King Kong

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:02 pm

Hear, hear!

That Puce guy is most certainly right. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:05 pm

I 'd say.

I just haven't seen this yet... I saw the 70's version in the theatre...in the 70's,... I was a wee tot back then.

So, I'm looking forward to this... more than I had realized at first...

and I love reading comments from Puce that have threatening overtones... imagining you as the dude punching him in the mouth... hmmm...

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:22 pm

thank you, puce.

i wasn't addressing it to the songfight message board. just idiots who feel the need to stir shit up with stupid interpretations of things that can just be ignored.

it's the same idea as the people who have hissy fits about christmas and religion. (i don't mean to start that discussion here too. i'm just using it as an example.) why start a argument bout something that don't hurt nobody?

it just seems that so many people waste so much time and energy on trifles when they could be doing better things.

and i never meant to say that nothing should be analyzed. i'm an english major (though i don't type like one), and analysis is pretty much all i do. perhaps, this discussion has to do with me being tired of analyzing things for now. it's christmas break (sorry atheists and muslims and jews and scientologists and cats because all cats go to hell [just kidding. i don't give a shit about that.])! i don't want to analyze a damn thing until january!

analysis is a great thing when used in moderation.

who wants to have a go at analyzing this post? i may or may not have buried hidden messages.

mkilly · Post by **mkilly** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 10:26 am

Here's an essay talking about the sexual politics of King Kong (Jackson's King Kong), and here's a review mentioning implicit racism, and here's a follow-up from the author defending himself from angry emails.

Key quote:

Sorry to disappoint you, folks, but this didn't originate with me. Yes, King Kong is a piece of entertainment, a fantasy, a movie (as some readers feel compelled to remind me), but it has often been viewed as an imperialist American parable: the arrival at an island of black "savages" who seize the white blonde; the capture of the gorilla who is brought in chains to America ... Reviewing the remake in 1976 in The New Yorker, Pauline Kael acknowledged the racism charge while taking a somewhat anti-liberal contrarian line: "Whites have sometimes spoken of King Kong as a racial slur, but the black men that I've known have always loved it. It was their own special urban gorilla-guerrilla fantasy: to be a king in your own country, to be brought here in chains, to be so strong that you could roar your defiance at the top of the big city and go down in a burst of glory."

Instead of criticizing people for analyzing film, criticize their analyses. Hm?

Post by jb » Wed Dec 21, 2005 10:39 am

It's always better to support people who feel offended by something (if you agree), than to pre-emptively be offended on their behalf without finding out whether they care.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 4:05 pm

Hey, I like white women too!

Kong must have a huge (wait for it....wait for it....) dong.

Yes, what I just said was childish, both lines. Sometimes thats how I feel about people who cry racism at everything. (and I'm only commenting on the movie reviews and emails)

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Mon May 29, 2006 1:41 pm

6 months later I figured I should see it. Actually, it played on the plane. So, not that anyone cares anymore, but...

The bugs = very cool
The savages = sort of silly, sort of cool
The Kong = mostly awesome
The girl = comeon...she sucked
The guys = they all sucked, really bad.
The dialog = why did they even bother? Especially with the lame asses delivering it.

The scene racing through a narrow revine with what...100 beasts who are all 1000 tons a piece stampeding over you (love where they're all basically rolling together like in the ball room at McDonalds)...AND YOU SURVIVE!?!?!?!? That's beyond fantasy, it pretty much ruined any credability it may have had, plot-wise. Oh, and they can all run faster than raptors. Yeah. Jorrasic Park rules this genre.

But then again, the plot...but that's the movie and you can't really do KK without the plot, right?

Over all entertaining and surprisingly accomplished effects all round.
Oh yeah - the sound editing = Fucking awesome. Did it win this catagory?

I'd give it a B.

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Mon May 29, 2006 4:53 pm

Hoblit wrote:[ NOT A DOZEN back and forth frames between faces. It went back and forth and back and forth.

I was so excited about this movie, having seen all of the previous incarnations, and was mega-choked that I missed it in the theatre....

and this point just fuckin irritated me to no end. This movie could have been about 45 minutes shorter if it wasn't for crap like that... and it would have been better...

I'd say it's hovering between a B and a C+, so depending on how you like to round...

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:06 am

mkilly wrote:Here's an essay talking about the sexual politics of King Kong (Jackson's King Kong), and here's a review mentioning implicit racism, and here's a follow-up from the author defending himself from angry emails.

Key quote:
Sorry to disappoint you, folks, but this didn't originate with me. Yes, King Kong is a piece of entertainment, a fantasy, a movie (as some readers feel compelled to remind me), but it has often been viewed as an imperialist American parable: the arrival at an island of black "savages" who seize the white blonde; the capture of the gorilla who is brought in chains to America ... Reviewing the remake in 1976 in The New Yorker, Pauline Kael acknowledged the racism charge while taking a somewhat anti-liberal contrarian line: "Whites have sometimes spoken of King Kong as a racial slur, but the black men that I've known have always loved it. It was their own special urban gorilla-guerrilla fantasy: to be a king in your own country, to be brought here in chains, to be so strong that you could roar your defiance at the top of the big city and go down in a burst of glory."
Instead of criticizing people for analyzing film, criticize their analyses. Hm?

I went to an exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery last year that was all based around the Kong thing and it went into a lot of detail of the history of King Kong and similar gorilla/monster stories - and the whole 'white men being afraid of Negros and sex' stuff. It was really very interesting, with a lot of footage from great old silent movies

The exhibition's website http://kissofthebeast.com/ is pretty cool.