am i big loser yet? yeah? okay. yep.
So, maybe I've become obsessed with the new King Kong...
I swear, if I see one more person say, 'How can a movie about a giant monkey/ape/generally incorrect primate reference be any good?', I'm going to FLOG EVERYONE ON MY FLIST! Seriously! Like calling Brokeback Mountain the 'gay cowboy movie', not seeing King Kong because it's 'about a giant monkey' is absolutely the most ridiculous and unfounded generalization one could make.
Like most of the world, I've seen the original. And, like half of the people who have seen it, I think it's absolutely hilarious. Fay Wray is beautiful and the special effects were damn good for the time, but the story is really very surface-deep, and who cares that Kong dies in the end. Ann Darrow never liked him, anyway!
Peter Jackson, however, turned that story into the most beautiful representation of the proverb they quote time and time again. And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And stayed its hand from killing. And from that day it was as one dead. Good old PJ turned the story into a deep moral question without ever throwing it in your face: Who's the real beast? Man or Kong? Special effects aside (need I say anything about effects when you've got Richard Taylor heading them up? I think that speaks for itself!), this movie was so much better than the original. Ann Darrow's connection with Kong, her love for him, is so strong that by the end of the movie I was crying so hard I had to cover my face to keep people from listening (I think everyone else was doing the same thing). I have never cried that hard because of a movie--even during Beauty and the Beast (the irony of this example does not escape me) when the beast turned into the prince and I was so scared of him I screamed and had to leave the theatre.
PJ took the necessary amount of time to establish the story, to establish the connection. That's not something that the original ever did. There was just so much to help pull you in. The subtle ways they learned to bond. The way Kong played hard-to-get after he defeated the V.Rex. Ann's comedic performance for Kong on the cliff. His delight in knocking her over. The tantrum he threw when she said, "NO!" The way he stretched out his hand for her when he was losing the battle against the men who wanted to capture him. The way he had a huge grudge against Jack. The way he looked at every blonde girl running from him, hoping to find his beauty. And when he found her (or rather, she found him), the way he stopped and watched and picked her up so carefully and looked at her as if he could not believe she was real. The pond in Central Park (I could hear the man beside me sniffing quite suspiciously around then). Learning the word 'beautiful'.
I'm not entirely fond of gorillas. My mom loves Jane Goodall and has always wanted to follow in her footsteps. I've never thought any primate, save for the human sort, was particularly cute or attractive. Might be the nose. But Kong--there was someting so perfect about him. The entire audience was as attached to him as Ann was. When he slid off the Empire State Building (thankfully dead instead of alive like in the first), the theatre was dead silent except for occasional disguised sobs.
That was three solid hours with virtually no reprieve from the exhaustion of one thing or another. Fights, deaths, captures, crowds. The dinosaur pile-up was the first spot where I had to cover my face and ignore it because dear PJ, bless his heart, does not know when to hold back! But who could complain? I can't. It was just... HEARTBREAKING. Makes me wonder how I'll react to Brokeback.
GODDAMN! What a movie. I'll be seeing it again with Lora. The two week break in between is definitely necessary.
K. More icons.
I swear, if I see one more person say, 'How can a movie about a giant monkey/ape/generally incorrect primate reference be any good?', I'm going to FLOG EVERYONE ON MY FLIST! Seriously! Like calling Brokeback Mountain the 'gay cowboy movie', not seeing King Kong because it's 'about a giant monkey' is absolutely the most ridiculous and unfounded generalization one could make.
Like most of the world, I've seen the original. And, like half of the people who have seen it, I think it's absolutely hilarious. Fay Wray is beautiful and the special effects were damn good for the time, but the story is really very surface-deep, and who cares that Kong dies in the end. Ann Darrow never liked him, anyway!
Peter Jackson, however, turned that story into the most beautiful representation of the proverb they quote time and time again. And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And stayed its hand from killing. And from that day it was as one dead. Good old PJ turned the story into a deep moral question without ever throwing it in your face: Who's the real beast? Man or Kong? Special effects aside (need I say anything about effects when you've got Richard Taylor heading them up? I think that speaks for itself!), this movie was so much better than the original. Ann Darrow's connection with Kong, her love for him, is so strong that by the end of the movie I was crying so hard I had to cover my face to keep people from listening (I think everyone else was doing the same thing). I have never cried that hard because of a movie--even during Beauty and the Beast (the irony of this example does not escape me) when the beast turned into the prince and I was so scared of him I screamed and had to leave the theatre.
PJ took the necessary amount of time to establish the story, to establish the connection. That's not something that the original ever did. There was just so much to help pull you in. The subtle ways they learned to bond. The way Kong played hard-to-get after he defeated the V.Rex. Ann's comedic performance for Kong on the cliff. His delight in knocking her over. The tantrum he threw when she said, "NO!" The way he stretched out his hand for her when he was losing the battle against the men who wanted to capture him. The way he had a huge grudge against Jack. The way he looked at every blonde girl running from him, hoping to find his beauty. And when he found her (or rather, she found him), the way he stopped and watched and picked her up so carefully and looked at her as if he could not believe she was real. The pond in Central Park (I could hear the man beside me sniffing quite suspiciously around then). Learning the word 'beautiful'.
I'm not entirely fond of gorillas. My mom loves Jane Goodall and has always wanted to follow in her footsteps. I've never thought any primate, save for the human sort, was particularly cute or attractive. Might be the nose. But Kong--there was someting so perfect about him. The entire audience was as attached to him as Ann was. When he slid off the Empire State Building (thankfully dead instead of alive like in the first), the theatre was dead silent except for occasional disguised sobs.
That was three solid hours with virtually no reprieve from the exhaustion of one thing or another. Fights, deaths, captures, crowds. The dinosaur pile-up was the first spot where I had to cover my face and ignore it because dear PJ, bless his heart, does not know when to hold back! But who could complain? I can't. It was just... HEARTBREAKING. Makes me wonder how I'll react to Brokeback.
GODDAMN! What a movie. I'll be seeing it again with Lora. The two week break in between is definitely necessary.
K. More icons.