Godzilla Review

A theater nearby had a special showing of the new Godzilla movie at 7 this evening, so I went out and saw it.  This was a big deal for me, I've been watching Godzilla movies for a long time.  I saw the first American Godzilla movie back in 1998, and back when Blockbuster was still a thing, my family rented a bunch of the old Japanese movies.  They were cheesy, with bad acting, terrible plots, and at least until the 1980's reboot series, the monsters looked really dumb.  But that was part of their charm, and the fights were pretty good.  Of course, I've seen the original, which is actually a very good movie.  As for the 1998 Godzilla, well, let's just say the best thing that came out of that movie was the cartoon they followed it up with.  It was very Saturday morning, but the Godzilla in that actually did things, actually fought monsters, and didn't get killed by a couple of missiles after getting tangled in some cables.  Honestly, the bar for this Godzilla wasn't very high after our last attempt.  Even so, this was a big deal for me, I really, really wanted this movie to be good.

Fortunately, it was good.  The story wasn't the most compelling, but Godzilla movies have never been about that.  I don't go to a Godzilla movie to care about the human characters and whatever nonsense they get into.  Actually, I thought there was a little too much human action in the second half of the movie, and not enough monster action.  There was a thing with the nuclear bomb that needed deactivating, but it kind of detracted from the main attraction.  I suppose it was necessary for the main character to be there so that he could torch the eggs of the Massive Unknown Terrestrial Organism, or MUTO.  There won't be any more of those things running around.

Enough about the people though.  Some people might care about the actors and the acting, but I don't.  What I care about is the monsters.  We're introduced to the MUTO's first, and yes, there are two of them.  They're a male and female of the same species, the male flies from Japan to San Francisco by way of Hawaii, stopping there long enough to torch Honolulu, and the female, who was stored in Yucca Mountain with a bunch of nuclear waste, crosses the desert, runs right through Vegas, and to San Francisco.  When I heard there was a flying monster, I thought immediately that it was going to be Rodan, but I was wrong, and I'm glad I was.  If there are sequels, then maybe they can go to the old monsters, but I think it was good to bring in new ones for this movie.  I'm not sure I agree with the design, they were a bit weird, but they worked.

Godzilla is unamused by tiny monsters

And now to the main attraction.  It was almost exactly one hour into the movie when he first appears on screen, aside from a brief moment in the opening credits.  He looked good, very reminiscent of the Japanese Godzilla from the 80's and 90's.  For some reason, we seem to like giving our Godzillas a square head, but that was my only complaint.  He was big, and interestingly enough, not all that mean.  He wasn't really all that interested in humans, and he never actively destroyed anything.  I like that, I like that this Godzilla wasn't a bad guy, and I liked that the military didn't even try to fight him.  There was one scene where the Navy is following Godzilla to San Francisco, and they are right there next to him, not more than a couple hundred feet away.  They must be brave people, even if Godzilla wasn't trying to kill me, I would maintain a bit more distance than that.

With multiple monsters, a fight is inevitable.  Godzilla is presented as a balancing force, who is bent on destroying these new monsters, who are disrupting the order of the world.  So, he's the good guy.  The battle goes down in downtown San Francisco, and while I wish there was a bit more of it, the fight is very, very good.  This Godzilla fights like the Japanese version, which is to say, a bit dopey.  He forgets multiple times about the flying MUTO and is constantly being surprised by it.  He lets a building fall on him for no good reason.  I chuckled at that, because I don't know how many times I've seen that, and it's never worked once.  The entire fight is very well done, but there are several points of levity in there, especially if you know Godzilla.  Minor spoiler if you don't know how these movies work, but Godzilla finishes off the second monster with one of the greatest moves I've ever seen, in any movie, anywhere.  I won't tell you what it is, but it was amazing.

I guess I've come to the all important rating part of the review.  I'll give it an 8.5 out of 10.  When it was good, it was very good, but I got too much people stuff, and not enough monsters beating each other up.  That's a shame, because when we did get to that part, it was very impressive.  I would recommend watching it, and I'll probably go again.  And buy it on DVD when it comes out.  I do love me some Godzilla.

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A Trip to Troegs Brewery

Some of my friends and I recently went up to the Troegs brewery in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  We got a tour of the place, got to taste some very good and rare beers, and then went to the bar there for more beer.  I was surprised by the size of the place, the brewery was in a very large building, and the size of the operation inside was equally large.  This was only a microbrewery that produced about 60,000 cases a year, I can't imagine how big the operation is at a much bigger brewery.  Sure, they probably have multiple factories, but still, its a lot of beer.

One of the tanks where the beer-making process begins

The tour was very informative, and of course, there was plenty of beer.  Certainly one of the highlights was getting to try a beer before it was completely finished, or what they referred to as green beer.  It still tasted like beer, and it was beer, but at the same time it was completely different, and actually not too bad taste-wise.  There were a whole lot of fermenting chambers, and they were very big, and very expensive, apparently.  

A few of the fermenting tanks

Through a happy coincidence, we went on the brewery during Craft Beer Week.  None of knew that was a thing until our tour guide mentioned it.  What it meant was that we got to sample some very special beers.  Troegs makes their primary beers, but they also make what they call their Splinter series of beers.  We got to have two of those, Gold and Brown.  The Gold was particularly interesting, it tasted like apples and was more than a little reminiscent of white wine.  We had two other special kinds of beer, one of which is aged in old bourbon barrels, and that was very good too.  You could definitely taste the bourbon.  I enjoyed all the special beers, although I think there were quite a few of my friends who did not.  I got to have a bit extra because some people didn't finish, which I was perfectly okay with.

Barrels in the tasting room filled with beer.

This is where the Splinter beers are brewed.  It's a much smaller operation.

Next we moved to the bar, where I had a Sunshine Pils, their summer beer, and a Belgian Saison.  I preferred the Belgian over the Pils, the Pils had a wheaty aftertaste I didn't care for.  Of course, you can't go to a brewery like that and not bring back any beer.  Well, I don't, anyway.  So, I've got a 6-pack with 6 different beers just waiting to be drunk.  I've never had Troegs before this trip, so these will be all new experiences for me.  This is a lot of ado about beer, but hey, enjoying a good beer is one of life's great pleasures.
















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