thanks dann. i run into more kong dvd reviewers who think watts certainly should have been nominated if not won best actress this year. (also mulholland dr 4yrs ago & some 2yrs ago when it was much tougher competition.) but she will be up this year for playing an adultress exiled to china during a cholera epidemic in the 1920s in painted veil. (the novel stops off w/her character caught in flagrante w/her real love liev schreiber's character, & remember the last time she was a producer she was not technically nude but w/o clothes in we don't live here anymore w/the painted veil director john curran & the other was ellie parker, in which she was not full frontal but having energetic sex in the bathtub--out 11april...she is also brilliant in that film, variety comparing her to lucille ball & carole lombard).
but she gave up a certain oscar for constant gardener & meirellos said he would enhance her role, perhaps upgrading to best actress. instead he had to give it to his second choice...rachel weisz.
Drude
Veteran
Registered: 12/30/03
Posts: 368
Loc: 4th Circle of Hell
The main problems with the ORIGINAL King Kong are this:
It's a classic, for sure, but has an unfortunate attitude towards Kong, and that is that he is JUST an animal and the main characters (not even the girl) have any sympathy towards him, they just want to get away and kill it if possible. In the new film, they address this and show that he isn't just a dumb ape that's out to kill, he's a proud animal that is forcefully taken away from his home and pursued to his death. AND, the girl feels sympathy and understanding towards him and connects with him and tries to help him.
Secondly, the original was a strongly RACIST film, which showed 'primitive' people in a terrible way, right down to bones in their noses and coconut bikini tops! Very sad, considering the creator of the original, Merian C. Cooper, was an adventurer and had been to the South Pacific and KNEW that the indigenous people there weren't cartoon-character cannibals. In the new Kong, Peter Jackson makes up for this by showing the natives as a sort-of 'undetermined' race, and having the silly cartoonish native dance as part of the stage show at the end.
I MUCH prefer the new film. Sure, it's long, but I actually PREFER longer films. They have more time to tell the story. I think it's excellent, and Naomi should DEFINITELY have won an Oscar!
-Drude
_________________________
NPO: Scarlett Johansson // Megan Fox // Eva Wyrwal // Mila Kunis // Adrianne Palicki // Natalie Portman // Jessica Biel // Olivia Munn
furthermore, jackson added a black to the crew, as the heroic, well-read mentor of billy.
also, in the original, ann darrow not only lacked integrity (she supported the exploitation of kong), but did not have the wits that naomi's ann had--to use her talents to disarm kong. (in jackson's original, he was going to make ann an archaelogist, but being a vaudevillian, she had more talents that could disarm kong than an archaelogist would). furthermore, fay wray did not even do her own screaming (it was june havoc's scream...& the iconic blonde wray was a brunette). that is why you saw her hand before her mouth each time she screamed. watts's scream, on the other hand, broke glass in an aussie tv studio. (is it memorex?)
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