King Kong:reviews

[Doh!]

So who was the better digital actor this year, Kong or Yoda?

By the time I saw "Sith" I did accept Yoda as a character (although still prefer the version in "Empire", rubber or not), and he has the advantage of speaking English (Middle Earth-inspired or not)... BUT, because we only know the new Kong as a CGI creature -- and they pulled it off pretty damned impressively -- I'll give the overall advangtage to him.

Now it's off to Best Buy to purchase the original on DVD. I enjoyed the hell out of the remake (although many parts were way over the top) but for me, the 1933 version is still "king" (pun fully intended).

 

[zeus36]

Saw it Friday night before Christmas with my gal and was regretting spending that much cash on the film during the first 40 minutes. But I started getting into the film during the approach to the island and was pleased for the remainder of it.
I don't care for Jack Black in any movie and especially in this one. I kept thinking, "wrong casting" for the first hour. Also the excessive dialogue between the first mate and the young crewmember annoyed me, as did the way too numerous close up shots of Black and Watts.

I love action, but when you have too much action in a film, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s like being on a roller coaster too long and you get numb. Some of the scenes went so fast that I gave up trying to take them in.

Cut out the first 45 minutes and trim the sailor dialogue and close-ups and I would recommend the film to everyone. But as it is, I would not see it again in the theaters.

On the plus side, Kong seems very real, the island had interesting creatures, and the final scene with the airplanes was great.

Maybe viewing it on DVD where I can skip over certain scenes and study others would cause me to rent it and take in the film at a different pace, but I don't think I would buy this on disc.

 

[fedoralover]

I too thought there was a lot of stuff that didn't add to the film other than to make it too long. But I thought the best part was how they got you to really feel sorry for the big ape. The expressions on his face I felt were pretty good. So good they made my wife get a tear in her eye when the big boy slipped over the edge. It could have been an excellent 2 hour movie as it is now its just a good overly long 3 hour movie.

fedoralover

 

[Zemke Fan]

Hair CAN (wrongly) date a movie.

Agreed on most points. I have to say the make-up was too modern on Watts...especially the lipstick. Hair was terrible. Watts has flyaways like I have never seen in a golden era period film....even her show girl look! Don't even get me started on Brody's hair.

Yeah, MK, but what a looker Ms. Watts is... whew!

Interesting little side-note: Just bought copies of Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia for Christmas. One of the interesting bonus features on the Dr. Zhivago DVD was an interview with Geraldine Chaplin. She lamented the fact that so much time went in to recreating the look and feel of the Russian revolution and post-revolutionary Russia (sets, costumes, locations), but that they used 60s hairstyles. Sure enough, Julie Christie's hair (alone) dates that film to the mid-1960s.

BTW, what a looker Ms. Christie was... whew!

 

[Doctor Strange]

I have noticed that - with remarkably few exceptions - hairstyles are virtually *always* contemporary to when the films are made in costume films, whatever era they are set in. Be they sword-and-sandal flicks, religious epics, Shakespeare, pirates, you name it. And it's the same in sci-film films about the future: see the slicked-back hair in the 1936 "Things To Come", and the blow-dried shags in the 1976 "Logan's Run" for examples.

Even when the costumes are vaguely (or reasonably) accurate, the hairstyles and makeup are usually way off, often just barely attempting to suggest the look of the time... and sometimes not even trying that. If you're even slightly up on the standard "looks" for each half-decade from the early thirties until now, you can usually easily place when a costume film was made just by looking at the hair! (Of course, the color processes used, film aspect ratio, props, expressions heard in the dialog, style of music, and so forth, provide other clues.)

 

[jake_fink]

Doctor Strange,

What you say is true. On the Sopranos, Kirk Douglas' flat-top in Spartacus was remarked upon, and I just watched Meet Me In St. Louis which, as wonderful as it is, has some jarringly out of period hair-dos (like that brilliantined pomp on the boy next door). I think Faye Dunaway in Chinatown looked pretty period accurate, as did most of the characters in Paper Moon.

I think Curtis Hanson, in his making of comments on the LA Confidential disc, gets at the reason for this. He said he wanted to make a period movie that felt contemporary so as not to lose the contemporary audience. Perhaps for that reason characters are left straddling the period costume on the one side and the contemporary hair and make-up on the other.

Anyway, except in outrageously obvious examples - like when Robert Redford shows up refusing to comb his hair before he plonks his hat on - I don't think most mere mortals notice. Only the super sharp eyes of the FL catch most of the transgressions.

 

[MK]

.

I agree many period films fall short, but being that make-up is my field, I have to disagree some what. Like any craft in the motion picture business...be it cinematography, costume design, art direction...you name it....about 50% will make a decent effort, 20% will do a really good job and 20% will create an amazing work.

These movies I consider belonging in the last catagory when it comes to make-up:
Tucker
The Aviator
Cinderalla Man
The Untouchables has only one flaw that I can think of: Costner's hair apears to have a 30's-ish cut...but it is too fluffy.

 

[Twitch]

A couple things. The Chinese guy in the original was Charlie, the cook. When everyone piled into the boats to go ashore after Ann Darrow was nabbed by the natives they told Charlie he couldn't go. The modern character got to go.....and was killed.

I don't know how much else was the exact same but the electric advertising in Times Square had a Chevrolet sign, same as the original. I think we'll see lots more duplicate details when the 2005 DVD comes out.

 

[DanielJones]

Daniel - According to my dad, who grew up in Manhattan in the 20s/30s and was very much a movie and theater buff, there was *never* an Alhambra Theater on the east side of Times Square. (He said there was a theater with that name in NYC, but it was either far uptown or in the outer boroughs.) So, I'd say that's an example of the film's creative license in terms of recreating 1933 New York.

Thank you sir, that is what I thought. So Cinderella Man got that street scene more accurate. I noticed a lot of similarities between the two street scenes, like the AUTOMAT for instance.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[MK]

.

This is how Watts should have been made up for a 30's look:

 

[DanielJones]

Yes, if she was going to have a portrate photograph taken. Not everyone got dolled up just to go out, and just having lost her job she wasn't thinking of makeup or how she looked, but just surviving. Personally I think they got that detail right. Oh, I would agree that that would have been the way they were shown back then in the movies, with the makeup just right and not a hair out of place, but even in a fantacy film they tapped their roots in a small amount of realism for this Kong. Take a look at the candid photographs (not the professional portrates) taken durring the Depression. Folks may have dresses well with what they had, but the truely poor didn't don the makeup but for special occasions. My grand mother on my Pops side was well off enough that she could get dolled up just to go to the store as to keep up appearances, but she was one of the fery fortunate few.
But hey, that's just my two cents.

Cheers

 

[MK]

.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Don't forget that she was on her way to a job interview/audition as an actress.

 

[jake_fink]

I finally got to see this today and I liked it a lot. The representation of New York in the 30s was really exciting, almost as exciting as all those bugs on Skull Island. I saw the original Kong with my dad when I was 8 and I wish he was still around now so we could see the new one together; it perfectly captures the spirit and excitiement of the original. Also, I think Jackson has raised the bar significantly for depicting the past on film, creating an almost immersive experience rather than a string of tableaus. Nice!

Okay, some of the costumes and make-up were off, but so much more was good.

PS Shouldn't Naomi Watts have had less eyebrow hair? Or none at all, just a thin penciled-on line?

 

[DanielJones]

Cheers MK!

Dan

 

[scotrace]

So How Is The...

This is how Watts should have been made up for a 30's look:

How's the Production Diary set? I just got the original Kong special edition DVD set (AND the Gone With the Wind Collector's Edition), but passed on the Diaries, pending a good post-holiday sale someplace.

Have you had a chance to watch yours, MK?

 

[MK]

.

I have watched most of it. They are very cool. It is like no other documenting of a movie....ever! I have worked on film sets for twenty years and still learned a few things about other crafts that I didn't know.

 

[CoffeeDude]

I just saw the movie and give it a rousing ... "ok". I prefer the 100 minute original flick over the butt numbing three hours special effect extravaganza. Not to mention saving myself nine bucks and a lot of eye rolling. The story line was a bit thin to begin with, but when you double the film length, you end up with "Apes on Ice". I certainly hope Mr. Jackson doesn't have an extended version of KK up his sleeve. However, if he does, I might consider renting it just out of morbid curiousity. Now that I think of it, my curiosity isn't that morbid. I'll keep the rental money and spend my time for something more useful / entertaining.

 

[scotrace]

LOVED IT

Just back from seeing it and it was the best film I've seen in a long time. Old New York was astonishing, Kong was simply amazingly believable. Viewed from the "was he a believable gorilla?" angle. YES.
Extremely neat how they made it... the original, as they would have done it had they the tools. And how they snuck in parts of the old film, like the music at the Kong showing in New York, and the natives in that part matched the natives on Skull Island in the original - NEAT! When I was a kid, I tape recorded the audio from TV and listened to it a thousand times, so it was easy to pick out the matching stuff.

On the way home, between raving, I found myself saying "but" a lot.

But the hair and makeup were all wrong. Driscoll's hair bugged me no end. Jack! Get a HAIRCUT! The hats were... where the hell did they find such BAD HATS? MK, I think Naomi Watts had a bulbous nose, which made the makeup all the more difficult.
But the outright cruelty was hard to watch.
But it was 30 minutes too long - my background is all live theatre and I could still easily see cuts. The original was economical, tidy. This film is self-indulgent.
But Jack Black sucks scissors. What's with Jackson and his one oddball cast member? Like that mumbling weasel Viggo Mortensen. And that mugging ninny Jack Black. Hated the Carl Denham character, hated Jack Black more. He lent the entire picture an "Animal House" feel. I was waiting for him to make a fart joke. He should stick to B comedies.
Still, a GREAT film. Can't wait to buy the DVD, and I HOPE it's extended. I'm going to buy the production diaries.
Thank GOD I didn't take my kids. They would have had nightares for a week. The spider pit scene would have done them in.

 

[Lincsong]

A Roosevelt Dime?

Was that a Roosevelt dime that Denham handed the fruit cart vendor? Because I thought this movie took place in the 1930's and the Roosevelt Dime wasn't until the 1950's.(?) Anyway, just an observation from a neat freak. Happy New Year?:cheers1:

 

[Zach R.]

I agree with the oddball actor in every Jackson flick comment, but if anyone was the oddball in Lord of the Rings it was Liv Tyler instead of Viggo Mortensen. I have never seen someone's accent fluctuate so much in so little time as Liv's did..