Walking through the doors of the Hyatt Regency O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont, a suburb just outside Chicago, and stepping into a round glass elevator with half a dozen strangers, I felt the words I hadn’t spoken in over a decade bloom rapidly, uncannily, on my tongue. Underneath that font, enough space to write in our names. G-FEST XXVII, announced our rectangular yellow badges, returning after a two-year hiatus that included a pandemic, a rebellion, an insurrection. In July, I was one of 4,000 attendees at the largest Godzilla convention in the world. Once there, they linger before continuing their journey to space, and briefly form the outline of a rose. As the viewer, you’re certain she is dying, until you realize that what first appeared to be sparks flaring off of her body are actually spores, dissolving and floating in the sky. The camera lingers on Biollante, by now an enormous, pulsating being of green vines, fearsome jaws, and human spirit, as she burns. In the film, after a terrific battle, Godzilla appears to immolate his sister with his legendary atomic breath. I was mesmerized and more than a little afraid. Midway on the van’s ceiling was a shelf: on that shelf, a tiny TV/VCR combo. The van’s interior was a deep, velvety purple that blurred the boundaries between us and the night, giving the impression that I was in some ancient, warm, ever-expanding cave. I remember the first time I saw Biollante onscreen, cocooned with my brothers in the dry air of our GMC van, idling somewhere in the winter dark. The result is a monster-sister forever fighting those from whence she came. After the resulting human-rose is nearly destroyed, the scientist melds her with Godzilla cells he’s stolen from a lab. Biollante (1989), a grieving scientist grafts rose cells to cells he’s salvaged from his dead human daughter. Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & Recreation.Best of Chicago 2022: Music & Nightlife.
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