King Kong

King Kong

/ / Home Video
  • Title: King Kong (1976)
  • IMDb: link

King Kong DVD review1976’s King Kong holds up fairly well nearly 45 years after its release. The first remake of the 1933 film, producer Dino De Laurentiis and director John Guillermin‘s film is memorable for its practical effects including the mechanical Kong mask developed by Carlo Rambaldi and Rick Baker giving Kong’s face a wide range of emotion. While some of the composite shots merging Kong with the world aren’t as effective today, there’s still quite a bit of movie magic. Baker also credits cinematographer Richard H. Kline whose work he felt hid the limitations of what could be done with Kong at the time.

Updating the story a bit to fit with the times, the ship isn’t searching for exotic locations but instead that of an oil company executive (Charles Grodin) looking to drill. Stowing away is paleontologist Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) who has his own reasons for wanting to visit the island. The ship also picks up the sole survivor of a shipwreck, aspiring actress Dwan (Jessica Lange), who completes a cast supplemented by the ship’s crew and the natives they will encounter on the island.

…

King KongRead More »

King Kong Read More »

Kong: Skull Island

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Kong: Skull Island
  • IMDb: link

Kong: Skull Island movie reviewFar more focused than Peter Jackson’s bloated three-hour mess, Kong: Skull Island is a film with a clear agenda of what it is and what it wants to do. Sadly, King Kong hasn’t had the greatest career in the movies with far more disappointments than successes. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and screenwriters Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, and Derek Connolly strip away much of the Kong story to focus only on the discovery of the giant ape and the mysterious island which is also home to other monstrous beasts the outside world can only imagine.

Piggybacking on a separate government geological survey, a small group from the secret government organization called Monarch heads to the unexplored island hidden behind constant storms. In the peaceful eye of that storm Randa (John Goodman), Brooks (Corey Hawkins), the mostly silent San (Tian Jing), their military escort led by the obsessed Lt. Col. Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), the mercenary-with-a-heart-of-gold guide (Tom Hiddleston), and their anti-war photographer (Brie Larson) discover the impossible. Monsters are real, and chief among them is one very large ape.

…

Kong: Skull IslandRead More »

Kong: Skull Island Read More »

Kong: King of the Apes – The Adventure Begins

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Kong: King of the Apes – The Adventure Begins
  • wiki: link

Kong: King of the Apes - The Adventure Begins

A longtime fan of King Kong, I was curious to see what Netflix had in store for the giant ape in their new animated series Kong: King of the Apes. Opening with a plodding movie to set the stage for the shorter individual episodes, “The Adventure Begins” gives us the backstory of baby Kong being found and rescued from poachers in the near future where most wildlife is extinct. Rescued by a scientist and his twin sons Lucas and Richard, Kong eventually outgrows the family’s ability to keep him secret eventually leading him to be the main attraction at a wildlife preserve or Alcatraz island stocked with other endangered animals and bio-mechanical robots in the form of dinosaurs and other creatures.

…

Kong: King of the Apes – The Adventure BeginsRead More »

Kong: King of the Apes – The Adventure Begins Read More »