There are a bunch of different options.
see here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000AY3KNA/qid=1130782349/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-5648245-0609707?v=glance&s=dvd

There are a bunch of different options.
see here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000AY3KNA/qid=1130782349/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-5648245-0609707?v=glance&s=dvd


I'm really surprised how long it took for this film to make it to DVD.

I still have my Criterion Collection Laser Disc of "King Kong" from waaay back, with includes a terrific audio commentary track by Ronald Haver. The LD includes the cut scenes of King Kong eating one of the villagers and the one of him dropping a woman head first from a building after grabbing her out of the apartment building.

I'm also surprised they chose to release this film so close to the Peter Jackson remake---they are going to be comparisons I would think.

The original is pretty hard to top.

I'm really curious how good the 3 hour remake is going to be...

if you ask around your non-film fanatic fans, it's hard for them to say, "Yes, I have seen the '33 version of King Kong." most of them only remember the '76 version. it's kinda sad that it's a commentary on how modern life has transformed the younger generation to be totally and completely ignorant of great black&white films. there are many friends of mine that won't touch black&white, just because it is black&white.

I remember my mother telling me about seeing King Kong when it first came out and she was in high school. She was living in a small town in Southern Illinois and it was a huge event. She said it scared them all to death.

When I was in grad school at Carnegie Mellon in 1972 one of the guys who worked on the stop motion animation for King Kong visited and showed us photos of the armatures used in the animation and told us lots of stories. Really cool stuff. At that time he had just finished making "return of the blob" with Godfrey Cambridge. He said they used Jello for the blob!

He also showed us a commercial he had just made for some kind of floor wax. It showed a kitchen which was ruined in a flood, and how the floor wax brought the shine back to the floor. But in reality, they filmed the "after" scene first and then they trashed it by flooding it, which was the "before" scene in the commercial...

One of the greatest movies ever made. Ever. The 1933 edition of course. I love this film, have an out of print collecters edition VHS copy and have been patiently waiting for this films to arrive on DVD. Thank you Peter Jackson, if for nothing else, then for being the reason they finally released this on DVD.

if you ask around your non-film fanatic fans, it's hard for them to say, "Yes, I have seen the '33 version of King Kong." most of them only remember the '76 version. it's kinda sad that it's a commentary on how modern life has transformed the younger generation to be totally and completely ignorant of great black&white films. there are many friends of mine that won't touch black&white, just because it is black&white.

Never really did saw all of the '76 remake, but Jessica Lange was pretty hot in it.[And to have King Kong in a gorilla suit was pretty ridiculous.]

Films are a product of the times they were made in--some times, they really don't age well and the pacing of older films can turn off kids/people used to today's modern amazing effects and MTV style fast editing and cuts.
Some humor just don't play well today.

If the first film you've seen was "Jurassic Park", then the original "King Kong" just might not impress you.

For me, I have fond memories of seeing the original on TV as a kid and I still enjoy some of the over the top/corny/campy performances of the original "King Kong" and marvel at what they achieved way back in the 30's.

john,

that is true, but does this mean if that if the first book i read was lord of the rings, then i wouldn't be impressed with Homer's Odyssey? not neccessarily. i think the viewer of any visual medium should always be sensitive of the context of the visual medium. you can't judge renaissance painting using postmodern standards (if there is one).

film/tv/music is moderately displacing many of the traditional educational venues of classic studies. but if you show them the classics and help them appreciate it, i think it can turn around quickly. it's all about education, which is what some of the classic film/tv/music has become.

I really can't imagine how anyone could find jurrasic park more entertaining than the original Kong. Kong is nonstop excitement. JP is so boring that it has to resort to child endagerment- the cheapest trick in all of film as far as I'm concerned- to bump up the drama. When i left the theatre after seeing it for the first time I felt cheated. I didn't think there were enough dinosaurs, at all. JP II and JPIII were even more lame. Kong was about the island, the adventure, kong and the dinosaurs, sure there was a love interest, but it ewas a plot in parralell to the Kong plot- and the two plots fold into one relatively early in the film. The JP movies are family dramas with Dinosaurs in the background. ick. JPIII is a distilation of what is wrong with these films. You have an island full of dinosaurs, and the movie revolves around a the divorce/reconcilliation of a suburban middleclass couple. What?
If I were to compare Kong to any "modern" film, I would have to say that Raiders is probably the only one that holds up for sheer adventure/action content.

I really can't imagine how anyone could find jurrasic park more entertaining than the original Kong. Kong is nonstop excitement.

I can, I really appriciate both! I can't wait to see what Peter Jackson cpmes up with!

Cheers!

I have to admit, I am excited as well about the Jackson remake. And for the most part, I HATE remakes. I hated hated hated the Dawn of The Dead remake, didn't even bother with Assault on Precinct 13, wasn't even a big fan of Scorcese's remake of Cape Fear and many more I can name (not always true- I know there has to be at least one remake I liked). But Jackson really proved himself with Lord Of The Rings and he seems to be as big a fan as any of us of King Kong (the original 1933 version) so I think he may be able to pull this off. I hope so anyway. As far as Jessica Lange goes, I will concede that she was gorgeous (and still is) but God, Fay Wray was hot as well (I am thinking of the scene where she drops from the vine into the lagoon and she surfaces and the dress is falling off her very shapely shoulders... I am going to need a moment here :) just kidding).
I personally did like Jurassic Park (wasn't such a big fan of the sequels though I did like -sacrilege!- III better than II).

Well I'm not a Jackson fan. I liked Fellowship, but found the other two movies to be nearly unbearable- and as much as I liked fellowship, I really DID want to like the the two towers and return. The hamfisted color correction in return of the king made it almost impossible for me to sit through. I understand why it was done, but for me it didn't work. I believe the cheif strength of these movies is in the design, effects, and performances. The direction seems very staid to me.
Remaking Kong or a movie like Gone with the Wind for instance, is like covering a beatles song, you might do a good job, but it's still a beatles song.

The hamfisted color correction in return of the king made it almost impossible for me to sit through. I understand why it was done, but for me it didn't work.

Could you explain what you mean here please. Do you mean you thought it was too stylised?

Could you explain what you mean here please. Do you mean you thought it was too stylised?

Yeah, I thought that everthing was way too brown and washed out looking. I understand the reason for it, the springtime of the world is over, autunm has come ect... but for me it just seemed overdone. Way overdone. it made me tired to watch it. Many will/do disagree, and that's fine. I wish it didn't bother me as much as it does. I have other issues with these movies as well, but that's for another thread I suppose.

ps: I am unreasonably picky.

Contrary to popular opinion I thought ROTK was definitely the weakest of the three movies (although I had no problems with the colour correction). It was just a big battle (which PJ had done much more dramatically at the end of Two Towers) - the army of the dead was handled particularly poorly I thought. Very anti-climactic - unlike the book.

However, they are still superb and a fantastic cinematic achievement!

I'm fairly sure PJ will do a decent job with Kong. The original is a masterpiece but is quite dated. Jackson has such a love of the original that hopefully he will retain the heart and soul of the piece but give it an update for modern audiences (who are put off by black & white let alone old-style acting and special effects). I'm certain he won't make the mistake of the terrible 1970s 'remake' which stripped out the story and heart & soul and replaced it with special effects and nothing else.

I much prefer models and stop-motion to cgi. When cgi first appeard I was really impressed with it, but all in all it still looks fake to me- especially creatures, the oliphants from rotk are a good example I geuss . Some have argued with me that it looks more realistic- as in less fake, but fake is like pregnant A little fake is still fake. So effects wize it all comes down to which fake you prefer, it's all subjective.
I also like Black and White every bit as much as color.
I've seen stills of Kong from PJ's effort, and my one complain is he looks just like a gorrila. Kong shouldn't look just like a gorrila he should look like Kong.

if people enjoy it, good for them, though. I'm not certain I will see it in the theatre, but I will probably watch it at some point. The three hour run time worries me, though.

but mike... still photography running@24 stills a second is fake by itself. don't you get it, film is one big special effect in of itself! =). they already dealt with this in the late 19th century.

Actually Yi, that's more or less my exact point! :) it all comes down to the flavor of fake that you prefer, kind of like ice cream. Person a likes choclate(CGI) person b likes vanilla (stop- motion and models) one isn't any more valid, or real than the other; it really is just a matter of taste. I love vanilla, especially the bryers with the little flecks of vanilla beans in it.
except I've become lactose intolerant :/ and can no longer eat it.

We'll be having an old fashined King Kong thanksgiving at my house this year- just like when I was a kid in NY.

now here is something you can really sink your fangs into!

http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/ThisMonth/Article/0,,107433|107435||,00.html

better than the original king kong, better than any remake, TCM is releasing a film bio of Merion Cooper, the director of Kong, by Kevin Brownlow, who is a terrific scholar/film historian/filmmaker.

Cooper had a very dashing, adventurous life, and he is pretty much my idol, not for King Kong, but for his lesser-known documentaries. Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life is just about my favorite. film. ever.

must see! must see!

meryem,

i seen that 1925 silent documentary, but it seemed so "staged", that's one of the difficulties of the earliest documentaries, staging vs. actualities. on the other hand, the landscape is absolutely awesome. it was like Lawrence of Arabia only a few more years back!

if you liked that, check out nanook of the north. imho it's a superior documentary from that era from robert flaherty.

yi, what about it seemed staged to you? its apparent authenticity is actually what is most appealing about it.

nanook is a great film, too, but i don't know whether it is better or not. pretty much any of those filmmakers who traveled into the pre-modern world lugging moutains of filmmaking equipment have my respect.

but for what it's worth, nanook definitely falls into the stagey category, from the very opening sequence, when nanook and his entire family come tumbling out of his tiny kayak like so many shriners from a clown car. how many wives does that guy actually have, anyway??

i prefer flaherty's "man of aran" to nanook. his shot composition was more highly developed in his later work. almost murnau-esque. the imagery in "man of aran" is far more stark and frightening than in nanook. but it is very staged as well. flaherty is known for exploiting the locals, sending the native folk into dangerous situations (giant ocean swells in tiny canoes, for instance), so that he could get good footage. he talked the island locals into spearing a huge basking shark for the benefit of his cameras, a supposed old local custom which had been dead for decades until he resurrected it for the sheer spectacle. his reputation was as a bully and a taskmaster. he had a great eye, though, no doubt about it.

meanwhile, everything in the historical record indicates that cooper and co. completed this trek, which is almost identical to the nomadic trek by the very same bakhtiari tribe documented in the 1976 film, people of the wind. according to this iranian reviewer, these days, modern technology has to some extent infiltrated the nomadic way of life in contemporary iran, but basically the nomads is still the nomads.

www.iranian.com/Travelers/2003/January/Migrate

shameless plug: if anyone wants to know more about this film, take a peek at my first-ever podcast, online since yesterday, where i do a more thorough review of Grass (and two other adventure films, as well). i already posted this once in "dv for the masses," looking for some feedback, but it seems to fit this thread even better, perhaps, since there is apparently a renewed interest in Cooper's work. check it out: http://www.ourmedia.org/node/101497

i guess that's just my prejudice and bias =). but i can't really talk about it specifically because it can easily dive right into a religio-political discussion. documentaries in general, imho, have always seemed stagey compared to fiction. ironically, the fictions tap into larger truths than documentaries. i generally prefer fiction.

my fav r. flaherty is still both tabu and the lousiana story. cinematically, both are very well constructed and he isn't afraid to share his own opinion of reality. his point of view, etc. that's what great documentaries should be... not objective. all film should be subjective. and take a really strong subjective point of view at that. otherwise (imho) it doesn't warrant watching.

that's why i didn't like cooper&shoedsack or most documentaries who vye after 'the objective truth' cause there ain't such thing. hence why i didn't like grass or chang, etc.

Here's an article some may be interested in (esp stop-motion fans).

Stop motion genius Ray Harryhausen, the man who inspired Peter Jackson to make movies, talks to William Shaw about working with Kong's original animator, and the rise and rise of CGI...

The origin of the species (http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1646528,00.html)

Got the delux set last night. It's really nice.

Hey, did anyone else catch the Turner Classic Movies special on Merian C. Cooper (King Kong producer/director) last night "I'm King Kong"? Fascinating guy, I had no idea. He was an aviator, explorer, documentarian, head of production, general, director, author... He also produced/edited/wrote "This is Cinerama." Wow. They're running this again on December 13 and 17.

Boyd, I think that Doc is part of the set I got. I haven't watched it yet though.
As for the dvd transfer of kong; well it looks pretty good. There are a few scenes, especially towards the beginning, that have a bit of "flicker" but for the most part it looks very, very good- especially the Kong sequences on Skull Island.
One interesting feature is included in the making of documentary. Peter Jackson and his weta team recreated the props and sets from the original kong in order to figure out how it was put together. Very interesting if you like or have an interest in stop motion. They also shot a version of the legendary missing "spider sequence" which they did a pretty good job on- although certain elements give it a way as a product of the 21st century.

Watched "Son of Kong" animation is good, but all crammed into the last 20 minutes of the movie. Overall the film is a bit tiresome- and strange- it seems to be improving towards the end, but then it just explodes into senseless chaos and is over. :/ .

I'm saving "Mighty Joe Young" for the coming weekend.