Coury's Weekly Column?

Hey everyone! This past weekend I was hitting up the old Wayback Machine web archive and found myself looking at Gamefan circa 1999-2000. This was before express bought them before dying off themselves.  Back then a number of the different editors had weekly personal columns where they could talk about whatever they wanted. Whether it be gaming related or not.

As I was laying on the couch this past Sunday with a terrible headache, I thought it might be fun to do something similar with Patreon.  Of course, this is something I originally wanted to do with the videologs last year, but it was tough to fit it in the way I wanted.  So, I think I'm gonna make time each week to at least post a personal column here. Future installments might be video or who knows what else, but I'll do my best to make at least something weekly for everyone.

Godzilla Movies

One of my fondness memories growing up was when TNT would have their MonsterVision weekends, and would show all kinds of old Godzilla movies. I'd tried to put one on a couple of years back to see if my kids would get into them at all, but it was a no-go. They were sorta freaked out by them so it wasn't quite the right time for them to get into the big G.

But this past weekend, my son Monty (5) randomly asked to watch one again. So, I put on Son of Godzilla, which seemed like it might be more approachable for him and Minilla is not scary at all. He absolutely loved it... and we proceeded to watch several more over the course of the weekend: Destroy All Monsters, and my personal favorite, Ghidora The Three Headed Monster.  

For now, I'm going to slowly move through the Showa era films with him, except for the original, which I feel might be a little too intense for him.  When I was his age, I had only seen movies where Godzilla was considered a "good guy." Even King Kong vs Godzilla, where G isn't the protagonist blurred the line for me enough that I would root for him in the fight. I saw Godzilla 1985 (Return of Godzilla) at the Drive-In when I was 7, but I was too young to really understand what was going on. Still, I was in tears when they set off the explosive charges, and Zilla falls into the volcano with a sad shriek. I remember crying into my mom's shoulder saying "why would they do that to him, after everything he's done for people?"  

It wasn't until I saw the US version of Godzilla: King of the Monsters a couple of years later on TV, where Raymond Burr's monologues about the destruction that Godzilla was causing that I started to understand that, well, he wasn't exactly a "good guy." The sweeping shots of Tokyo burning is still terrifying to me. 

As a result, I still find the Heisei era of films, which ignores everything except the original and keeps Zilla firmly in the villain category to be weirdly frightening. I've seen these much less than the others, and I'm not even sure if I've ever seen all of those. I suppose they're better movies, but I guess I'm just more nostalgic about the older ones.

Still, I'm glad that Monty is into this the way he is. I can't believe that he sits still and watches them as enraptured as he is. Even the boring talky parts which can be excruciating even now. I already own the excellent Criterion release of the first movie, but they also released an elaborate collection of the Showa era films last year. Most of these aren't on any streaming services, I have a feeling that I'm going to be coerced into buying it before this is all over.

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Anyway, yeah - I'll make a point to provide content each week for either a blog, vlog or something for you all. Some might not find it all that interesting so please ignore if that's the case, but if anyone has anything they'd be curious to hear about, please feel free to ask!