Pick Your Poison

Which would you prefer, zombies or Godzilla? I was watching the original "Godzilla" movie and it just made me think, I would MUCH rather face Godzilla than an army of zombies. No contest. Am I wrong? Let us know.

Look at this guy. Roland Emmerich. He's ready to make a mint off of this, and I suspect he doesn't have the slightest understanding of the gravity of what he is involved in.

Zombies are about THE WHOLE WORLD falling apart. Godzilla, I mean, how much ground would he cover? Not even an apocalypse really. Godzilla would be more of a local problem.

But some people might be more afraid of Godzilla. I don't know. This is kind of an "open ended" post where we need you guys to finish it off. Thanks.

With a filmography chockfull of cataclysmic event flicks (2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla, Independence Day), Roland Emmerich has never been known for subtlety. While the historical drama Anonymous, about whether it was actually William Shakespeare who wrote all of Shakespeare's plays, may seem like a gentle new direction for the German filmmaker, it treats authorship with a degree of explosiveness that would make Michael Bay blush. We spoke with Emmerich about why he thinks Shakespeare was a fraud, preferring epic movies to small stories, and his plans for the end of the world.

You've said you believe that Shakespeare was a fraud. What's the most compelling piece of evidence?
There are so many. One, for example: Never ever was one letter found by this man. And you have to ask yourself: A writer who wrote 36 plays would have written at least a note to his wife home in Stratford and said, "How are the kids, babe? What's going on?" Or let her know that his life is going well in Southwark: "I just sold a play to somebody." You know? Another [piece of] evidence for me is, okay, his father was illiterate. So were his two daughters. That's very strange for a writer. Who comes from illiterate parents, went to school, became a learned man — one of the most learned men ever, a true renaissance man — and he doesn't want his kids to read his work? It's quite ridiculous, actually.

You're known for epic films. What do you love about maximalism?
Well, I like big ideas. That's probably what combines Anonymous with my other films. You know, "What if Shakespeare was a fraud?" Or, "What would happen if finally, in one big storm, we get the bill for all the bad things we've done to the environment?" Or, "Godzilla comes to New York." All big ideas, in a way, and you can say them in one sentence. And because of that, they catch me, and I know that's worth a movie, because in a movie, you need something like that. At the end, you have to have a poster and a short 15- or 30-second TV spot, so that's that.

[nymag.com]