KING KONG and ANNE sittin' in a tree.....

Sunday, the 8th-We finally went to see KING KONG. It was a feast for all of the people who like spectacle. How does Naomi Watts make me believe that she's in love with a huge ape? With her gigantic blue eyes, that's how. I cannot tell you how many close-ups this lady has had where her eyes are welling up with tears, but, no-not yet, haven't let one of them drop. When Carl Denham says that she's the saddest girl he knows, he's not kidding, and it's not just that she's just lost her job and all of her friends and is starving, just you wait until you see what happens to her after she gets on that ship to Skull Island, brilliantly rendered in CG, complete with beautiful CG fog. It's not for nothing that this movie cost so much. They had to create an ISLAND in a computer, folks. Once you get over the ridiculousness of the story, you get a series of thrills from seeing the natives of Skull Island, ruthlessly killing the film crew, for no apparent reason. And if that's not enough, the survivors from the first attack go BACK to the island to rescue Anne (Naomi Watts) who has been strung up to, er, "entertain" Kong, the giant ape. It's like watching a horror film starlet back into a room with an axe-wielding maniac looming up behind her, but in this case it's A HERD OF DINOSAURS. And, not to be outdone, there's a fight between Kong and not just one, T-Rex, but THREE, all trying to snap poor Anne up into their jaws. There are some really cool silent moments when Anne and Kong's eyes lovingly meet. And we're there with them, enjoying the quiet, when all of a sudden we get an aural whiplash, which smashes us into the next attack begins from dinosaurs or machine guns. It's a strange movie which is made all the stranger having Jack Black NOT acting like he's on crack. That's one of the reasons I watch a Jack Black movie. I want to see him go crazy. Instead, I get to see Naomi Watts do all sorts of vaudevillian dance moves---for her very life. I am not kidding. She does a good job, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying it's odd to see someone literally dancing to survive. My favorite moment in the movie is when Kong gives her a little laugh when she does something she likes and a huffy sigh when she doesn't. Everyone's a critic. But I guess when you're an ape as big as a house you're allowed to have an opinion.

Oh, and did anyone notice that Colin Hanks and Jack Black had previously been in ORANGE COUNTY? Was anyone else waiting for Jack Black to run around that ship in his underwear? And did anyone notice that the guy who played the captain of the ship had previously been in the movie THE PIANIST with Adrian Brody, as the Nazi who hid him. But this time he just stuck him in a cage. Oh, but he did save his life, again.