a day or two later. This solidified Ray Harryhausen's standing in Andy's mind, having previously seen "Clash of the Titans," "Mighty Joe Young," and "Twenty Million Miles to Earth." One thing led to another--Amazon has a great deal on the Harryhausen collection pictured above--and it has been all about the stop motion (or should I say Dynamation) ever since. The book Andy is holding in the picture is a real treat, too (more like a treasure trove, in truth). Andy's favorite of the Blu-ray collection is probably "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad," which I greatly enjoy as well, but I would have to give the nod to "Twenty Million Miles to Earth," and of all the films that bear the Harryhausen stamp, my absolute favorite is "Mighty Joe Young." A long time ago, I drew a picture of MJY, sent it in to a Detroit-area "monster host" and it was shown on the air for a moment or two. But I digress...

Each Thursday night has been a little monster movie fest, an enjoyable return to the days of old when VCRs and DVRs could not help you view your creature feature of choice. We only "cheated" once, popping in our DVD of "Atragon" instead of "The Giant Claw" or some such thing. I'm very much looking forward to what, for us, will be the double bill of "The Blob" and "The H-Man" tomorrow night.

All of that would've been enough to make it a month for the record books, but then there was a true moviegoing experience to boot. We made it a point to see "The Lord of the Rings: Extended Editions" in the theater over a three week stretch. Each Tuesday night we went to a modern movie palace in Columbus, Ohio to see the trilogy in state-of-the-art picture and sound. These were very special evenings that I hope Andy recalls fondly for a long time. I have the blog http://theonering.net to thank; without reading about this event there, we would likely have missed it altogether.

And, by the way, we saw "Kung Fu Panda 2" also, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that it is a visually breathtaking movie. It will make for a dazzling Blu-ray release. The movie earns extra cool points for getting Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) to voice the part of the Soothsayer.

June was an unforgettable movie month, where doors were opened to new worlds and old favorites were seen with new eyes. It's been quite a ride...and now we're only days away from the Pickwick and G-FEST!

This Thursday: The H-Man on TCM

This Thursday, June 30th, Turner Classic Movies presents the H-Man at 9:30 p.m. Eastern, starring Kenji Sahara, Yumi Shirakawa and Akhiko Hirata. While there are no giant monsters to be found, this is great fun from the golden age of Toho (1958).

One Month Until G-FEST XVIII

One month from today, G-FEST 18 kicks off with a double-double feature featuring Gamera, Mothra, and, of course, Godzilla.

It has been a year of many changes for us, so the thought of returning to Chicago for some kaiju fun with our fellow fans and friends holds a lot of appeal.

The design for this year's Fest highlights the diversity of characters that inhabit the tokasatsu universe and reflects the movies being screened. Very nice!

While last year's experience will be nigh unto impossible to top, I'm open to whatever happens this year, and just enjoying the utterly unique setting that G-FEST provides. Can't wait...