Take me to Godzilla!!!

I'm sitting here listening to King Geedorah - 'Take me to your leader' because I feel like Godzilla is all up in my grill this week and quite frankly its making me a very happy little bunny!
Was I asleep for a minute? because all of sudden it was like BOOM! 'Godzilla - City on the edge of battle', the second instalment to Netflix's 2017 Anime 'Godzilla - Planet of the Monsters', was released on Netflix and then BOOM! 'Godzilla - King of Monsters' motion picture Trailer was all over my social media!

Now I am a big fan of Godzilla, should I be writing his name in capitals? Lower case feels disrespectful somehow, but uppercase is a bit shouty… anyway, I'm a big big fan of the original Godzilla 1950's franchise, with it's wonderfully ridiculous man in suit depiction of Godzilla, to the insanely skilful scale size replicas of Japanese towns and landmarks. I was hooked as child, while, Gezora, Gabara, Space Godzilla and Monster Zero himself - King Geedorah all reeked havoc on Japan with Godzilla switching between hero and monster, sometimes in the same movie.
We shan't speak of the 1998 version… in fact pretend I haven't mentioned 1998… it's best that way… trust me…

However in 2014 a miracle happened, someone remembered why the original was so captivating to audiences, returned Godzilla to his former glory and employed some first rate actors and script writers to finally give us a modern reboot worth mentioning. Did I mention that Ken Watanabe was in it? Exactly, nuff said.

And then Netflix jumped on that band wagon and produced a butt clenching thrill ride that was 'Godzilla - Planet of the Monsters' which quite frankly nearly gave me a heart attack in the final scenes, it was so tense I still feel kinda knotted up just thinking about it!!

While I don't imagine that 'City on the edge of Battle' will be nearly so thrilling, I still need to know what happens next, because the ending of 'Planet of the Monsters' was like a kick to the gut and I must have some closure.

Then as if all my mega monster Christmases have come in at once, I spy the trailer for the motion picture sequel to 2014, aptly named 'King of Monsters' on social media and I am more than excited.

In the trailer we see humanity searching for what they call Titans, who are the only things that can save us. I am confused by the suggestion that we need these giant great hulking creatures to save humanity, when I grew up watching them basically behave like naughty toddlers, smashing up the place and generally not behaving themselves, because well they're monsters… but that seems to be the suggestion so I will wait and see. But more importantly, who is coming? from what I can see it's Mothra and the three headed Golden bad boy King Geedorah on our televisual horizons as well as the original old G himself, Sir Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

Bad news, we have to wait until next year to find out how they all come together, but good news, Ken Watanabe is back, so you know, there's a God and everything…

Black Eyed Peas bringing the FIRE!

Now its been a while since I mentioned any music on here, there's far too much other geeky stuff for me to do music any justice, but I've heard two songs this week that are worthy of mention and they are both by the Black Eyed Peas - which is jaw dropping for me, because I haven't deemed them worthy of listening to since 'Bridging the Gap' way back in 2000

But everyone is worthy of redemption and I feel like they are back to form with 'Ring the Alarm' and 'Get it'.

Both are a call to arms and a reaction to the current climate of hate that we seem to be existing in at the moment. While 'Get it' is more slow and introspective in it's overall feel, the video alone is heart-breaking, soft and violent, a  bit like the life, which the chorus sums up like beautiful poetry. 

'Ring the Alarm' is just that, a call to arms in musical form, the best way I can describe it, is FIRE!! The lyrics on this track are also more overtly political than 'Get it' which at points slips into autobiographical narrative and a little bragadacio - a bit of a juxtaposition to the video, which was a little confusing. 

Both are thoughtful though, which is more than can be said for a lot of music and is definitely worth a listen.

Brown Girl Begins 

Dystopian futures are not a new theme, it seems the human race is doomed in all our imaginations and we should all just become resigned to the fact that humanity is going to descend into a techno punk/junk version of our former selves.

However what is new for this genre is 'Brown Girl Begins' because someone not only remembered to include black people in the future, they also made a female black person the main protagonist… this is big y'all. Adapted from the 1998 Canadian sci-fi novel Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson, which I'm ashamed to say is still on my afro-futurist reading list.
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Produced on a low budget by director Sharon Lewis, it has already done the rounds on the indie film circuit, it slipped under my radar somehow, but look out for it on DVD as it's always worth supporting Afro-futurist projects as you never know where they might lead (ahem Black Panther).