Sorry to burst your bubble but gays have been playing in the NFL and sports for years without the republic crumbling. This just happens to be the first openly-gay NFL player.

A pretty good article that sums up everything that sucked about the Roland Emmerich-Dean Devlin 1998 "Godzilla": Worst Godzilla Ever: Why Japan Hated (And Murked) The '98 U.S. Remake http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/worst-godzilla-ever-why-japan-hated-and-murked-the-1-1573686109 By Tom Breihan May 12, 2014 If you hated what Joel Schumacher did to Batman with 1995's Batman Forever and (especially) 1997's Batman & Robin, the Christopher Nolan trilogy that followed didn't just offer good movies; they were cathartic release, a reclamation. This buffoon had taken one of the great characters in the American pop-culture cosmology and turned him into an S&M theme-park clown, and it took a masterfully conceived, all-brooding nerd-out take on that same character to wash the taste from our collective mouths. But, if you will, try on this hypothetical. Imagine that Arnold Schwarzenegger (the villain ofBatman & Robin in multiple senses) showed up, without explanation and in full Mr. Freeze regalia, in the midst of 2012's Nolan-trilogy-capping The Dark Knight Rises. Imagine he managed to get out one awful, temperature-related pun ("Iced to see you, Batman") before Christian Bale kicked him in the dick and threw him off a rooftop—just beat his ass down in no time and with a minimum of effort. Imagine how simultaneously gratifying and ludicrous a scene like that would've been. Because that's pretty much what happened to the last American version of Godzilla. In 1998, as their post-Independence Day victory lap, the team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin gave the world their version of Godzilla, which was and is an irredeemable piece of shit. The list of Godzilla's crimes is long and baroque: the constant forced attempts at zany humor, the barely there Matthew Broderick lead performance, the prolonged late-movie stretch where tiny Godzillas show up and it turns into a bald Jurassic Park ripoff, the not-minor character who exists entirely to mock Great American Roger Ebert. But the biggest problem with this new Godzilla was that it wasn't motherfucking Godzilla at all. This was the pre-Comic-Con era, back when nerd-pandering was still not an important part of any studio's major summer-movie rollout. As a result, Devlin and Emmerich's version of Godzilla, created by special-effects guy Patrick Tatopoulos, was essentially just a big, stupid, knobbly iguana with a Dick Tracy jaw. In 1954, Godzilla's Japanese creators had imagined the creature as nuclear fears come to life, as a mass of crags and spikes and death. As the character evolved over dozens of movies into a reliable low-budget good guy, it kept its heavy, solid spiky-diesel form and became an actual character. This new Godzilla wasn't either of those things: It was a trapped animal and nothing more, reduced to that angry-creaking-door scream. It didn't breathe blue nuclear fire now; instead, it had, like, hot breath that would somehow cause a tank to burst into flames. It also spent vast chunks of the movie running and hiding (successfully) in the middle of New York City, which sort of defeats the purpose of being a gigantic nuclear-revenge monster lizard in the first place. As Godzilla "rampages" through town, it does way less actual damage than the dumb-shit throwaway-character soldiers who attempt to shoot it and miss. Among American dorks who'd grown up watching Godzilla movies on UHF channels or primitive cable, the reaction was a very familiar sort of impotent arms-thrown-up annoyance, the exact same thing we'll see when Michael Bay's ass-ugly CGI Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlescomes to theaters this summer. In Japan, though, outrage took on different forms. If anything, this new Godzilla was even more hated over there, because Emmerich and Devlin's version had completely missed the entire point. Godzilla was born less than a decade after the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a gigantic roaring metaphor. And even as the monster became a B-movie icon, it still kept that weight of history behind it. Over the decades, over all its iterations, the Japanese Godzilla kept its galumphing long-necked shape, its wounded-pride rage, its primal mass. The new Godzilla had none of that. People were pissed. Toho Studios, the Japanese company that produced every Japanese Godzilla movie, had to approve Emmerich and Devlin's new design of the monster. And even though they were reportedly taken way aback the first time they saw that design, they gave it the go-ahead anyway. They may have regretted the decision. In 1999, Toho brought Godzilla back to Japan with the surprisingly kick-ass reboot Godzilla 2000, retelling the old stomping-Tokyo story with brutal efficiency. Near the end of the movie, Godzilla fights a giant lizard-y thing named Orga, and even though Orga doesn't look much like the American Godzilla, one moment feels like a cinematic subtweet. Orga bites Godzilla's arm, starts draining his power, and gets some of the ripply green color that the American Godzilla had. "Look at that," says one of the inevitable boring human characters. "It's trying to become a Godzilla clone." Orga then turns into a giant webbed parasite thing and attempts to swallow Godzilla whole. But Godzilla simply breathes a shit-ton of fire, blows Orga to pieces, leaves it as a lifeless husk, stands tall, and screams. Message clear: You can't be a Godzilla clone. In 2003, due to some copyright-law shuffling, Toho came to own the design of the American Godzilla. To keep the rights, Tri-Star, the American studio, would've had to make some sequels, and the first movie flopped, so they never did. In 2004, Toho released Godzilla: Final Wars, supposedly the character's retirement movie. A chunk of that movie is given over to Godzilla stomping across the planet and fighting other monsters, friends, and foes from past movies, all of them brain-controlled by an invading alien race. And as he's crossing Sydney, Godzilla finally meets his American imitator, who's been rechristened "Zilla" because, according to producer Shogo Tomiyama, the American version "took the 'God' out of Godzilla." Zilla gets a big entrance: a CGI teleportation beam, a show-off-y spin, a burst of unbelievably shitty Sum 41 music. And then this happens: The fight ends with a flick of Godzilla's tail and a burst of fire-breath. Zilla ends up impaled on the Sydney Opera House, and then blown up. That's it. No more Zilla. This isn't just a reference to that other movie. It's the actual monster, trademarked and everything, annihilated in less than a minute. It's the shortest and most one-sided monster fight in any Godzilla movie, and I can't think of one moment where a filmmaker offered a fuck-you this direct and devastating to another filmmaker, ever. On Friday, we'll see what happens when Hollywood tries this whole Godzilla thing again. The promising British director Gareth Edwards is at the helm of the 2014 American Godzilla, and he's got a great cast (Bryan Cranston!), a strong point of view, and a monster that actually looks like Godzilla. The trailer looks fucking badass. But if Edwards somehow fucks this one up, Japan (and Toho Studios especially) won't forget.

Article in the Sunday Times with the director of new "Godzilla", Gareth Edwards. 'Godzilla': Gareth Edwards aims for awe, tears with monster reboot By Gina McIntyre May 11, 2014 Los Angeles Times Inside an editing bay on Warner Bros.’ Burbank lot, Gareth Edwards listened carefully to the sounds of war spool out from a cluster of speakers. The young director kept his eyes locked on a high-definition screen as crimson flares illuminated the night sky over Oahu, watching as explosive blasts demolished stands of trees and helicopters in mid-flight violently plummeted to Earth, threatening a battalion of soldiers tearing through the Hawaiian jungle. “I’m always trying to get a bit of ‘Apocalypse Now’ into anything I do,” said Edwards back in January, when the soft-spoken Brit was still in the throes of completing his Hollywood debut. But it wasn’t a conventional war movie Edwards was crafting; rather, it was another new take on “Godzilla.” Due in theaters Friday, Edwards’ “Godzilla” reboot might not necessarily inspire comparisons to Francis Ford Coppola’s meditative epic, but there’s no question the would-be blockbuster has apocalyptic concerns in mind. The $160-million film, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen and Bryan Cranston, draws inspiration from Ishiro Honda’s original 1954 classic, presenting a sober, dramatic take on the King of All Monsters. Amid the creature feature trappings, Edwards presents a cautionary tale about environmental collapse and the dangers of nuclear energy. An early flashback to a reactor meltdown in Japan recalls the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster that devastated the east coast of Japan — which the director admits could surprise audiences expecting pure summer movie bombast. “Our film doesn’t preach,” said Edwards, 38. “But we tried to respectfully show that we opened a Pandora’s box when we started doing all this stuff. Obviously our monsters are metaphors, and they’re never going to really appear, but [the film points out that] we should be very careful in terms of this amazing power of nature that we’re trying to control. The reality is, we can’t always contain it.” Written by Max Borenstein with a story by Dave Callaham, “Godzilla” pits its 355-feet-tall title character against a new monster, the M.U.T.O., which stands for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism. Cranston’s scientist, Joe Brody, and his son, Ford, played as an adult by Taylor-Johnson (“Kick-Ass,” “Nowhere Boy,” “Anna Karenina”), accidentally learn about the M.U.T.O. after Joe leads them into a quarantined area of Japan and plunges them into danger. Soon, Ford, an explosive-ordnance disposal expert just back from a tour of duty in the Middle East, must put his naval skills to use to make it back to San Francisco and his wife, Elle (Olsen), and their young son as giant monsters rain down destruction across the globe. The ensemble cast also includes Juliette Binoche, David Straithairn and Sally Hawkins and Ken Watanabe as researchers with a personal connection to the marauding M.U.T.O. “Godzilla.” (Warner Bros. Pictures) “Godzilla” arrives as Edwards’ second film; his first, 2010′s “Monsters,” he wrote and directed himself and paid for partly with his own savings. But he aspired to give the big-budget movie the same poignancy as the crowd-pleasing sci-fi cinema that initially inspired him, the late 1970s and early 1980s films directed by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. “When you look at a film, there’s certain key emotions you’re going to provoke and feelings you’re going to try to create for the audience,” Edwards said in a separate interview at the end of April. “I’m always looking for where’s the bit where they might tear up — even if it’s not tearing up in a sad way, just that you’re so much in awe of what you’re looking at that you get goose bumps and you start to well up. ‘ Close Encounters [of the Third Kind'] does that for me.” When Godzilla rose out of the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the creature struck a deep, emotional chord with a ravaged nation decimated by the atomic blasts that ended World War II. The film, which saw the radioactive dinosaur-like beast emerge from the ocean to demolish Tokyo, astutely used genre to address the horrors of war and connected with a traumatized, wounded people. The most expensive movie Japan had then made, “Godzilla” elevated the profile of production company Toho to international acclaim — though on the occasion of its U.S. release in 1956, the film famously was dubbed into English and new scenes with actor Raymond Burr were added to help “Godzilla, King of the Monsters!” appeal to American audiences. “Godzilla.” (Warner Bros. Pictures) In all, Godzilla — or Gojira, as he was originally known — has starred in 28 live-action feature films, many of them gleeful B-movies that pitted the giant lizard against some equally enormous foe (usually actors wearing rubber costumes) with such titles as “Son of Godzilla,” “Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster,” “Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster” and “Mothra vs. Godzilla.” Although he’s remained a fixture in video games, comic books and other avenues of popular culture, Godzilla has had a mixed track record at the box office of late. Roland Emmerich failed to launch a new “Godzilla” franchise for the CGI era with his critically drubbed 1998 film — though that movie, which brought the monster to Manhattan, did earn $379 million at the worldwide box office. PHOTOS: Godzilla through the years The character was most recently seen in U.S. theaters in “Godzilla 2000,” directed by Takao Okawara, in which he saved Tokyo from an evil kaiju that arrives in a UFO. As a boy growing up in Warwickshire in the center of England, Edwards was familiar with the sillier incarnations, specifically the children’s television cartoon starring the roaring lizard. Even so, Legendary Entertainment Chairman and CEO Thomas Tull, whose company financed “Godzilla” with distributor Warner Bros. and who served as a producer on the reboot, said he was sufficiently impressed by Edwards’ facility with storytelling and his personal demeanor to hand him the reins to a possible franchise, despite his limited experience. “There’s no real time table for talent,” said Tull, whose company helped bring Christopher Nolan’s Batman films to the screen. “We’re much more in the camp of looking for some of these great directors that have aptitude and bring that fresh voice to something like this. We wanted to find a director that would bring more intimacy to the film than just making a big popcorn movie that had our favorite giant monster and a bunch of destruction, but not much else.” Ken Watanabe as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa and David Straithairn as Adm. William Stenz in “Godzilla.” (Warner Bros. Pictures) “Godzilla” was shot over about 80 days last year, with the production headquarters in Vancouver, but it also visited Oahu, Las Vegas, San Diego and Tokyo. Edwards said he favored practical locations whenever possible, though the film does feature at least 1,000 visual effects shots, mostly involving the monsters, which were completed by London’s Double Negative in London and Moving Picture Co., which has offices in Vancover, Canada; London; and Bangalore, India. Tull said during the time he spent on set that he was “struck by the command and control” Edwards exhibited, a sentiment shared by Watanabe, the respected performer who was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in “The Last Samurai.” “Gareth looks and acts like an ordinary person, but there is nothing ordinary about his talent,” Watanabe wrote in an email. “He has a very clear vision of what he wants to accomplish…. He is a director that I put my complete trust in. On set, Gareth always spoke gently, and I never saw him raise his voice, no matter how difficult things got.” Edwards has a scruffy, boyish aspect and self-deprecating British wit, but Tull points out that beneath his humility are a “very steady confidence, and a point of view.” His interest in filmmaking dates to his childhood, when he was inspired to draw storyboards and borrow an 8mm camera belonging to a friend’s father. Director Gareth Edwards and Aaron Taylor-Johnson on the set of “Godzilla.” (Warner Bros. Pictures) His desire to direct led him to pursue a career in London working in visual effects. He quit in 2008 to travel to Mexico to shoot “Monsters,” a low-budget two-hander starring Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able as strangers who journey across part of Mexico years after an alien invasion. “It was a real gamble because I ended up getting into debt to make a film,” he said. “There was definitely a point where I thought, ‘You’re such an idiot.’… Suddenly something happens, and it turns round, thank God. I think if I had played out my life lots of different ways in parallel universes, the one I’m in right now is the one where I got lucky.” Edwards said the difference between making a $500,000 film and a $160-million film isn’t as great as one might presume. “If you were to list the pros and the cons of having a little amount of money and list the pros and the cons of having a lot of money, you basically just swap them over,” he said. “When you sit in the cinema and you’re an audience member, you don’t care how it’s made, you don’t care how much money they did or didn’t have. All that matters is that you have this experience that transports you.” “Godzilla.” (Warner Bros. Pictures) Anticipation for the new “Godzilla” has been building since 2012, when Edwards premiered a teaser at San Diego’s Comic-Con International expo, and early industry estimates suggest the movie is on pace for a strong opening (though some Japanese fans have grumbled that the redesigned creature is too portly and should have a trimmer build). Tull, however, declined to say whether the movie is designed to kick off a series of films — his company last year released a different sort of monster epic with Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim,” which brought in $411 million at the worldwide box office but has yet to spawn a sequel. Nor is Edwards willing to commit publicly to return for another round should “Godzilla” star in future big-screen adventures. Right now he is looking forward to a future directing bigger, better blockbusters, but first, he’d like a break. “Filmmaking sometimes seems like punishment, but then the movie turns up at the end, and you go, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s the reward,’ ” he said. “I wish it was easier. I wish you could just plug a wire into your brain for two hours and press record. I think James Cameron’s working on that.” RECENT AND RELATED ‘Godzilla: Awakening’: Graphic novel prequel charts history WonderCon: ‘Godzilla’ director shares monster secrets ‘Godzilla’ trailer: King of Monsters in first teaser Comic-Con: ‘Godzilla’ storms Legendary panel Godzilla Experience: Early look at monster design ‘Godzilla’ reboot director sends video message to fans ‘Akira,’ ‘Godzilla’ and Japanese pop culture of apocalypse ‘Godzilla’ puts his foot down with 75 variant covers

Wondering if the Kings can really pull this comeback off or if last night's win merely postponed the inevitable? Hope they come out with more fire in game 7 than the Bruins did. GO KINGS! Condolences to my Bruins-loving friends.

Well, tonight is the night...they're sneak-peeking the new "Godzilla" at theatres across the country...I'm going with friends to a either a 9pm or midnight show after work tonight. We're deciding on which theatre to see it: the Cinerama Dome or the Grauman's Chinese in 3D IMAX. Sue, are you going tonight? Since the new Godzilla is in San Francisco, I wonder if he'll stomp some Haight-Ashbury hippies or take in a Giants game? That would make redrum happy. edited to add: Midnight it is.

I think Lampard could keep up with Maradonna today.

^^^ I'm actually feeling dead chuffed at the Raiders picks...much better than I expected. The LA Times called the Khalil Mack pick before the draft but you never know with the Raiders. They had a history of trading or reaching for picks in the later Al Davis years. Carr should be better than his brother. Still, it's up to the coaching and that's still up in the air.

Rosiet, if you leave, it only makes them happy and awards them a sense of power over you that doesn't really exist. The Bobbsey Twins come and they go...they never stick around for long...so it's not worth paying attention to anything they say. I mean, really, who cares about the photos used in avatars...if they are current or not? They like stirring up the pot so ignoring them is the best revenge. Trolls crave attention and bickering, so if we all ignore them, eventually they'll get bored and go somewhere else.

Walter, it was the Raiders who drafted the Fresno St. QB Derek Carr, not Buffalo.

Come on guys, 2013 is OVER...move on to the 2014 NFL thread.

No, don't...please stay. If it helps, I did laugh.

Director of the worst Godzilla ever...and a night I will always look back on in horror. Seldom have I ever wanted to actually strangle the director as I was watching his piece-of-shit movie. The co-screenwriter of that 1998 travesty is now on record as admitting he and Roland screwed up. One of Jimmy Page's worst decisions, too, after years of being careful about letting Led Zeppelin music be used in films. I tend to blame his management at the time. As for the new "Godzilla", I want to like it...if only to wash the bad taste of 1998 out of my mouth. The initial posters and clips have looked promising. Godzilla at least looks like Godzilla and not some overgrown Iguana. But then those Taco Bell ads started popping up, with a ridiculous Barney-like cuddly Godzilla, and I cringed.

In anticipation of the new "Godzilla" opening this week, Rialto Pictures has been rolling out the 1954 original "Godzilla" in all its uncut Japanese glory, with all its subtext intact. Like "Star Wars", "Jaws" and other films of a certain nature, "Godzilla" is best seen on the big screen, towering above you. Here is a list of all the theatres and the dates that the original "Godzilla" is playing. Hopefully it is playing near you...take the kids. They'll thank you for it later. http://dailydead.com/theater-list-dates-godzilla-1954-re-release/

It wouldn't bother me one bit if I never heard "Black Dog" again. No matter how Robert tries to gussy it up it's never as good as the original arrangement. Same with "Rock and Roll" and some of the other warhorses. But Robert's right to be pissed off...that's why this Rolling Stone article is such useless garbage and the reporter just another incompetent boob. The guy gets a moment with Robert and with Robert just signed to Nonesuch Records and an impending new album in September, what do we get? The same old boring reunion question that's been asked a zillion times already. As Robert put it so bluntly at the Celebration Day press conference..."Schmuck".

I wonder if this clip will be one of those musical skits...like when Fallon has the real Bruce Springsteen accompany his "Neil Young"? Could it be Jimmy Page joining Fallon as "Robert Plant"? Anyway, here is a brief note about tonight's Tonight Show, which I thought an east-coaster would have posted by now, given that they're three hours ahead of me. No Jimmy Page. Not even a mention of him coming up on a future episode. Comic Louis C.K. was the first guest and talked about his boat and new season of his tv show. His slot lasted two commercial breaks and then it was Jack White and Neil Young. First they talked about Jack's automatic recording booth and Neil's new album that was recorded entirely using the booth. After a commercial break, Neil then demonstrated the process by going into the booth (Jack White had brought it from Nashville), and playing the country classic "Crazy" while it recorded his performance. After another break, they played the record on a portable phonograph. Neil's album, titled "Letters From Home", is being released May 27. Jack White did not play guitar. Wonder if Jack could get Jimmy Page to record something in his booth?

I find it hard to believe that Jimmy Page would cancel an appearance simply because of something that appeared in Rolling Stone. Hell, I find it incredulous that Jimmy even bothers to read Rolling Stone...it's a useless piece of fish wrap. Are we sure it's the real Neil Young and not Jimmy Fallon doing his amazingly spot-on Neil Young impersonation?

They're still about? Haven't really kept up with them in the last 10 years or so. Hope you enjoy the show. Plus, they're part of one of the strangest stories in rock n roll history: Richey Edwards. http://www.richeyedwards.net/ Tonight's (May 10) gig: Brian Jonestown Massacre @ The Wiltern...with The Three O'Clock and The Primary Colours.

Cincinnati...another sinkhole of a team. Good luck with your boy, jabe.

Missed the concert. Missed the speech. I'll have to experience vicariously through those that were there or hopefully YouTube clips.

Hate these early starts when Angels are on the road. They're at Toronto and the game started at 10 am PST. Missed the first 5 innings because I was out getting concert tickets.

Jabe, AJ McCarron is still available! Knew he wouldn't go in first round but didn't think he would last this long. Oh well, at least he isn't going to that sinkhole in Cleveland. Poor Johnny Football. "Welcome to Cleveland...oh by the way, one of our players will be suspended for the year for failing another drug test." Bwahaha! I like what the Raiders have done so far. Getting that Fresno St. QB really helps. Rick's Bills have added another running back, getting Bryce Brown in one of those complicated trades with the Eagles involving conditional picks. I have no idea what Jacksonville is doing. Another dismal year for them.

Prepare yourself for his loverly voice...it's quite distinctive and seductive to hear in person.

Scarf predictions? Polka dots? Geometric pattern? Monochrome? Black? White? Something he's worn before or will he break out a new one for the occasion?

WITH THE FIFTH PICK OF THE DRAFT THE RAIDERS SELECT KHALIL MACK OF BUFFALO!!! Easily the best Raiders pick since Woodson. Rick must be sick the Bills didn't get him. Now on to the real important matter: Who will be Mr. Irrelevant?

Or egg roulette! Golf on roller-skates! Karaoke or air-guitar face-off!