Why Monster Movies Are Not All The Same

I'm a Godzilla fan.  I make no apologies.  I enjoyed David Kalat's Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series because I think just about any sort of entertainment that stands up to being taken apart has worth. 

I've just watched Godzilla vs King Ghidorah for, I think, the third time.  It's not one of the great Godzilla films, and that's partially because there's so much of the human plot going on.  The fights are dissappointingly short. 

When the monster is the draw of the film, that monster should be front and center.  When I buy a Godzilla film, I'm buying it for the Godzilla action.  I want to see Godzilla blasting away at giant monsters in the middle of a city that's getting massively trashed.  Some monster films, and I'll pick zombie films as an example, aren't really about the monsters.  Night of the Living Dead was not so much about zombies, as it was people under pressure.  And that's how a zombie film should be.  As a monster, zombies aren't that interesting, unless they're given a twist.  They're just dead people.  They're interesting in the fear they produce in living people, and how people react in difficult circumstances, similar to the now little-seen disaster film.     

Big monster films, in which the monster is usually in the title, are about the monster.  Godzilla, for example. The actions of the humans should revolve around the monsters.  This was, in part, a major failing of the American Godzilla.  The audience came to see a monster film.  Instead, they got a number of small personal dramas that had nothing to do with the monster.  Which could have been fascinating (but wasn't), but I wanted to see the monster.  And while the monster sequences, whether suit animated or CG, are expensive, they're what bring the audience in.  Why was GMK: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack the highest grossing film of the Millennium series?  Because the last half hour of the film is devoted to the monster battle.  Godzilla is shown kicking the shit out of monsters, buildings, and the military.  In few other films is he portrayed as so relentless, monstrous, or invulnerable. 

The only film to succesfully straddle these two approaches, to balance the monster with the human drama is The Host.  This was hugely successful due in part to director Bong Joon-ho's decision to make his film more a drama with monster than a film about a monster. 

Song of the Vikings

For a good time?  Go to an author's reading.  The Northshire Bookstore recently had an author signing for Nancy Marie Brown who has just released Song of the Vikings a book about the very interesting historian/skald of Iceland, Snorri Sturluson. 
I learned a lot, just in an hour.  I knew, for example, that my 'escapist' reading eas looked down on when I was in college, that Tolkien had only a grudging respect in academia in the early 90's because he had written part of the Oxford English Dictionary, and because his books had sold so well.  How much more frustrating it must have been earlier, when he didn't have the cache of being so popular.  He was only an Oxford Dean, back then.  


I love my Tolkien.  I love my Icelandic saga.  While they are not the same, they go hand-in-hand with a certain number of sensibilities.  And those have been passed onto a few generations of writers.  And I consier that a good thing. But it's always interesting to understand the origins of something I enjoy, as well as it's influences.  It's why I'm totally hooked on movie commentaries and extras.  What was the process that lead to the creation of something like the Lord of the Rings or Pan's Labyrinth?   

Snorri Sturluson was a poet and powerful landowner in 13^th Century Iceland.  He wrote many of the stories we clasically associate with Norse mythology, and laid the foundations for the early modern view of heroism. But Snorri's story also has unexpected moments of connection to the work of Tolkien.  For example, the day of his death.  September the 22^nd.  Which is, for the non-Tolkein fanatics out there, Bilbo and Frodo's shared birthday.  Hm. 

Nancy Marie Brown is a good speaker, interesting and informative.  She really knew how to hook me as a listener in.  She was pleasant to speak with and clealy knew her stuff.  Who wouldn't want a book or two signed by her?

 


According to her blog, what prompted her to start writing this book was reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods.  Neil Gaiman, if you aren't a long-time reader, is, in my opinion, the second-most dropped name in English.  I can't wait to dive into Song of the Vikings. 

With Friends Like These

It's good to have friends.

I've been in a writing funk for two weeks. Not writers' block, but a funk. Unconvinced that my work will sell, not motivated to work on the current story. Not motivated to work on anything, really.

Not that I'm surprised by this. I went back to school last year, and school work took up a lot of my writing time. Now I've got it back, and I'm again wodnering if my writing is a worthwhile pursuit. I sometimes get that in the middle of stories, I think that the story is simple-minded and that anyone would have thought of that plot.

Yesterday, while not watchng a movie, I turned to my bookshelf and noticed a copy of Brian Keene's The New Fear, the Best of Brian Keene, vol. 3. Inside, it's inscribed by the author: “For John, May you find some wisdom — or at least some laughs — within these pages.”

My blog is not like Brian Keene's. Not like it is now, and not like it used to be. His blog is so good because he is passionate. He has written blog entries such as “Fuck Rob Zombie” and “And While I'm at it Fuck the Sci-Fi Channel Too.” I am not passionate about stuff. I'm willing to leave well enough alone, generally speaking, live and let live.

But I found both wisdom and good, hard-headed advice in the book. It includes essays that I consider essential reading for anyone who is just starting out in the writing game: “World Domination 101” and “Stork Penis, A Sortid Tale of Small Press publishing (With Beautiful Nudes).” But it's also undilluted Brian Keene. I hear his voice when I read it, because it's written almost exactly the same way that he speaks. As a book, it's sharp and does not coddle or condescend.

I consider Brian a friend. Because we've met and talked a couple of times, but also because friends kick friends in the ass when necessary. The advantage of having writers as friends is that they don't always have to be there to deliver said kick. So, another blog entry within a week. And I'm going straight off this to work on my on-hiatus Cthulhu Steampunk short story. Because no one else can write the stories I do.

And oh yeah. I've thought of something I'm passionate about. Fuck Rick Santorum. Women, gays, and people you don't like are still citizens who deserve the full benefit of law.

How it's Done...

I've had this bee in my bonnet that someday, I would put together an anthology of really stunning stories, the best short stories I've ever read. I should have written it down then, because I don't remember half that list:

"The Hedge Knight" by George R. R. Martin
"The Great Lover" by Dan Simmons (yes, these two are novellas. It's my anthology)
"Jigsaw" by Stephen Bissette
"The Statement of Randolph Cater" HP Lovecraft
"The Cleft" by Gahan Wilson
"Monster" by Jack Ketchum

I'm forgetting a number of others.

However, there's a new story to add to it. I've been enjoying the Silver John stories of Manly Wade Wellman, thanks to Paizo Publishing's collection Who Fears the Devil. Wellman writes very well, and his stories of rural Appalachian folk are appealing in their evocation of this slice of Americana.

And there's a story that stands over the rest, as there usually is. "On the Hills and Everywhere" is simply told, and powerful for all that. It's officially going on the "How it's Done" list.