Christmas Recap, wherein Famous J also reviews King Kong
Actually, the dog did quite a bit better than I did, scoring her own dog house. Though that will redound to my favor, since it will extend the temperature range she can stay outside. When the dog is outside all day, she manages to run around terrorizing squirrels and bunnies and making threatening noises at the mailman. When she's inside, she just sleeps, which means, as soon as I'm home, it's play time!
My younger brother is in town, sleeping peacefully in The Cub's room as we speak. Each year we have a contest where we try to get the other one the worst present. I won by default, as it happens, since he's been embarrassingly busy with the band and didn't actually do any Christmas shopping until he arrived in town Christmas Eve. But I would have won anyway, having gotten him clam jerky. Yes. Clam jerky. He didn't try any of it, but I'll probably end up having a nibble at some point just to see if it's as bad as I imagine it would be.
The Cub scored his own iPod Nano. I had made a deal with him a few years ago that when I filled up all 15 gigs on my current iPod, that I'd get another one and give mine to him. Well, I did that and he had mine, but he wanted a Nano. Because they're so freakin' small you can't help but be impressed with them. I know I'm impressed.
My presents for him were Halo for the PC and a wireless mouse. After class gets out at his overpriced school, the kids play each other on the LAN, and a wireless mouse gives someone a distinct advantage over that crappy laptop touchpad.
I also got him some squid jerky at the same time I got the clam jerky. Which sounds like a gag, but he's a big fan of calamari, so that's not so ridiculous after all.
Christmas Eve was spent at the folks' place. I had to bring the Eponymous Dog with us, and that was a harrowing experience. The folks' house is not puppy-safe at all, and they take a pretty dim view of having their high dollar carpets peed on (for some reason. Gaw, what a bunch of killjoys!).
We did midnight mass at the aforementioned overpriced school, which was much longer than I'd have liked. It was one of those rock-and-roll masses, with the guitars, synthesizers and a dude on the bongos. As me and The Cub have discovered going to the no-music 7 a.m. mass, the difference between a long mass and a short mass is 80% music and 20% whether or not you have a gasbag giving the homily. When the the responsorial psalm clocks in at 20 minutes, you're in for a long night.
Presents on Christmas morning, then off to Aunt Debbie's for the extended family presents. Jacob returned to Oklahoma for his other side of the family's Christmas, and me and my brother went to see King Kong.
About that...
The stuff between when the mist rolls in around Skull Island to when they finally make it back to the ship was probably the most exciting hour and a half of film I've ever witnessed. Holy crap! Unbelievable!
Everything before that was long and dull as dishwater. Well, the sights and sounds of New York City in the 30's was really cool, but it mostly focused on characters. Jack Black wasn't an embarrassment, exactly. He was Jack Black. He did his schtick, it was about what you'd expect, but still. It looked out of place. Naomi Watts was very good, as was Adrien Brody, but frankly, I'm not there to see a love story. I'm there to see an ape beat up on dinosaurs.
Everything after they make it back to New York City, well, it seemed like this:
ASSISTANT: Sir! Wasn't there supposed to be some point to this?
PETER JACKSON: Oh yeah, something about, um... I dunno, how man destroys things, and, isn't he the real monster and, um... Yeah! That's right! We have to kill off the ape!
I don't want to say it was perfunctory, but it didn't have the same flow as the stuff on the island. Rather than just have more action and let the message find its way out, it seemed like they decided, "Okay, here's the message we're trying to send, and let's see if we can't throw some action at this. Preferably something with Model T's getting smashed! And I want lots of shots of Naomi looking pained! That'll really send this message home!"
And maybe it's just me, but I never quite did get what the message was. It's like when you walk in the room and everyone stops talking. You know something was up, and when you ask what was going on, you just get nervous looks and someone says something cryptic and evasive. That's how I felt about the ending. I know there was some point to it, but I wasn't getting it.
Overall, the first third gets a B-, the middle third gets an A++, and the last third gets a solid B. And because the middle third was so good, I give it three and a half Charlie Heads.
And I should point out that my brother would probably deduct a half a head because they never did show how they got the ape in the boat. I mean, how did they do that? Did they have a crane stowed away that they weren't showing us? And how were they going to row him back to the ship with one rowboat? And how were they supposed to keep his head above water so he didn't drown?
So many questions...
One last thing:
When the movie's over, don't forget to wait through the credits. At the very end, they show the autopsy of King Kong. As they're dissecting the beast, they cut his stomach open, and some guy reaches in and pulls out something. You know what he pulls out?
A sled! A symbol of King Kong's lost innocence!
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