Nazi Murderer in Repose.

Szpilman’s Liszt.

THE PIANIST follows Jewish concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman as he hides out from Nazis during the invasion of Poland. It’s not a story about heroes, rather, the story of a Polish man who avoided being one. And lived to play another day.

1939. Wladyslaw “Wladek” Szpilman (Adrien Brody), whom many contend was “the most accomplished pianist in Poland, if not all of Europe” during the 1930s, is thrust into WWII fingers first when a German bomb blows up the radio station where he is broadcasting a piano performance.

When he arrives home, his large family, who were just desperately packing to flee, hears Britain on the radio declaring war on Germany, and promising Poland she “is not alone.” However, like every political promise made in the history of politics, it will mean less than the airwaves it was broadcast on. Even whilst they enjoy dinner and drinks to celebrate the end of a war which is actually just beginning, German troops are goose-stepping into their town. There is an authenticity to this ambivalence that is lacking in many war movies: In hindsight, we know what a scourge Hitler’s regime was, but in those more innocent times, when only one “World War” had ravaged humanity, Poland (and the world at large) did not take Hitler’s extremist policies of relocation and extermination seriously.

We see the slow undermining of Poland’s freedoms: “Jews Only” cafés, Star of David armbands forced on Jews to identify them like cattle, laws prohibiting Jews to sit on park benches… it gets real when Wladek’s father is stopped by Nazis and beaten for not bowing to them in the street.

November 1940: 360,000 Jews – Wladek and his family among them – are herded into the Warsaw Ghetto.

During the evacuation of the bombed radio station, Wladek met a blonde fan enamored with his playing, Dorota (Emilia Fox). While the station crumbled around him, Wladek’s mind was not on German raids but on raiding panty. Even during a bombing – men be pigs! He took Dorota on a date, where he lamented, “What’s the use of fighting back?” – which, we presume, caused him to miss out on some fine blond tail that night…

Now, while Wladek drudges alongside a cart with his family, he sees Dorota by the roadside, watching the exodus. Oh, Humiliation, thy snide mistress! And Dorota, tears edging her eyes in disbelief, says what must have been in everyone’s minds as it was happening back then, “It’s too absurd.”

You should see this place on a Friday!

From this point THE PIANIST starts resembling that other great WWII drama, SCHINDLER’S LIST, in its depiction of German soldiers’ brutality and sadism. Scenes of unthinkable misery: a man in a wheelchair thrown off a balcony; a father dead in the street, his head cradled by his crying son; a woman asks a soldier, “Where are you taking us?” – a nonchalant bullet to the head. Like SCHINDLER, the violence is sudden, glaring and shocking; the misery and poverty of the downtrodden Jews almost too much for us to bear even as viewers.

A chance separation; a critical turning point – a friend from the Jewish Ghetto police recognizes Wladek and pulls him deliberately from the line, while his family are being herded into windowless cattle cars. To their knowledge, they were being taken “somewhere” as an enslaved labor force – at the least, they were a commodity, none could conceive of the trip being a journey to their deaths. There was truly no rational reason to simply wipe out people. But there was no reason or logic to the fanatic racism of the Nazis (which they have carried down to their most recent capos like Dumbo Donald, Closet Mike Pence, Ku Jeff Sessions and the whole foreign-bought enslaved American republiKKKan administration).

In a labor camp, Wladek meets an old friend, Marjorek (Daniel Caltagirone, the Andy Garcia of Poland), who helps Wladek escape into the Jewish Underground. And so begins the hiding. From deserted apartments to bombed districts, forever moving and being aided by free, rich Jews sympathetic to the cause. At one point Wladek encamps in the lion’s den – across the road from German Police. With a piano in the room, which he couldn’t play, because the apartment he was hiding in was regarded as empty! Only a musician will know the pain.

When ventriloquial dummies won’t cooperate.

There are two themes at play in THE PIANIST – the first message is simply about the inartful, ungodly luck that separated life from death during the war. In his flight from the Nazis, Wladek would encounter so many chances and coincidences and near-death experiences that the overarching message of the movie is not one of heroism or canniness, but of randomness. Though we may regard Wladek as intrinsically worthy of saving (because he is an artist? the star? a sexyboy?), he did not do anything heroic in his quest to survive; it was not as a “reward” for saving a school of children from bombs, or trying to sacrifice himself for another, no, his existence was what most would regard as “cowardly” – fleeing from hideout to hideout, noiseless, like a mouse, the merest hint of discovery causing him not to take up arms against his aggressors but to flee again and again. He did this until his country was liberated by other people, negating his need to flee. At one point, Wladek helps a young boy crawl under a wall, but the boy dies in his arms – this is not so much a heroic act as another demonstration of randomness, as when Wladek was pulled from the line and saved unintentionally from death.

This randomness would have a part in the second theme of THE PIANIST, which illustrates the true sense of being humane. Wladek is discovered by Wehrmacht officer Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann – no matter how Aryan this guy looks, he’ll always bring our tears to the surface in his touching roles!). Coincidentally looking like Liam Neeson (cough-Schindler!), Hosenfeld is a music lover, and after discovering Wladek is a pianist, starts supplying him with food! In a heart-rending turnaround, Hosenfeld finds himself a Soviet prisoner when the war is over, and beseeches a passing Polish musician, “Do you know Szpilman? I helped him while he was in hiding! Tell him I’m here!” But Hosenfeld would die an unheralded death in that camp in 1952, unapplauded, unforgiven. Yet wasn’t his fate a treatise on Christianity in its purest form? How God entreats Christians not to seek plaudits or reward for their good deeds, nor to shout them from the rooftops, but to perform them in earnest, away from prying eyes? Truly, this is Hosenfeld, who returned a creature of art to the world. And when he asked for reward (in the film at least), none was given. Yet, he never looks regretful of his humane actions…

The Pianist and The Captain – Wladyslaw Szpilman and Wilm Hosenfeld.

BEST DIRECTOR: Ronald Harwood screenplays from Szpilman’s book, The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story Of One Man’s Survival In Warsaw, 1939-1945 (Picador, 2000), a story which resonated with director Roman Polanski, who was also a fugitive from Hitler’s regime at a young age. There were many who felt Polanski redeemed himself of his statutory rape crimes with his creation of this touching film– (oooh, don’t say ‘touching’). THE PIANIST also won BAFTAs (including Best Film 2003), and a host of other awards.

BEST ACTOR: There were the “big” aspects of Adrien Brody’s Method: he dropped down to 130 pounds, moved to Europe, got rid of his car and phone, to experience isolation and loss, and wasn’t sure he would make it through the experience entirely sane. Then there were the little things: after he realizes his whole family has been taken from him in one fell swoop, Wladek meets a fellow fugitive and is in such a state of despair he cannot speak coherently (we think he’s going to give the customary exposition about the train taking the Jews to the ovens, for historical context blah blah, but Brody brilliantly, gutturally tries to squeeze out a few words and says nothing; or the amazing visual when Wladek speaks to Germans, where he adopts a cowed manner, and we are taken aback when we see Brody (the obvious star) murmuring with head bowed, until we recall this was the manner of all Jews toward occupying Nazis; or Brody’s pretty convincing piano miming, most of which is Chopin – challenging stuff, even to mime. (Actual closeups show the hands of pianist Janusz Olejniczak – which may also be the last remaining letters in any given Scrabble game.) And one thing Brody didn’t need to work on – that honker! Whatever nationality/religion Adrien Brody is, that nose of his is strictly Jewish. Adrien won the Oscar for Best Actor. His nose won at Cannes.

The one thing that gives us pause and robs the film of a little authenticity is – ironically – the sound of the piano in the bombed house where Wladek is discovered by Hosenfeld. It is beautiful, magnificent, in perfect tune and conditioning, not one key sticking, not one key broken, not one string even slightly flat, its feel and touch perfect. In Holocaust Poland. I’ve played pianos in modern music studios that are in worse condition than this instrument in Holocaust Poland.

Closing titles: “Wladyslaw Szpilman continued to live in Warsaw until his death on 6^th July 2000. He was 88 years old.”

His nose continues to tour with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.

END

The trick is not to fall asleep…

Uh-oh, narration. Uh-oh, magic. Uh-oh…. HOUDINI.

Adrien Brody stars (narrating interminably) as Harry Houdini, the greatest magician in history. But from this biopic, you’d never guess it. Upfront, Houdini is a god among men; an icon, innovator, pioneer, legend. And Adrien Brody, a fine actor, does his best with what he’s given to work with. But this Lionsgate TV production fails to capture the magnitude of Houdini’s charisma, the extent of his fame, and makes him a whining mental case who was seeking some kind of redemption for his wondrous, unique existence.

Written by Nicholas Meyer (STAR TREK VI), the problem with this mini-series is easily divined when we see the title of the book Meyer consulted – Houdini: A Mind in Chains: A Psychoanalytic Portrait (written by his shrink father Bernard C. Meyer). Why A Mind in Chains when Houdini is so obviously one of the most unfettered men in history, figuratively and literally? It’s implying there was some deep-rooted psychological problem that made Houdini as disturbed as the rest of us gimps. Thus Nicholas imbues HOUDINI the movie with the book’s idiosyncrasies, sealing psychoanalytic speculation as biographical fact, sullying the legacy of the greatest magician who ever lived by implying he was “always trying to escape something”… More likely trying to escape the shrinks who were pinning him with mental deficiencies…

As soon as Brody starts narrating his inner fears and aspirations, it’s all over. Houdini was and is an enigma. Nearly a century after his death, he is still the most recognizable name in magic. He couldn’t have possibly been as small as this film makes him.

Uli Edel directs as Guy Ritchie Junior by way of Frank Miller. We see so many smash-cuts to Houdini’s internal organs, especially his rock-hard abdomen, that we feel like someone misses his med school diagrams. Film focuses on Houdini’s renowned ability to take a punch, and uses that visual as a metaphor for many situations. When someone insults him – a punch to the abs; when his mother dies – a punch to the abs. Every adverse situation meets the refrain: a punch to the abs.

Story starts with Houdini’s humble beginnings playing a whorehouse (why people equate whorehouses with humble beginnings is another debunking essay altogether), where he realizes he can be more than just a magician, but a master “escapist” when a cop challenges him to escape some handcuffs. Then – uh-oh, flashback: young Eric Weiss (Houdini’s Jewish birth name) as an urchin on the streets of Budapest, Hungary. Eyes glazing over. We meet Houdini’s mother (which opens a can of Oedipal worms) and his father (a stubborn Rabbi who refuses to learn English in Chicago); brother Theo (whom Houdini would nickname “Dash” and later “Hardeen” – a tiny role for a big man in Houdini’s life).

Kristen Connolly plays Harry’s wife Bess Houdini, with the acting skills of a turnip. She’d do best to stick to roles like CABIN IN THE WOODS, where she did not have to extend her emotions beyond Be Mannequin Pretty Then Die. Inevitably she would turn into the dreamkiller shrike, nagging at Harry to stop risking his life and get a job at McDonalds. Evan Jones (JARHEAD) is Houdini’s faithful liege Jim.

We follow Houdini through many of his magic shows. Uh, why? Watching magic on film is nowhere nearly dramatic as watching it in real life. We know there’s a catch anyway – we don’t think he’s really “magic” – but now there’s the added medium of film, which is intrinsically linked to special effects which we take for granted. Where’s the drama? What’s the point switching to Ritchie-vision and showing Houdini extricating a key hidden on his person? Over and over again we are assaulted with Houdini’s magic. And a punch to the abs.

Movie touches on Houdini’s espionage stint for the U.S. government, under the auspices of Chief John Wilkie’s Secret Service. There are extended sequences involving Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (David Calder), who – though the creator of Sherlock Holmes – was a clinically insane believer in the spirit world, thinking that Houdini was really passing through walls and contacting the dead. He would dog Houdini until death trying to prove his madness real. There’s the water torture cell (in a stupid introductory scene, Houdini simply “gets in it” to try it out without any prep on how to escape it, precipitating having to smash it), the chained jump into the freezing Hudson river, the disappearing elephant… there’s even a scene where a jailer locks Houdini in a cell and returns to find it empty, then shakes his fist at the air shouting, “Houdiniiiiii!” All that’s missing is the pan up and away.

To a whole slew of young fans, Adrien Brody is now Harry Houdini, as Paul Michael Glaser was to the ’70s and Tony Curtis was to the ’50s. But to those who revere the man, the myth, the Mysteriarch, HOUDINI will probably make your eyelids heavy – and not in that good hypnotizing way.

At least this HOUDINI gives us a more realistic summation of how Houdini met his death. His spiraling appendicitis was exacerbated by an unexpected punch to the stomach. There’s the answer to what Houdini was trying to escape – refrain: a punch to the abs.

END

Mythed it by that much.

Somewhere between expectancy and deliverance – lies M. Night Shyamalan‘s THE VILLAGE.

The people of an Amish-styled village share an uneasy truce with the mysterious beasts that haunt the surrounding woods – until a blind girl courageously braves the woods on a mission of mercy.

The people of Covington lead an idyllic Old World existence, yet are constantly reminded of the red-hooded beasts that stalk the surrounding Covington Woods by the occasional small animal found gutted near the tree line. The color red is banned in the village, as it attracts “Those we do not speak of”; yellow repels them.

But THE VILLAGE is not about the beasts – it’s about the village people. (Oh no I di’int.)

The beauty of THE VILLAGE lies in its quietude. Though it is a mystery thriller, the thrills come not from running and screaming and jump-scares, but rather from shading in each character right before our eyes; quiet scenes of how each person is affected by the indoctrination to their bucolic lifestyle and its underlying menace, how each character yet finds someone to love within that frame, and how each is longing for something which their repressed existence keeps tantalizingly just out of their reach. The beasts and twists are just gravy.

At this juncture in writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s career, he was already being irrationally vilified for making crap movies – and he wasn’t making crap movies yet! (That would come later, with THE HAPPENING (2008) and THE LAST AIRBENDER (2010), where we could almost see Night throwing up his hands in frustration: “You people just don’t appreciate what I’m trying to do! Okay – here’s some REAL shit!”) Here, Night is still adroitly creating a unique moviegoing experience, albeit with less of a surprise jolt than his opening stunner THE SIXTH SENSE, but with as much cinematic power.

The problem with THE VILLAGE lies not in THE VILLAGE, but in jaded humanity.

Night is a storyteller for another age – THE VILLAGE is unhurried, controlled, lovingly constructed from whole cloth, with brilliant staging, intriguing storyline, poignancy, humor, moving soundtrack, layers of chills, and many surprises along the way. But you just can’t please some people…

The village is led by elders Walker (William Hurt, gracefully underplaying), Alice (Sigourney Weaver, manly alluring), August (Brendan Gleeson, somber fortitude) and others, who impose strict Old World ethics on the young-folk, that include Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix), Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard, in an Oscar-worthy performance as a powerful blind girl), and a Village Idiot, dribbled poignantly by Adrien Brody.

Ivy’s blindness necessitates her hands being held out. Thus, there is always the visual cue of hands thrusting out for different reasons, grasping for friendship, for enlightenment, for safety. The hand motif is extended to romance: When Ivy tells Lucius, “We used to hold hands all the time, and you stopped,” he replies, “Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do, so that others won’t know we want to do them.”

Later, Lucius would tell his mother Alice (Sigourney) how Walker (Hurt) feels about her: “He hides his feelings for you.”

Alice: “What makes you think he has feelings for me?”
Lucius: “He never touches you.”

Lucius is proven right at a wedding, when Alice puts out her hand to shake Walker’s and he pointedly doesn’t take it, while talking to distract. She walks away, looks back; he is shaking the next woman’s hand. Whereas most would come away from this encounter rejected – Alice is beaming!

One night the warning bell sounds: the beasts are in the village. Ivy waits in her open doorway, her sister (Judy Greer) fearfully calls her to the cellar – but Ivy believes wholeheartedly that Lucius will “come back to make sure we’re safe.” We see her hand reaching into the darkness. In the distance, out-of-focus, a red-hooded beast approaches. From out of frame, Lucius’s hand! Crash to slomo, cue baroque violin, romantic desperation, as he runs with her to the cellar one step ahead of the beasts. A shot of their hands clasped tightly. In the cellar, she notices their hands are still entwined. Well, that’s his left hand. Where’s his right hand? Oh, you beast!

Later, at the wedding, when the warning bell clangs, though Ivy is amidst the dancing throng, though she is with a stranger, though Lucius is nowhere to be seen, she throws out her hand again – this time, we share her confidence, knowing Lucius will always be there to take it and lead her to safety.

On a quiet night, ominous fog in the distance, Ivy joins Lucius as he sits on her porch, protectively. She tells him she can “see his color” when he is near. The simple question, “Why are you on this porch?” opens a floodgate of emotions from both of them. Keep in mind, neither of them have admitted to loving each other, they have not yet even shared a kiss, yet she boldly asks in a crystalline whisper, her unseeing eyes in his direction, “Will you dance with me at our wedding, I find dancing very agreeable.”

When shy Lucius circuitously avoids the answer, Ivy asks, “Why can’t you say what is in your mind?” He retorts, “Why can’t you stop saying what is in yours?” Yet his long tirade ends with, “That is why I am on this porch – because I fear for your safety above all others,” and “Yes, I will dance with you on our wedding night.” An exquisite roundabout exposing cautious love. When they lean in to kiss, the camera pans slowly to a rocking chair on the porch, as if affording them privacy.

Now you might be thinking, Has Poffy lost his mind dwelling on this inane chickflickery? It’s not the content, it is the creative way it is revealed to us – like a flower opening, rather than an anchor dropping. This scene’s ultimate aim is to provide motivation for Ivy in her quest (and to make young girls swoon), but few moviemakers would take the time to build this temple so sweetly.

And when it comes to more somber fare – like stabbing – Shyamalan proves he doesn’t need any scuffling or screeching violins to once again craft a thing of cinematic beauty. Village Idiot appears at Lucius’s door the next day, looking sad. Lucius is in a state of bliss (last night – first base – woohoo!), yet sorry for Idiot, because he knows of his childlike infatuation with Ivy. Lucius leads Idiot in, trying to console him with talk of “There are different types of love–” He turns while he talks, stops, looks down. A bloodied knife is being extracted slowly from his belly, held by Idiot in soundless tears. His eyes glaze. He falls. Idiot flees in anguish.

As if the magnificent construction of that scene was not enough, Ivy’s discovery of the wounded Lucius is just as meticulous. Night’s regular composer, James Newton Howard, scars the soundtrack with a noisome subliminal drone as blind Ivy appears at Lucius’s door. All we see is Ivy in the distance, out of focus, camera mounted above a table in the foreground, Lucius’s body at the foot of this table. She clambers closer, hands out, calling his name desperately. As she comes into focus, her goal is also coming into focus. When her foot hits his body, the drone ceases – and she is in total focus. Everything is clear. She screams that she “cannot see his color!”…

The whole movie is made with this same stunning eye for direction. Even if you do not like the man or his movies, there is no doubt the movie-crafting gene is somersaulting through his veins.

This is why it takes me longer to review good movies than execrable ones – because I must convey the art-maker’s intent faithfully to the loveless masses. Whereas when moviemakers don’t give a fuck, it doesn’t matter in the least how or why I write about their movie, because I know they care even less about whether they’re being represented faithfully than about the haphazard slapping together of their shite in the first place.

All is not as it seems with the beasts, all is not as it seems with the elders, and all is not as it seems with the outside world.

We learn that these people are modern (that is, they’re not from the 1800s and they’re not Amish). Their exile is self-imposed by the elders after searing tragedies befell them in outside society – loved ones meeting their deaths for unnecessary reasons. Their disavowal of the complications of modernity has its price, as the story opens with the burial of August’s baby; a baby that might have been saved had it received the correct modern treatment. We meet Lucius as a quiet, sober young man, regarded well amongst the townsfolk, requesting to go into “the towns” to retrieve “medicines” so that this might not happen again. The council, headed by Walker, refuses.

When Lucius is struck down, Walker rationalizes that it was not a natural order of things, so when Ivy requests to do the same thing for Lucius, she is allowed to go. And the blind shall lead…

Walker then exposes the secret of the beasts to Ivy… A secret that will allow her to make the journey through the forest – but the dangers are not those that she feared. They are much more real and much more urgent – brought to life by human desire.

The elders are forced into compromising their way of life. But Walker is right: the elders cannot live forever; Lucius and Ivy will be the ones to continue the village ruse. He goes to Alice as her son Lucius lies in a coma: “It is all that I can give you.” He moves closer by repeating the line. “It is all that I can give you.” She moves to him… and they… don’t… touch.

The performances in this movie made Night’s later movies unbearable. They are – that – damn – good. How could the one-note Mark Wahlberg or the bug-eyed, half-trick pony Zooey ever hope to compete?

The perfect metaphor for audiences missing the point of this movie is contained within the movie itself: Lucius confesses to the council that he experimented and crossed the tree line into Covington Woods. Walker comes to him, tears edging both their eyes: “Do not fret. You are fearless in ways I can never know.” And he’s NOT talking about going into the woods – he’s referring to the CONFESSION. In other words, the same William Hurt dialogue carries two meanings: a prosaic meaning for the Great Unwashed, and a deeper meaning for those who can think and spell.

So too, we all go into this movie believing the same myth of the beasts as the village people (even the Macho Men), but as the elegant tale progresses, the need for the beasts is negated – yet there are some doughboys still waiting for blood gouts like Bellagio fountains. They’re watching the same movie and not hearing what William Hurt is really saying. (It doesn’t help that all the sensationalistic trailers scream monster slasher Jason Freddie Halloween.)

THE VILLAGE is not about roaring, serial killing, hillbilly beasts. It’s a story about courage. The courage to make a thoughtful movie amidst roaring, serial killing, hillbilly beasts.

END

Inhuman Nature IS Human Nature.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
— Kurt Vonnegut, “Mother Night.”

Based on the infamous 1972 Stanford Prison Experiment, THE EXPERIMENT brings a group of men together in a mock prison, randomly choosing some to be guards and some to be prisoners. The result: everyone ends up belligerent, backbiting, exploitative, uncooperative, vicious, violent and pathologically inept at dealing with others; in other words, just like normal society.

We needed a prison experiment to tell us Mankind is no better than a cage full of simians? Didn’t we learn anything from Charlton Heston in PLANET OF THE APES?

Adrien Brody is Travis, a pacifist and peace activist recently out of a job, who answers a Wanted ad seeking volunteers, paying $1000 per day for two weeks.

At the check-in, Travis and a roomful of disparate characters are told the Rules of this mock prison by the lead researcher: No violence or the experiment is terminated; heed the Guards, abide by the Rules; watch the Red Light, which would light up if any of the rules were breached, terminating the experiment. Cameras would monitor the prison 24/7.

When Travis is screened by the researcher, he is asked “What about religion?” His answer: “No.”

Researcher: “Religion is not usually a yes or no question. People find a lot of gray areas to couch their answers.”
Travis: “Well, nothing gray here.”
Researcher: “So how do you base your ethical decisions?”
Travis (points to his chest): “Here.”

Excellent. Every one of us know what’s right and wrong. We don’t need a devil or god to tell us so. Life is circumstantial morality. One problem with Travis arcing from turn-the-other-cheek to mad dog at this movie’s violent climax is that it seems to demean his atheistic yet moral principles. A christian would immediately regard his violence (which is admittedly uncontrolled and vengeful) as an argument against being godless. “See, now if he had religion, he would have had a more sensible reaction!” Of course, that’s a straw man argument, because EVERYONE in the mock prison – god-fearing and godless alike – ends up slave to their raw human emotions.

Travis meets big, gentle Barris (Forest Whitaker), who goes from his sad doofus character to Idi Amin Dada within 24 hours of donning the Guard’s uniform.

Originally made in Germany as DAS EXPERIMENT, this American version retains the claustrophobia and spiraling madness of the experiment itself. A dramatic retelling of the actual Stanford Experiment, the movie is by no means a staid documentary, but an action thriller; characters are not meant to represent anyone in real life; the mood and tone is captured, of the human animal losing control of its carefully constructed façade of society.

And in this study of mankind, we discover the human animal is, in fact, as base and uncomplicated as any given “lower” animal. The Guards take pleasure in dehumanizing the Inmates, while the Inmates fall into a pattern of blindly following directives from the Guards. That’s the general rule – but there are exceptions. There are Inmates (like Travis) who do not suffer emasculation lightly and rebel against the tyranny of the guards, and there are Guards who do not succumb to hurting others for the sake of authority. Some viewers will argue that these exceptions are the traits that define our humanity. I differ – if they are exceptions, then by definition, they are NOT defining human traits.

Cam Gigandet is Guard Chase, who takes charge like an Aryan leader on the first day, while the other Guards look on, amused yet gaining audacity as Chase’s power plays against the Inmates are met with obeisance. All the while, Barris looks on, cocking his head like a bear wondering how to get into a pic-a-nic basket. In flashbacks we see Barris being browbeaten by his invalid mother; his coming arc is pretty obvious.

When Barris goes Amin and takes unbalanced control of all the Guards and Inmates with a bestial force, he uses the red light like every coward uses religion: “The red light is the only way that we can know…” whether we are going too far. If he is using violence and the red light doesn’t light up, it only affirms his cruelty and makes him feel empowered. He’s relying on an outside source to make his ethical decisions for him, therefore abrogating personal responsibility. When Barris is responsible for almost letting a man die, he points to the cameras: “Do you know what’s on the other side of those cameras? We’re being watched 24 hours a day by people who know what they are doing. If there was a chance that somebody would die, do you think they would let it happen?” Like the metaphor for an invisible god who hears nothing and does nothing while Its supposed creations kill each other in Its name. The religious stupidity of believing that some all-powerful It is watching us and if It doesn’t interject when we perpetrate evil, then what we’re doing must be right.

WE OURSELVES deep inside know right and wrong – even Republicans know it; they just choose to subsume it with ignorance and avarice. So instead of acting even more like beasts because the red light stays off, the Inmates and Guards should ask, “What kind of beast is behind the red light?” Just like religions should ask themselves, after countless centuries of spilling blood in the name of their gods that don’t lift a finger to help or hinder, “What kind of beast is behind our religion?” (No, He doesn’t work in mysterious ways. I’m guessing He doesn’t work at all.)

By Day 4, the violence has escalated to the Guards using their nightsticks violently, regularly. The red light stays off.

Clifton Collins Jr. is Inmate Nix, a real Aryan bigot, whose credo is “go along to get along,” so doesn’t question the irrationality of the Guards, just bides his time until payday. When Travis mentions the White Power tattoos on Nix’s arms, Nix shrugs it off, “You must think I’m somebody else.” Later, the Guards have terrorized everyone by chaining them to their cells. Travis unlocks Nix and a reckoning between the Guards and Inmates is imminent. Nix pulls off his t-shirt to reveal his body-ink of Nazi hate and – here’s the clincher – says the same line, but it has now become the funniest yet deadliest line in the movie, “These boys must think I’m somebody else!”

The movie has twisted the audience’s perceptions to root for a guy who in “normal” society would be regarded as a lunatic! And we embrace his lunacy as the pummeling begins. And who is pummeling the hardest? The man who said we need to turn the other cheek to evolve – Travis. (Brody commands a fiery intensity that we’d never guess could come from a guy so rail-thin and unassuming.) It is satis-fucking-faction. We vicariously feel every humiliation of the Inmates because most of us are dominated by authority figures indirectly and directly every day.

In Michael Moore’s documentary ROGER & ME, a laid-off assembly line auto worker becomes a prison guard. “I like the work much better.” Of course you do; from peon to pain giver. What’s not to like?

We only THINK we’ve evolved past fierce creatures. The most amazing fact of this movie and the actual Stanford Experiment is that conditions turned pear-shaped in so short a time; at Stanford, the planned two-week psychology experiment had to be terminated after only six days! What kind of loaded springs are we homo sapiens? Are we so fragile that placing us in a hostile environment – whether we’re good or bad – makes us gravitate toward hostile?

Truly we are merely just a planet of glorified apes! It’s a madhouse. A MADHOUSE!

END

Gene Genie.

Y’know, I didn’t watch SPLICE for the raunchy interspecies sex scenes – but I’m not complaining…

A gene-spliced organism causes havoc for the two scientists who created it, due to the organism’s predatory nature and the way it was created with the unethical splicing of human genes… but mostly because it looks like a hot naked French model.

If SPECIES was ALIEN with a spectacular set of knockers, SPLICE is SPECIES with a barely-legal set of tennis ball ta-tas.

Clive and Elsa (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) are two geneticists funded to try and create a new life form through gene-splicing experiments. They succeed with a couple of squishy organisms that resemble giant flaccid penises. Emboldened, Elsa takes it one step further by splicing human genes with a few different animals to create a disturbing two-legged thing that scrabbles about like a rat-bird. Bizarre design coupled with excellent creature effects makes this rat-bird scary with its alienness.

Elsa names it Dren and they keep the organism under wraps as it grows, because the experiment used human genes without their lab’s consent or authorization. A few weeks later, Dren is the size of a small girl, Elsa treating it like a daughter, putting a blue dress on “her” – yet Dren retains satyr-like feet jointed like a goat, a tail, eyes spaced too far apart and a nervous attitude suggesting some kind of reptile; disturbingly human, but not quite human – just like a Republican.

Dren grows into part-spinner, part-diamond dog; by now she is being played by French model Delphine Chanéac, shaved-headed, mute, tailed and sniffing around at everything in curiosity, wearing a slinky black dress that almost conspires with us in threatening to reveal thigh-high hybrid vag. In other words – hotter than hell. She matures enough to realize she is being kept from the outside world – held prisoner – in an isolated barn.

And then all Dren breaks loose…

SPLICE could have asked innumerable sociological and ethical questions, could have gone in many different plot directions, but it chose to stay Genetic Lite and stick to a simple plot of Dren’s development and burgeoning transsexuality. Still, it’s a unique film, a sign of our scientific times and hopefully a step towards more stem cell research – to create hot chicks with tails.

Sarah Polley does her annoying Julianne Moore Lite, which, I am presuming, is the reason Adrien Brody was driven into the alien embrace of the diamond-thighed Dren. It’s a golden sex scene. But so much more: like SPECIES, the writers of SPLICE drive home the point that living organisms exist to mate. The peanut-brained gallery won’t get it though, because any sex scene that hot, they will maintain, is purely for prurient reasons. And they would be right. Without prurience, how does any organism get up the gumption to mate in the first place and continue their species?

I do not know, but I aim to find out with thorough scientific research. So I went back and re-watched that sex scene on the DVD again. And again… and again. And just one more time.

Thorough scientific research.

END

Roaring Ripping Rending Rebirth!

At last – the sequel to PREDATOR we’ve been waiting for!

With the internet ablaze with derogation over the casting of Adrien Brody in the lead role (purely because action fans cannot comprehend life after Arnold), and the B-movie schlock of the ALIEN VS. PREDATOR movies sullying DVD rental racks around the planet, it would seem PREDATORS had little chance of being taken seriously by moviegoers or the men who make the moving pictures.

But Robert Rodriguez (producer) and Nimród Antal (director) have bowed their heads in fealty to the legendary 1987 PREDATOR film, shinked out their arm-talons and ripped forth a roaring rebirth for the franchise.

PREDATORS starts in free fall – literally – as eight nameless characters drop from the sky into a mysterious jungle. They’re all the best “predators” in their killing fields. They discover they’re on another planet – a grand vista of three gigantic moons in the sky and a sun that “hasn’t moved since we got here” tipping them off.

And they’re being hunted by something.

The planet is a game preserve and they’ve been dropped here for sport. The over-arching theme, which is sometimes used as the embarrassing tagline: “When the predators become the prey.” Oh, I feel dirty.

Adrien Brody, an American Special Ops merc, is the tacit leader and therefore has to put on the raspiest voice. There is the Russian Special Forces soldier (Oleg Taktarov, last seen with De Niro in RIGHTEOUS KILL and 15 MINUTES), a Mexican drug enforcer (Danny Trejo, last seen in any Robert Rodriguez film), a Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a Sierra Leone soldier (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, last seen buying another vowel), an Israeli sniper (Alice Braga), a death row inmate (Walton Goggins, last seen as Sam Rockwell in THE GREEN MILE) and a disgraced bean stem of a doctor (Topher Grace, last seen apologizing for being an actor).

(Of course, physics is once again given short shrift, as three giant moons that close to a planet would not make it humanly habitable: the planet would either be torn apart by gravitational forces, have no atmosphere or suffer continual tectonic upheaval and volcanism. Also, it’s very unlikely the sun would appear the same size in the sky as our sun, and if it doesn’t move, how come night falls?)

Onward to plot that makes sense if you discount everything else.

Luckily, Brody has read the script and rasps the exposition above. But you don’t need the script if you’ve got someone who saw PREDATOR; Alice Braga recounts the story of the Special Forces guy (that would be Arnold, fanboys) who killed one of the hunters and described its proclivities.

Can’t help feeling the cast is a leetle too international for the sake of worldwide box office – or maybe they’re just auditioning for a crowd of passengers in another SPEED movie.

First act is tight, effective screenwriting; characters introduced smartly, situation assimilated; inexplicable jungle mystery, thriller, action, even some horror. All the classic story elements that made PREDATOR so good. PREDATORS reminds us of ALIEN 3: back to basics to bring the solemnity under control again.

Suddenly – Laurence Fishburne. A surprise cameo, an eccentric old hermit, well-built, brain-fried, and whispering in that Morpheus velvet about surviving for ten seasons. He reveals the Predator hunting party travels in threes.

And then, in maximum cool – we meet The Predators…

They’re played by Carey Jones, Brian Steele and Derek Mears, and they’ve been given names by the filmmakers that we discover only by reading the credits: the captive, strung-up Predator is Classic Predator; the leader of the three hunters is Berserker, larger and scarier than Tracker and Falconer. The armor and headgear of these new Predators is akin to the development of Batman’s suits; more jagged and streamlined than previous versions. Makeup by Greg Nicotera and Howard Berger goes above and beyond the call of B-Movie duty. Like the rest of the production, they’re taking it very seriously indeed.

There are numerous homages to PREDATOR, creatively intertwined into this tale, and Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally (which is blaring in the chopper on the way to the drop zone in PREDATOR) plays us out over the closing credits. There are the unavoidable cliché moments: Walton exalts, “We killed it! We killed it!” and is suddenly shot in the back by “it.” There are the interesting twists of character, and even a grand moral dilemma: when Topher is injured, rather than carrying him as dead weight, Brody decides, “We leave him as a booby trap.” When Alice protests, he elucidates on how the Predators maimed Topher to slow down the fleeing humans, knowing they would carry him, “They’re banking on us being human.” I love the smell of sociopath in the morning.

And when Yakuza finds a samurai sword, we know there must be a reckoning – between an arm-bladed Predator and Yakuza gettin’ his Toshiro Mifune on. Like Billy on the log, Yakuza stops in a field as the rest of the humans continue to flee. He turns to face the oncoming Pred, who, true to form, decides to grant his prey the courtesy of a “fair” battle… as he shinks out his arm-talons…

It seems Predators are taken down not by their superior technology or weaponry, which, if utilized judiciously, can take down any prey in the galaxy – they are done in by their own hubris! They are arrogant beyond caution. Brody (covered in mud like Arnold) goes mano a mano against the last Berserker; when the Pred could easily shoot Brody as he lies squirming on the ground, he opts to grab Brody by the neck and throw him. Even picking Brody up by the neck could warrant an efficient killing stroke if the Pred just shinks his arm-talons up through Brody’s throat. Nope. They take toying with their prey to new levels of carelessness.

Maybe it is this inherent ego, conceit and pride that makes them hunters in the first place (those characteristics sure work for Man); maybe this same presumption of their superiority impels them to waste resources bringing animals from throughout the solar system to dump on this planet as prey; all we know is: “Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18). Another reason for Predators to read the bible – they’d kill us more efficiently. They should also stop watching 1960s Batman episodes.

It’s almost as if the words of the Little Richard song reflect the taunting hubris of the Predators, “We’re gonna have some fun tonight – whooo!/ We’re gonna have some fun tonight – whooo!/ Have some fun, havin’ me some fun tonight!”– Oops! Blown up by humans again!

Whooo!

END

“Phew, that barn roof is unforgiving…”

As Powerful as a Locomotive.

The posters to HOLLYWOODLAND do nothing to alert us to the movie’s startling subject matter – Ben Affleck in red grandma-panties.

Set in 1959, tracing the ripples in pop culture following the mysterious death of TV’s most famous Superman, George Reeves, writer Paul Bernbaum and director Allen Coulter (THE SOPRANOS, SEX AND THE CITY) embark on a RASHOMON-like journey to tease out various scenarios that might have contributed to Reeves’ untimely demise.

And Ben Affleck is George Reeves. As they say in Joisey: “Who woulda thought?!” – Matt Damon’s wife as The Man of Steel!

But Affleck makes it work. With a snake-charmer’s smirk and a square-jawed irony, his Reeves shoulder-rubs high society doggedly enough to enamor a studio head’s wife, Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), whom he believes will further his flagging acting career, but who makes him merely her “kept man” – even whilst his star rises as television’s Superman to the point where his typecasting makes working in other films nigh impossible (“Hey! There’s Superman talking to Burt Lancaster in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY!”)

Put another S on the Barbie!

Three relationships (in this movie’s telling at least) drive Reeves toward an inexorable fate: that between him and his unsatisfied girlfriend, Leonore (Robin Tunney); between him and the studio head, Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins in full throttle CEO-gangster drive), whose tacit knowledge of his wife’s affair with Reeves makes for a knife-edge uneasiness on Reeves’ part – especially whilst sharing a dinner table with Eddie and his lover; and between Reeves and his own alter ego.

Why the movie is called “Hollywoodland” remains a mystery; its allusion to the famous Hollywoodland sign which once stood atop Mt. Lee in the Hollywood Hills (refurbished and shortened to “Hollywood” in 1949, ten years before Reeves’ death) is abstruse, and though the argument could be made that the title is to conjure those maddeningly ephemeral glamour days that modernites seem to remember only through rose-colored pill bottles, it seems more likely that it was merely a bad second choice after the Superman owners refused to allow the film-makers to use their original title, TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY (an infinitely more suitable nod to this movie’s themes).

HOLLYWOODLAND delves deeper than the rosy nostalgia, teetering on noir (itself a glamorization of a bygone era), presenting a more realistically rendered underbelly of the entertainment industry than is usually reminisced when regarding the Reeves SUPERMAN era. It makes no claims to accuracy (we see Reeves in a promotional video cringing in pain from his acrobatics, which did not happen; we see him barbecuing his Superman suit in frustration, which he did not do – “You’ll believe a man can FRY”?), though it does give us brief glimpses into Reeves’ well-reported attitudes regarding his “monkey suit” and conversely how he took his role as seriously as a real superhuman crimefighter when appearing around kids.

The film plays out the apocryphal tale of the kid who pointed a real gun at Superman and asked to shoot him. Reeves deflates the situation by warning that the bullet may bounce off him and hurt someone else. If I was that kid, I would have retorted, “But you’re faster than a speeding bullet – you can save them!”

Almost miscast amongst the skinny-tie-wearing private dicks and FBI reservoir dogs, Adrien Brody‘s subtly humorous performance (as investigator Louis Simo) is a standout feature of the film, as he balances his scared-hair comedic presence alongside confused fatherly love for his son who is shattered by “Superman’s” death. (Have they isolated that mischievous gene that made every 1950s American kid’s ears stick out like that?) Simo’s character is “dramatic license” in action, as the circumstances surrounding any private investigations into Reeves’ death were never as blasé as Simo’s.

Performances are so consistently good that even throwing Dash Mihok into the mix does not phase the quality; his informant sergeant role is tackled with great maturity.

Not being a biopic, HOLLYWOODLAND does not focus on Reeves as Superman for more than five minutes total screentime; don’t take the kids if all they want to see is a guy swishing about in a red cape and red grandma-panties – they’d more likely see that guy at the next gay mardi gras than in this film. More an intriguing thriller, the mystery of Reeves’ death is never solved (in the film at least) and the three relationships which might have prompted his demise are all given persuasive treatments.

More compelling than the last few Affleck movies combined (GIGLI, SURVIVING CHRISTMAS, DAREDEVIL), HOLLYWOODLAND, though it is frightfully un-real, illustrates how frightening the game of public persona comes to be. As Eddie Mannix’s aide chillingly reminds Simo as he delves for the truth, “When it comes to publicity, what’s true or false doesn’t matter.”

Truth, Justice, the American Way itself have always been subsumed by Hollywoodland.

END

Yes! We Have No Bananas!

Pure entertainment. Twenty-five hairy-bottomed, big-dumb-galoot feet of it. And nothing else. Despite the ubiquitous refrain of beauty and beast subtexts and alienation metaphors and caveats against taming nature, searching for deeper meaning within this wholly implausible tale will only lead to senseless cavil and being considered the big ponce for taking it so seriously in the first place.

If there is any message we can glean from this fanciful ape tale, haunting our sensibilities since before there was rock and roll, it is that Women Will Kill You – One Way Or Another. But we already knew that.

Cucumber Kong

Director Peter Jackson actually fixed what wasn’t broke! How he did it is a wonder to behold. The sheer spectacle of KING KONG 2005 over-rides any shortcomings it may possess – trouble is: there are no shortcomings…

Comparison with Merian C. Cooper’s and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1933 KING KONG is not only inevitable – it should be compulsory, to fully appreciate Jackson’s phenomenal achievement. Purists may want to leave the room, as it is going to get quite – er, hairy for King Kong aficionados, even Fay Wray reportedly remarking to Naomi Watts, “Ann Darrow is mine!” For an actor to succumb to such petulancy over a figment, one shudders to imagine what the action-figure fanbase may be plotting against us.

Into that cauldron of knotted knickers we dive…

Upon re-watching 1933’s static KONG – after viewing Jackson’s kinetic 2005 remake – we realize, to our shock, that the reasons we considered that film a “classic” have all been rendered moot, at the very least, academic. Released during the Great Depression (when “talkies” had been existent a scant five years), it was pioneering for a simpler time and a much simpler audience; filmic sophistication was at an all-time low and suspension of disbelief was at a premium. As dambusting and magical as it was – saving RKO Pictures from bankruptcy – it reads now as riotously unsophisticated and virtually unwatchable, with its token white-supremacist racism, its sophomoric “love affair” between Darrow and Driscoll; the merely-sad look of the then-pioneering rear-projection and stop-motion techniques; and – most heinously – the primitive, community theatre acting styles of all the principals.

Before blindly dismissing Jackson’s vision for the sole reason that it is a “remake,” I challenge you to re-watch your deteriorating VHS copy of that plasticine ape movie. Note the storyline – juvenile, at best (the two major “breathtaking” sequences – Kong versus tyrannosaur and Kong climbing the Empire State – merely “set-pieces,” to elicit the “wow-factor,” with no plot import or reasoning, respectively); note the motivation of the principals – apart from Denham, no one else has any (Kong especially has no compelling reason for any of the anthropomorphized caretaker duties he undertakes for his puling charge); note the unfolding of the interspecies “love story” – there is none (Darrow is ferried around by an inexpressive Kong, at every opportunity attempting escape – when she isn’t playing the helpless coquette with no leg muscles). And every two minutes we must endure the mind-scratching screaming of Fay Wray, like some kind of Tourette’s victim (perfectly corroborating the 1930’s perception of “Woman with the scientifically-proven smaller brain,” who couldn’t possibly have climbed down that log herself when the tyrannosaur approached to eat her).

In KONG 2005, all these inadequacies have been addressed. Our newest incarnation of Ann Darrow (golden child Naomi Watts) is a vaudeville performer so down on her luck in Depression-era New York that she has reached the stage of, “To get work in this town, which Big Ape do I have to screw?” As luck would have it, director Carl Denham (Jack Black, in a role which will rocketsauce his career), desperate to find a heroine for his adventure movie, “discovers” her in a sequence which not only pays homage to the original film, but which supplies Darrow with suitable backstory and motivation enough to voyage with Denham into the unknown.

To an island merely a scrawl on a sea-dog’s map, Denham’s hired tramp steamer runs aground. The island natives are more than restless; face-pierced, alien and lethal, they kidnap Darrow as sacrifice to their simian god – Kong.

Director Jackson and co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens have taken an unmolded lump of clay (all puns intended) and added all the bells and whistles which the original film strived for and alluded to, but did not quite achieve due to budget, its place in history and lack of film-making experience. KONG 2005 has not only improved on its progenitor’s technical icing one-hundredfold (which goes without saying, and which is NOT the reason this film is better than the original), it also boasts character development, motivation, Method acting, and actually possesses the “love story” foretold, but never realized, in that far, far away galaxy of 1933. (Jackson opted to run with the plot-holed broad strokes of the original story, so criticizing him for merely sticking to the asinine and implausible plot is moot. His bravura re-rendering of that storyline is his gift to us.)

Other improvements on the original include Denham absconding with his movie reels when his funders get cold feet, writing rubber checks to all and sundry to retain the impetus of his outlaw campaign; the boat captain played more believably (than 1933’s calm, unquestioning senior) by a skeptical Thomas Kretschmann (suitably grizzled and indeterminately Euro) and a veritable kidnapping of writer Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody, oozing leading-man cool), who tries to alight the boat as it is about to sail, even while police rush to board it, to arrest Denham. Even seemingly benign and obvious developments, like Darrow and Driscoll engaging in spanky-spanky en route to their destination, gives Driscoll the much-needed motivation later in the film, to leg it over carnivore-infested territory to find her.

KONG 1933 had no such delving into characterization, and KONG 2005’s non-efx exposition might be construed as unnecessary in a “blockbuster spectacle” film – but diving into special effects flummery immediately would serve to diminish the “story” which Jackson takes the time to reverently improve upon. For those who snidely question why KONG 2005 takes 187 minutes to spool a tale originally only 104, we must surely question their apprehension of “plausible backstory.” We see how far they are willing to stretch their suspension of disbelief in the original – with specious backstory and performances so camp you could hold a three-ring circus under it – and surmise that they only support its primacy out of misplaced loyalty. KONG 2005 suffers from “length” only in the minds of those short-attention-span critics whose idea of proper film length is denoted by Big Studio Decree pertaining to crowd attendance, shorter films meaning more screenings, meaning more income; but more so denoted by their spongy posteriors jonesing for a Raisinets-and-plastic-pizza fix after two hours of thankful existence sans junk food. Absolutely zero connection with inherent quality or visceral, wet-panted enjoyment of a film.

Were the original, naïve storyline remade note for note, the same critics would bury Jackson for those reasons. As forewarned, you just can’t please the Purists – or the spongy posteriors…

KONG 2005 is not overlong. It is under-appreciated.

Once upon Skull Island, the movie ratchets into the stratosphere, in sequences where Jackson has no equal, as his creative cameraplay swoops through time-blasted village constructs and lush landscapes tantalizing with vestiges of ancient ruins. Bringing his masterful LORD OF THE RINGS wizardry to bear on these stunning tableaus and ancient designs, we realize that, due to his pedigree, Jackson is the only person who could have remade KING KONG with any semblance of majestic authenticity.

And then – the sauropod stampede… where Lord Peter Jackson illustrates quite definitively that Bigger is, in fact, Better.

Reality. It’s gonna kick your CGI ass.

Taking his cue from the original’s biologically-incorrect carnivorous sauropod chasing sailors while roaring like an ocelot, Jackson gives us a herd of stampeding sauropods in an astounding pursuit that sees raptors attacking and humans dodging the elephantine legs of the beasts during the stampede – a sequence that needs to be seen to be believed, even if just to view the level of unbridled insanity that the state of computer graphic technology has attained.

In fact, the whole Skull Island interlude is so rife with arterially-bursting CGI that “breathtaking” or “awe-inspiring” are not only understatements, they are sins against humanity. There are words yet to be invented for this bombalicious middle section of KONG 2005 – and our children will be speaking them, wearing their underpants over their heads – or whatever passes for fashion in those far-forward days.

Peter Jackson is George Lucas with a soul. Not having to rely on Lucas’ ILM studios, helming his own company of effects madmen (WETA Digital), Jackson shows George how to do “More is More” without losing sight of the human protagonists at the heart of his tale. A perfect example being the tyrannosaur attack…

…Where everything gets ten times trickier for Jackson and Co. – for in the original movie, the battle between Kong and the t-rex was an effects stunt for the sake of effects (oooh! like no one in the black and white era ever made that lowbrow call), but now, not only is the tyrannosaur battle chair-clutchingly mind-careening, this event is the seal on Darrow and Kong’s “relationship.” The major thematic element of KONG 1933 – the vaunted Beauty and Beast entanglement – was seemingly written in the press junkets, rather than into the movie itself; at the tyrannosaur attack of 1933, Kong had not yet displayed any particular proclivity towards his captive, except for ferrying her about like the spoiled brat she was. Why then, did he risk his life battling a t-rex for her? With 1930s anthropocentrism prevailing, it was assumed that simply because Darrow is Human, she should unquestionably be defended – but to Kong, she was nothing more than a plush toy with an annoying squeal. By 2005’s t-rex battle, Kong has at least invested some emotion in Darrow (albeit as an intriguing and amusing plaything), thereby justifying some smidgeon of motivation to risk his life for her. Still, it’s a stretch that anyone would go the distance with three tyrannosaurs over a pet hamster…

“Ah, a woman wearing a pink nightie. My luck is changing…”

On the boat, Darrow broached the concept with Driscoll that the best way for a man to get the attention of a woman is to ignore her. After the t-rex battle, Kong actually plays this card with Darrow, who realizes that the only way she will survive is to ally herself with the King of this jungle, running after him in supplication. And for the first time in any Kong movie, a palpable connection is made between Darrow and the ape, as he whisks her onto his shoulder, Toomai style. (Film buffs, watch for the homage to the original battle, where Kong breaks the t-rex’s jaw and then toys with it.)

Wray never found any pity for the beast at all, opting to scream like a loon anytime it was near. In the 1976 remake, Jessica Lange (glazing through her role as if on the verge of full-throated orgasm), went a small way towards “loving” the ape with her entreaties to, “Pick me up so they won’t shoot you!” It has taken the talent of Jackson to give bodyheat to the “Beauty and the Beast” catchcry, with Watts volunteering herself to Kong. But don’t touch yourself just yet. This is not a love story – never has been, unless you take into account that “pet hamster” thingy. For what other kind of “love” could exist between a Homo sapiens and a Gorilla giganticus – not counting those types only found on illegal internet sites?

Nonetheless, Kong’s and Darrow’s attachment is so pronounced by the time Driscoll appears to “save” her – as she sleeps in Kong’s palm, having curled there of her own volition, after sharing the beauty of the sunset together – that it actually seems implausible that she would desert her ape captor, as her human savior seems oh-so-impotent compared to the masculinity of the beast; the first KONG movie where this doubt even crosses our minds, all other heroines tripping over their diaphanous gowns rushing into the arms of their man-heroes.

Now if only we could ignore the fact that Kong’s grasp should realistically crush over half her bones, or that her neck should have snapped a long time ago with him manhandling her like a doll, we’d be in that delusional pink that the original’s supporters seemingly wallow in.

“This is what happens when you have two working arms, Rexy!”

In the movie’s only weak sequence, Kong is captured by Denham and the boat crew (- after battling three tyrannosaurs? I don’t think so!). At this point in the original film, Denham (Robert Armstrong) melodramatically bellows, “We’re millionaires, boys! I’ll share it with all of you!” in a ludicrous stentorian swish. Jackson’s team have re-defined Denham – the fanatic movie director so bent on giving the public something they’ve never seen that he will go to any lengths to achieve it – by making Jack Black repeatedly promise hollowly, whenever a crew member gets killed, “We’ll finish the movie – and we’ll donate the proceeds to his wife and kids!” so that when Kong is captured and Black mimics Armstrong’s stagey effeteness, it is now played for what it really should have been – a running gag on his insincerity. Black is playing a heartless man who doesn’t know he’s heartless. Armstrong was playing a carnival barker – with a swish to die for.

If Jackson gave Kong limbs, Andy Serkis breathed life into them. Doing double-duty in this film – as the eponymous ape, and as Lumpy, the cook, Serkis’ effectiveness as Kong – with over 100 sensors attached to his face for motion capture of the subtlest expressions – is wondrously demonstrated when Kong faces off against the last t-rex standing, with Darrow at his feet protectively. Glancing down from Darrow, up to the t-rex alternatively, Kong’s eyes actually register caring to threat, caring to threat, as he looks back and forth! So how to capture that “cute” aspect of the 1933 Kong – whose innocence seemed to grow with his onscreen time – with Jackson’s realistic, battle-scarred silverback? Marvel at the poignant scene on Central Park’s frozen lake, where the displaced Kong finds himself with Darrow in a brief interlude, sliding over the ice with her, ecstatic that he has reunited with his pet hamster.

The reverie lasts no longer than it takes to wipe away a lone tear, as the tragic finale looms atop the Empire State Building, which Kong climbs, with Darrow as willing accomplice, in a misguided attempt to escape the madding crowd. By now, Jackson has stacked his deck with the message that the original film found so hard to convey – that Kong is not the most dangerous beast – humans are. As Darrow sorrowfully watches a final sunrise with her wild and crazy pal, she repeats once more, “Beautiful!” now referring not only to the pastel-palette horizon, but also to Kong, as a part of that natural world – inevitably cut down by a “civilized” world which could find no place for twenty-five hairy-bottomed, big-dumb-galoot feet of nature within its concrete heart.

The Arabian proverb that opened KONG 1933 is barely applicable to that flawed masterpiece, after witnessing the depth of emotion that infuses KONG 2005’s heart-breaking skyscraper flourish. The telling scene atop the Empire State is one of aching perfection: Kong and Darrow, in profile, with the cityscape in pastel dawn behind them, she sitting in his palm, gazing into each other’s eyes. All is silent. A clutch of biplanes suddenly drone from behind the building, across the background sky. Kong huffs. Darrow knows it is the end. “And lo, the Beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.”

Peter Jackson’s KING KONG incarnation has breathed life into the legend for at least another 70 years – until someone with as much vision, economic and technological clout as he, can re-vamp it to blow a future generation’s bollocks to the Cretaceous. Hopefully (new words having been invented), my grandson will be able to describe that new version with greater aplomb, with his Webster’s New Malafrabjous English Dictionary by his side, a copy of KONG 2075 in his holo-DVD, and his underpants over his head.

END