Gojira Minus Zero!

I took the Metro rail into downtown Los Angeles yesterday to catch Godzilla Minus Zero in a true IMAX theater.

What an incredible, thrilling experience. Outstanding production design and special effects, as well as impressive sound design, and an old school Godzilla score. (I’ve seen films in this theater before and it sometimes feels like you’re in Sensurround.) 

Set in 1949, a few years after Godzilla Minus One, the film opens with a scene that immediately pulls you into the movie. It brings back many of the same characters and actors from the first movie, adds a few more, and creates character arcs and relationships that keep y`ou emotionally invested. In fact, Takashi Yamazaki, the writer/director of both films doubles down on the tearjerker factor as well as the anti-war message that has always been core to the original Godzilla story, even portraying horrific scenes of the aftermath of the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in flashback. Like the first film, the human characters and stories get as much screen time, if not moreso, than Godzilla himself.

Anyway, this film is a spectacle that definitely should be seen on the big screen (and in IMAX if you can swing it!) 

As an amusing aside, I will also note that in this film, and another 1940s’ era movie I recently watched and enjoyed, Pressure (about the D-Day landings) both had meteorologists as central pivotal characters!

Grand Tour 2026 – The Photos

I've re-posted at this blog my reports and photo galleries from my recent trip to London and Paris under the tag Grand Tour 2026. Below are all the links to the full photo galleries for this trip.

Or visit our single Grand Tour gallery of about 180 of the best photos from the trip. 

London Calling, Part 1

Departure and arrival in London

First Day Tour (Oct. 15) – Royal Albert Hall / Buckingham Palace / The Mall / The Changing of the King's Mounted Bodyguard / Westminster Abbey / Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) / Globe Theatre and site of Old Globe Theatre / Tower Bridge / Tower Bridge / Borough Market / Kensington Gardens

The Mousetrap (St. Martin's Theatre, West End)

Imperial War Museum    

Going Down to Liverpool – Liverpool / Magical Mystery Tour – Penny Lane; Strawberry Field; Paul McCartney's childhood home; Cavern Club / Beatles Statue, Pier Head Waterfront on River Mersey

London Calling, Part 2

Sherlock Holmes Museum, 221b Baker Street / Imperial War Museum / London Eye / Elizabeth Tower / Hay Fever (Wyndham Theatre, West End) / Hilton London Hyde Park Hotel / Eurostar to Paris

Paris When It Sizzles, Part 1

Gare Du Nord Train Station / Gare Du Nord Train Station / BW Premier Trocadero la Tour  Hotel 

Versailles

Paris When It Sizzles, Part 2

Notre Dame / Shakespeare and Company / Passy (hotel area) / The Louvre 

Paris When It Sizzles, Part 3

Musée D'Orsay / Musée de Legion d'Honneur / Galerie Lafayette (and terrace) / Passy (hotel area) / The Invalides (Napoleon's Tomb)

Bandes Dessinée 

London and Paris Videos

 

Bob Roberts Revisited

Actor Tim Robbins’ experimental theatre group and non-profit, the Actors’ Gang, is in my community and, last night, the venue hosted a screening of the first film Robbins’ directed, Bob Roberts, as part of its Late Night Fridays series. It certainly felt relevant given the recent election.

Over the years of attending events there, I’ve occasionally seen Robbins there, and even chatted with him—in fact, he attended UCLA when I was there, so I saw some of his work there, along with actors who are still part of his repertory company. He wasn’t there last night, but a few people who worked on the movie were, including Robbins’ brother, David, who co-wrote the numbers in the film, with titles like “Retake America,” “Complain” and "The Times They Are a-Changing Back." The music from the film has never been released as a collection because Robbins didn’t want to risk the songs being appropriated and used out of context.

I don’t believe I’ve seen Bob Roberts since its release in 1992, but for anyone familiar with it, the movie is eerily prescient. In fact, I’ve resisted revealing one of the most frighteningly prescient moments in the movie since it’s a pivotal scene and would be a major spoiler.

The movie is a dark satirical mockumentary that depicts the rise of a far right folk singer and politician named Robert "Bob" Roberts Jr., running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. A lot of actors early in their careers, many of them friends of Robbins, appear in the film, including Jack Black in his first movie. Also in the cast are Gore Vidal (as the incumbent senator Roberts is running against), Ray Wise, Alan Rickman, and Giancarlo Esposito, and in smaller cameos, Susan Sarandan, James Spader, Peter Gallagher, Helen Hunt, Fred Ward, David Strathairn, Pamela Reed, Bob Balaban, and John Cusack.

The film is both funny and chilling—but I’m glad I watched it AFTER the recent midterm elections!

Our Grand Tour 2026, Part 9: Off the Beaten Track

A few final odds and ends from our trip to London and Paris…

Traffic in both cities was a total chaotic free-for-all of vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists—it was common to see business people on bikes on their work (or perhaps on their way to lunch or meetings, often on electric Lime bikes) darting in and out of traffic and swerving around moving vehicles. I had one flagrant ignorant American tourist moment when a green walk light turned red on me while I was taking an iPhone video lol—a van gunned towards me when their light turned green and I am not exaggerating that I would have been hit had I not quickly hopped onto the curb lol. (To be fair, the pedestrian lights do not flash to warn pedestrians the light is about to turn red—they just turn red.)

Though the weather app called for rain most days, at worst we had a brief light drizzle a couple days. Because of that unpredictable North Atlantic weather, however, the cloud cover made for spectacular photos.

We did not know our mobile devices automatically tracked your steps until our daughter told us when we got home (I thought it had to be set up). We averaged walking more than 6 miles a day! 

We had heard Parisians love late dinners and nights. After dinner on our last night, when we got on the Metro at around 10:45 p.m., the Metro was PACKED shoulder to shoulder! (It was like that as well when we headed out, which was admittedly during rush hour.)

Our hotel in London was in a pretty hopping area, right next to an Underground Station (Queensway) and around the corner from a narrow lively street full of fast food and ethnic restaurants and other shops. In contrast, our Paris hotel was in a quiet neighborhood called Passy—we later discovered that Passy is a rather posh neighborhood (there was a small Chanel store down the street) where Benjamin Franklin and Balzac both resided. At first we were concerned we were away from food and convenience stores, but we soon discovered that, like many Paris neighborhoods, there were plenty of local cafes and restaurants. In the mornings, we would see people on their way to work and children with their au pairs/nannies. 

In fact, we discovered an underground market across the way—and on our last day, when exploring further, discovered that there was a modern two-level underground mall underneath some old classic buildings—one of the stores was a huge toy store! We wished we had more time to explore the neighborhood—in fact, we discovered a comics store on our last day there (but it was closed.)

Our Grand Tour 2026, Part 8: I Love Paris in the Fall

As mentioned in an earlier post, we took in the usual sites in Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, a cruise on the Seine, Versailles, the Louvre. Our travel agent booked us in small tour groups that allowed us to skip the line and have a private French guide who led us to many of the highlights before we were left to explore on our own. This was helpful as my wife has been to France before and remembered the Louvre being overwhelming—in fact, the Louvre Tour cleverly ended at the room that displayed the Mona Lisa. Btw, security at these venues were very tight, especially at the Eiffel Tower (where they had TWO security checks!)

The sheer scale of these sites were no doubt intended to instill awe and splendor, so mission accomplished. The size of the grounds of Versailles itself is staggering. (To be fair, at its height, it was the working place of the government where the king could keep his eye on his minions, housing around 5000 people.)

On our own, we visited Notre Dame, the Musée D’Orsay and, next door, the Museum of the Legion of Honor and Orders of Chivalry that we noticed across from the D’Orsay (and free!). The D’Orsay happened to have its first comprehensive exhibition of American impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt. I have to admit that, in addition to visiting the Cavern Club in Liverpool, the Cassatt exhibition was a highlight and very moving

As was a fantastic after hours light show at the Dôme des Invalides, where Napoleon’s Crypt openly rests in a place of honor at the center of the building in a well. This hadn’t been on my radar at all, but my wife heard about a light show at the Dome called Aura Invalides. (Like the D’Orsay, we purchased tickets at the entrance on our mobile devices just before the show started.) Napoleon’s place in history and his relationship with France has always seemed complex to me, so it’s interesting to see him honored here with such a magnificent tomb. I should add, the crypts of his two brothers and a few others also are prominently displayed.

Our Grand Tour, Part 7: In Search of BD

While in Paris, we toured the Eiffel Tower, took a cruise down the Seine, visited Versailles, the Louvre, Musée D’Orsay, and the Legion of Honor. We also attended a fantastic after hours light show at Napoleon’s Tomb.

But priorities—I also visited comic book stores! 

In preparation, I Google mapped comics shops and bookmarked them before our trip. During that search, I came across the well known Forbidden Planet London Megastore and two stores in Paris’s Latin Quarter (which apparently is essentially a Frankified college town): Album Comics and nearby Pulp Comics. (By the way, the Paris stores are also within a stone’s throw of the English-language bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, founded in 1951, which took its  name from the one founded in 1919 at another location on the Left Bank, which closed in 1941. We stopped by there as well.)

All three are fantastic comic book stores with diverse selections, but surprisingly very focused on American mainstream comics. At Forbidden Planet in London, they were  well stocked with perennials like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. And when I visited, Forbidden Planet was hopping! I was impressed by the number of young people there (both teens and young adults), often in groups, talking about comics they were reading. I also noticed parents with their children.

But I really wanted to check out the native country’s comics selections. At Album Comics, I did purchase some French language comics I found.

After leaving Album Comics, I then visited Pulp Comics only about a block away. Then as I left the latter store, across the street, I spotted by happenstance what turned out to be what I was truly looking for, a separate Album sister store that focused on French language comics: Momie BD! (BD stands for bande dessinee, the French name for comics. There is also a nearby Momie Manga store.) 

As you’ll see from my photos of my haul, I went a bit nuts there! My primary goal was to buy a Ric Hochet comics album—I posted about Ric Hochet awhile ago, originally a ‘60s-era world traveling journalist who encounters adventure and mystery, who also happens to coincidentally resemble my own lead character (or, rather, the other way around). New Ric Hochet adventures are being published, the first few being translated in English, which I purchased as Kindle books and loved. Sadly, they stopped issuing English editions only after a few issues, but I recently realized that I could use my iPhone’s native Translate app to read them (an app, I should add, came in handy on this trip).

Anyway, the other legacy comics series I picked up was a comics adaptation of Lupin (based on a Japanese manga and animated property that itself was partly inspired by an old French gentleman thief character) and Michel Vaillant, about the adventures of a race car driver that I also was familiar with. The rest were all new and unknown to me, but the art was terrific. (The draftsmanship and technical craft of European cartoonists are amazing.) In fact, after the first visit, I even returned the next day to buy more. Even my wife was impressed by the comics, and I purchased an album and some merch (a Tintin pin) that interested her.

On my second visit, I also realized that just next door was a small shop that specialized in vintage and collectible comics albums, called Aaapoum Bapoum—though American comics were well represented, they were all French language. (You’ll see a Will Eisner/Spirit section in the photos.) I asked if they carried any Terry and the Pirates, which the shopkeeper then pulled off a bookshelf for me to look at, which you'll also see in the photos.

As an aside, I initially planned to bring some of my own comics just to share with the stores. However, when I looked into it, there were some custom laws that I found a little daunting, particularly in England, that seemed to technically require me to declare that I was carrying commercial goods that might be subject to VAT tax. At the end of the day, although I believe I was below the taxable thresholds, I decided not to risk any trouble with customs. All that said, when we arrived in London and Paris, aside from normal security checks, we encountered no checks whatsoever entering the countries. In fact, having gone through TSA at LAX, there was no security check when we stepped off the plane in the U.K.—all us passengers were just waved through. I only planned to bring two or three copies of each of my trades and some issues; in retrospect, I probably could have done so without a problem. I did bring along some promotional postcards and business cards, and shared them at Momie BD.

Our Grand Tour 2026, Part 6: Paris is Burning

After London, it was off to Paris!

We opted to take the Eurostar train into Paris rather than fly—my touchstone for this train was the first Mission:Impossible film lol. The ride was a lovely experience, but unfortunately, I encountered no espionage or nefariousness, only tourists and commuters. But it was cool to leave the UK and go through its passport exit controls at St. Pancras International Station, then walk 20 feet or so to enter France through its own border control and security. So once the Eurostar arrives in Paris at the Gare du Nord station, you just step off the train and you’re on your way! I wryly noted to my better half that our two-and-a-half hour trip took the allies nearly three months to travel in 1944. But of course we didn’t face hedgerows and the axis war machine.  

I’ll get straight to the first question people have asked about Paris—we felt perfectly safe and saw none of the clashes. We arrived the Sunday of the protests, so likely missed the worst of it. That said, we did meet other fellow Americans who told us that they saw some of the mishigas and encountered some closed venues. But I assume revolutionaries have to work during the week too!

Nevertheless, one of the areas we visited for dinner clearly had been part of the protests because we saw boarded up businesses, some police presence, defaced monuments, and lots of graffiti. (My wife noticed the acronym “ACAB” spray painted many places—she learned it stood for “All Cops Are B*stards.)

We later learned that we were staying in a somewhat posh part of Paris (Passy), and noticed a local Chanel store and some other businesses boarding up their windows, even though I don't believe we were anywhere near the protests. We realized afterwards they were doing so as a precaution in anticipation of this weekend’s protests.

And to bring it full circle, our tour guide at Versailles connected the present day protests to the 1789 French Revolution by noting that Versailles was partly built to take the government away from the intrigue and unrest of Paris—remarking that, politicians then and since, have learned, "Never piss off the Parisians!”