Review: King Kong

[AArdvark]

In order to make this more like going to the theater, I will preface the review with commercials and trailers. In this case, diatribes on public conduct and the reasons why humans as a species are doomed.

Rant number one:

I have come to accept commercials at the theater. That in itself should tell you how low we, as a people, have come. I do not want them in any aspect of my life. Unrealistic, but one can hope. I know what I would like to buy and need no catchy songs or shots of half nude people to help me decide. No amount of dancing, singing or bikini clad nubiles will entice me to drink a diet soft drink that tastes like malted battery acid. I HAVE tried it before and don't like it. Please remove the advertising from my brain cells now.. I think beer should be more like a recycle bin for the brain. Drink some and the bad things get trashed permanently.
I STILL have issues with the Beatles Revolution being used for selling sneakers, and that was quite some time ago, and another rant.
Apparently paying money for a movie only makes the commercials more risqué. Perhaps I will just close my eyes from now on if I ever go to the movies again, which right now, is questionable.

Rant number two:

After careful study, I have determined that the human species is suffering en masse from an increasing case of ADD. The party that sat in front of us
(and I mean party as there were ten or so of the cretins and they came to Tinseltown in a SUV LIMO.....losers.)
They could not stop talking in hushed whispers. Whispers guaranteed to carry five or six rows. Discussion of the movie in progress, just like they were at home or something. Another annoying practice is checking their cell phones every ten minutes of so. Apparently the modern American 20-Something can NOT be out of touch with the rest of the world for two to three hours. The lights from the cell phone displays were irksome in the extreme as they checked for text messages during the 'slow' parts of the movie. Perhaps people need the phone radiation as a boost or something.
THEN!
The matriarch at the party decided that she would go get a round of coffees for people. This was around 120 minutes into the movie. She got up, took the orders from anyone in the party that wanted coffee and proceeded to go into waitress mode. This is in the row in front of us. This is not a baseball game; this is not a sporting event, mind you. This is a movie. The primal urge to kill her and throw her bleeding body over the balcony rail was close to the surface. I had to unclench my pocket penknife and try a relaxation mantra. Very glad I was drinking un-caffininated soda or I might be writing this from the Gates police lockup.

I can totally understand the concept of the home theater. I also understand that the need for headphones in the next generation theaters is a MUST!


Movie review:

This is not a fair and honest review because the 1933 KK is one of my all time favorites.
For some reason I can’t find it on DVD. Probably because Cockbuster doesn’t carry it, and I haven’t looked all that hard.
This new Pete Jackson movie has just stoked my affection all the more. Ever since I saw the LOTR footage where he is directing in a blue parka I get him mixed up with that fat 'Columbine' and 'Bush sucks' director. But boy can he make a film.
Everything is perfect in this movie. Should be as they had 70+ years to get it right. The 1970's KK is a reference movie of what NOT to do.
I like the back-stories they put in, gives Carl Denham more motivation as to just why he's wants to make a movie in such a god-forsaken place, rather than just another location.
(In a sidenote, I could not get the song ‘people’ by Babs Strisand out of my head. This is because as a youngster my family would gather at my aunt’s house for Christmas and one year for some reason it was showing KK ’33 on the small black and white portable in one of the back bedrooms. As I watched it with the sound turned way down the song came on in the living room radio and I have somehow linked the two ever since. The images of Kong falling off the Empire State Building in grainy B&W with Strisand wailing in the background. Weird, huh?)
The fact that the new movie has New York at Christmas time just reinforced my mental, uh, bonding. I also like the depression scenes, telling us that times are indeed hard for a young out of work vaudeville actress.
Another bonus are the references to the original movie.
There is a scene in a taxi where Denham and his assistant are discussing alternate leading ladies for the next picture. The actress they had in mind has backed out at the last minute so they start brainstorming. They rule out actress after actress and end it with something like this..

Denham: 'No, we'll never get Mae West in a size four dress.'

Assistant: 'Who does that leave?'

Denham: 'What about Fay?'

Assistant: 'She's booked. I hear she's making a picture for RKO.'

Stuff like that makes me smile and smile!
Also check out the native dance number they do onstage at the Broadway theater, before Kong get's loose. The music is right from the native sacrifice in the '33 movie. I love this stuff!

Dinosaurs. OK. Let’s talk about the dinosaurs. The burning question is ‘Are the Dinosaurs as good as the Jurassic park dinos?’
JP seems to be a benchmark of dinosaur CGI quality.
I would say these are better looking; the CGI is really cutting edge. And since nobody really knows what dino skin looked like, I would say they did better than JP. The motivation of the dinos, however, is another story. It leaves something to be desired.
In one scene Kong is battling it out with no less than 3 Tyros or Allousours or whatever the large meat eating things are called. Three of them VS Kong. No matter what happens to them they still are single-mindedly after the girl. Dinosaur fall down into a ravine and hanging by those large ropy vines? Try to eat the girl. Large monkey got the dinosaur by the back leg? Try to eat the girl. Action packed, but a little too single minded.
Another thing that was a pleasant surprise is the use of huge prehistoric bugs. Never saw THESE before. And the pink things with the circular mouths, WOW! The audience as one was going EWWWWW! I bet the little kids there today are gonna have nightmares tonight. Why would someone bring a five year old to go see this is beyond me. Maybe they couldn’t get a sitter. I hope they need to spike the peanut butter with sominex. (That was gonna be rant number three but I only heard them one time and that was during the trailers.)
Anyway, go out and see it. I don’t know if it’s as good as Titanic, like I’ve heard or as good as LOTR like I’ve heard, but it’s good. Three hour running time and the movie puts every minute to good use. If only they had done the same for Harry Potter.


THE
I SMELL OSCAR
AARDVARK

[Worm]

Rant number two:

After careful study, I have determined that the human species is suffering en masse from an increasing case of ADD. The party that sat in front of us
(and I mean party as there were ten or so of the cretins and they came to Tinseltown in a SUV LIMO.....losers.)
They could not stop talking in hushed whispers. Whispers guaranteed to carry five or six rows. Discussion of the movie in progress, just like they were at home or something. Another annoying practice is checking their cell phones every ten minutes of so. Apparently the modern American 20-Something can NOT be out of touch with the rest of the world for two to three hours. The lights from the cell phone displays were irksome in the extreme as they checked for text messages during the 'slow' parts of the movie. Perhaps people need the phone radiation as a boost or something.
THEN!
The matriarch at the party decided that she would go get a round of coffees for people. This was around 120 minutes into the movie. She got up, took the orders from anyone in the party that wanted coffee and proceeded to go into waitress mode. This is in the row in front of us. This is not a baseball game; this is not a sporting event, mind you. This is a movie. The primal urge to kill her and throw her bleeding body over the balcony rail was close to the surface. I had to unclench my pocket penknife and try a relaxation mantra. Very glad I was drinking un-caffininated soda or I might be writing this from the Gates police lockup.

I can totally understand the concept of the home theater. I also understand that the need for headphones in the next generation theaters is a MUST!

The words "I AM GOING TO FUCKING GUT YOU" seem appropriate for this situation.

[MasterGrazzt]

tl;dr

[movie fan]

Reminds me of that scene in Tampopo.

You know, where the gangster's watching the movie. And the other guy in the theatre is eating a noisy snack. From hazy memory:

GANGSTER: What are those?
LOUD GUY: Barbecued Squid Bits.
GANGSTER: They sound good.
LOUD GUY: They are!
GANGSTER: If you make that sound once the movie starts, I will kill you.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

King Kong

**** out of 5

It was very long, but I'm happy to say that it used its time well. I caught this with danzaland tonight. Something happened to my system and we ended up having to make a pit stop where I ruined a Hess station bathroom. Generations to come will take two things away this evening -- first, that this is the best version of King Kong ever, the second involves the aforementioned restroom and the spent uranium rod I discharged, evidently, quickly thereafter.

Kong yells a lot, but is somehow less annoying than every movie Dakota Fanning has been in. Fanning: needs more chest beatings?

I thought Andy Serkis also played the one-eyed guy in the film. But he did not. He was Kong, however, in so much as he was Gollum. I love it when directors bond with their actors like that.

Charles Grodin made a cameo in my mind in this film, playing the role of every single person who got killed.