Review: King Kong (1933)

Directors: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack

Starring: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, King Kong, Island Natives

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024216/

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more, I'm going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization merely a captive - a show to gratify your curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World."

-Carl Denham

In the 1930s, the public eye was captured by a wild, untamed beast, savage in depiction and unruly in nature. He lived on an island full of dinosaurs – the Island Lost in Time – and he was hunted by brave souls risking their lives for the sake of romance and fame. You simply can’t get any more classic then this film, people. King Kong is it, man. The very definition of a classic film. King Kong has that old style adventurous spark that you just don’t see any more.

It’s sad. To think movies like this were once the norm and then just kind of died out is tragic, as it really is a great formula. This was a movie from a very different time period, where everyone wanted to explore the unknown and find out what every dark crevasse in the Earth had to offer – and often, they were scared of such things. Fear of the unknown never stopped them from exploring it in fiction – which is really the best medicine for fear. King Kong is based on the idea that there was an island where dinosaurs still existed and where a giant ape reigned as an idol and cast fear over natives that wore loincloths and war paint. It is idealistic and fantastical like many films from the time were. It’s an escapist piece, but it brings the danger close enough to home to make the audience gasp, to make the ladies clutch their husbands’ arms a little tighter and to make everyone edge a little closer to the screen, hands clenched, brow getting hot.

It’s this kind of formula that never gets old. You put a woman in danger and the men will come and save her. These days you get a lot of feministic ramblings that tell you that women shouldn’t be objectified or viewed as helpless or weak at all, but I don’t really agree. Just because a woman is put into a dangerous situation from which a man has to save her doesn’t mean anything about women in general. Men can be put into those situations, too. It’s not about the gender of the person being put in danger; it’s just about the danger bit. We like to see people put in danger, only to be rescued by someone who loves them, in the nick of time. And being a guy…well, I can relate to just about EVERY OTHER GUY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD when I say it’s easy for a guy to put himself in the shoes of the hero swinging on that vine to save the chick from imminent doom. But it could easily be a girl saving a guy and probably wouldn’t lose much in translation. But I digress, anyway.

King Kong is also just so black-and-white morally. Kong saves Ann from the clutches of those bad old dinosaurs, but he is never really given much humanity aside from the few brief glimpses here and there, rare occasions when you do get a spark of intelligence behind his monstrous visage. He’s more of a sad, misshapen aberration; you feel for him in the way you feel for a dog that’s about to be put down. In the end he’s an animal, a show piece for Mr. Carl Denham, who really, really needed that last push to stardom. I mean…he really needed it, you guys. And there isn’t much of a dilemma about it. Kong isn’t humanized enough for us to see him as anything more than a captured animal. Which puts the focus more on Ann and Jack, who are almost ready to put the past behind them and get married until Kong strikes again, the bastard. There you go – unless you’re some kind of PETA associate, Kong won’t be the emotional core of this picture for you.

Have I mentioned how much I like Jack Driscoll? He’s a man’s man; an old school sailor who embodies every old cliché and makes them all absolutely wonderful. He’s initially pretty demeaning towards women, but then, he’s really just trying to cover up his soft spot for pretty Ann. Everything he says is delivered with his chin jutted a little bit out and a suave layer of confidence in his voice. He’s the kind of guy you’d expect to be sitting on his porch 30 years later talking about how things just ain’t the same, bitter because everything’s so much easier than it was in his day. And I always like guys like that. They have good work ethic. They know what it’s like to bust your ass every day and soldier through the hard times, and that’s why Jack Driscoll rules. Plus, the guy went through a jungle and battled DINOSAURS to save the girl he loved. That’s hardcore.

Carl Denham is a man who I wouldn’t trust with my children. He’s got a twinkle in his eye like he can come up with a plan at any time, and when that one fails, he’s got another one. I don’t think he really saw any of this – the bloody, savage natives, the prehistoric creatures that by all logical means shouldn’t exist anymore, the giant mutant ape that takes young women as sacrifices – for what it was. He just saw dollar signs and gold bricks in their place. When his first plan to make a movie failed, he turned right around and found a different way to make money. He won’t take no for an answer, and that’s how you get famous. Although I doubt Denham was very popular anymore after Kong ravaged the entire city and put countless lives in danger. But that’s a different can of worms. Denham has personality, with the added italics to boot. He can convince you to do all the crazy stuff he wants, because he’s charming, well mannered, manly and doesn’t seem insane at all. And that’s downright horrifying when you consider the events that transpire in this film.

This movie rules. The scenes in the middle with the group sailing through the lake on the island with dinosaurs all around them prove it. It’s pure adventure and old-school, classic excellence. One of the films everyone needs to see before they die. Five giant man-slaughtering apes out of five.

Review: Ed Wood (1994)

Director: Tim Burton

Starring: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Jones, Lisa Marie

"I just want to tell stories. The things that interest me."

-Ed Wood

You know, I don’t get Tim Burton. It’s been a while since I’ve seen his much lauded The Nightmare Before Christmas opus, but the ones I have seen recently are all messed up, quality wise. He puts out a great movie like Batman, then the awful pile of hack that was Batman Returns. These days he puts out dreck like Sweeney Todd and then entertaining flicks like Alice in Wonderland, defying all expectations. I hate some elements of his style, but even I can’t deny the power of some of his best films. Like Ed Wood. Yup, that’s all you’re gonna get for a segueway.

Ed Wood is just masterful. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a film like this…oh wait, it was when I watched The Big Lebowski a few days ago; scratch that. But this is still a very accomplished and well done flick. It’s about the life of Edward D. Wood Jr., one of the worst film directors of all time, and it chronicles his journey to attaining that wonderful honor. It’s even shot in all black and white, just like films back in Ed’s time were! Guess who the lead actor is?

a)     Nic Cage

b)     Dennis Hopper

c)     Johnny Depp

d)    Keanu Reeves

If you guessed “c”…well, duh! It’s a Tim Burton movie! But he does a very good job as our energetic, quirky director, even cross-dressing on camera. Yes, that’s right. Johnny Depp cross dresses; you have to see it to believe it. His acting here is really good though, capturing an innocence that is usual for the characters Burton has him play, but also a certain subtlety that seems to escape both of them in their later days. I think my favorite, though, is Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi. He really does a spectacular job, channeling all the hopelessness of an old washed up celebrity and making him totally likable and amiable. Just watch the first scene where Ed is over at his house, where they watch the old re-run of one of Lugosi’s films on the Vampira show. He starts doing this thing with his hand that apparently, all vampires have to do to seduce women. And the look on his face when the trick-or-treater isn’t scared by his Dracula get up is priceless. This is the best character in the film by far, but that isn’t saying much, as the others are all still very good, too.

Jeffrey Jones as Criswell is hilarious with his stoic expression and calm tone. Bill Murray as “Bunny” is a smaller role, but every scene he’s in, you can tell he’s having fun, and you will be laughing along with him. Sarah Jessica Parker as Delores is pretty damn solid, too, and she shows a wide range of emotions and moods that are just hysterical combined with Wood’s happy-go-lucky act. And Lisa Marie as Vampira is priceless…hell, I could go on listing every member of this cast; it’s really phenomenal. What a great cast.

The story chronicles the haphazard adventures of the making of three of Wood’s much storied films, from the ‘true to life’ story of Glen or Glenda, in which he turned a contract from a porn studio to put out a sex-change movie into a rambling, incoherent mess of his own personal demons, to the making of Bride of the Monster, where he and his crew stole materials from a bigger studio but did not actually have the equipment to make them work right, and finally to Plan 9 From Outer Space, which…well, I’ll go into it later. With every quickly-filmed scene, every messy execution and every mistake, Wood just repeats the words “That was perfect!” and moves on, eager to keep filming. He just loves telling stories, and he doesn’t care how sloppy he gets. “Nobody will notice that,” he says indignantly, shooing off any criticism. What’s going on in his head? I don’t know. But that good natured smile and those wild eyes are poised to succeed no matter how bad he ends up sucking. He’s just unstoppable, even when the rest of the world hates him.

This movie is mostly pretty funny, but I have to admit it gets pretty sad at times, too, like when Bela is committed to the rehab center, and spends his first night awake, screaming his head off. And his final scene out in the yard, being filmed staggering around and smelling flowers…well, just try and watch that scene and tell me you weren’t touched.

But he passed away, as he did in real life, before the filming of Plan 9 ever started, and life went on. How does Ed deal with it? Just like in real life, he hires some guy who looks nothing like him to walk around with a cape in front of his face, obscuring the fact that it isn’t really him. Some of Ed Wood’s best scenes occur in this last segment, the filming of the infamous crown jewel of B movies, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and that’s quite a feat. I think the scene where they all get baptized is my favorite in the entire film. And Ed’s explosion in front of the Baptist sponsors is classic, his voice hitting a squealy high that is really funny.

“Do you know anything about the art of filmmaking?” asks one of the Baptists, to which Ed replies, “I would hope so!”

That pretty much sums up the entire movie right there. Ed Wood is a vivid, hilarious, witty and extremely clever look at a very strange man. I haven’t seen all of Tim Burton’s movies yet, but of the ones I have seen, this one is the best, by far and wide. And that’s saying a lot, considering how much I loved Batman. Ed Wood encapsulates a number of things that make film so great – artful, stylish directing, comedy that goes between subtle and overt, great acting and casting choices and it’s just all around entertaining as hell. What more could you want? Go see this movie; especially if you like Burton’s later, more over the top work. It’s worth a viewing by anyone.