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Threaded Responses [ bottom ]
 | ed [email] said at 6:26 AM 12-14-2005:
But... did you like it? |
 | huddo [email] said at 8:44 AM 12-14-2005:
wait...isn't this a remake Project X? Some kind of space monkey flick? I'm confused. |
 | art [email] said at 10:09 AM 12-14-2005:
Bedtime for Bonzo |
 | craig [email] said at 10:33 AM 12-14-2005:
There was a glorious review of this movie in the New York Times as well. The previews looked just like another masturbatory cgi fest.
I am pretty bored with most of the recent movies I have seen in the past few years. I can't say that I am a big fan of cgi, and unfortunately that seems to be the direction that Hollywood is going in. |
 | reggie [email] said at 10:41 AM 12-14-2005:
You know what Craig. While I pretty much agree with you I just pose the question what's really the difference between CGI in today's movies and stop-motion back in the olden days? It's just the new way of doing things.
I mean I don't really know what other direction you'd expect it to go. |
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| craig [email] said at 10:49 AM 12-14-2005:
An industry less driven by cheesy hollow special effects and more driven by original ideas, interesting plot, and great acting? Yeah, I guess you are right. I just can't seem to get excited by every new blockbuster that comes out everymore.
I'm not trying to be some cynical, joyless buzzkill, either. I really love movies. I respect the artform a great deal, but I am horribly disappointed with Hollywood right now. I walk out of every movies these days with this empty feeling. That's how it is after the not-so-special effects wear off.
At least back in the old days with stop motion, gifted make-up artists, animatronics and puppets, movies had a more unique, hand-crafted, hands on feel. Each movie had a more custom tailored approach to its special effects, visual challenges.
Can you imagine if they made a movie like Labyrinth today? You'd likely want to vomit. |
 | josh [email] said at 11:25 AM 12-14-2005:
I dunno man, I feel like you are just not remembering the crap that came out before... remember, only the good stuff (and the truly, monumentally bad stuff) gets remembered.
Hollywood has come up with some pretty good films in the last few years... Last year saw the release of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was amazingly creative and original (and used TONS and TONS of CGI), as well as : Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, I Heart Huckabees, Kill Bill Part 2, Sky Captain, Monster, Hellboy, Hotel Rwanda, the Machinist, the Passion, Spartan...
Not all of those movies were 5 stars, but all of them were notable or interesting in some way (and many of them use effects in interesting ways), and I believe they all came out of Hollywood or very-Hollywood-tied indies. |
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| craig [email] said at 11:36 AM 12-14-2005:
Well thanks for reminding me. I guess I am just bummed out by the recent Hollywood offerings. Aeon Flux was the last movie I saw and it was a suckfest. There is another Harry Potter movie out right now for the love of god. Chronicles of Narnia initially looked interesting but it got mediocre reviews, and since I have read the story many times, I know exactly what it will be about. It is purely the visuals carrying the movie, and there just doesn't seem to be anything unexpected there. I will probably rent it. I feel pretty much the same way about Kong.
Movies I want to see in the near future are "Munich" by Steven Spielberg and "Memoirs of a Geisha". |
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| josh [email] said at 11:44 AM 12-14-2005:
if we flashed back to 1985 i'm sure there would have been a ton of bad films released then as well. |
 | rick [email] said at 11:47 AM 12-14-2005:
Films of the summer of 1999:"Wild Wild West" "Universal Soldier: The Return" "Arlington Road" "Brokedown Palace" "The Haunting" Every summer has its share of cinematic excressence. |
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| josh [email] said at 11:54 AM 12-14-2005:
Every year, period, not just summer. Most movies that come out are not good. fact of life. |
 | milky [email] said at 11:48 AM 12-14-2005:
Good God, it was a box office slump that they refer to when comparing 2005. 1985 was a benchmark for suck I think. |
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| milky [email] said at 11:56 AM 12-14-2005:
Yeah, I rechecked...2005 beat the record slump in 1985. Suckage. |
 | meredith [email] said at 11:45 AM 12-14-2005:
I definitely want to see Memoirs of a Geisha. I'm wondering if I should read it first or not. |
 | myriam [email] said at 2:15 PM 12-14-2005:
It is a fascinating read. |
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| meredith [email] said at 2:29 PM 12-14-2005:
But if I read the book, will I appreciate the movie more or be dissapointed in it? Would it be better to enjoy the movie and then enjoy the book more afterwards? I am torn. |
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| myriam [email] said at 2:44 PM 12-14-2005:
I haven't seen this movie yet, but I do know from experience that 99% of the time it is better to read the book first. The reason for that is because it allows your rich imagination more play in getting depth out of the story. When you see the movie first, it seems you get trapped into cheating the book of it's richness (but not the other way around). |
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| josh [email] said at 2:50 PM 12-14-2005:
Hmm, I would disagree...
Most movies are not as good or as complex as the books they are based on. Thus if you read the book first, you will usually be disappointed in the movie and/or hung up on the differences. Plus, you usually know how it is going to turn out.
However, there is so much extra complexity, subplots and characterization in the book that reading it afterwards still means a lot of discovery.
The best cases are ones like LA Confidential or Bladerunner, where they really just used the book as a jumping off point to tell a different story, not really an adaptation. Though I could see, in those cases, how if you were a fan of the book first you might get hung up on the glaring differences and not enjoy the film.
I imagine it also depends on what type of story/genre you are talking about, as well. |
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| myriam [email] said at 2:57 PM 12-14-2005:
ha ha ha, i really disagree. oh well, guess it's up to meredith! |
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| josh [email] said at 3:10 PM 12-14-2005:
to me, a good example is LA Confidential... they took one of FIVE plots from the book and made the movie out of that, but changed it around some... the ending of the movie, for example, is the FIRST chapter of the book... and, in the movie, there are one or two big plot twists that you probably don't expect, that really make it fun.
if you read the book first, the plot twists mean nothing and you might be annoyed that 95% of the book is missing.
if you saw the movie first, you still get suprised by the twists (which are not written as suprises in the book because the book exists in the same world as Ellroy's other novels - for example, the fact that a major character is a bad guy is known in the book since he's been in all the books... but it's a huge twist in the movie), won't be disappointed at the "simplistic" storytelling... and if you go on to read the book, you will get a far, far more complex story with 4 extra plots you didn't even know about and about 95% more characterization and historical detail. |
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| myriam [email] said at 3:52 PM 12-14-2005:
When I see a movie first and then try to read the book, I get annoyed by the fact that the director has already selected his vision for everything and that subverts my own imagination when reading (it's hard to get the images of the movie out of my head and allow me to have my OWN creative vision when reading a story). This is my experience. A good example of that for me was High Fidelty; when I read the book after, Jon Cusack and Jack Black read aloud to me in my head; I simply couldn't shake them. That could have been because of Nick Hornby's thin storytelling, or it could have been the excellent casting choices of the movie; doesn't matter. The point is, for me, the movie image tends to supplant the book image. This is why my opinion is what it is. It seems such a very personal thing that I said we should disagree and leave it to Meredith. I don't really think there's a golden scientific standard for it. |
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| josh [email] said at 3:55 PM 12-14-2005:
i could see that for a book like that - i think the type of story probably makes a big difference, like i said above.
if it is a story that relies heavily on plot vs characterization/drama, i think having the plot ruined for you before you see the movie would be a big stinker. while if it's all about the characters, the movie might linger with you while you read the book. |
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| myriam [email] said at 4:27 PM 12-14-2005:
Ahh, I guess. I just realized that I don't think I ever read plot-driven books, so I can't think of a single example of the book ruining the movie for me.
I guess if they made a movie of "Out" I would be disappointed in the movie? Perhaps? ...Wait, no, I will still always enjoy the movie, because I would enjoy seeing the setting brought to life, and the realistic bloodiness of the slow dismemberment, etc...
I dunno. Can't think of a single example. I loved LA Confidential but never read the book so I can't compare to your original premise.
In any case, Geisha isn't a plot book, so regardless, I say read it first. |
 | zack [email] said at 12:03 PM 12-14-2005:
I thought Narnia was pretty good. |
H. Pommefrittes said at 2:51 PM 12-14-2005:
The first half-hour of "Narnia" is what makes the film worth watching. It has that whole wide-eyed childish wonder thing going on. |
 | anotherben [email] said at 8:53 PM 12-15-2005:
but king kong is out of new zealand..not hollywood. this is an amazing movie, and the special effects are pretty good too. |
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| josh [email] said at 10:45 AM 12-14-2005:
CGI is just a tool, the problem is many people use it shittily... and, as Reggie says, how is it different from stop motion?
The best films (on a technical level, i mean) integrate the CGI into the film, and use physical effects when physical effects are more appropriate... Land of the Dead, for example, used mostly physical effects from KNB but used CGI to achieve levels of "realism" with things like exploding zombie heads and severed limbs that you could not do with physical effects. |
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| reggie [email] said at 10:53 AM 12-14-2005:
One of things that's so awesome with this movie is that because of CGI, Jackson and crew were able to allow Kong to show a range of emotion which really added to the story.
TCM was showing the original Kong last night and I couldn't help but laugh out loud at some of the effects. Now obviously back in 1933 those effects were state of the art, but it just goes to show you how far things have come. |
Purple Penguin said at 11:04 AM 12-14-2005:
And how far they'll go... Imagine your grandchildren laughing at 2005's Kong. Assuming we haven't been wiped out by some global plague by that time. |
 | chrisx [email] said at 2:14 PM 12-14-2005:
Come on global plague! Yeah! |
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| anotherben [email] said at 8:55 PM 12-15-2005:
i rewatched the original the night before last, and was very impressed with the 1933 effects. the ape was kind of comical though. |
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| milky [email] said at 11:13 AM 12-14-2005:
Reg, I'm going to see this, but I'm of the school that some things shouldn't be tampered with...repeatedly.
Anyone who has had the misfortunte of trudging through the Universal lot in the early 80s understands. They remade the movie that was fine to begin with (save for some jackass destroying only print of the spider scene after the 1933 premier)...the 86's 'King Kong Lives.'
I guess...is this going to be more or less Peter Jackson's answer to 'Titanic' only with a giant gorilla?
Why's everything gotta be on such a grand scale? I already know how this movie ends. |
 | abby [email] said at 11:18 AM 12-14-2005:
because he felt like it, ok |
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| milky [email] said at 11:49 AM 12-14-2005:
boo! hiss! |
 | woody [email] said at 11:59 AM 12-14-2005:
Well, old Titanic movies had always suffered from poor special effects that could never convey the magnitude of the story. If Cameron accomplished one good thing, it was that. I have no problem with retelling a story like King Kong with modern tools if it ends up being a good movie on its own.
You just can't show movies with ancient special effects and get a genuine response from people today. You might say "those effects are great... for the 1930's." But there is no King Kong movie that a young adult could watch today and really be thrilled by it. So why not?
Remaking Psycho, on the other hand, truly adds nothing (except color). |
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| milky [email] said at 12:02 PM 12-14-2005:
Woody, I just feel like it's another "Fuck you, gimmie 10 bucks because I'll dazzle you with effects thing." I don't mind so much as I'm going to see this, but I'd see the original if re-released in the theaters. Maybe I am odd and in the minority. |
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| josh [email] said at 12:17 PM 12-14-2005:
Dude, Jackson has been talking about how much he wants to remake King Kong since he made Bad Taste in the 80s... It's not just something he's doing for the money.
In fact, he didn't want to follow up LotR with a big budget film, he wanted to shoot a smaller movie, but he decided that he would never have the clout to do King Kong the way he wanted again, without the heat of coming right off LotR. |
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| milky [email] said at 1:46 PM 12-14-2005:
I don't want to learn to love Kong. |
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| josh [email] said at 2:00 PM 12-14-2005:
what does this mean? |
m-man said at 3:33 PM 12-14-2005:
it means i'm gonna see the movie and like it but i don't want to. for some reason, i feel the need to hang on to some sort of unfashionable jadedness that is decidedly stupid and decidely immature, but nonetheless surfacing as age-inappropriate behavior for thirtysomethings.
i read the first Kong script before LOTR. i was living with kiche and reading aicn daily. i liked heavenly creatures and dead alive. my legs fell asleep in lotr and i saw none of the other movies. i know i'm missing something, but time was at a premium.
i'll like king kong, daresay, i may love it.
i know pj has had the ape on the brain most of his life.
i just wish it was something else. this is fine though, as i imagine his next project will impress me more on paper. |
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| woody [email] said at 12:20 PM 12-14-2005:
I'd see it too, but primarily as a way to experience a piece of cinematic history. You wouldn't really be on the edge of your seat, would you? |
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| milky [email] said at 1:47 PM 12-14-2005:
I might very well be. Not much about me is non-Martian. |
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| abby [email] said at 12:22 PM 12-14-2005:
wooaah milky thats pj you're talking about. take a chill pill |
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| woody [email] said at 12:23 PM 12-14-2005:
Also, when high quality 3-D becomes the normal way to view movies, I expect many "great" action films will be redone again, because the stories deserve it, and 2-D will seem lifeless. As long as they're well done, I look forward to it. |
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| milky [email] said at 1:48 PM 12-14-2005:
You know it's going to be a half-ass Lucas thing first which will spoil the experience. |
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| zack [email] said at 1:53 PM 12-14-2005:
actually, this movie is a really important personal thing for PJ, King Kong is the movie that made him want to make movies in the first place. By all accounts, it's a huge love letter to the original. It looks like it'll be really good, from all the footage I've seen. |
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| reggie [email] said at 12:18 AM 12-15-2005:
Yes you do but the journey this time is portrayed with much more emotional depth. So while the ending is technically the same, emotionally it's completely different. |
cousin daniel said at 3:47 PM 12-14-2005:
i'm holding out for King Kong II |
 | kevin [email] said at 4:00 PM 12-14-2005:
the retro apocalypse continues.
i wonder what original 90s and 00s movies will be remade about 20-30 years from now. |
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| milky [email] said at 4:05 PM 12-14-2005:
Someone is going to remake Pulp Fiction. |
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| milky [email] said at 4:05 PM 12-14-2005:
Someone is going to remake Pulp Fiction. |
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| josh [email] said at 4:26 PM 12-14-2005:
doubtful. why? films that get remade tend to be ones you can sum up in one line... like "guess who's coming to dinner?" (daughter brings her interracial boyfriend home to meet racist dad) or "the manchurian candidate" (what if a presidential candidate was brainwashed to be a spy)... or films where newer special effects can be shown off (king kong, the thing).
pulp fiction is a movie that is mostly about dialogue, dialogue that sounds kind of dated just ten years later. |
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| craig [email] said at 4:06 PM 12-14-2005:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. |
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| josh [email] said at 4:07 PM 12-14-2005:
movies have been remade since the 20s, if not before.
many silent films were remade with sound.
many serials were remade as feature films.
many b/w films were remade with color.
many films were remade as tv shows.
now films are being remade with CGI.
as woody says, once 3D is the norm, many films will be remade with that.
beyond that... remakes are nothing new... remember the King Kong and Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Thing remakes from when we were kids?
and how many times have Shakespeare's stories been retold? c'mon guys, everyone acts like remakes are some modern scourge... they aren't! |
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| milky [email] said at 4:11 PM 12-14-2005:
it's the retro-TV show film leaps that disturb me the most.
'Bewitched'? WTF? |
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| josh [email] said at 4:13 PM 12-14-2005:
makes sense, since big companies own studios and tv networks, etc... i'm sure they just scroll the lists of all their intellectual properties to see what they could maybe make some scratch off of |
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| milky [email] said at 4:17 PM 12-14-2005:
the big screen translations are suckage for the most part. i can stand remakes and even remakes of films that were lacking in some area.
I haven't seen the X-Files movie. Or the Twin Peaks one, so I can't pass a whole lot of judgement, but those two had episodes that rivaled the entertainment value of small movies.
Starsky and Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard, Bewitched, Charlie's Angels, Lost in Space...VOMIT. |
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| josh [email] said at 4:21 PM 12-14-2005:
well, x-files and twin peaks were both movies made by the creative teams behind the shows... so i wouldn't say they really count as remakes. i THINK that the x-files movie was basically an extension of the plot of the show, and you maybe had to see it to understand what the "black oil" was... i didn't see it, so i dunno... abby?
i didn't see any of the others besides charlies angels, which was probably better than the source material... though totally forgettable, i don't rememeber anything about that movie except that tom green was in it, cameron diaz shakes her ass alot in that one scene and i would bang her, and that crispin glover is pretty bad ass as the silent guy who knows martial arts. |
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| milky [email] said at 4:29 PM 12-14-2005:
I can agree with all of that.
Look, I just hate ads for X movie that everyone WILL love that I probably will enjoy...I think it's touching on what Craig doesn't directly reference, but it's the hype machine.
I'd rather studios make the damn thing and release it and if it sucks, well, they didn't waste all that money on a giant ad campaign. Christ, the ads for some of these movies could fund much smaller films. |
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| abby [email] said at 4:31 PM 12-14-2005:
x files the movie is a long episode in the conspiracy vein, and adherent to the show, just on a large scale with exotic locations and shit.
it shed a LOT of light on alien aeshetics, the syndicate, and pretty much the whole colonization. a great movie! my high-school photography teacher made us watch it all the time. |
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| ed [email] said at 5:26 PM 12-14-2005:
Fight the Future, baby.
I loved the X-Files movie, as well as the Twin Peaks one (Fire Walk With Me). I'm probably in the minority on the latter one, though.
Oh, snap! This sub-thread of responses has just reminded me that I must now Netflix all the X-Files discs so I can ditch the VHS tapes I made of the various X-Files marathons on FX.
There goes my queue, again. |
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| kevin [email] said at 4:17 PM 12-14-2005:
thanks... but what "original" 90s movies do you think will be remade?
i'm just curious what people think.
on the movies i saw dazed and confused the other day on the cable teevee and that movie is so rad every time. american grafitti 1970s. the opening sequence with the muscle car full of stoner kids cruising into the high school parking lot while sweet emotion plays is great. |
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| josh [email] said at 4:27 PM 12-14-2005:
i imagine friends will eventually be remade either as a show or a movie. other than that, no clue. |
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| woody [email] said at 5:09 PM 12-14-2005:
Will be remade in 3D:
Jurassic Park
The Matrix
Independence Day
Silence of the Lambs?
Braveheart?
Waterboy for sure. |
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| art [email] said at 5:10 PM 12-14-2005:
Showgirls |
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| woody [email] said at 5:11 PM 12-14-2005:
I was also gonna say that the Terminator movies will be redone in 3D, but damn, how could you ever recast that role? That's not to say somebody won't try... |
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| josh [email] said at 10:13 AM 12-19-2005:
arnold had his body and voiceprint scanned several years back for use in the future as a digital actor. |
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| zack [email] said at 4:41 PM 12-14-2005:
They actually improved on the source material with Body Snatchers. |
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| kevin [email] said at 5:37 PM 12-14-2005:
i was trying to think of this as we are 15 years from 1990, and very few things jumped out at me. the ones that did were tv shows like seinfeld etc.
i wonder if we are contributing less really great ideas and stories to popular culture or if we still aren't far enough away to see what they are/were.
the remake re-cycle just seems to be accelerating. whether it's music, movies, fashion, whatever. |
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| josh [email] said at 5:39 PM 12-14-2005:
in the 10s-20s movies used to be remade every few years. this was because people went to the movies every day since there was no TV, and people only wanted to see movies with the current stars. |
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| kevin [email] said at 5:39 PM 12-14-2005:
though for me this is probably because i remember the originals now. age and all. |
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| josh [email] said at 5:42 PM 12-14-2005:
i think with music its partially because rock and hip hop are both mature to elderly at this point... its not new shit by any means now |
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| milky [email] said at 11:35 PM 12-14-2005:
OK. I've seen it.
The work in this film will really knock ya drawers off. Peter Jackson's 'King Kong' worked.
As is the case with any Jackson film, though, the runtime was long. The story was told, no question, and I'm sure he trimmed every iota of fat he could without detracting from the original story.
Yes, the original story is hokey, but it works in the movie's favor: we know it's a hokey premise, but if you're gonna suspend disbelief, go balls out. Do it with style and class.
And it was done. There were some shots I always had problems with, and I can't imagine someone getting the effects done better given the constraint of...natural time. Seamless for the most part. How many times does Kong have to be done to be any better and seamless than this anyway? It doesn't.
I could've watched the Skull Island sequences over and over for 3 hours, but I would've been yearning for more. It did something none of the LOTR movies did: it entertained me, showed me not told me, and didn't bore me or put me to sleep.
Get your bathroom breaks out before the film and at the 175 min mark. Don't drink any soda. You will have to get up.
A+. Jackson did it. No complaints other than what I mentioned above, and those problems plague even my most favorite films. Can't do everything for everyone, but in this case, I think he did.
Go and see this. This is the definitive King Kong film. |
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| zack [email] said at 3:41 AM 12-18-2005:
agreed. This was fantastic.Right there with History of Violence as one of the best movies I'veen all year. |
 | pokey [email] said at 1:19 AM 12-15-2005:
I can't wait to buy the Director's Cut of this movie.
I just hope it is 40 minutes shorter. |
atchafalaya said at 10:14 AM 12-15-2005:
King Kong = Racism!
Newsweek and Slate.com: http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-oppin154551776dec15,0,2915817.column
Ahhhahahahaha! Reggie you sellin out! |
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| reggie [email] said at 8:17 PM 12-15-2005:
Interesting, though I must note that the white people who remove Kong from his natural environment and slap him in chains are made to look foolish when Kong liberates himself.
Anyway, isn't even more racist to automatically associate the image of an ape with black people? |
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| ed [email] said at 8:33 PM 12-15-2005:
Well, GWBush has made it automatic to associate chimpanzees with presidents, so there's a trade-off. |
atchafalaya said at 9:10 AM 12-19-2005:
Reggie, I agree. I didn't say it was racist, and am just poking fun at the idiots that did say that. But I do, as you hint, think that the people who are saying it's racist are likely racist themselves.
By the way, I went and saw it two nights ago and yeah, it's definitely a *wow* movie. Your review is right on. |
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| reggie [email] said at 8:41 PM 12-19-2005:
I know you aren't racist dude, you're just a conservative and that's only half as bad! ;) |
 | andrew [email] said at 2:39 AM 12-18-2005:
Nothing but predictability and symbolism (mostly racist). Zero suspense. Even the Brontosaurus chase was dull. i remember reading about all the new technology developed for Jurassic Park and thinking great here come the copycat dinosaur movies. How long ago was that. I felt like i was watching that stupid TV show Land Before Time that I used to hate. I'm sick of Peter Jackson wasting my time. |
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| zack [email] said at 3:40 AM 12-18-2005:
racist symbolism? |
atchafalaya said at 9:13 AM 12-19-2005:
Zack, Yes, it's silly. Reggie handled the response to this rediculous notion quite deftly in 204476 above. |
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| reggie [email] said at 12:28 AM 12-19-2005:
I'm sick of Peter Jackson wasting my time.
Hmmm, first of all, it sounds to me like you were pre-disposed to not liking the movie anyway. Secondly, Peter Jackson spends two years of his life (as well as a ton of weight) on making this movie and you're complaining about sitting down for three hours to watch it?
Nevermind that though.
For all of your praising of Syriana I could make a legitimate case that King Kong does a better job of selling Syriana's message than Syriana does.
How's that? Easy. King Kong isn't a story of the unspoken, unrequited love of a woman and an ape (which isn't really fair as it's more about the emotional void in each other's lives that is filled by the other.)
It's also about the lengths to which a man will go to obtain wealth and power.
Jack Black's character (Denham) puts every single person he claims to care about at risk so that he can be bumped up to a higher tax bracket and finally be accepted as a have. Is he really that far off from Matt Damon's character in Syriana who benefits financially from the death of his own son?
Or better yet, let's say we go the extra mile and take Syriana and substitute oil with, oh I don't know, a big giant ape, what's really the difference? Whether or not Kong is a giant ape or the merger of two of the world's biggest oil companies is pretty much irrelevant, the message is the same.
Now that I think about it, wasn't the seventies remake of Kong about the oil industry as well? |
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| ed [email] said at 12:49 AM 12-19-2005:
Awww, crap. Jack Black's in this movie?
It has likely just been demoted to Netflix fodder, now.
Man, I hate Jack Black as an actor. No, really. Someone point me to something to change my mind. Please? (Specifically not saying which movies he was in that I hated, so I get an unbiased range of recommendations.) |
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| reggie [email] said at 1:04 AM 12-19-2005:
Dude DO NOT REDUCE THIS MOVIE TO NETFLIX FODDER!!!!!
Half the experience of seeing this is to see it IN THE THEATER ON THE BIG SCREEN.
He actually doesn't really do the "Jack Black thing" in this movie. He actually gives a very restrained performance. And actually, the fact that you already dislike him as an actor may serve you better because he plays a fairly dispicable character!!!
ED DO NOT COMMIT THE CRIME OF SUBJECTING THIS MOVIE TO THE SMALL SCREEN!!!! PLEASE MY BROTHER I BEG OF YOU!!!! YOU'LL BE MISSING SO MUCH!!!
(I'm hoarse now from using all caps.) |
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| zack [email] said at 1:54 AM 12-19-2005:
agreed. You need to see this on the big screen at least once. This may actually also be the thing you need to see JB in. |
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| andrew [email] said at 3:55 AM 12-19-2005:
I tried to like King Kong, bought popcorn and everything, and then quickly became bored. the set of New York was interesting. But after the boat, oh man.
The first third of the movie was about making movies. this is usually a warning sign. Of course there are exceptions, but that usually means the movie is losing momentum. I really didn't care about that stuff.
then Part 2 of the movie, they discover the modified set of Lord of the Rings with dinosaurs now. Not interesting.
Part 3, they go back to New York and the very un PC Broadway show. Whether this was spoofing the Lion King or what, I don't know, but it was certainly very trite. and then the execution scene at the end.
It felt like a kid's movie that kid's won't like. To me the main problem was the lack of suspense. Basically the same issue with star wars 1-3 and mel gibson's passion. Also, Lord of the Rings kind of wore me out of Jackson. Part one i was bored but bemused. Part 2, bored but mildly entertained. Part 3, no thanks, I don't care how many oscars it whens. I just can't sit still for that long (in the case of King Kong knowing exactly what will happen). Alot of Kong was just about spectacle, but that is also a little passe for me. I mean, i've worked in New York for a while, largesse alone doesn't really entertain me. The love story of the ape and the woman was touching, but i really didn't feel like watching 3 hours of miserable plot towards a foregone conclusion. And the renedering was really not much better than anything I'd seen before.
Re: king Kong vs. Syriana- When the kid dies in the pool in Syriana, I thought of it more of a way of showing that even though the emir was so wealthy, he obvoiusly was spending his money well if he was having those kind of electrical problems. Just a sign of how unstable his operation was. I see the parallel betweeen Damon and Jack Black, both in pursuit of get rich quick schemes (which they feel will work). However, comparing the two films, the nuances of the oil business much more interestingly explored than the life of the 30 foot gorilla. I'm not going to watch King Kong again. Even if becomes the new Beastmaster of cable repeats, I'm not going to sit through that junk. |
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| andrew [email] said at 3:59 AM 12-19-2005:
the other thing that turned me off- the "Oh this is amazing" close up reaction shot. It was in there at least twelve times, and half the time it was for something stupid. |
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| zack [email] said at 3:18 PM 12-19-2005:
Woah, I thought I was cynical and disconnected from reality!
ps- the big stage show was actually "spoofing", or rather referencing, the original movie in design if not affect. |
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| zack [email] said at 6:04 PM 12-19-2005:
(not the lion king) |
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| andrew [email] said at 12:13 AM 12-20-2005:
well, blackface is still just as funny i guess, especially for a kids movie. |
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| reggie [email] said at 12:24 AM 12-20-2005:
Why is it you found this scene more offensive than I did?
A) It's an homage to the original movie
B) It's set in the 1930's, politically correctness hadn't even been invented yet
C) That one moment isn't nearly as offensive as the entire running time of Bringing Down the House or a single minute of video wasted on Lil Jon. |
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| andrew [email] said at 12:40 AM 12-20-2005:
A) Big Deal.
B) Political correctness is not necessarily bad. Star Wars would hoave been better without Jar Jar.
C) Millions of people will see this, and its going to be played over and over on cable for kids to watch. For the most part, King Kong has been presold. Lil John and Steve Martin don't have that much exposure or blanket acceptance. |
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| reggie [email] said at 8:40 PM 12-19-2005:
Okay that's all well and good but it just still feels like you were pretty much not going to like the movie from the get go. All the things you've listed above are valid issues but they're also the very things most people going to this movie (or this kind of movie) go to see.
To use a metaphor in very similar fashion to the one Josh uses, it's like going to a metal show and complaining that the music was too loud.
Or going to a strip club and complaining that there were too many naked women.
Or like going to Brokeback Mountain and saying it's too homoerotic (although according to one of my gay co-workers who's seen that movie it isn't gay enough.) |
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| andrew [email] said at 12:13 AM 12-20-2005:
Nope. The movie was just an over-hyped, poorly written lemon. The box office is saying the same thing. My mindset or predisposition has nothing to do with it. |
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| reggie [email] said at 12:27 AM 12-20-2005:
Oh the box-office means everything doesn't it. How is it poorly written? They add more emotional range and depth than the original bothered to even think about including. It's the writing that makes Kong more than a big dumb ape. That primate shows more emotional range and complexity than any of his male human counterparts. |
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| andrew [email] said at 1:40 AM 12-20-2005:
It was a boring movie. Maybe battling all those dinosaurs and savages was relevant on a metaphorical level, but it was too tedious. Sure King Kong defeats the T Rexs, that has a purpose. He's King Kong. But why do Brontosauruses chase the crew for half an hour? That's energy without purpose. The part where Kong is running throught the jungle carrying the girl was exactly like the stupid tree guy in LOTR. The film basically beats you down because its so long and slow developing, filled with banal metaphors and/or nonsense, and by the end of it, still boring. I just wanted it to be over. |
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| reggie [email] said at 11:11 AM 12-21-2005:
But why do Brontosauruses chase the crew for half an hour?
Okay, they weren't chasing them the brontos were RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES!!! I guess you didn't notice the velociraptor-thingies chasing them?
The part where Kong is running throught the jungle carrying the girl was exactly like the stupid tree guy in LOTR
What part are you talking about? He carries her around twice. Once when, ahem, SHE'S OFFERED BY THE NATIVES AS A SACRIFICE and then, ahem let me clear my throat again, AFTER HE'S DEFEATED THE T-REXES AND GETS OUT OF THE AREA MOST LIKELY BECAUSE THERE MAY BE OTHER T-REXES. Plus, it foreshadows Kong climbing the Empire State Building as a means to escape the chaos and violence on the ground just as after fighting the pesky humans and then the T-Rexes. All he really wants to do is chill out, eat trees and watch the sunset.
Kong doesn't WANT to be a dangerous raging beast he's forced to be because we, being the stupid humans that we are, misunderstand and automatically fear him. He's lived on this island for probably hundreds of years, is the last of his kind and has constantly had to fight off much more dangerous predators his whole life.
But oh well, what does it matter really? |
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| josh [email] said at 10:20 AM 12-19-2005:
I don't mean to be a dick, but how can you complain about predictability and lack of suspense in a film that is a remake? Especially when it's a remake of such a widely-seen classic?
I mean... don't we all know what happens at the end? He climbs the empire state building andddddd.... |
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| andrew [email] said at 11:35 AM 12-19-2005:
That just makes it more predictable. |
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| josh [email] said at 11:45 AM 12-19-2005:
What I'm saying is... how could you have expected it to NOT be predictable... I mean, that's like going to spelling bee and complaining that there were too many nerds there! |
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| andrew [email] said at 12:00 AM 12-20-2005:
The Superman movies were not predictable, although they easily could have been. |
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| josh [email] said at 10:22 AM 12-20-2005:
This doesn't make any sense... there have been like 1000+ superman comics, so that's 1000 stories to choose from... there are 100s of superman villians to use... No one (well, very few) has read them all.
There was ONE King Kong story. And we all know how it ends. It's like complaining about a version of HAMLET being predictable... Don't go see a film version of a story you already know if you want something that's not predictable. |
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| reggie [email] said at 11:13 AM 12-21-2005:
How were the Superman movies not predictable (and I'm sorry, as much love as I have for the original Superman movie that joint was really kinda boring.) |
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| josh [email] said at 10:19 AM 12-19-2005:
Haha, I love dumb reporters... I just saw an article about how the movie "failed to grab audiences" and said since it only made $66 million and not $90 like Spider-Man 2, it's not doing well... Whether or not it ends up witha huge gross, who knows, but the movie is 3 hours, which means less showings per day... which means less $$$. |
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| reggie [email] said at 8:30 PM 12-19-2005:
Yeah man plus it opened on a non-holiday weekday. Plus Titanic the biggest grossing movie of all time only opened to like $28 million. |
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