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Posts tagged: monsters
Guest Star Miguel Rodriguez shares his love of Clash of the Titans and Ray Harryhausen:
When I was too young to really remember, I was taken to this film in the theater. Because I have no real memory of that experience, I am amazed by my true first memory of Clash of the Titans (1981). It all happened because of a wonderful non-profit program called Reading is Fundamental, or Reading is Fun as we called it when I was in elementary school. Many of you know about this: kids are given a colorful little RIF catalog on toilet-paper-thin newsprint paper with a wealth of covers and titles to choose from. Their parents help to make an order, and then, weeks later, the classroom desk is stacked high with the books that kids have ordered. It was like Christmas. And one of the books I had chosen was an oversized hardcover children’s book version of Ray Harryhausen’s Clash of the Titans movie.
You can find Miguel at Monster Island Resort Podcast and Horrible Imaginings Film Festival.
(Photography taken by Miguel Rodriguez)
This week at The Gutter, Guest Star Todd Stadtman writes about The War Of The Gargantuas’ “lone pop musical interlude.”
It’s no coincidence, then, that Ishiro Honda’s War of the Gargantuas, a fixture of the UHF band during my youth, has proven to be a childhood entertainment that has in later years demonstrated a particularly adhesive quality. And that’s not true just for me. Gargantuas seems to have left its imprint on a lot of us, and its most universally relived moment, perhaps unsurprisingly, is its lone pop musical interlude. This, of course, takes place in a swanky roof top lounge, at which an assortment of nice Japanese ladies and gentlemen in their evening going-out clothes spectate a Caucasian lady singing a song in front of a live band.
“Nepher Has Two Mummies”, Fastner & Larson.
This week, Guest Star Keith Allison commemorates horror’s sympathetic monsters.
What weird little kid didn’t understand and relate to Frankenstein? Who couldn’t see the pathos in poor, good-natured Larry Talbot turning into a beast? Or Frankenstein misunderstanding the throwing of pretty things into a well? As children, we lack the vocabulary to express ourselves, and we feel frustrated trying to communicate with adults who are not evil but simply cannot understand us. There is a cathartic reaction to seeing this alienation expressed via one of these monsters. At their best, they could manipulate our emotions and tug on our heartstrings with all the melodramatic aplomb of Shakespeare.
Read more of Keith’s work at Teleport City.
Image via christopherfuckinglee.
Titanosaurus by Art Adams. Colors by Peter Doherty.
Happy Krampusnacht, everyone!
Happy Birthday, Godzilla!
(image via livefromplanetzero)
