Tag Archives: Sunday NIght Movie

Sunday Night Movie: King Kong

KONGSorry for being a day late on my Sunday Night Movie review but I’ve got a bit of a head cold and that has got be down and unproductive.

Anyway so Sunday night I watch King Kong (1933) this is a film that has been directly remade twice, first in 1976 and then again in 2005. In my opinion despite the advance in special effect technology neither of the re-makes touch the original film.

The story of King Kong is deceptively simple. A movie maker, known for making exciting nature films in order to capitalize on the public’s love of romance decides to make his next nature film with a lovely actress on a remote island when legends tell of a fantastic beast. The film is throughly a product of it’s time in respect to how the characters relate to each other, sexism is simply a product of their assigned roles in society, but the film transcends this and is a fantastic adventure.

King Kong truly was the Jurassic Park of its time. The methods used to creature the stunning effects were kept closely secret from the public with false information disseminated to ensure the secrecy. This film was made no long after sound became standard in movie making and there are many innovations at work in the film that forever changed movie making, The close beat-for-beat of the music with the action is something fairly new in King Kong. Watching the film on DVD I was amazed at how well most of the special effect stood up for a film made 76 years ago. The artistry is truly staggering. Willis O’Brien is the father of stop motion effects, a technique that has now been abandoned for digital effects, but made so many truly great films possible.

Peter Jackson remade the movie in 2005 and his was more faithful complete with a period setting to the original film than the disastrous remake from 1976, still there are many element to the 2005 Kong that I disliked. First he changed the nature of the character of Carl Denham, played wonderfully in the original by Robert Armstrong and in 2005 played quite well by Jack Black. In the 1933 film Denham is a film-maker/adventurer. A good man who is stand-up honest and faithful to his friends and people. In the 2005 version Denham has been transformed into a shyster, a con-man who is not to be trusted. There was no need for this change and I missed the original character. Secondly in Jackson’s Kong too much time is spend detailing the secondary characters of the film. Kong 2005 runs over three hours and is a decent movie, but a truly good two hours movie is hiding in it.
Frankly see the original. It’s a treat worth watching.

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Sunday Night Movies John Carpenter’s The Thing

So I sat down to consider which movie to watch as my Sunday Night Movie last night when I noticed that on my Netflix play now queue John Carpenter’s The Thing was going to expire on Monday. If I was going to watch it as a play now without the disc it had to be right then.
That was fine by me I was in the mood for a horror film.

John Carpenter’s The Thing (1981) is a remake of the Howard Hawks’ film The Thing From Another World (1951) and both used are their source material the story Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. I have not read the original short story so I can’t compare the films as adaptations, but these films are great moments in the culture when they were made.

The Thing From Another World was made shortly after WWII and the culture of the military and the deep faith in the US military infuses every scene of the film. These military men are America’s best and most noble resource. Courageous and resourceful in the face of a blood drinking monster from beyond the planet these men do not despair and do not quit. The scientists of the movie are not evil, not cackling mad scientists here, but are naive in the evils that can exist in this world, evils that these military are well equipped to fight. This film ends upbeat but the the admonition to “Watch The Skies.” Evil can come again at any time and we must always be vigilant.

John Carpenter’s The Thing while released in 1982 is very much a 70’s movie. The viewpoint of people in general is a cynical one and the military men are now seen as misfits and malcontents either lost in their petty power structures, stoned out of reality, or rebels doomed to failure. These military men are unkempt disordered and far from vigilant. Faced with terror and the unknown they are more prone to panic and paranoia than competence and action. The scientists while still not portrayed as evil as more useless and powerless before the alien threat. The film ends more cynically and without optimism. There is no admonition to watch for anything, because doom, destruction, and death are our fates.

These two films makes fro quite a contrast to view. The special effects in the 1982 film are far superior, but that is to be expected. John Carpenter’s The Thing is perhaps John Carpenter’s best film, and he was well served by not composing the music for this film. (The man seems to have a very limited library of musical themes and he has used them all to death.) This movie is not without flaws. There are scenes that are edited together in a ham-fisted way, causing the characters to appear stupid when they were merely ignorant. (These are very different qualities.) Despite the warts though the film is worth watching, particularly when seen in conjunction with the Howard Hawks classic.

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