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[DrTzinTzin]

What was incoherant about the story?

Have you seen the original?

Edgar Wallace was a fall down, dipsomaniacle, coke fiend who died leaving the story half finished and it was a hearfelt, poignant story of unrequited love and being misunderstood and hated. Peter Jackson had about 12 writers helping him...the movie ended up making Meet the Feebles look like high fucking art.

In 1932 Willis O'Brien was using clay and pipe cleaners for some of his models. They had to literally spend 8 to 12 hours a day on one scene moving Kong around. The computer graphics, with millions of dollars worth of equipment involved...looked woeful.

[kingbobb]

Have you seen the original?

Edgar Wallace was a fall down, dipsomaniacle, coke fiend who died leaving the story half finished and it was a hearfelt, poignant story of unrequited love and being misunderstood and hated. Peter Jackson had about 12 writers helping him...the movie ended up making Meet the Feebles look like high fucking art.

In 1932 Willis O'Brien was using clay and pipe cleaners for some of his models. They had to literally spend 8 to 12 hours a day on one scene moving Kong around. The computer graphics, with millions of dollars worth of equipment involved...looked woeful.

I dunno...maybe it's because I'm familiar with the story that I got the unrequited love/hated/fear of the unknown/rape of the natural world/human exploitation story that is Kong. And I found the SFX to be very well done. Far, far better than Narnia, which won the freaking Oscar this year because the Academy is full of snobs.

What amazed me was that the 1933 movie contained so many shots that were equal to, and in some ways superior to, Jackson's version. Jackson just updated the 1933 movie, telling the same story using modern techniques, both film/technical and storytelling wise.

[kingbobb]

Last night we watched the Skeleton Key. It had a non-Hollywood, rather unsatisfying ending. But up until the final moments, we found it engrossing.

Not nearly as entertaining as this week's 24, which we watched after. And we followed that with a nice night of Xavier complaining about the new "sleep through the night" plan we have for him.

[Croaker]

Jackson just updated the 1933 movie, telling the same story using modern techniques, both film/technical and storytelling wise.

That's what I had heard about it, and that's why I haven't had any real desire to sit through it. I love the original, but to watch it all CGI'd up...meh.

[Zero]

That's what I had heard about it, and that's why I haven't had any real desire to sit through it. I love the original, but to watch it all CGI'd up...meh.

There's kickass fighting in it. I like the miniature work in stuff like Clash of the Titans, but the CGI is mostly spot-on and the scene with the bugs is effing awesome.

[Croaker]

There's kickass fighting in it. I like the miniature work in stuff like Clash of the Titans, but the CGI is mostly spot-on and the scene with the bugs is effing awesome.

I LOVE Clash of the Titans! It was probably my favorite movie after Tron when I was young.

[kingbobb]

That's what I had heard about it, and that's why I haven't had any real desire to sit through it. I love the original, but to watch it all CGI'd up...meh.

I think this is why the movie didn't do more than break even at the box office. Well, that and it cost a small nation's GDP to make. But it's a story that's 70 years old. People know it. Sure, people love it, but in the end, to most folks, it's about a big monkey that falls for a girl, and falls HARD. The end. At 3+ hours running time, and costing close to $10 a person, it should do much better on DVD than in the theater.

Remember that one of the things that made the 1933 movie such a success were the SFX. No one had ever seen that kind of thing before. It's like Star Wars...a movie, like Kong, the only one of it's kind in existance at that time. Watching the original Star Wars (not the special editions) we can still marvel at the SFX..."they did THAT 30 years ago, with no computers?"...and it's hard to separate the wonder of the whole experience from the mostly mediocre movie that they encompass.

[DrTzinTzin]

I LOVE Clash of the Titans! It was probably my favorite movie after Tron when I was young.

But most kids today would look at the computer graphics from Tron and say "That's shit" yet we as people who remember a time before the X-box 360 think it's still great.

Don't get me started on the modern feelings about Ray Harryhausen. He is the Rembrandt of models....but Willis O'Brien was the caveman painting on the walls of a cave with his own excrement. And I mean that in a good way...he was using tinker toys when people today use super computers.

[Lord Simian]

...but Willis O'Brien was the caveman painting on the walls of a cave with his own excrement. And I mean that in a good way...he was using tinker toys when people today use super computers.

In order to not have to send GCom's koala after you, I'm going to take that to mean you think O'Brien's work is the foundation from which all other model work sprang. In which case, you're not far wrong!

[DrTzinTzin]

In order to not have to send GCom's koala after you, I'm going to take that to mean you think O'Brien's work is the foundation from which all other model work sprang. In which case, you're not far wrong!

Exactly. And I got that bit from Louis Leakey so it's factually correct.

He was the progenitor of movie model making.

[kingbobb]

So now we've watched Jarhead. Kinda a nothing movie. About a not-really a war war. Which I guess was interesting for it's accuracy. I suppose. Although it makes me a little nervous if it was at all accurate, that our military contains some of those personalities. Which, I guess if you're going to all "I'm off to kill people," it helps to be a little unbalanced.

Still. Not the best image. Not terrible, either, I guess.

We're about 1/3 through watching Bubba Ho Tep with the commentary from the King. It's an ok movie...we saw it originally because it's got Bruce Campbell, and when I went to a book signing of his, he was working on it. Someone asked him what his next movie was, and he said it was this little movie where he plays Elvis, and he teams up with JFK trapped in Ozzie Davis' body, and they fight against a mummy. We thought he was joking.

[Croaker]

So now we've watched Jarhead. Kinda a nothing movie. About a not-really a war war. Which I guess was interesting for it's accuracy. I suppose. Although it makes me a little nervous if it was at all accurate, that our military contains some of those personalities. Which, I guess if you're going to all "I'm off to kill people," it helps to be a little unbalanced.

Still. Not the best image. Not terrible, either, I guess.

We're about 1/3 through watching Bubba Ho Tep with the commentary from the King. It's an ok movie...we saw it originally because it's got Bruce Campbell, and when I went to a book signing of his, he was working on it. Someone asked him what his next movie was, and he said it was this little movie where he plays Elvis, and he teams up with JFK trapped in Ozzie Davis' body, and they fight against a mummy. We thought he was joking.

I got to meet him at the Austin premiere of The Man with the Screaming Brain. Really nice and funny guy. He did a Q&A before the movie started that was really, really funny.

[Zero]

I watched Freaky Friday on the plane over. That wasn't as much fun as sleeping would be, but it passed the time. When we get our DVD player here hooked up, I'm gonna get Capote and V For Vendetta to watch. Y'know, from the back of a van or something. I just read In Cold Blood so I'm looking forward to the mmmovie.

[Croaker]

Oh, and we watched the Aristocrats (b/c I wanted to see it) and Mr. and Mrs. Smith (b/c my wife wanted to see it) this weekend.

Aristocrats was meh, it wasn't horrible, but seeing people trying to come up with the most twisted things that they could was actually a little disturbing, though some of them were funny. All in all nothing I'd ever watch again.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith had some fun moments, but what a bullshit ending. Really, it was a waste of an hour and a half.

[Keb]

So now we've watched Jarhead. Kinda a nothing movie. About a not-really a war war. Which I guess was interesting for it's accuracy. I suppose. Although it makes me a little nervous if it was at all accurate, that our military contains some of those personalities. Which, I guess if you're going to all "I'm off to kill people," it helps to be a little unbalanced.

Still. Not the best image. Not terrible, either, I guess.

We're about 1/3 through watching Bubba Ho Tep with the commentary from the King. It's an ok movie...we saw it originally because it's got Bruce Campbell, and when I went to a book signing of his, he was working on it. Someone asked him what his next movie was, and he said it was this little movie where he plays Elvis, and he teams up with JFK trapped in Ozzie Davis' body, and they fight against a mummy. We thought he was joking.

I loved Jarhead. Great acting.

And yeah, it reminded me of a much more serious version of Full Metal Jacket.