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Movie Review posted Thu May 03, 2007: 11:28 AM by Kai 6 Best Villain Actors Movie Review posted Fri January 19, 2007: 10:43 PM by Kai Worst Writers in Hollywood: Marianne & Cormac Wibberley Movie Review posted Thu December 28, 2006: 12:57 AM by Kai CRITIC CRITIC: KING KONG
Posted Tue January 31, 2006: 9:15 PMMovie Review
Kai: Welcome to the first edition of Critic Critic, our embrace of overt subjectivity. This week Armando and myself strongly disagree with a review of King Kong by a Mr. Robert Wilonsky that we found in our local SF Weekly. He provides a tasty demonstration in missing the point.
Armando: Indeed he does, and before we begin, it is essential that we explain the purpose of our new ongoing column. As countless newspaper readers have probably noticed, the quality of film reviews has diminished greatly as of late. While one expects to read about the good and bad points of a movie and come to their own conclusion as to whether they'll see it, they are instead often met with with either self-indulgent elitism, snide and offensive venting, or utter cluelessness. It is the latter facet that we will be critiqueing in Mr. Wilonsky's review of King Kong. So, without further ado:
Excerpt from SF Weekly Article, published Dec 14, 2005
King Kong Rated PG-13 "Peter Jackson, maker of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, wastes not a cent on his $200 million Kong remake; it is, at various moments, a lively, frantic, noisy, and touching spectacle, which is to be expected from a man who claims the 1933 original as one of his favorite films. Yet it's turgid and soulless, too -- a nearly note-for-note remake that spares no expense in order to run nearly twice the original length. Whole scenes have been copied, whole speeches lifted. Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is once again a starving New York actress, rescued from the streets by jungle-picture director Carl Denham (Jack Black, in way over his eyebrows). The hero's still named Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), but here he's a spindly playwright. When at last Jackson drops anchor on Skull Island, King Kong becomes precisely what you expect: a deafening video game in which the characters overco e one squishy, sharp-toothed peril after another. The girl still cries, the ape still dies, and all you're left with is a ringing in your ears."
K: Mr. Wilonsky seems to take issue with the fact that Peter Jackson remade the film at all. I bet his ideal of a remake is Brett Ratner's re-visioning of Citizen Kane entitled Rush Hour 2.
A: I love the part where he angrily announces that the movie is (gasp) "a nearly note-for-note remake" in which "whole scenes have been copied" and the actors play the same characters from the original version, as if he's expecting a class-action suit for plagiarism on behalf of the filmmaker's estate.
K: Detective Wilonsky is on the job. The case against Peter Jackson is pretty strong granted that his films titled The Lord of the Rings had a suspicious number of similarities to the books titled The Lord of the Rings. How dare Jackson "claim" King Kong is his favorite film and then plagiarize from it, how DARE he.
A: You know, not only is it his favorite film, Peter also publicly proclaimed this remake to be his love letter to cinema, and worked on it to the point of developing narcolepsy, and yet Mr. Wilonsky says the movie is "turgid and soulless." Perhaps if Peter filmed and edited the entire movie at Mr. Wilonsky's house without rest and died of exhaustion as he screened Kong for the Wilonsky family, maybe then he could be convinced.
K: Well, that's how Kubrick died: trying to prove Gene Shalit wrong. Eyes Wide Shut could have been so much more if not for being filmed entirely inside Mr. Shalit's house.
A: That's a common misconception, Kai. Kubrick actually died because he was spreading rumors that Tom Cruise was straight.
K: Oh yeah I remember that, that was only the third time ever Tom Cruise killed someone in the name of L Ron Hubbard.
A: In any case, we don't take issue with the fact that Mr. Wilonsky personally disliked the movie, but rather the fact that he had some, shall we say, curious expectations of the film.
K: That's right. Mr. Wilonsky makes it clear he wasn't "expecting" a remake, but then he says King Kong becomes precisely what you "expect": "a deafening video game." What the hell did he think he was getting into? Not expecting a remake, but WAS expecting a video game.
A: I just invented a game called "Wilonsky". Wanna play? I'll go first: I wasn't expecting donuts...
K: ...but I was expecting holes. My turn! I wasn't expecting a model rocket...
A: ... but I was expecting to pay bus fare. I wasn't expecting a coupon for Borders...
K: ...but I was expecting a tumor. Intercourse night at the Wilonsky household must be interesting: "Honey, I wasn't expecting foreplay, but I was expecting anal."
A: What a strange life he must lead.
K: Insult to injury is that closing line about Kong still dying. What would it be without that? It's King "the ape falls off a building" Kong. Even if it is just a cultural punch line, it's an awesome one. I mean, it's not an all-together terrible idea to just magically change the endings to things. I kinda always wanted to see a remake of Towering Inferno without the inferno, or perhaps someone could make another Titanic in which the ship doesn't sink. In closing, I'd like to say that curiosity killed the cat, and expectation killed the Wilonsky.
A: Well put, Kai, and in conclusion, all I have left to say is that this review of a review has taught us two things. The first is that a career in journalism is apparently not as demanding as I once thought, and the second is that none of you smug little critics are beyond reproach.
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