tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post3582352299063554079..comments2023-12-18T23:20:31.042-06:00Comments on Scriblerus Club: King Kong (2005).PrisonerNumber6http://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-4847500881879053862021-09-24T17:20:30.983-05:002021-09-24T17:20:30.983-05:00(1) This idea kind of makes sense from a certain p...(1) This idea kind of makes sense from a certain perspective. I've said this before, and I maintain that LOTR is and remains an unadaptable text. The best you can hope for on that score is a guilty pleasure, like the Rankin-Bass/Bakshi trilogy, if at all.<br /><br />In terms of Jackson's own style, however, I can see what you mean. I think he let his work on "Rings" sort of go to his head in a way that started to prove detrimental to his own projects. It's like he keeps operating under the impression that everything now needs to be this BIG EPIC STATEMENT, while at the same time being popular, almost slapstick.<br /><br />To be fair, I think Shakespeare could have pulled it off. The problem is Jackson is definitely no Shakespeare (no matter how much he tries to invoke the latter's name in a film).<br /><br />(2) Now for the irony. I'm like the exact Trek mirror-verse opposite of that statement. In essence, I can see why SNL made fun of "Kong 76". It's just a film where nothing works, and that elicits a groan from me, mixed in with maybe one brief chuckle (and here I am thinking of the line "What's your sign"). I suppose it might have its own schlock charm, though as a connoisseur of that sort of thing, this just falls flat for me. Maybe its because I find the schlock of 33 to be more appealing, or something.<br /><br />(3) Now there's an idea. Too bad that's not what we wound up with.<br /><br />(4) Like I say, if the writing is there, then the actor has nothing to worry about. Turns out that's not the case here. I'm not even sure Bill Paxton could have helped.<br /><br />(5) Word.<br /><br />ChrisC<br /> PrisonerNumber6https://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-44344616447073137692021-09-24T12:43:15.877-05:002021-09-24T12:43:15.877-05:00(1) I don't dislike this movie, but I don'...(1) I don't dislike this movie, but I don't love it, either. It's fascinating as a perfect midpoint in style between the mostly-triumphant "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and the not-terribly-successful "Hobbit" trilogy. I adore the former; I can't say the same of the latter, which has elements that I love, elements I hate, and elements that baffle me. "King Kong" is a less severe version of that; what works works at a high level, but it does not all work by any means.<br /><br />(2) I am a little ashamed to confess this, but I don't have any special love for the original "King Kong." I do, however, have a decent amount of nostalgic love for the 1976 remake, which was on television enough during my formative years that that was how I became acquainted with the big ape. It's an imperfect film, to say the least, but I like that movie to this day. Just bought a new Blu-ray special edition of it, in fact, though I've not watched it yet. Worth existing if only for the score by John Barry! And for Jessica Lange, who, good lord.<br /><br />(3) I think treating Kong like Old Yeller is a valid direction for a remake to go. It also opens the possibility up for a later remake (and you know there will eventually be one) to go in the opposite direction and treat him more like a terrifying monster. <br /><br />(4) I would like Jackson's film a lot more without Jack Black in it. I don't dislike him, necessarily, he gives a decent performance; he's just very badly miscast. At some point, I had the idea that this his role ought to have been played by Bill Paxton, and I have never been able to get it out of my head.<br /><br />(5) I'm probably a little kinder toward the movie overall than you are, but I can't say you're on the wrong side of it, either. I'm glad Jackson got to make the movie, as it was something he had long wanted to do; but in the end, it's really just a bit on the irrelevant side.Bryant Burnettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01189356171455609865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-58568397920157722422021-08-29T11:06:32.334-05:002021-08-29T11:06:32.334-05:00(3) I think part of it has to do with the correct ...(3) I think part of it has to do with the correct genre classification. For a long time, now, I've been of the conviction that it makes more sense to view "Kong 33" as a straight-up Horror film. It's view that was more or less solidified by none other than Jackson, if you can believe it.<br /><br />He took the earlier film's lost Spider Pit scene, and gave us what has to be the closest we will ever see to an actual conception of that scene. The funny thing is, it's also the one time I can say Jackson managed to capture the soul of the original. It also happens to be Fay Wray's last performance (as a dinosaur no less!). The point is that it takes the original's aesthetic, and brings it very close to a quasi-Lovecraftian realm, lending the proceedings and interesting amount of thematic weight. It just occurs to me that I never stopped to mention any of this in the article. Oops. The full clip of what I'm talking about can be seen here:<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QV4xStZIQk<br /><br />The irony is sort o perfect in a way. The one time Jackson was able to find the necessary component his own film was missing was at the precise moment when he decided to live in the shadow of the original. That's got to be the most perfect commentary out there. For the record, though, I have seen fan edits where this sequence was spliced in perfectly.<br /><br />(4) I tend to be a bit more positive on CE3K, myself. Is it better than "E.T"? Doubtful. Does it do good enough for its own self? Yeah, I think so. I will say this,, though. In hindsight, it really should have been the late, great Francois Truffaut who went up into that space ship at the end. It would have been like the perfect tribute. <br /><br />(6) I'd heard of that one, though in the end, it can't add much for me. Instead, it creates another example of a situation I've been encountering a lot, lately. It's what happens when the concepts behind a story seem more intriguing than the final product. The ultimate sense of disappointment leaves the reader wishing to go back and find a better use for all the untapped potential that the setting and set decoration seem to promise. Or at least that's how it's been with me.<br /><br />(7) It would be something worth watching on a technical level, at least, even if just for a sense of old world charm. As for Spielberg, and think the comparisons are apt, as he seems to be hitting similar notes to Jackson, and making them stick a whole lot better. Also, they both collaborated on the "Tintin" movie, so there's that.<br /><br />As for David Lynch....<br /><br />...I don't see how you can copy any of that. His whole work is its own thing, more or less.<br /><br />ChrisC. <br />PrisonerNumber6https://www.blogger.com/profile/03156430802462353459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-49060815137593452062021-08-29T10:13:22.347-05:002021-08-29T10:13:22.347-05:00I mistakenly linked to the wrong post in my earlie...I mistakenly linked to the wrong post in my earlier review. For any interested in this sideroad, I heartily recommend:<br /><br />http://intothedarkdimension.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-leisurely-south-seas-cruiseto-skull.htmlB McMolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02706178983936146307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3917612005522287441.post-44588723876676461272021-08-29T10:11:22.856-05:002021-08-29T10:11:22.856-05:00(1) Hear, hear. I have little to add or respond to...(1) Hear, hear. I have little to add or respond to actually beyond I agree completely. But I'll try anyway!<br /><br />(2) I'll never forget my first viewing of "Dead Alive." Hoo boy that was a fun afternoon. Nor my surprise/ lack of surprise at how perfectly the LOTR trilogy turned out. I never saw "King Kong" - Jack Black had just begun to repel me around that time, I think - but I watched it with the missus in the early days of our dating and enjoyed it. It's definitely an emotional movie, but all the problems sketched out handicap it for me.<br /><br />(3) Your description of how the original "Kong" made you feel is very similar to how Dino de Laurentiis said it made him feel, hence his obsession with remaking it. Say whatever one will about those old classics, they had a power to communicate to young minds that the new ones just don't have. I think it's a combination of the black and white and early cinema aesthetics, in each circumstances, which lend it that mythological aspect. But who knows. Whatever the case, it works.<br /><br />(4) I recently rewatched "Close Encounters" and I wouldn't say it's a one-for-one comparison to "King Kong," but some of JKM's observations might apply to that one as well. Both flesh out things that ultimately might not have the impact to justify their conspicuous screen/script time, but both films have an enthusiasm for world-building within the frame that for the most part outpaces any disconnect it might create in the viewer. C3K more successfully, perhaps, if only because the times seemed to demand that movie, and only PJ demanded "King Kong." <br /><br />(5) " The film seems to be trying to make her and Kong out as a pair of lost souls who somehow manage to find each other. If that's the trope we're dealing with here, then it is possible to give it a fair chance. In that case, the question hinges less on originality, and more on how good the individual artist is at taking an old format and filling it in with enough of the right matieral necessary to help bring it all to life. In this instance, I'm not real sure that it was a challenge that Jackson was capable of rising to. " Quite agreed on this.<br /><br />(6) One of my favorite tie-ins with the movie got a nice treatment over here at this blog: http://intothedarkdimension.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-leisurely-south-seas-cruiseto-skull.html<br /><br />(7) "isn't it now sort of easy to imagine what a Lord of the Rings made by the same team behind Kong would look like? I find it more than possible to image a 1930s style, stop-motion animation version of the Black Riders, swooping in a charmingly jerky motion through the air on their flying steeds, before landing to give battle with the Fellowship. I get the impression that an image such as this is able to suggest the real sort of dynamic power and energy that Jackson was hoping to put on-screen for his audience. I have to admit that does sound like a pretty laudable artistic goal. I'm just not sure at this late date if Jackson was able to prove he had the capabilities to pull off such a feat. To start with, his imaginative horizons are different from those of the filmmakers of the 30s. " Quite an interesting obsrvation / what-if. I'd love to see such a thing, and I think you're right, the ambitions of either era are tough to square. Or rather, like Spielberg (I can't seem to stop commenting on Spielberg, here, instead of PJ) or Kubrick, or anyone, really (Bob Kane/Bill Finger, Siegel and Schuster, anyone) by trying to realize "better" the ambitions of his influences they could not escape the ambitions of their own era. Very few filmmakers do (David Lynch, maybe, and you see the lengths one must go to, there...)<br /><br />(8) All in all, a mixed bag indeed, but a sumptuous one! Nice write-up.B McMolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02706178983936146307noreply@blogger.com