It's Been Almost A Week, Huh?

Sorry I've been away for a bit. I've had me quite a busy 6 days! :D

Um... Where to begin? One of the reasons I used to keep a journal (which has more or less been completely replaced by this blog) is because I have a notoriously bad memory for events in my life. I can tell you arbitrary facts about thinks that happened on the set of a Kevin Smith movie if you mention something related to it, but my friend Kelly often tells me great, funny stories of the distant past staring me, and I laugh as though he were talking about someone else... Which, with my memory, he might as well be doing, lol.

Anyway...

My poor Wendy Lady is suffering a loss in her family, and she was kind enough to send me a text message saying she wouldn't be online this weekend because of it. Poor thing; she's pretty devastated. (It's times like this that drive me most nuts about that whole Atlantic-Ocean thing! I SO wish I could be with her physically, even if I were as useless as I am now, it would just mean a lot to me to just BE THERE for her.) This was Friday.

And would you believe I have seen her -- at least briefly -- every since, hehe. I even got to go dancing with her in SL!

She's so sweet! I mentioned to her that I was fully prepared not to see her for a while, under these understandable circumstances (which I won't elaborate on because it's not my story to tell; it's her life, not mine) and you know what she said? "I thought you might get lonely."

Omg, could I love her more?!! (That's retorical, of course... the answer would be "no", hehe.)

She was already asleep when I got up tonight, but I got to spend some time with her in SL this morning before she went to work. I was just finishing up some clothes I've been making!!!

In fact, that's what I've been doing with a lot of my weekend! I'm making SL clothes!!!

IN FACT...

After I made the Superman avatar last year, I started on a classic comic-book Batman av. Everyone is fond of the black-and-yellow Batman, but I grew up with the blue-and-gray-and-yellow Batman and I REALLY wanted to see him in-world. So I made the tights, the speedoes, the boots and the gloves, as well as a Batman body and a Bruce Wayne head (because I knew the mask would be the hardest part, and was therefore saving it for last) and I got Brian to make the shirt and the cape for me. He also made the utility belt, but I think he did that just 'cause he wanted to make it, lol. I don't remember if I actually asked him to... I think it was just already done one day, hehe.

But since I couldn't finish the costume off at the time, something else caught my attention and I abandoned the idea of a classic Batman avatar.

CUT TO: PRESENT DAY

I don't remember if it was yesterday or today, actually, lol. But recently Brian and I opened a clothing store, because SL sells A LOT of clothing, but usually not the types of stuff we were in-world. (I suspect that the majority of men's clothing in-world is designed by women, lol. So men usually wear dress like well-built dorks or like gay porn stars. But there is no SL Hot Topic or anything.) And we have a friend contributing. I offered to model her men's T-shirts, and I pulled out my unfinished Batman avatar, because he's got a better physique than I do (even in SL, hehe).

When I pulled him out, I discovered that the ONLY bit of the costume I was missing was the mask!!! And I have a template for masks, and I think I might be able to do the mask now!!!

So I spent most of this morning working out the texture for the mask (which, in SL speak, is really the bulk of the work... It's the shape and color of the mask, what the mask actually looks like) and then spent a few hours today working out the kinks (adding the bat-ears and whatnot) AND NOW I'VE GOT A BATMAN AVATAR I CAN SELL!!!

Superman's not alone anymore, hehe.

More than that, now that I have a decent handle on creating "face tatoos" (SL terminology) I can revisit my attempt at an Alice Cooper avatar!!!

Being able to make clothing in SecondLife has just opened up a whole new world of creation for me! I had gotten good at making buildings and making textures (in SL terms; I'm sure I have a lot to learn about "texturing" in CG animation terms), but now clothing, animations and scripting eluded me. Now I can do clothing, too.

I stopped just short of actually putting the Batman av out for sale because the mail arrived and I had 3 Godzilla movies waiting to be watched!!!

Okay, here's my take on the Godzilla franchise:

I LOVE the original GOJIRA and the American version GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS. They're monster movies! And for their time, they're AMAZING!

When I was a kid, I remember seeing bits of GODZILLA VS. KING KONG and GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA on TV and I enjoyed what I saw... which, I believe, was probably the last 20 minutes of each, lol.

As a teen, VHS and video rental stores allowed me to revisit Godzilla, and I was APPALLED. I don't remember what I rented, but it was OBVIOUSLY a guy in a suit trampling what were OBVIOUSLY model buildings and wrestilng with some other guy in a suit.

BAD SUITS, TOO!!!

And I remember jokey, cartoony music and supposedly-adorable little kids whose heads I wanted to pop like grapes and teeny, tiny twin babes who existed in these movies for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom...

It was garbage! Nonsensical, campy garbage!

What the hell had happened to the gigantic monster who destroyed Tokyo a lot?!!

Now, I've heard the argument that "that's the fun of Godzilla movies" and my response is "not for me, it's not". Look, I enjoy bad cinema, too... I just prefer that my bad cinema not be intentional! I like to see artists TRY. If you can't be bothered to try to make a good movie then I can't be bothered to watch your movie. And "Camp" is not an excuse... it's just plain LAZY. "I don't know what I'm doing, so rather than try and fail I'll make it Camp."

Whatever.

Sorry... Anyway... In the mid-90s I stumbled onto a remake of GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH on VHS and I had some money, so I bought it and watched it. I figured that maybe now they might be taking the character seriously again, and with 90s SFX Godzilla should look AMAZING.

And the movie was okay. They did take the character seriously, and the special effects were better than they were in the 60s and 70s. It wasn't an exciting movie, and nowhere NEAR scary, but it wasn't an insult to my intelligence, at least. I also watched GODZILLA VS. BIOLANTE, and it was okay, too.

Still, with our SFX here in the States being what they were at the time -- and considering that a lot of the technology we used to get them there was developed in Japan -- I really thought Japanese filmmakers could do a better job.

Then teasers for OUR Godzilla started popping up and I got EXCITED!!! "Finally," I thought, "now I'm gonna see a REAL Godzilla movie!"

Who could have guessed?

I mean, SERIOSULY! They guys who gave us ID4 couldn't give us a real Godzilla movie?!! WTF?!!

To be honest, I really enjoyed the Zilla movie (that's what Toho Studios has dubbed our Godzilla) in the theaters... 3 times.

All 3 times I saw it with my brother, and in packed theaters. But when it came out on VHS and I watched it at home for the first time, I realized that what I really had been enjoying was the spectacle. The movie was like a rock concert with an audience. By yourself it was... every odd-numbered film by Devlin/Emrick, lol. (Or is it even-numbered? I'm not sure.)

So then sometime after I got a dvd player I noticed GODZILLA 2000 and I thought "THIS is IT!!! I'm finally gonna see a Godzilla movie that thrills me and scares me and is a great time!!!"

I was wrong.

I don't remember the story, but the SFX were AMAZINGLY poor! You could always tell when they switched from the man-in-the-costume to the puppet-head, and NEITHER looked like an actual creature! At least with Emrick's movie the monster looked as gigantic as it was supposed to be! This Godzilla looked -- as usual, except for the original film -- like a dude surrounded by miniatures.

So I got my Godzilla fix for years by reading the Dark Horse comics and re-reading the one novel I had from the novel series they released.

Then today... :D

I watched GODZILLA, MOTHRA AND KING GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL OUT ATTACK!!!

THIS is a GODZILLA film!!!

First of all, the filmmakers knew that Godzilla is supposed to be a horror movie! Secondly, they realized that you need to believe that Godzilla is really, really big in order to really enjoy the film!

I think maybe the director (I don't know his name, but I'll be looking up everything I can find on him soon, hehe) saw our version of Godzilla, then saw GODZILLA 2000 and -- like I did -- wondered why Japanese filmmakers couldn't employ the same storytelling techniques we do to make a GREAT Godzilla flick! These guys made Godzilla POWERFUL!!! And most of the time you're watching the movie you're thinking "If Godzilla were real, THAT is what he'd look like!!!"

Doing some research I learned that ALL OUT ATTACK is the second in what is known as the Millenium series of Godzilla movies. The movies I hate and loath and dispise are known as the Showa series and the "okay" series is known as the "X" series. GODZILLA 2000 kicked off the Milleneum series, but was then followed up in 2001 by ALL OUT ATTACK.

I had rented 3 of the last 4 of the Millenium series, and after ALL OUT ATTACK I was stoked to watch the next one, GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA!!!

Brian had been sleeping, and had woken up about the time that I was ready to watch MECHAGODZILLA so I popped it in the living room (I watched ALL OUT ATTACK in here on this computer) and we watched it...

...and it was okay.

I think filmmakers think of Godzilla films as (1) horror films or (2) adventure films.

The adventure films are wrong and suck.

They often have "cute little kids" in them.

MECHAGODZILLA has pretty good SFX, but you never forget you're looking at a guy in a costume surrounded by miniatures. NEVER. Not for one moment do you get so lost in the action that you forget you're watching a costume movie. EVER.

I'm not excited about watching GODZILLA: TOKYO S.O.S. now. I'm pretty sure it picks up where MECHAGODZILLA left off, and so I'm guessing it's Adventure Godzilla.

And I'm sure the last one of the Millenium series is Adventure Godzilla, too. But I won't take it out of my Netflix queue. (Even if it is merely okay, I'm pretty sure it has Godzilla fighting Zilla, so that should be fun to watch, hehe.)

I'd be curious to go back and watch all the Godzilla movies, just to see if there are more than just the 2 that I like. I mean, seriously: In 53 years were there REALLY only TWO directors (one of whom created the character in the first place) that realized that Godzilla is a horror character? I mean he's a 50-story MONSTER for cryin' out loud!

Blah.

For all my bitching, I really had a great time this weekend. After MECHAGODZILLA I popped in ALL OUT ATTACK and got to enjoy that with my brother, then we watched CASINO ROYALE (EXCELLENT movie!!!) for our second time, and watched all the dvd extras. And that's today! A couple of nights ago I saw GHOST RIDER, which was really cool! And yesterday Brian and I wacthed FLUSHED AWAY which was a lot of fun, and I finally got Season 3 (which is really seasons 3 and 4 combined) of DUE SOUTH! And I'm 10 chapters into LIVE AND LET DIE which is SOOOOOOO much better than the Roger Moore movie!

So life is good! Life is fun!

Okay, my baby should be waking up any minute now, so I'm gonna go wait for her!

:D