I'd like to do a late night marathon tonight, but with the heat and humidity making me not feel well, can't decide. Thinking of adding the checklist to my list to help on days when I'm stuck for what to watch.

Callooh! Callay! I bear good tidings. ShoutFactoryTV is hosting a kaiju movie marathon this weekend all day Saturday from midnight to midnight (ET). Movies will include Godzilla: The Uncut Japanese Original, Terror Of Mechagodzilla, and Ghidorah: The Three-Headed Monster and it'll be curated by August Ragone.

Here's the links:

ShoutFactoryTV.com

Pluto TV channel 427

Presumably you'll be able to access it through their ShoutFactoryTV roku app, too, maybe. They don't mention it, but it's worth checking.

Along those same lines, the Roku Shout Factory Channel, also now has Ultra Q, and Ultra 7.

Ugh, today went from low 60s and raining/pouring out to muggy upper 60s-low 70s. Supposed to get quite warm tomorrow. I just wish it'd make up its mind!

I finally got to see Jurassic World today. I really liked it. No real slow parts. I was even thinking during the movie that I kind of missed the slower parts from the first movie, like when they were doctoring the dinos or with the kids toward the end. Just gives a bit of breathing room.



I do have to say that I now want to gorge on Godzilla movies, however, other than the original, I really haven't liked any that I saw. I kind of like Gamera ones, so you'd think I'd like Godzilla ones...Oh well. I may just rewatch the first three Jurassic Parks instead.

I will say that I'll accept Jurassic World for the mad scientist checkmark if you haven't already used it for that. I mean, really? Hasn't that guy already learned his lesson?

today I saw The Dark Crystal - beautiful DCP presentation at the AFI Silver

Ant-Man on the IMAX-Laser screen - wow ... just wow!! The script to me wasn't all that deep, but the movie on the whole felt like a breath of fresh air in the Marvel lexicon - don't bother seeing it in 2D, it's the best 3D of the year!!

I know what you mean. I have a large collection of Godzilla movies, but really the only one I really enjoy is the first one.

Earlier tonight I watched kind of a cute movie, The Magic Door. It had fairies, elves, that looked like satyrs, a little troll, and two little kids, whose father was Giles, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on Epix HD, on Roku.

Since the Shout livestream isn't on Roku, I may watch the programming at the same time on DVD, for Godzilla, and on Roku for the Ultra episodes.

After falling asleep early, cutting my late night marathon short, I woke up in the middle of the night, and decided to start a day of sci-fi early. I looked on Sling TV, and found an interesting episode of Hangar 1: The UFO Files, on H2 On Demand. It dealt with UFO encounters with the military, and how the military policy moved from attack on sight during Korea and Vietnam, to a policy of inactive observation.

I'd rather watch the Godzilla sequels than the Jurassic Parks ones...

So... Yeah... I really like Gojira (and the Americanized version too but it's not quite as good or serious). The sequels are somewhat a acquired taste and tend to run more towards Saturday Matinee kid entertainments. I watch them on occasion but watch Gojira about once a year. It's also my grandson's favorite of the series - yes, a 11 year old prefers the original, with subs of course, over the US version.

I'm pretty much the same with the Gamera films. I really like the first but don't much care for most of the sequels. I've not yet seen the last 3 of that series but hope to get to it before the challenge ends.

Here are some of my favorite kaiju films I would recommend after you've seen Gojira and Gamera:

Mothra
Rodan
War of the Gargantuas
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Daimajin

The Heisei Gamera trilogy are easily the best Gamera movies ever made and rate very favorably with Gojira. Of the three Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris is generally considered the best of the trilogy.

I recently watched Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) and found it very entertaining. I'd definitely recommend it to people who like kaiju films. While a film will typically have a b-plot playing out around monster attacks (real estate develop, kidnapped kids, mobsters), this one juggles four or five plots that compete with Godzilla for screen time.

Also, I agree about the Heisei Gamera films; they are awesome. Many of the others are enjoyable as curiosities but not as serious or competent films.

My usage of the word doppelganger spikes dramatically in July.

History Channel is doing an Ancient Aliens marathon today, that started at 2:00 PM Eastern Time, and runs until late tonight. I just finished the 'Forbidden Caves' episode from Season 8. The new season starts next Friday as well.

I'll have to keep these in mind. I probably won't get to them this challenge, but maybe next year if I plan ahead. I still have quite a few things on my mental list of things to watch. For right now, I've decided to rewatch the original Star Wars Trilogy. On "Empire Strikes Back" right now. I'd forgotten how much time they actually spent on Hoth in the beginning. Pacing has really changed over the years, I feel. Not necessarily for the worse or better, but you can really tell that people's attention spans have changed-or at least, that film makers think our attentions have shortened!

Kick-Ass 2 = sci-fi-ish?

On the recommendation of a couple friends, I watched Chappie. The reviews were not good, so I wasn't expected much. However, I thought it was very well done and brought up interesting ideas. There needed to be Dev Patel (there always needs to be more Dev Patel), and the South African gangsters were annoying, but those may be my only criticisms. Overall, it's a wild ride that went in different directions than I anticipated.

Apparently, some critics compared Chappie with Jar Jar Binks. Shame on them! Chappie is adorable. Jar Jar Binks makes you wish for the death of the sun so that everyone who knows about him is wiped out and the universe can once again be at peace.

Schedule of films for the ShoutFactoryTV kaiju karathon:

12:00AM — Ultra Q Episodes
3:45AM — Ultra Seven Episodes
5:00AM — Godzilla, King Of The Monsters (1954)
6:30AM — Ultra Seven Episodes
7:30AM — Rodan (1956)
9:00AM — Ultra Seven Episodes
9:45AM — Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
11:15AM — Ultra Seven Episodes
12:00PM — Godzilla Vs. The Thing (1964)
2:00PM — Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster (1964)
3:30PM — Monster Zero (1965)
5:30PM — Godzilla’s Revenge (1969)
7:00PM — Terror Of Mechagodzilla (1975)
8:45PM — Godzilla, The Uncut Japanese Original (1954)
10:30PM — Godzilla’s Revenge (1969)
12:00AM — Terror Of Mechagodzilla (1975)
1:45AM — Godzilla, The Uncut Japanese Original (1954)

I regret missing most of the Ultra Q episodes.

I have a box set of the Daimajin trilogy and have never seen them and keep meaning to every year for the Sci-fi Challenge. I'll try to get to them this month.

I have all of these on DVD, some in multiple versions. I keep meaning to watch Ultra Q and Ultra Seven episodes for this challenge. I watched several of them for the TV on DVD challenge in January. My big problem this month is that I got sucked into Power Rangers (both Japanese and American versions of the franchise) and Gundam episodes and that's taken up much of my viewing time.

Here are some teasers from Ultra Q for you:




(Ya just can't please some kids!)

I'm in a great mood today, thinking about my almost week long vacation that starts in just four days. Being in such a great mood, plan to hit the challenge hard today. Just finished an episode of Destination Truth on Netflix, dealing with a haunted mining ghost town in Japan, and a legendary big cat in Tanzania.

I watched all three last night and this morning. They totally redeem the series. I'd have to watch them again to determine which I like the best as they were all good. I now wish I'd gone ahead with viewing those last year, as many of you urged me to do, after slogging through the 60s/70s films and that horrible 80s flash-back film. I actually suffered through that 80s one again this year in the form of a "Movie Macabre" episode. I liked the Elvira bits (or should that be Elvira's bits? ) but the movie is still crap.

Which one do you have?

I've been eyeing that newer MC set but recently found the first two films may be (are?) dubbed only audio, although they *are* OAR. Those two are available on Amazon Prime streaming which is how I made that discovery. It took some digging and viewing another foreign film which *was* in original language with subs to come to that conclusion. Amazon offers only *one* audio track, which seems to be the main track, so most dubbed films will be presented in the original language since those dub tracks are typically alternate choices on disc menus.

I've read AB released all three in AOR *and* Original Language and have almost changed my mind to purchase those instead.

I currently own a set which has the first two films in Pan/Scan with dubbed audio. I enjoyed them enough that I now want better copies.

The MC set is Japanese and English dubbed on all films. I just loaded mine in to check.

I had the AB dvd release in the past, which was find but if you have a blu-ray player, MC is the set to get.

I just watched my first episode of Game of Thrones of the challenge. It was 'Lord Snow', the third episode of Season One, on HBO On Demand. The show is starting to pick up.

Wildcard it. Read the review and it doesn't seem like it would be sci-fi-ish, however, it's comic book based so I'd listen to a "it's fantasy" argument.