Hooters Considering Possible Bankruptcy

Above, Shinichi Wakasa, Steve Ryfle and (late) Richard Pusateri at the Santa Monica
 Hooters following an American Film Market screening. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Hooters, the restaurant chain that features attractive and well-endowed waitresses, is considering filing bankruptcy, likely Chapter 11.

A group of us used to go to the Santa Monica Hooters following Godzilla movie screenings (at Toho Co., Ltd.'s invitation) at the American Film Market.

According to Fox Business:

A bankruptcy filing could potentially be on the menu for Hooters of America in the near future.

The company is looking at possibly filing for bankruptcy as a means of restructuring the restaurant chain and tackling its debt, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing unnamed sources.

Ropes & Gray has reportedly been brought on board for preparations for that potential move and, according to the outlet, they could file court papers on Hooters’ behalf in the coming two months to kick off the restructuring if the restaurant chain decides to take that step. 

To read more, go here. 

Some G-FEST XXVI Reunions

Above, Yoshikazu Ishii and the poster to his new movie,
Attack of the Giant Teacher. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

G-FEST XXVI is now in the history books. This was the first G-FEST I've attended since 2009. There's been a lot of changes and, generally, all for the better.

It is still a fan-run convention and very family-friendly, just bigger.

I managed to see a number of people who I haven't seen in years (some, for many years) and the reunions have been enjoyable as we'd catch up on life's twists and turns.

Friends include Steve Ryfle, Archie Waugh (who created the cover to The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan), Lenell Bridges, Jeff Horne, Stan Hyde, Jessica Tseang, Sonoe Nakajima, Gary Guinn, Carol McCants (who, as I found out, lives in New Mexico), the Martin Arlts, Dave Nunes, Roger Wyatt, Yoshikazu Ishii (I last saw him four years ago in Tokyo at the dinner party I held) and many others.

Some I met for the first time, even though some are friends on Facebook, including Tony Isabella and Tetsuya Takarada.

Some remembered me, but I am perplexed when I try to remember some names (that's always been a curse of mine). One fellow, Melvin and I had a long and enjoyable discussion about the Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes. I think his last name is Moore. (If it isn't, sorry, Melvin!)

Robert Scott Field was unable to attend due to a schedule conflict and his presence was missed.

Some photos:

Above, Stan Hyde. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Diane Dougherty of Clawmark Toys. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Steve Ryfle and Jessica Tseang. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, "Prince Archie" Waugh. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Lenell Bridges and Armand.

Above, Jessica Tseang and Armand. Photo by Steve Ryfle.

Godzilla Still Relevant After 60 Years In Japan

Above, the Godzilla slide in Yokosuka, Japan. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

A new article, "Godzilla Still Relevant and Raging After 60 Years In Japan" has been posted at InterAksyon.com.

The article begins with:

TOKYO | While a digitalized Hollywood reboot stomps its way to box office success around the world, the original Godzilla — a man in a rubber suit — has hit screens in Japan again, as relevant as ever. 

The 1954 classic, which spawned more than two dozen follow-ups, has been cleaned up for a two-week run in Tokyo to mark the 60th anniversary of the monster from the deep. 

Despite the shaky sets and the all-too-obvious latex costumes, a new generation of movie-goers declared themselves impressed. 

“I was really surprised to see a Tokyo that isn’t the current, neat Tokyo, but was just some 10 years after war, trampled again,” said Kenichi Takagi, 44, who took along his 10-year-old son. 

Visuals and audio have been given a scrub to remove some of the speckles and pops that cinema-goers are now unused to experiencing, although there is no hiding the fact that the creature is really a heavily-sweating actor in a suit. 

But the movie’s enduring popularity six decades on is testament to the continuing resonance of its themes of human helplessness in the face of forces that cannot be controlled.

The article does bring up a problem (without intending to do so) with the new Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros. Godzilla that writer Steve Ryfle brought up (and that I also noticed). Namely, that according to the Japanese version, Godzilla is a victim of nuclear testing and is "a walking, radiation-breathing analogy for nuclear disaster." This part of the Godzilla character was swept aside in the new movie. Instead, it transferred this aspect to the M.U.T.O. creatures. In the movie, the H-bomb detonations in the South Pacific were efforts to kill Godzilla and "not tests." This rendered Godzilla to being an "allegory of what?"

This is an article that fans (and non-fans) should read.

To read the article, go here.

Ryfle's "Whitewashing Godzilla"

Above, Godzilla in 1954 was a by-product of the
H-bomb. The new Godzilla is a by-product of what?

Steve Ryfle (Japan's Favorite Mon-Star) wrote an article for World Cinema Paradise on the new Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros. (i.e., American) Godzilla.

Here, he takes America (instead of the movie's writers, where it rightfully belongs) to task for being "incapable of making an honest Godzilla."

What's Ryfle's problem with the movie? It is something that has also bothered me, but not to the extent where I felt compelled to write an article on. Namely, the movie states that the H-bomb detonations of the 1950s in the South Pacific weren't tests, the intent of the detonations were to kill Godzilla. Thereby taking away the true meaning of Godzilla's origin as conceived in Japan.

Ryfle makes a good point in asking why other nuclear nations detonated their bombs there as well. Did they have their own Godzillas to deal with? Good one!

Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor (or allegory) of the atomic bomb (or Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and as an anti-nuclear statement by the only nation to sustain a nuclear attack. The scenario by Legendary Pictures/ Warner Bros. does away with Godzilla's nuclear connection origin (I am going by what I've seen and read about the movie as I haven't seen it yet). It transfers the nuclear connection to the M.U.T.O.s.

On this, Ryfle wrote:

Perhaps it’s debatable whether Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. have an obligation to honor Godzilla’s origins after paying untold millions for rights to the character. But given Gojira‘s basis in actual events of the war and its aftermath, the brazen mendacity of the new film’s revisionism is rather astounding. It is not only an affront to the legacy of Honda’s Gojira, but it relies on the audience’s ignorance of and apathy toward history.

Welcome to the age of "low-information" voters, etc.

Where Ryfle loses me is when he gets into the revisionist contention that the a-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't necessary. This contention is currently in vogue by the Left in this country. It is being put forward by people who weren't there and did not take part in the decision-making process. It is curious that President Harry Truman, a Democrat, was so revered 40 years ago (along with the James Whitmore "Give 'Em Hell, Harry!"), but now the revisionists are practically making him a war criminal over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If Truman were around today, he'd give them hell!

Other than that, and some other passages that show Ryfle's leftie political bias (suffice to say, he is entitled to his opinions, so I needn't go into them here), I generally agree with his view that the new Godzilla "whitewashes" our nuclear history and takes away the true meaning of Godzilla. Perhaps the world that Godzilla takes place is in an alternate universe?

To read the full article, go here.

Hooters To Open In Osaka

Hooters Japan has announced that they will be opening a new Hooters in Osaka this month:

This reminds me of a time that several of us, including monster suit-maker Shinchi Wakasa, went to Hooters in Santa Monica following a Godzilla movie screening at the American Film Market (below).

Above, (left to right) Shinchi Wakasa, Richard Pusateri and Steve Ryfle with the Hooters girls.  Photo by Armand Vaquer.

"Departures" (2008)

Above, Masahiro Motoki and Ryoko Hirosue.

Death is not a subject that people will immediately gravitate to, but, depending upon how it is handled, can be a subject that just might enlighten and, at the same time, be moving.

The Japanese movie, Departures, deals with the subject of death that is entertaining, enlightening, sad, humorous and touching.  And, it accomplishes this without being morbid (the closest is when an old lady is found two weeks after death).

The movie is about an out-of-work cellist, Daigo Kobayashi (played by Masahiro Motoki) who returns to his hometown with his wife (Ryoko Hirosue) after finding out that his orchestra company he worked for dissolved.

Desperate for work, he is hired as a "Nokanshi," who prepares the bodies of the deceased for burial and entrance into the next life.   Tsutomu Yamazaki plays the senior Nokanshi (“The Boss”). 

He takes the job in secret, fearful that his wife would find this occupation repulsive.  She leaves him after learning the nature of her husband's work, stipulating that she would return once he tenders his resignation.  He doesn't and through his work he goes through a spiritual journey and re-learns joy and the wonders of living.

For Ishiro Honda fans, Departures was filmed in Yamagata prefecture (red area in map at right), where, as author Steve Ryfle tells me, Honda spent his youth.  It is a beautiful place.

Departures won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.  

Departures was directed by Yojiro Takita.

I heartily recommend Departures.  My grade: A+.

An Omission To Correct

It is indeed a thrill to have a publication review in a national magazine, newspaper or website.  I was fortunate enough to have The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan be reviewed in The Japan Times last Sunday.

In the review article, there was this paragraph (highlights mine):

English-language literature on Godzilla and all the other monsters that followed is rather scarce, probably due to film company Toho's legal actions that in the past have successfully blocked the publication of a number of books. Among the titles worth mentioning, there are Stuart Galbraith IV's "Monsters Are Attacking Tokyo" (1998), Steve Ryfle's "Japan's Favorite Mon-star" (1998), and Peter H. Brothers' "Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda" (2009). Now Godzilla lover and writer Armand Vaquer has come up with a guidebook for all those fans who want to turn a trip to Japan into a pilgrimage to the places that were cinematically trashed by the Big G, Mothra, Gamera and their friends.

To have the travel guide in the company of the aforementioned authors and titles is, indeed, quite an honor.   I personally know each one, and even though some of them and I may have had a disagreement or two over the years, I would feel quite comfortable to sit down with any of them for a friendly chat over beer, wine and cigars.

There was a glaring omission in the paragraph, one that I had nothing to do with.  However, I would like to make mention of it as the author and publication rightly deserves to be mentioned.  That would be the book, Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters and its author, August Ragone.  Ragone's book (I think it is now out-of-print, but copies can still be found here and there) on Japan's special effects pioneer is one of the best English-language books on Japanese science-fiction and fantasy movies to be published.

All of these books are important sources of information for fans or movie historians.  Not including any or all of them in one's personal library of cinema books would make that library an incomplete library, in my view.

Anime.com Reviews Japan Monster Travel Guide

Above, Yuu Asakura. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Anime.com has posted reviews of The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan along with Steve Ryfle's Japan's Favorite Mon-star and August Ragone's Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters on a page entitled, Godzilla and Other Monster Movies.

Each were reviewed by Brian Cirulnick.

There are also reviews of kaiju DVDs on this page.

To check out the reviews, go here.

A Shot Fired Across Brothers's Bow?

While perusing the Monster Zero forum this morning, I came across this post by Ed Godzisewski (who, with Steve Ryfle, is working on another book on Japanese director Ishiro Honda) in a thread about Peter H. Brothers's book, Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda. It appears to be a pot-shot at Pete's book:

We are in the process of having over 17 hours of new interviews and some printed materials translated, so the research is still a work in process. What we have gotten done so far is quite fascinating stuff. Also trying to track a few more people down for interviews. We have a great selection of unpublished photos which we will be using. The original target is 2011 (the centennial of Honda's birth), but nothing is set in stone. All parties involved agree that doing the best job we can is more important than rushing it through. [Italics mine.]
Ed G.

Knowing that Pete worked on his book for years, I can assure those concerned that Pete did not "rush" it through. There's a little history on the "rivalry", see "Interview With Peter H. Brothers" for his side of the story.

My general attitude on books and kaiju-related merchandise is "the more the merrier." It is unfortunate that "rivals" in any particular fandom have to take pot-shots against others. But, that's sometimes the nature of the game.