List: Godzilla Movies

Posted on May 14, 2014 at 8:00 am

One of the most famous movie monsters of all time, Godzilla, returns to the screen this week in a big-budget film starring Bryan Cranston. It’s a good time to take a look at all the various versions of Godzilla that have trashed cities and terrified the populace since the monster’s first appearance in 1954’s “Godzilla” from Japan, directed by Ishirō Honda.

In Japanese, the monster is called “Gojira,” based on combining the words for whale and gorilla. The original idea was inspired by the fears following the onset of the atomic age. But in his many following incarnations, Godzilla was sometimes the hero as well as the threat. Godzilla has appeared in games, comic books, television, and big and small budget films. The name has become a concept so embedded in our vocabulary that it shows up in terms like “Bridezilla.”

Highlights include the 1956 Godzilla: King of the Monsters, with Raymond Burr and dual-monster battles Godzilla vs. Mothra and King Kong vs. Godzilla.

It is generally agreed that the low point was 1992’s Godzilla with Matthew Broderick. It isn’t that bad — until it goes completely off the rails in the last half hour. Here’s hoping this one is worthy of the name.

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SFX: The Foundry’s Dazzling Reel of Special Effects

Posted on April 15, 2014 at 8:00 am

From top special effects firm The Foundry. Enjoy!

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Special Effects

Interview: David A.R. White of Pure Flix and “God’s Not Dead”

Posted on March 19, 2014 at 8:00 am

David A.R. White (“Evening Shade”) is the founder/writer/director of Pure Flix, which makes films that “uplift and inspire the human spirit.” He graciously took time to answer my questions about making faith-based films and what he has learned. New films from Pure Flix include “God’s Not Dead” with Kevin Sorbo and “Mom’s Night Out,” an uproarious comedy starring Sarah Drew, Trace Adkins, and Patricia Heaton.

Why did you create Pure Flix? What is your goal? Who is your intended audience?

We created Pure Flix to make uplifting and inspiring content on a consistent, ongoing basis, so audiences would truly have an alternative to what Hollywood puts out. Pure Flix produces faith and family films, so the audience is the entire family.

What are the most important lessons you learned from the writers and directors you worked with on television series like “Evening Shade?”

Evening Shade was such an eye-opening experience. I was 19 when I went on that show. I had barely had an acting class. So as Burt Reynolds continued to bring me back for the next three years, I learned so much from him and all the other legends that were on the show. People like Hal Holbrook, Charles Durning, Michael Jeter, Marilou Henner, etc. One of the biggest things I walked away with was how Burt loved to work with his friends. Most of these people he had done movies with for 20+ years, and I wanted to do the same. Which is why in a lot of our films you see a lot of recognizable faces, good friends of mine from the last 20 years.

In the 50’s and 60’s, Hollywood studios were making films like “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and “King of Kings” and “A Man Called Peter.” Why is it hard to get films like that made now?

Well this year would probably be the year to do that, as they are calling this the “Year of the Bible”. I think there is always an ebb and flow in Hollywood about what is current. And as people are responding to more and more life-affirming content, I think we will see more and more of those type of movies.

“Noah” has not opened yet and it is already controversial as some Christian groups say it departs from the Bible. Is it hard to reach Christian audiences with big-budget movies directed at the mainstream?

I think it’s hard because the filmmakers don’t really believe in what they are making. So for them, accuracy is not a priority in the movie and it becomes something else.

Can mainstream films deliver a spiritual message? Can Pure Flix films reach an audience that is not church-going?

Yes, on both questions. Pure Flix makes evangelistic films, but we also make family films. I think the viewer wants to see quality entertainment that the whole family can watch, and many nonbelievers watch our films because they can watch with their family and young kids.

Your films often have a refreshing sense of humor. Why is that important?

I love comedy. Which is why I keep trying to bring comedies out like “Me Again”, “Marriage Retreat”, “Holyman Undercover”. I think it’s important we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves; it’s very disarming and works wonders in relationships.

Amazing Footage of the Movie Magic in “Wolf of Wall Street”

Posted on January 14, 2014 at 2:05 pm

This remarkable footage shows some of the special effects used to create the fabulous visuals of Jordan Belfort’s over-the-top world in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

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Tribute: Special Effects Pioneer Ray Harryhausen

Posted on May 7, 2013 at 3:39 pm

One of the greatest thrills of my professional life was the chance to talk to one of the towering figures of film history, Ray Harryhausen, the special effects genius to transformed movie-making in the years before digital technology. Today, we mourn his passing, less than a year after the passing of his lifelong friend, Ray Bradbury, who joined us in the interview.

I asked Mr. Harryhausen if he thought that what he was doing was acting as well as animating.

Of course! You’re working with actors so you can’t let them upstage you. I learned from King Kong you have to get sympathy for the villain. Hard to do with a Tyrannasaurus Rex! You can get sympathy for a humanoid form, but it is harder to get sympathy for an animal. So we adapted the original design for Ymir to make him more like a human, his torso anyway. He originally had one eye, like a cyclops. We had to wiggle the tail a lot to distract the audience. I always did a lot of research but was not bound by it, just inspired by it. The Ymir was from Norse mythology originally, but we changed our mind.

I brought in the story; I was very modest in those days. It took me 50 years to learn that modesty is a dirty word in Hollywood. Originally, we had the rocket ship land in Chicago, but I wanted a trip to Rome, so we moved the landing to Italy so I could go there and scout locations. We added our ruins to theirs.

Fantasy was a word he came back to several times.

I did not do horror; I did fantasy. Fantasy is “what if” — it’s stretching your imagination. We don’t want to be associated with horror. I don’t like them to be called monster films.

He said his two biggest challenges were the multiple characters in Jason and the Argonauts and the Medusa in Clash of the Titans.

The most challenging creature was Medusa with twelve snakes in her hair. I did not want to animate a cosmic goddess, so we gave her a snake’s body. We did not want to go with the classical concept of a pretty woman with a pretty face and snakes in her hair; we wanted to make her furious. We borrowed the bow and arrow from Diana. We borrowed the seven heads from Hercules; you always had to remember which head was going in which direction. With the multiple figures in “Jason,” We couldn’t do rotting corpses coming out of the ground at night in “Jason;” we had to do clean-cut skeletons in the daylight. The things you see today would frighten the devil.

Even in the days before CGI, there were issues of changing technology.

We had the advantages and disadvantages of changing technology in building our creatures. Originally, we used foam rubber, which shrinks 10-15 percent so the clay models were a little fat and you can see that some of the stand-ins were a little stouter. It depends on how long you cook it, how long it holds up. It is fine material, but it will rot. We have a big display of the models in Germany at the Sony Museum.

Mr. Harryhausen had one final comment, about following your dreams.

Don’t let anyone talk you out of it.

May his memory be a blessing.

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