• Tokyo is rolling out the red carpet for Hollywood's Godzilla remake although the nation that gave birth to the fire-breathing monster is seeing the latest movie after it opened everywhere else. Godzilla, which opened in the U.S. on May 16, has grossed more than $488 million globally. The film opens in Japan on July 25. Director Gareth Edwards, present in Tokyo for the gala Thursday, stressed he merely had parented what is the child of Japan. "It feels like a homecoming," Edwards said. "His home is Japan." Ken Watanabe, whose Godzilla role is one of several appearances in Hollywood films, acknowledged pressure was high for how the film is received in Japan. "It might be a challenge for Japanese to accept this movie," he said after posing with a figure of Godzilla on the red carpet. He said some scenes show the wreckage of a giant tsunami, evoking painful memories of the March 2011 disaster in northeastern Japan, which killed nearly 19,000 people and set off the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. Edwards' 3-D Godzilla pays homage to the original, tracing the theme of the threat of radiation after America's atomic attacks on Japan in World War II. Although Godzilla has grown to be one of Japan's most iconic exports, its status in mainstream entertainment has waned in Japan. Toho Co., the creators of Godzilla movies since the first one in 1954, stopped making them after the 28th in a series in 2004. Watanabe said the film's late opening in Japan was because the Japanese take summer vacations later, and he denied it was intentional to avoid jinxing it by having the movie possibly fail in the land of Godzilla's birth.
• A bureaucratic error has put a Catholic church on a New York City street named after comedian George Carlin. Carlin skewered the Catholic Church in his act and gained fame with his foul-mouthed "seven dirty words" routine. After he died in 2008, fellow comedians proposed naming the stretch of 121st Street where he grew up George Carlin Way. Priests at Corpus Christi Church objected because Carlin used to mock Catholics and crack jokes about the parish priests. Under a compromise, one block was to be named after Carlin -- not the block where the church is. George Carlin Way became official Wednesday. Because of a clerical error, it's two blocks long and includes the church. City officials say the mistake will be corrected.
A Section on 07/11/2014