King Kong

King Kong (Director: Peter Jackson)













KING KONG won 3 Oscars:

Visual effects: Joe Letteri, Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers, Richard Taylor
Sound: Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges, Hammond Peek
Sound Editing: Mike Hopkins, Ethan Van der Ryn

Jackson did Lord of the Rings, which paved the way for this remake, something he wanted to do before tackling LOTR. This mega-blockbuster phase is what we've grown accustomed to with Jackson, but before all of the hoopla surrounding his last 4 movies, he did some pretty strange, interesting, non-commercial stuff--like the gutter-minded puppet film Meet the Feebles. And then there's cult favorite The Frighteners. He garnered his first real critical acclaim with Heavenly Creatures. And some may know his movie Braindead (or Dead Alive), a horror/comedy I haven't seen. Teaming up with his LOTR co-scribes Philippa Boyens and wife Fran Walsh, these three adapt the original story of Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace, which was the basis of the 1933 classic.

I must say that all of the talk about the box office slump has been a real downer. I have frequently read a ton of wrong information this year. The shape of the story went from "people aren't going to movies anymore and here's why" to "well, people are going to the movies, but 2005 still can't beat 2004," as if that was something to be concerned about.

I'm not bothering with the plot summary on this movie because we all know the story. But this is a movie that is special. It's real special. In fact, it's so special that people who write in to publications like Entertainment Weekly who state that they only watch movies on DVD nowadays will be missing an event on a big screen. This might be OK with them, but it's seriously not worth the hangup to miss this in theatres. I know there are several reasons not to go to a movie theatre in this day and age but if the industry perceives that the average joe is resolute in their boycott of theatres, we will never see a movie like this again if home video takes over. If sitting at home is perceived to be the way of the future, then we aren't going to see a movie that has everything that a paying customer wants out of a movie.

And it's a remake. It's how remakes should be done--honoring the first but integrating ideas that make the new version even cooler. There are so many thrilling, chilling moments in this movie, but ultimately, it's King Kong and Andy Serkis doing his motion-capture work with WETA that absolutely sells this. I asked in the Narnia review, "Are we ever going to beat puppets?" Well yeah, here, King Kong destroys puppets. The monster is so lifelike, that the tragic love story in which he gets entangled (with the luminous Naomi Watts) is all the more heartbreaking. This might be the guy version of Titanic. But women are going to be crying, too.

And so yeah, sure, this is only one of a handful of flicks this year that are worth getting into the car and driving out to go see, and paying the money, and putting up with the cell phones, and the sticky floors, or whatever the reason is that homebodies have decided to link to their entertainment preference. This is the best movie of the year, and you need to see it on a big screen. Go ahead, and wait for the rental, and see if you feel like the home video experience still somehow beats the theatre experience. Perhaps it's been more than a year since you've been, and you don't remember what it was like, and seeing Kong on a small screen will do it for you. Then, so does every other inferior experience seem like gold to you then, and you can't be helped, or persuaded. When the home video revolution that you've been waiting for takes over, you can help yourself to the sixth incarnation of The Lion King, or Charlie Sheen action pictures that he does in between takes of "Two and a Half Men," because you aren't going to see Kong-like pictures when the revolution hits.

So did I mention, go see it? Yeah, go see it.