January 7, 2005 -- In its most eclectic issue yet, The Virginia Quarterly Review reflects on the 50th anniversary of Godzilla‚s release, relishes in the film kitsch of the 1960s, and provides analysis of current events, poetry and fiction from Pulitzer Prize winner, Carol Shields.

VQR re-visits early Japanese pop culture to uncover how the original Godzilla film reflects Japanese anxiety in the face of tense Japanese-American relations.  In “Godzilla‚s Footprint,” former LA Times writer Steve Ryfle strips away the Hollywood edits and clumsy dubbing in the 1954 classic monster film to find a haunting post-Hiroshima protest film that warns of the dangers of nuclear proliferation. The latest Godzilla film, Godzilla: Final Wars, will premiere in Japan this month.

“The Crossover Beard; or, the True Story of Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (Among Other Things),” is an offbeat confession by George Garrett, the acclaimed novelist and former poet laureate of Virginia, detailing his role in writing the screenplay for one of the worst sci-fi flicks of all time. Interweaving bits of the script with original correspondence with the producers and reviews of the film, Garrett creates a kaleidoscopic joyride through the seat-of-the-pants filmmaking of low budget 1960s double features.

Edgar Wright, writer-director of the recent hit Shaun of the Dead, writes “The Church of George,” a personal appreciation of George A. Romero‚s Dawn of the Dead. In describing his first viewing of the classic movie to his donning a latex costume for a cameo spot in Romero‚s latest zombie epic Land of the Dead, Wright shows that every great filmmaker is first and foremost a movie buff.

Stephen Boykewich, a Fulbright scholar in Moscow, takes a searing look at the Beslan school massacre and the political fall-out in Russia in, “Russia After Beslan.” Drawing upon dozens of sources available only in Russia, Boykewich portrays a much clearer picture of the situation than most other reports published in the Western press. His conclusions about Russian President Vladimir Putin‚s agenda are made all the more timely by recent events in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine.

“Segue,” the haunting, last story by Carol Shields, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Stone Diaries. Written at a time when Shields knew she was dying of cancer, the story is a meditation on the mysterious act of creation and the possibility of eternal life through one‚s work. Booker Prize-winner Margaret Atwood, in her introduction for the story writes, “Live she did and live she does; for as John Keats remarked, every writer has two souls, an earthly one and one that lives in the world of writing as a voice in the writing itself.”