been watching the giant gorilla movies, the original king kong and son of kong from 1933, mighty joe young from 1949 and the king kong remake from 1976, and just minutes ago finished the 1998 remake of might joe young--wanted to watch king kong lives again but blockbuster doesn't have it--and looking forward to the new remake of king kong this week, just before heading out of town for a few days

quick rundown (and a complaint):

• king kong (1933) - great effects for the time, obviously, uninformed portrayal of islanders (of course, who's to say it wasn't a completely accurate view of folks who live on skull island? i mean, have you been there?
• son of kong (1933) - great effects continue as the plot (or lack thereof) gets worse. but, damn it, that bear fight was cool (like the best of the original) enough to make up for the silly earthquake ending
• mighty joe young (1949) - had always thought this was a pre-kong movie, but turns out it's by the same people who did kong, back again a decade and a half later. and, this time they go for a bit more comedy, and a silly ending (though that switch in coloring was a nice touch, even if the orphanage bit was a bit, um, well, on the nose (or something like that, contrived as it is)
• king kong (1976) - nice updated bits, with the stuff about the energy crisis and the oil company. i especially loved that the big intro of kong to the crowd was inside a giant gas pump. would have been nice if more of the monsters had made it to the remake--as is, only the giant snake makes it (aside from kong, of course)
• mighty joe young (1998) - fairly watchable movie on its own. has its own version of the orphanage bit from the original that a) works better cause it doesn't seem quite as contrived and b) doesn't work cause i hate that blond kid (and i'm not even sure why as i can't even recall what i've seen him in) and would have rather seen joe eat him. some geography bugged me though. joe gets from the hollywood walk of fame to the hollywood sign in like a minute (even in context, they establish it as definitely less than 20 minutes, which at his pace through the city would not have worked. plus, then, after going to the hollywood hills, he crosses a freeway, which he would have already had to cross to get there in the first place--and nevermind why they were driving the truck through hollywood in the first place... i figured they wanted joe to pass that king kong neon sign* that's like a block from mann's chinese, but they didn't bother to go there (oh well). anyway, then, he heads toward the palisades, more than ten miles from the hollywood sign, which at gorilla pace with people and cars between, would have taken until the next morning at least, but oh well, can't have realism from moviemaking people who should damn well know the area in the first place, i guess.

and then there was jesus, the devil and the big closety thing, the chronicles of narnia, in which, unlike the bbc version, they tried to cast a likable lucy rather than casting an appropriately annoying bitch of a girl, some evil american way of making the christian side of the story a little less repulsive. great creatures, lazy green/blue screen work in a few parts, but good casting, nice enough battle sequence and fantastic detail from weta, as expected. to be fair, i think the movie presented the whole death of the savior better than passion of the christ (but could have used a little more gore in that respect, a good flogging to go with the clipping of the mane), and at least had a point (not that i need to get to complaining about gibson's christ opus anymore than i already did here after i saw it in the theater.

and, santa (or father christmas or whoever he was...been a couple years since i read the book) didn't come off as silly in this version, since his costume was a realistic, toned down red, so that was nice, tilda swinton was scary enough and the wolves (and other creatures, as i mentioned) were great

and, in other news, sleeper cell has turned out to be fairly good, though i wonder if it would have held up as well at one episode per week. alias was great last week, nip/tuck is about to have its big conclusion (which fx is still just calling a "season" finale) and boston legal has been particularly schizophrenic of late... getting into both ally mcbeal style weirdness and practice melodrama, mixed with a bit of brotherhood of poland, nh politics. just hope kelley sticks with it.

and it's christmas season, christians all aflutter with alleged joy, malls crowded and money aspending, and i'm off for a few days later this week. just gotta try to get my gardea story ("southard, the sands of red" which has been taking too long, and running over 70 pages already when i thought it would be a quick little thing, go figure) done before the trip

* i think i might be confusing the king kong sign at universal citywalk with the godzilla looking dinosaur thing right by the ripley's museum, but then i'll just say they couldn't have joe step on some footprints at least?