KING KONG (and SON OF KONG) 90TH ANNIVERSARY JAMBOREE!!

KING KONG (1933) d. Merian C. Cooper / Ernest B. Schoedsack (USA)
SON OF KONG (1933) d. Ernest B. Schoedsack (USA)

**CLICK LINK TO VIEW FULL YOUTUBE EPISODE**

It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance the original 1933 King Kong has had on the monster movie genre and on the history of cinema overall. As such, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there was a time before Kong, and that there were individuals who brought the character and the film surrounding him into existence. People like producers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, writers Edgar Wallace, James Creelman, and Ruth Rose, special effects wizards Willis O’ Brien and Marcel Delgado, composer Max Steiner, sound effects pioneer Murray Spivack, and stars Robert Armstron, Bruce Cabot, and the legendary Fay Wray.

KING KONG (1976) Blu-ray Review

King Kong (1976) d. John Guillerman (USA) (134 min)

After Airport kicked off the all-star disaster-film craze, director Guillermin was tapped to helm Skyjacked, a fairly transparent riff on the Irwin Allen blockbuster, with Charlton Heston’s take-no-guff pilot contending with James Brolin’s mad bomber at 30,000 feet. Fittingly enough, Guillerman landed the next big bang boom, 1974’s The Towering Inferno, the success of which led to his assignment on the decade’s highest profile extravaganza to that point: Dino de Laurentiis’ then-staggering 24-million dollar remake of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale. It proved to be the perfect blend of 1970s big-budget mayhem and the “Nature Strikes Back” Eco-horror wave that was just hitting its peak with Jaws.

Fool's Views (8/1 - 8/7)

Howdy folks,

Yep, it’s been a spell since the Doc got in the saddle to round up the Views. As the workload lightened on the Shakespeare front, I must confess to being more inclined to continually and vigilantly visit the multiplexes, whittle away at the Netflix queue, and pillage the public library than wax rhapsodic about said viewing experiences. However, now that we’re once again a month behind and since things are going to go predictably off the rails with the October Horror Movie Challenge and the second annual Scare-a-Thon, I figured I’d better put fingers to keyboard before I was lost completely.

The first week of August yielded another all day stint at the cinema, with seasoned flixster friend Toy and I taking in a varied but worthy quartet of summer flicks (three of which, oddly enough, featured aliens in one form or another). Back on the home front, it was a medley of horror docs, Oscar knocks, dramatic licks and action flicks. 14 in all. Good stuff, Maynard.

As always, feel free to leave your two cents worth – we’ll make sure you get some change back.

Enjoy!

Fool's Views (1/24 – 2/6)

Hello, hello!

Being that last week was the great blizzard of 2011, it’s no real surprise that we got a few movies in. After all, what else was there to do? But it’s funny where inspiration for some of the viewing choices originates. Every 2010 pick this week came courtesy of the Little Red Envelope, one of those rare occasions where Netflix receives your returns the very day the new releases drop. Similarly, it’s often a matter of being in the right place at the right time, as a trip to the Chicago Public Library yielded the remainder of the civilian gems. Sometimes it’s as simple as glancing at your instant streaming queue and realizing that several of your potential Views all start with the same two letters, or it could be the late night screening of an exploitation class-sick (with director Bill Lustig in person!) And sometimes it’s the perfect storm of finishing a book on Toho sci-fi/fantasy flicks the last week in January, and a month-long kaiju festival suddenly programs itself (28 days hath February, 28 Godzilla films hath Toho).

Hope you enjoy the mumbling, jumbling ride – I know I did. As always, feel free to leave your two cents worth – we’ll make sure you get some change back.

Enjoy!