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Monsters invade Washburn again

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Apr 27, 2008 by Bill Blankenship

By Bill Blankenship

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

For a third year, Washburn University is preparing itself for an invasion of movie monsters.

KTWU will present Godzilla & Friends Film Festival III from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday in Room 112 of Washburn's Henderson Learning Resources Center.

Those attending the free event will see screenings of Asian monster movies, the American monster movies they inspired and related trailers.

Experts on Godzilla and his cinematic kin will offer commentaries on the movies and their social significance.

There also will be giveaways and audience-participation events, including a roar-like-Godzilla contest at 2:45 p.m. Saturday, with prizes.

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Here is the schedule:

Friday

7 p.m.: Trailers advertising Japanese (and other) giant monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s will be shown.

7:15 p.m.: Bob Beatty, WU faculty, and Bill Shaffer, KTWU producer, will introduce and show the 100-minute-long "Gamera II: Attack of Legion" (1996). This is the second part of the Gamera trilogy (1995-99), which features a giant, jet-fueled flying turtle.

Saturday

10 a.m.: A "Godzilla" cartoon series segment and the trailer preview of "Gojira"-related DVD releases will be shown.

10:20 a.m.: Beatty will introduce "Gigantis, The Fire Monster" (1956), an 83-minute American version of Japan's "Godzilla Raids Again," which was the hastily constructed sequel to the original "Gojira." Because another U.S. company had released "Godzilla," all references to the monster and his previous outing were eliminated from this film.

1 p.m.: Washburn faculty member Mark Peterson will introduce an American monster flick, "Tarantula" (1955), which is considered the epitome of the U.S. giant creature craze. The movie features the traditional jarring music score, the creeping menace of something always lurking behind cover, the mad doctor experimenting in a remote lab, the result of his experiments escaping and growing bigger than a house, and a very young Clint Eastwood piloting one of the jets that destroys the enormous spider at the climax.

2:45 p.m.: The Godzilla roar contest will be staged and "The Giant Claw" trailer shown.

3:15 p.m.: Shaffer and Washburn faculty member Tom Prasch introduce the 135-minute-long 1959 film, "Journey to the Center of the Earth." In it characters portrayed by Pat Boone, James Mason and Arlene Dahl travel to the center of the planet in search of a lost explorer but discover a pack of giant dinosaurs instead. A bunch of big lizards play the dinosaurs.

7 p.m.: American giant monster trailers are screened.

7:15 p.m.: Bill Tsutsui, University of Kansas faculty and author of "Godzilla On My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters," introduces the festival capstone, "Godzilla 2000" (1999, 97 minutes). This epic started the recent set of sequels. It was an answer - of sorts - to the 1998 American version of "Godzilla," which touched a nerve in Japan because it hadn't completely stopped making this series of films.

Bill Blankenship can be reached

at (785) 295-1284

or bill.blankenship@cjonline.com.

Monsters invade Washburn again

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Apr 27, 2008 by Bill Blankenship

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