A Little Kaiju Cinema Love From The USA Today

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Source: USA Today

News on the Godzilla movie front has been coming at a rather slow pace as of late, so it is good to see the folks over at the USA Today pitching in to help pick up the pace a little.

Today, a guest blogger for the online news site, James Leung of Giant Robot magazine fame, decided to write about his love of kaiju cinema and how it had a profound influence on him growing up. The title of Leung's article, "Japanese monster flicks make life better" is a sentiment that I think that we all can agree on.

Along with the article Leung included a list of his top five Japanese monster films for a do-it-yourself movie marathon. Though I myself would have chosen five different films for my list, a true kaiju fan should never argue with another fan's list in good conscience.

Here is an excerpt from "Japanese monster flicks make life better":

Before cable television, I was a huge devotee of the 4:30 Movie on the local New York City ABC affiliate (WABC-TV). They used to broadcast a wide variety of films and frequently programmed special "theme weeks." During a theme week, they would air a series of movies following a particular theme or actor. For instance, they'd schedule a "Vincent Price Week," which showed only Vincent Price movies.

My absolute favorite theme week was "Monster Week." I wasted many hours adjusting a set of rabbit ear antennas in order to watch it. Monster Week consisted mostly of movies from the daikaiju (big monster) genre of Japanese cinema which features stuntmen in latex rubber monster suits. The 4:30 Movie used to broadcast bizarre monster flicks like Frankenstein Conquers the World, Terror of Mechagodzilla and Mothra.

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I can really relate with Leung's fond memories of enjoying Japanese monster movies on afternoon television, back in the day when that was the only way to see these types of films.

I remember watching such classics as "Rodan", "Godzilla's Revenge", "Destroy All Monsters", "King Kong vs Godzilla" and "Godzilla vs The Cosmic Monster" as part of a yet different, "Monster Week" on the "Dialing for Dollars Movie" progran in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The marathon would generally happen in either June or July every year, and it was always one of the higlights of my summer vacation from school.

Ah, memories.

See Also: Godzilla Goes Prime-Time! - Godzilla vs Megalon On NBC In 1977