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Kaiju Movie Marathon on July 18

  One cool thing about running this site is that occasionally I get press releases for stuff that is pretty cool.  I just received one from Famous Monsters of Filmland about an event they are partnering on with streaming television website Shout! Factory: a 24 hour Kaiju movie marathon that will take place this Saturday, July 18.  It will be hosted by Kaiju expert August Ragone. I don’t know if we will get to see any of it here, but the Monster Kid is mega-excited about it. He loves Ultra Seven.

I had not head of Shout! previously, but it claims to be a free, advertising-free streaming channel that also carries a lot of older horror and science fiction movies. So even if Kaiju movies aren’t your thing, you may want to check it out. If you do, I would be interested in knowing your experience and whether you think it’s worth recommending to others.  The lineup for the Kaiju movie marathon is as follows:

12:00AM — Godzilla, The Uncut Japanese Original (1954)
1:45AM — Ultra Q Episodes
5:15AM — Ultra Seven Episodes
6:30AM — Godzilla, King Of The Monsters (1954)
8:15AM — Ultra Seven Episodes
9:00AM — Rodan (1956)
10:30AM — Ultra Seven Episodes
11:15AM — Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
12:45PM — Ultra Seven Episodes
1:30PM — Godzilla Vs. The Thing (1964)
3:15PM — Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster (1964)
5:00PM — Monster Zero (1965)
6:45PM — Godzilla’s Revenge (1969)
8:15PM — Terror Of Mechagodzilla (1975)
10:00PM — Godzilla, The Uncut Japanese Original (1954)
11:45PM — Godzilla’s Revenge (1969)

 

Also, since I received the press release from Famous Monsters of Filmland, I will share with you that the cover of their next issue, #281, looks like a rather remarkable visual interpretation of “Godzilla vs. Cthulhu”, and it’s worth taking a look.

 

Posted on July 16, 2015 by , Reply

Ray Harryhausen, Thanks For The Memories.

Master special effects man and animator Ray Harryhausen died this week.  He was 92. Chances are that if you grew up in the 1960s, 197os or 198os that you saw his movies either in the theater or during the Saturday afternoon movie. The last movie he animated for was the original Clash of the Titans  (with an incredibly young Harry Hamlin as the main character), and there was a remake of that not long ago. We watched the Harryhausen version again right around the time the remake came out.

Last year I wrote about Ray Harryhausen and his impact on monster movies for Monster Movie Month, and rather than repeating myself I’ll provide a link to that post here. Since his passing, a video has come my way that does a pretty good job of documenting the answer to the question “So what did he actually do?”

It’s pretty cool to see all his creatures in action! If you want to see a list of the creatures and the movies they came from, check out The Ray Harryhausen Creature List.

You might discover a movie you want to see. Harryhausen may no longer be with us, but his work remains. Thanks for the memories, Ray.

Posted on May 9, 2013 by , Reply

Girls Gone Missing? Halloween and Monster Movies for Kids

Margot Magowan runs the blog Reel Girl , which focuses on gender equality in the media (mostly on the representation, or lack thereof,  of girls) does a regular feature called “Girls Gone Missing”. With Halloween just around the corner, she did a Halloween edition of this feature and shared her impressions of the three Halloween/monster movies for children out this fall, ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania, and Frankenweenie. noting that in all three movies there is a major skew toward male leads and secondary characters, with almost no female characters in any of them. Margot and the Reel Girl community see this as a major problem, not just for these movies but for children’s movies in general, because there’s no reason that some of these male characters couldn’t be girls without the story changing at all. To paraphrase one of her commenters, does the story in ParaNorman change that much if Norman becomes Norma?

There are so many girls who love Halloween and monsters and movies about them, who grow up to be women who love Halloween and monsters and movies about them. So why should they be left out of the story, or a token character? But it’s one thing to identify the movies girls are missing from and another to offer options that show strong girls taking the lead. So, I asked Margot:

 

What do you recommend as far as monster movies intended for kids, then? As the editor for MonsterLibrarian.com and the mother of a monster-loving boy with a sister willing to go along for the ride I’d be interested in what you DO think are good choices. We held Monster Movie Month in July, which, while mostly at choices for adults, was inspired by my son’s love of the classic movies, and the three of us picked some movie choices parents could share with their kids, but I’d love to know what you think. Halloween is our busiest month of the year and our children’s section is one of the most popular parts of our site and that’s something I would love to share there.

Margot asked the Reel Girl community for suggestions, and here are some of the titles they came up with.

Coraline
Scooby Doo (the animated series)
The Corpse Bride
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Hocus Pocus
Kiki’s Delivery Service
My Neighbor Totoro
Monsters vs Aliens
The Addams Family

As a Halloween title, I’ll toss in the Charlie Brown Halloween special.

The general portrayal of women in horror movies also came up in the discussion, but that’s kind of irrelevant to my question (although it’s something I would be happy to start an individual post for if you want). For those of you reading this, do you agree with their choices for Halloween and monster movies that have gender equality (or at least strong female characters who haven’t been sexualized)? Do you have additional suggestions? I would love to hear what you think!

Posted on October 2, 2012 by , Reply
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