response 1 of 342:

Dec 24 21:33 UTC 2005

Peter Jackson's KING KONG--

WOW!  I saw this last night and I can't think of another word to
describe it better.  Jackson, the Oscar winning director of the "Lord of
the Rings" trilogy, has made another masterpiece, a remake of his all
time favorite movie.  Jackson's "King Kong" is a visually stunning work,
with some of the more mind boggling special effects yet done in the
industry.  See this movie on the biggest screen possible, with the best
sound system.  

The Skull Island sequences are amazing, such as where King Kong rescues
the beautiful Anne Darrow from the clutches of not one, but three
Tyranosaurus Rexes.  The lonely Kong fights out of desperation, because
he's finally found companionship, he has bonded with the girl the
natives kidnapped and brought to him, and finally he has a friend, and
the world being a cruel place, as soon as he finds love and friendship,
there seems to be a conspiracy to take it away from him.   First its the
giant vampire bats, then its the dinosaurs and other creatures trying to
take her away, and finally its human beings.  

After Kong is captured and taken to the big city, and he wakes up from
his drug-induced sleep, his rampage is shown not as being one of anger,
but of fear.  He roams the streets desperately looking for his friend,
the one living being he's ever bonded with, scared and afraid that he
can't survive without her.

Jackson has given Kong a depth and a soul that the earlier movies did
not.  You get emotional at the cruel treatment of Kong by the human
beings, and the ending where he's finally found the girl and they end up
at the top of the empire state building, watching the sunrise together,
just as they did back on the island, and then the army planes come to
shoot him, is a real tearjerker.

There is great chemistry between the girl, wonderfully played by Naomi
Watts, and Kong, who is played in the close up shots, by Andy Serkis,
who was memorable as Gollum in Lord of the Rings.  The cinematography
and the sets are stunning, particularly the re-creation of Times Square
from the 1930's.  Peter Jackson has demonstrated once again that he is
the greatest director of epic adventure movies that has come along in a
long time.

Go see "King Kong", its a classic!  (five stars)

response 3 of 342:

Dec 25 01:14 UTC 2005

no.

response 5 of 342:

Dec 25 02:59 UTC 2005

King Kong is PG-13, isn't it, Richard?  Would you say it'd be too
intense for a 9 year old?  I guess he recently watched "The Matrix" at
his mother's house, which is rated "R".  I am not too happy about that,
but he survived it.

response 7 of 342:

Dec 26 02:19 UTC 2005

re #5 yes, it is a bit graphic.  But you could take him and just 
shield his eyes during parts of the fight scenes, like where Kong 
breaks the jaw of one of the T-Rexes with his hands.  Most of the 
movie otherwise would be fine for him, though keep in mind it is 
nearly three and a half hours long, if he has problems sitting through 
long movies.

response 9 of 342:

Dec 27 02:38 UTC 2005

          re#0

          hey you paedophile, stop paedophile activities here!

          wtf... u.s. of bastards, a country of fetid paedophiles.

response 11 of 342:

Dec 27 08:38 UTC 2005

hey can we also discuss movies made in other languages?

response 13 of 342:

Dec 27 13:25 UTC 2005

movies about monkeys are always funny.  remember congo?

response 15 of 342:

Dec 27 15:45 UTC 2005

Saw "Finding Neverland" and Friday- and it was... okay. I don't know if
I was just expecting more or what. Seemed a bit flat to me. Though I did
really enjoy the acting job the boy playing Peter did. I must say though
that my favorite scenes were the ones between JM and Mary.

response 17 of 342:

Dec 27 19:00 UTC 2005

re10: bwa!!!

response 19 of 342:

Dec 27 21:04 UTC 2005

Oh, and on Sunday (and again on Monday, though with a different
audience) watched "Must Love Dogs" with Diane Lane and John Cusack. The
story is that recently divorced Sarah (Lane) is being forced back into
the dating pool by her family (widower father played bt Christopher
Plummer). Jake (Cusack) also recently divorced, is pushed back into
dating by his lawyer/friend.

Sarah's sister lists her on an internet personals site- and Sarah has a
few entertaining dates, meets Cusack and it goes well/okay/badly and the
story just kinda meanders from there. The title comes from a line in
Sarah's personal ad that states 'Must love dogs' as a dating
requirement. The main dog is Mother Theresa- who supposedly belongs to
Sarah's brother- yet spends a great deal of time at Sarah's home. 

All three of the other people I watched this with (my hubby on Sunday
and my bro and SIL- who have three dogs) enjoyed it and thought it was a
lot of fun.

response 21 of 342:

Dec 27 21:21 UTC 2005

Brute!

response 23 of 342:

Dec 27 22:33 UTC 2005

Having seen the new version, I re-watched the original King Kong 
(1933), which was airing on TCM yesterday.  It had been a good while 
since I'd seen the original, and I was taken with several jarring 
differences with the Jackson remake:

1. King Kong in the original is quite mean and vicious.  He eats people 
and spits them out indiscriminately, yanks a woman out of her high rise 
apartment building, but then throws her to her death when he realizes 
she's not Fay Wray.  Kong is so mean that you have little sympathy for 
his getting captured and later dying.  

In Jackson's version, King Kong has a heart of gold, he only violently 
kills dinosaurs and other monsters who are attacking him or his friend 
(the girl), and only kills humans who are trying to kill him.  King 
Kong in this movie does not live to constantly fight, he is rather a 
battle scarred being who only wants to sit on his cliff and watch the 
sun rise, and to have his one special friend.

2. In the original King Kong, Anne Darrow (Fay Wray)is totally 
unsypathetic to Kong, she is terrified of Kong.  She does not talk to 
Kong, and is complicit in his capture and gladly goes to the theater 
back in NYC for Kong's exhibition.  She is glad Kong died.

In Jackson's King Kong, Anne Darrow (Naomi Watts) bonds very tenderly 
with Kong, learns to trust and love the big guy.  She stays with him 
cuddling next to him overnight and they watch the sun rise together on 
the cliff.  She is mortified when her shipmates attack him and try to 
capture him, and screams at them to leave Kong alone.  She refuses to 
participate in Kong's exhibition, refuses to even go near the theater 
where they are exploiting her friend, and they have to use a "fake" 
Anne Darrow to be introduced on stage.  They watch the sun rise on top 
of the Empire State building, and when the planes come to attack Kong, 
she throws herself in front of Kong in an attempt to get them to not 
shoot at him.  She cries crocodile tears when Kong dies.  She has lost 
her friend.

3. In the original King Kong, they make the egregious error of having 
the Brontosaurauses attacking and EATING humans.  EVERYONE knows that 
Bronotosaurases were vegetarians AND pacifists.  Of course they made 
the film in 1933 so maybe they didn't know better.

In the remake, the Brontos eat trees and plants, and do NOT attack the 
humans. 

4. In the original, the Skull Island natives were a bunch of actors on 
the lot wearing fake-ish indian getups.  In the remake, the natives are 
actual aborigines, as the movie was shot on location at an island near 
New Zealand.

5. In the original, Kong walks around on two feet at times like a human 
being.  In Jackson's remake, Kong always walks on all fours, like a 
gorilla should, and Kong is dirty and scarred like a gorilla living on 
that hellish island should be.  Kong also has to keep swatting the 
flies away from his face.

Both versions are well worth seeing, those are just some of the 
contrasts.