Crafted from four fake Christmas trees, chicken wire, green mesh, and a fog machine, Treezilla -- a smoke-breathing Godzilla tree -- is really something to behold! Its creator, Steven Newland of New Zealand, recently sold it in auction for $415 NZD (approx. $269.58 USD). A bargain!

It's really something. Watch it in action:

And, apparently, Steven is going to reveal his latest Christmas tree masterpiece soon, according to the questions and answers section of the auction.

We have a xmas revealing party at mid December with mates for this years tree. I don't want to give it away, but we now have a 10month baby so now I have a prop?

Color me intrigued.

Related: There's a car horn that roars like Godzilla

(Geekologie)

screenshot via Steven Newland Read the rest

The Los Angeles Times has a harrowing new story about Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Japanese forces invaded the small Pacific nation and its residents during World War I, and the United States did the same during World War II under that classic guise of "liberation." But the US was hardly acting altruistically, at the time nor since then. The islands' location made it a prime strategic military base in the Pacific. It was also isolated enough to make it a convenient nuclear testing site—if you disregarded the 72,000 people who lived there, of course.

Between 1946 and 1962, US military experiments produced 108 megatons of nuclear yield in the Marshall Islands— about 80% of the country's total radioactive waste output from nuclear testing. That's the equivalent 1.6 atomic bombs dropped every day for 12 years. And after the US decided to gradually cede control of the land back to the Marshallese people, we just kind of … left it all behind.  We were kind enough to pour a bunch of concrete on top of the 22 million gallons of nuclear waste left behind on one specific island, creating the Runit Dome.

But that dome is still there. And the concrete is starting to crack. And sea levels are rising rapidly, particularly in the Pacific, further accelerating that erosion process. Now the Dome—affectionately and appropriately called "The Tomb" by the locals—is threatening to leach all of that nuclear waste into the land and the ocean.

I realize that an island-sized nuclear waste dump called "The Tomb" in the middle of the Pacific Ocean sounds like some straight-up Godzilla sci-fi shit. Read the rest

One of you out there needs your vehicle ("car, truck, van, boat, RV, motorcycle, ATV, golf cart or any 12 volt supplied power source") to roar like Godzilla, I just know it. So, you're welcome.

The Godzilla Roar Car Horn is available from Boom Blasters ($39.99-$59.99).

Thanks, Maggie!

Godzilla image via The Wrap Read the rest

This amazing aquatic Godzilla cosplay with lights and flotation is the creation of Labinnak & Mangoloo Cosplays in Virginia. Wowza! Read the rest

I don't ask for much from a Godzilla movie other than it be ridiculous. Big explosions, Kaiju and doomed citizens running to and fro before being crushed underfoot or by a building are mandatory. In the latest trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, there's plenty of that. That it also offers up CCH Pounder, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, and Stranger Things' Millie Bobby Brown is icing on the cake.

We'll have to wait until the end of May before we can see how goofy this glorious-looking flick gets. Read the rest

Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters continues the trend of making classical music EPIC by turning Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune" into a spine-tingling blast of EPICness. Here's just the track as a standalone: Read the rest

Japanese actor Haruo Nakajima who rocked the Godzilla suit in a dozen movies died on Monday at age 88. Above is the last video of Nakajima as Godzilla for a 1983 photo shoot. Read the rest

Behold, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

The original Japanese version of the film, Gojira (which few Americans saw until a decade and a half ago when it first appeared on DVD), was produced in 1954, just nine years after we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. When the heavily Americanized version of the film came out in 1956 it had been retitled, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

About the Japanese version, Gojira, film scholar Tim Lucas writes [the film is] “dark, melancholy, crushing, and relentless” in his late lamented magazine Video Watchdog (Special Issue 2, 1995/96).

On Wikipedia, Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka is quoted as saying, “The theme of the film, from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb. Mankind had created the bomb, and now nature was going to take revenge on mankind.” Thus Gojira is a dramatic embodiment of the earth’s rebellion against man’s stupidity: a blow-torched stomping rumination on the horrors of the atomic age,

The idea of a big rubbery monster emerging from the ocean sounds silly, however Gojira is anything but. The destruction it causes, though the special effects are primitive by today’s standards, is genuinely horrific. You might be one of those folks who chuckle at the marvelously-crafted miniature cities being destroyed by what is obviously a guy in a monster suit, but if you think about what it really means, your laughter should catch in your throat. The film has a prominent anti-nuclear message and is one of the earlier films to shove it right in your face. Read the rest

Meet Haruo Nakajima, the 87-year-old fellow who wore a Godzilla suit for the classic Japanese monster films from the 1950s through Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972).

Read the rest

Grant Gould is probably most well known for his Star Wars trading card art and illustrating two Star Wars books, Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Draw Star Wars: Rebels. He's also the creator of the original comic series Wolves of Odin and has done awesome art from just about every fantasy and scifi series out there (and even some pop culture characters too). Read the rest

Godzilla, like our inner self run amok and gone berserk, just needs a warm mug of cocoa and a good hug. Ethan Gilsdorf on Hollywood's latest rendering of the kaiju classic.

A new trailer for the new Godzilla movie, out May 16, just hit the internets. Looks promising, and will be offered in IMAX 3D for pants-crapping thrills. From the Hollywood Reporter: Read the rest