Wow. It's been nearly two months since I've posted. What the hell? There's no real point in having a blog if you're only going to contribute to it an average of six times a year. So I guess I'd better get back on the exercise bike or risk turning into a literary potato.
I have no topic today. Many people in Prague don't. It's raining again, a cold gray wash that is a remnant of the long winter we just endured. Despite the looming holiday, people in the streets seem downcast and not particularly happy to be there. Meanwhile, the magazine I edit is in the middle stages of being laid out, which is tricky because we're simultaneously carrying out a redesign of the entire thing. Our target date for printing is a little over a week away. Will we make it? Bets can be placed at your local lottery office; odds seem to be around 3 to 1. Meanwhile, the reporters have their assignments for the next issue, save for a freelancer or two I'd like to keep contributing, so I get a little bit of a rest. For now. Mmmmm.
I'm renovating my apartment, as most of you probably don't know. My neighbors sure do; in this country, it's necessary to obtain a signed "souhlas majitelu" (agreement of owners), i.e. a statement from the co-inhabitants of your building that they have no objection to your reconstruction project. So we submitted the thing and it turns out that...the neighbors DO have an objection to our project, namely the fact that we want to plant a toilet on a narrower-than-comfortable old waste pipe (and boy, isn't THAT a lovely image to get your weekend started). It's heartening that the neighbors care so much about my toilet arrangements, but what this means for myself and girlfriend/architect Marija is more negotiations, more paperwork, more time and more effort. Or maybe we can just piss from the side of the balcony. That would solve the pipe issue quite elegantly. Sorry, Mr. Cihelka. Was that your dog we just hit?
Hmmm. Jesus Died for My Sins, they tell me. Guess I shouldn't be talking about toilet pipes and gambling. I'm not Christian, though, so I think I can get away with it. But if anyone happens to talk to The Son of God this special weekend please don't tell him, just in case.
He's got a lot on his mind anyway. Did you read the news? Turns out Judas was his favorite apostle after all, and Jesus ASKED him to turn him in to the Romans. Of course, this is all based on a second-hand account 200 years or so after the fact. Which is, uh, actually what the New Testament is, too. Ah. Hmmm.
Meeting a friend for dinner tonight at a new Indian restaurant in Zizkov, the ex-working class district of Prague just down the hill from where I live. Once upon a long time ago (okay, the mid-1990s), you were lucky to find ANY restaurant in Zizkov. Now you can have your choice of Pakistani, Greek, Mexican, Thai, Japanese or even Hare Krishna vegetarian, among numerous other cuisines. What happened? Damned if I know. I was too busy worrying about toilet pipes.
Zizkov is an interesting area. The largest equestrian statue in Europe (or maybe the world; it depends on which account you read) is there. Also, back in the bad old days, the "first working-class" (i.e., communist) President, Klement Gottwald, was interred in the Vitkov Hill mausoleum set aside for Czech leaders. Not only that; the Party wise men tried to preserve his corpse and put it on display, like Lenin. Problem was, their crude freezing techniques didn't work and despite a massive effort, old Klement rotted away piece by piece. They finally gave up in the early 60s. However, if you're lucky, resourceful or good at bribery, you can get someone to show you the rooms where Klem was frozen and watched. Yes, watched. Constantly, in shifts, by Party loyalists. Not only that; the instruments doing the monitoring were installed in PAIRS, in case one of them broke. The Vitkov cryogeny rooms get my vote, hands down, for the weirdest historical attraction in Prague. And in a city with this much history, that's saying something.
My mixed-religion family did, in fact, celebrate Easter when I was a kid. I remember a few Easter Egg hunts on the front yard with the neighbor kids when I was little. At some point, my dad wrote little riddles on index cards to guide us to the eggs. Maybe I even won a hunt or two, I don't know. Better than that was Easter Sunday's trip to Nana's (my grandma; dad's mom). She used to buy us these big milk chocolate eggs, which opened to reveal more sweets inside - jelly beans, foil-wrapped mini-chocolate eggs, marshmallow bunnies. Packed with strips of green plastic "grass." My mom, who always made great efforts to keep us away from sweets, probably had a heart attack every year when she saw those big eggs. Poor woman. She knew we 'd be working on them for another week.
Funny what the mind remembers 25 years after. Nana and mom are in their graves, the chocolate eggs a distant memory. I probably won't do much this Easter save for keeping dry and figuring out a negotiation strategy for dealing with the neighbors. Ah, adulthood. But I wouldn't have it any other way. So much more interesting. Ain't that right, Jesus?
Friday, April 14, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Unlocking Prague
Prague is a city of keys. Big keys, little keys, folding keys (really; I own one), big Medieval bastards that unlock thick cellar doors, front door keys, courtyard keys, mailbox keys...it's a miracle that Praguers don't jangle when they walk, because most of them carry around at least ten clumsy hunks of metal all the time.
Czechs aren't trusting people by nature, so they tend to lock everything in sight. This even penetrates weird places in the home - the box with photos of grandma, for example, or the kitchen door. And offices, forget about it. The place I work now, in a district above the Vltava river called Holesovice, requires the use of FIVE keys before you can get in the door. Front building door, initial gate on the first staircase, second gate protecting office door (requiring two keys, just in case) and finally, office door. If I want to avail myself of the toilet on the upper floor, that's an additional key for the SECOND gate on the uppper part of the stairs. Thank God I don't need to access the broom closet.
Meanwhile, my office set features one more key, for one of two rooms on the upper floor we don't need and rarely use. I never bothered to grab a key for the other one. Are you losing count already? I know I am. That's a grand total of EIGHT keys for one little company.
Many people in this city have the habit of looping all of their keys - home, office, country home (common for Praguers) - into one scary, chaotic tangle. "Just a second, I'll get the door..." they say as they grow old combing through the mess. Is it the long key, the slightly shorter one, or the one hanging by itself on a separate loop? Office, home or garage?
What sells pretty well here are the colored little plastic covers that go over the heads of the keys. These really aren't an option - after all, no one wants to spend an hour a day testing the hundreds of choices on a jailhouse ring just to get into the apartment. These covers, like the keys they tag, come in a whole range of styles. Full ones for complete coverage. Outer edge only. Colored with little sparkly bits for the romantic (for a few crowns extra, of course). Black or white for the minimalists.
With the multitude of locking devices available, it's also wise to vary the color of the key itself. Your local Prague locksmith - and there's one on pretty much every street and shopping mall - can copy a whole spectrum of tints for the discerning keyholder. You can have a veritable rainbow explosion of color in your pocket if you want.
But sometimes, even the handy local locksmith isn't around or available. In my previous job, they worried a lot about the keys, so they changed them more than once. In one of the exchanges, I remember getting a set of three shiny new ones. They were very pretty, granted, but far too similar. I still had a few hours to go at my desk and had already had lunch, so didn't really have a good chance go down the street and get a key While You Wait. But dammit, I wanted to MARK THOSE KEYS. So I got an orange highlighter and attempted a homemade tint job on one of them. Failure! Key metal is cheap stuff, but tough enough to resist wimpy highlighter. Most of the color came off in my hands over the next few days. My next move was to wrap that universal solution - duct tape - around the head, popping a hole in the middle where the loop should go. Success! The tape wound itself off eventually, coming off in a sticky wad in my pocket, but it lasted for months. And that ugly little thing was instantly distinguishable from the millions of other keys circulating around the city. Eventually, though, I had to give it up when I quit the job.
But it wasn't much of a loss. I had a gangload of locking devices for my apartment and building to keep me company, so I didn't miss the office ones I surrendered. And the ones I own are more than enough to be faithful companions forever. Let's see, there's front building key, front door key, deadlock key, mailbox key, courtyard key, basment key...
Czechs aren't trusting people by nature, so they tend to lock everything in sight. This even penetrates weird places in the home - the box with photos of grandma, for example, or the kitchen door. And offices, forget about it. The place I work now, in a district above the Vltava river called Holesovice, requires the use of FIVE keys before you can get in the door. Front building door, initial gate on the first staircase, second gate protecting office door (requiring two keys, just in case) and finally, office door. If I want to avail myself of the toilet on the upper floor, that's an additional key for the SECOND gate on the uppper part of the stairs. Thank God I don't need to access the broom closet.
Meanwhile, my office set features one more key, for one of two rooms on the upper floor we don't need and rarely use. I never bothered to grab a key for the other one. Are you losing count already? I know I am. That's a grand total of EIGHT keys for one little company.
Many people in this city have the habit of looping all of their keys - home, office, country home (common for Praguers) - into one scary, chaotic tangle. "Just a second, I'll get the door..." they say as they grow old combing through the mess. Is it the long key, the slightly shorter one, or the one hanging by itself on a separate loop? Office, home or garage?
What sells pretty well here are the colored little plastic covers that go over the heads of the keys. These really aren't an option - after all, no one wants to spend an hour a day testing the hundreds of choices on a jailhouse ring just to get into the apartment. These covers, like the keys they tag, come in a whole range of styles. Full ones for complete coverage. Outer edge only. Colored with little sparkly bits for the romantic (for a few crowns extra, of course). Black or white for the minimalists.
With the multitude of locking devices available, it's also wise to vary the color of the key itself. Your local Prague locksmith - and there's one on pretty much every street and shopping mall - can copy a whole spectrum of tints for the discerning keyholder. You can have a veritable rainbow explosion of color in your pocket if you want.
But sometimes, even the handy local locksmith isn't around or available. In my previous job, they worried a lot about the keys, so they changed them more than once. In one of the exchanges, I remember getting a set of three shiny new ones. They were very pretty, granted, but far too similar. I still had a few hours to go at my desk and had already had lunch, so didn't really have a good chance go down the street and get a key While You Wait. But dammit, I wanted to MARK THOSE KEYS. So I got an orange highlighter and attempted a homemade tint job on one of them. Failure! Key metal is cheap stuff, but tough enough to resist wimpy highlighter. Most of the color came off in my hands over the next few days. My next move was to wrap that universal solution - duct tape - around the head, popping a hole in the middle where the loop should go. Success! The tape wound itself off eventually, coming off in a sticky wad in my pocket, but it lasted for months. And that ugly little thing was instantly distinguishable from the millions of other keys circulating around the city. Eventually, though, I had to give it up when I quit the job.
But it wasn't much of a loss. I had a gangload of locking devices for my apartment and building to keep me company, so I didn't miss the office ones I surrendered. And the ones I own are more than enough to be faithful companions forever. Let's see, there's front building key, front door key, deadlock key, mailbox key, courtyard key, basment key...
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Rock of the aged
My band played a wedding this past weekend. Like most of our gigs, we got it through our lead singer, an energetic Englishman named Gary. In the workaday world, Gary sells offshore banking products, meaning that a reassuring number of his clients are rich Brits. This comes in handy when they engage in onshore activities like getting married, because another product Gary can sell is RePlay, his and my cover band.
The gig took place at a horrifying pile of a hotel just south of Prague called Dum Atis, a place that looked as if its architect had taken some bad acid while thumbing through the collected works of Gaudi. Regardless, the happy couple (or their families) had spent enough on the decorations to make the interior look nice, white and wedding-like, and the event felt properly Grand and Important. We came on about an hour after the best man gave his speech, immediately following a weak set from the hired DJ.
Wedding gigs? A best man and a boring DJ for openers? Applauding the lucky girl who caught the bouquet?
Adulthood happened to me at some point in my life, because as a musician you don't get much more adult than playing in a wedding band. When I was young and still had a little fire and vision, I hated the idea of wedding gigs, hated the idea of cover bands, hated the idea of selling out. Anyone with any talent at all should try their hardest to pour that ability into an enterprise that was fresh and original, thought I. Does the world really need another cover of "Satisfaction"?
Actually, it does. Music, after all, is entertainment and fun, and if someone's idea of entertainment and fun is to hear "You Can't Always Get What You Want" for the 900th time, then dammit, go ahead and play it for them. People whose hobby is music can and will sniff out the different, new and original. There's always enough of that stuff around. For all the other times in life, there are bands like RePlay. After all, think about it: when you throw on an old CD at home, is it always something you discovered last week on the radio? No, it's usually one of the albums you've been listening to for years.
It's nice to finally come to terms with Cover Bandage, because it means I can relax and simply have fun playing in a group...as opposed to worrying about its musical direction or whether the bridge I wrote is long enough. With RePlay, we rehearse a little (ideally) then I show up and play a gig. These songs are now familiar enough that my fingers find most of the right notes without too much struggle, and I only occasionally have to glance at the well-notated cheat book while playing. Meanwhile, I get the satisfaction of people moving their asses to my bass and Henri's drums, and singing along to what I'm playing. Not to mention hearing the sweet noise of rising applause as the audience demands an encore (this actually happens. Honest).
Besides, I'm not gifted enough to carve out my own unique niche in the world of music. I'm at best a collaborator, an idea guy, the skinny bass man with a good riff or two. I was never destined to set the earth on fire with my instrument as a player or a composer. My talent, such as it is, reached a plateau years ago. These days I'm just happy to be there, playing someone else's music and giving the crowd what they want.
And man, I sure like those encores.
The gig took place at a horrifying pile of a hotel just south of Prague called Dum Atis, a place that looked as if its architect had taken some bad acid while thumbing through the collected works of Gaudi. Regardless, the happy couple (or their families) had spent enough on the decorations to make the interior look nice, white and wedding-like, and the event felt properly Grand and Important. We came on about an hour after the best man gave his speech, immediately following a weak set from the hired DJ.
Wedding gigs? A best man and a boring DJ for openers? Applauding the lucky girl who caught the bouquet?
Adulthood happened to me at some point in my life, because as a musician you don't get much more adult than playing in a wedding band. When I was young and still had a little fire and vision, I hated the idea of wedding gigs, hated the idea of cover bands, hated the idea of selling out. Anyone with any talent at all should try their hardest to pour that ability into an enterprise that was fresh and original, thought I. Does the world really need another cover of "Satisfaction"?
Actually, it does. Music, after all, is entertainment and fun, and if someone's idea of entertainment and fun is to hear "You Can't Always Get What You Want" for the 900th time, then dammit, go ahead and play it for them. People whose hobby is music can and will sniff out the different, new and original. There's always enough of that stuff around. For all the other times in life, there are bands like RePlay. After all, think about it: when you throw on an old CD at home, is it always something you discovered last week on the radio? No, it's usually one of the albums you've been listening to for years.
It's nice to finally come to terms with Cover Bandage, because it means I can relax and simply have fun playing in a group...as opposed to worrying about its musical direction or whether the bridge I wrote is long enough. With RePlay, we rehearse a little (ideally) then I show up and play a gig. These songs are now familiar enough that my fingers find most of the right notes without too much struggle, and I only occasionally have to glance at the well-notated cheat book while playing. Meanwhile, I get the satisfaction of people moving their asses to my bass and Henri's drums, and singing along to what I'm playing. Not to mention hearing the sweet noise of rising applause as the audience demands an encore (this actually happens. Honest).
Besides, I'm not gifted enough to carve out my own unique niche in the world of music. I'm at best a collaborator, an idea guy, the skinny bass man with a good riff or two. I was never destined to set the earth on fire with my instrument as a player or a composer. My talent, such as it is, reached a plateau years ago. These days I'm just happy to be there, playing someone else's music and giving the crowd what they want.
And man, I sure like those encores.
Monday, January 16, 2006
The initiative problem
It's 7:20 pm. Do you know where your magazine is? I wish I knew the answer to that question. Two weeks ago (about), I took over as editor of a financial glossy based here in Prague. The previous management - who myself and comrade Andrew replaced - was, shall we say, perhaps a bit lax in dealing with administrative and editorial matters. One thing they were lax about was hiring a DTP (desktop publishing) person, i.e. a skilled worker who designs, lays out and prettifies the magazine's pages using software tools like Quark Xpress, Pagemaker, etc. For any professional magazine, DTP is an essential, indisposable element of the workforce, but somehow our predecessors just sort of...never got around...to hiring such a person.
Instead, in their wisdom they decided to outsource any and all DTP to a downtown Prague company. Now outsourcing is a good and useful idea if it a) saves you money and b) reduces hassle, but in our case, we get None of the Above. I don't know how much we pay for this service, but it can't be cost-effective enough against hiring a person who sits here in this office. And worse than that, we have to rely on some people we can't manage ourselves. Another degree worse than that, the editor of our publication (me, in other words) has to spend hours, days sitting at the outsourcing company's studio making sure the magazine to be published looks good and won't end up as garbage hanging on the newsstands.
And the stinky icing on this very shitty cake is that the person responsible for our account at the DTP company isn't, well, all that responsible. Not that he's bad at his work, oh no. He can lay out pages just fine, thank you. The problem is, that's about all he does, unless someone specifically orders him to do something else. Get the plates formed to send to the printers? That's another phone call. Get a page map from said printers so he knows what form to send the pages in? Whoops, better get in touch again.
I was told I'd see final pages Friday afternoon. It's now Monday night, and nothing. Supposedly, they're coming by courier, but so far my phone hasn't stirred and the email inbox is empty. So I guess I'll be calling the DTP guy again.
Initiative just isn't very strong in this part of the world. It's amazing. People, even very bright people, will often not move a finger unless they're ordered to, asked to, called late at night or yelled at. I can't even remember how many stories I've heard - or personally experienced - from "service" people in Prague that have to be babysat through every little stage of what you're paying them to do. Once upon a time, in an apartment I used to rent, the landlord sent some workers to replace the old, dysfuntional plastic toilet I had to cope with. Nice of the landlord to do so, but the poor guy had to do extra work on top of hiring the knuckleheads who did the job. Why? Well, they took the toilet and...after one day, two, they still hadn't gotten around to replacing it. As the lack of a toilet is a tremendous inconvenience, to say the least, I called Jiri to complain in no uncertain terms. Resignedly, as if he had had this problem many, many times, he said he'd take care of it. And he did...after three or four phone calls, I later learned. The next day, when I came home from work, there was a sparkling new toilet there. Now why did someone have to make half a dozen phone calls for that?
Surprise, surprise. Our great DTP guy has left the office. No answer on the mobile phone either. Whoops, guess it's time to call his boss. Maybe a little authority will light a fire under him. Nothing else seems to.
Instead, in their wisdom they decided to outsource any and all DTP to a downtown Prague company. Now outsourcing is a good and useful idea if it a) saves you money and b) reduces hassle, but in our case, we get None of the Above. I don't know how much we pay for this service, but it can't be cost-effective enough against hiring a person who sits here in this office. And worse than that, we have to rely on some people we can't manage ourselves. Another degree worse than that, the editor of our publication (me, in other words) has to spend hours, days sitting at the outsourcing company's studio making sure the magazine to be published looks good and won't end up as garbage hanging on the newsstands.
And the stinky icing on this very shitty cake is that the person responsible for our account at the DTP company isn't, well, all that responsible. Not that he's bad at his work, oh no. He can lay out pages just fine, thank you. The problem is, that's about all he does, unless someone specifically orders him to do something else. Get the plates formed to send to the printers? That's another phone call. Get a page map from said printers so he knows what form to send the pages in? Whoops, better get in touch again.
I was told I'd see final pages Friday afternoon. It's now Monday night, and nothing. Supposedly, they're coming by courier, but so far my phone hasn't stirred and the email inbox is empty. So I guess I'll be calling the DTP guy again.
Initiative just isn't very strong in this part of the world. It's amazing. People, even very bright people, will often not move a finger unless they're ordered to, asked to, called late at night or yelled at. I can't even remember how many stories I've heard - or personally experienced - from "service" people in Prague that have to be babysat through every little stage of what you're paying them to do. Once upon a time, in an apartment I used to rent, the landlord sent some workers to replace the old, dysfuntional plastic toilet I had to cope with. Nice of the landlord to do so, but the poor guy had to do extra work on top of hiring the knuckleheads who did the job. Why? Well, they took the toilet and...after one day, two, they still hadn't gotten around to replacing it. As the lack of a toilet is a tremendous inconvenience, to say the least, I called Jiri to complain in no uncertain terms. Resignedly, as if he had had this problem many, many times, he said he'd take care of it. And he did...after three or four phone calls, I later learned. The next day, when I came home from work, there was a sparkling new toilet there. Now why did someone have to make half a dozen phone calls for that?
Surprise, surprise. Our great DTP guy has left the office. No answer on the mobile phone either. Whoops, guess it's time to call his boss. Maybe a little authority will light a fire under him. Nothing else seems to.
Monday, December 19, 2005
King of kings
No, not Jesus (although we should all wish Mr. C a very happy birthday this Sunday regardless). King Kong, of course, that majestic, 3-story tall tragic ape of a hero. I saw Peter Jackson's version of it last night, and was very happy I did. It's an excellent movie, the best epic I've seen since...well, The Lord of the Rings (also directed by Jackson; this is getting to be a habit).
Jackson could have easily gone the route of Cheesy, Expensive Blockbuster by doing a pale remake of the original. He could have loaded it with knowing references to the first movie, to show how hip he was that he knew it cold. With a 200+ million dollar budget, final cut rights and complete freedom to do whatever he wanted, nobody would have stopped him from packing the movie with big stars and lazily updating it to the present day (like in the bad 1976 remake).
He did none of these things; instead, he delivered a fun version of a great story, with enough character development and plot tweaks to make it fresh and interesting. Jackson wisely set the movie in 1933 New York, and the flavor and look of the city add a lot to the story, since Kong's fate is so strongly tied to the location of his final battle. Additionally, the urban maze that the big ape runs through at the end of the movie contrasts nicely with the jungle of his native habitat.
And the current version gets the trickiest element of the story right - the development of the relationship between Ann and Kong. It evolves sensibly, from terrified captive/angry guard, to grudging familiarity and finally genuine friendship and affection, without seeming forced, phony or abrupt. Every stage is believable, and their final scene together (where Kong holds Ann and playfully glides on a frozen Central Park lake) is a heartbreaker, since we all know what's about to happen to him.
Character development was obviously a priority for Jackson, which is one reason this version of the story is over three hours long (as compared to one and a half for the original). The New York opening gives us plenty of back story with director Denham and leading lady Ann, which makes it abundantly clear how they fall into their respective predicaments. Once on the Venture, we stay there for an hour or so and meet writer/hero Jack, captain Engelhorn, first mate Hayes and cabin boy Jimmy. The story bogs down in the leaky holds of the ship, since this is an epic and all we really want to see, after all, is the big ape. You can only develop the characters so far, and the ship scenes don't do much to get us to identify with them more. By the time all the principals get on board, we've already met and gotten to know the important ones - Denham, Ann, Jack, and for comic relief, Denham's vain leading man Rex. The sailors aren't particularly interesting, and getting acquainted with the crew (especially Jimmy) doesn't really move the story along or build sympathy in the right direction. Besides, when we return to New York for the final act, they're no longer part of the movie anyway.
But that's a quibble. The key characters are strong, sympathetic (even Denham) and well-acted - including, most critically, Kong, thanks to the magic of CGI and the skill of Andy Serkis, rapidly going down in history as the first and best CGI foundation actor in the business. Naomi Watts, in a difficult role, acts terrified without being over the top about it, and shows her growing affection for Kong convincingly.
Meanwhile, the key element we all expect from any King Kong - the action - is tense and exciting. Jackson puts a few imaginative and unexpected spins on the Kong set pieces we know and love. The ape's capture on Skull Island, for example, when he (temporarily) escapes the trap the sailors set for him. Or, especially, the final battle on top of the Empire State building, which is much longer and played out than the same scene in the original. It's an epic scene, fitting for the wider scope and longer length of Jackson's version.
One thing I rarely like in movies and TV is references, in-jokes that only the initiated get and the smug insert. Jackson admirably avoids this, but given the quality of this movie and his overall restraint we can forgive him and allow for a few in the final battle - the pilots and gunners of the Army Air Force planes are all moviemakers, most of whom are connected to Kong one way or another. Jackson himself plays a gunner, as does director Frank Darabont (maker of The Shawshank Redemption). Meanwhile, one of the pilots is played by makeup ace Rick Baker, who played Kong in a gorilla suit (!) in the 1976 version.
'Twas beauty killed the beast, as the famous line goes. And in this case, it's worth the time and effort to see how. King Kong is one of the best movies of this year, and a hell of a remake. Go take a look.
Jackson could have easily gone the route of Cheesy, Expensive Blockbuster by doing a pale remake of the original. He could have loaded it with knowing references to the first movie, to show how hip he was that he knew it cold. With a 200+ million dollar budget, final cut rights and complete freedom to do whatever he wanted, nobody would have stopped him from packing the movie with big stars and lazily updating it to the present day (like in the bad 1976 remake).
He did none of these things; instead, he delivered a fun version of a great story, with enough character development and plot tweaks to make it fresh and interesting. Jackson wisely set the movie in 1933 New York, and the flavor and look of the city add a lot to the story, since Kong's fate is so strongly tied to the location of his final battle. Additionally, the urban maze that the big ape runs through at the end of the movie contrasts nicely with the jungle of his native habitat.
And the current version gets the trickiest element of the story right - the development of the relationship between Ann and Kong. It evolves sensibly, from terrified captive/angry guard, to grudging familiarity and finally genuine friendship and affection, without seeming forced, phony or abrupt. Every stage is believable, and their final scene together (where Kong holds Ann and playfully glides on a frozen Central Park lake) is a heartbreaker, since we all know what's about to happen to him.
Character development was obviously a priority for Jackson, which is one reason this version of the story is over three hours long (as compared to one and a half for the original). The New York opening gives us plenty of back story with director Denham and leading lady Ann, which makes it abundantly clear how they fall into their respective predicaments. Once on the Venture, we stay there for an hour or so and meet writer/hero Jack, captain Engelhorn, first mate Hayes and cabin boy Jimmy. The story bogs down in the leaky holds of the ship, since this is an epic and all we really want to see, after all, is the big ape. You can only develop the characters so far, and the ship scenes don't do much to get us to identify with them more. By the time all the principals get on board, we've already met and gotten to know the important ones - Denham, Ann, Jack, and for comic relief, Denham's vain leading man Rex. The sailors aren't particularly interesting, and getting acquainted with the crew (especially Jimmy) doesn't really move the story along or build sympathy in the right direction. Besides, when we return to New York for the final act, they're no longer part of the movie anyway.
But that's a quibble. The key characters are strong, sympathetic (even Denham) and well-acted - including, most critically, Kong, thanks to the magic of CGI and the skill of Andy Serkis, rapidly going down in history as the first and best CGI foundation actor in the business. Naomi Watts, in a difficult role, acts terrified without being over the top about it, and shows her growing affection for Kong convincingly.
Meanwhile, the key element we all expect from any King Kong - the action - is tense and exciting. Jackson puts a few imaginative and unexpected spins on the Kong set pieces we know and love. The ape's capture on Skull Island, for example, when he (temporarily) escapes the trap the sailors set for him. Or, especially, the final battle on top of the Empire State building, which is much longer and played out than the same scene in the original. It's an epic scene, fitting for the wider scope and longer length of Jackson's version.
One thing I rarely like in movies and TV is references, in-jokes that only the initiated get and the smug insert. Jackson admirably avoids this, but given the quality of this movie and his overall restraint we can forgive him and allow for a few in the final battle - the pilots and gunners of the Army Air Force planes are all moviemakers, most of whom are connected to Kong one way or another. Jackson himself plays a gunner, as does director Frank Darabont (maker of The Shawshank Redemption). Meanwhile, one of the pilots is played by makeup ace Rick Baker, who played Kong in a gorilla suit (!) in the 1976 version.
'Twas beauty killed the beast, as the famous line goes. And in this case, it's worth the time and effort to see how. King Kong is one of the best movies of this year, and a hell of a remake. Go take a look.
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