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Reviews
King Kong (1933)
All About Ray Harryhausen
King Kong is not a great film, but a good one. It has great scenes that have stood the test of time, and may very well remain part of the collective consciousness for a long time. It suffers from a weak sense of adventure and weak acting, but at the end of the film, King Kong, (and his creator Ray Harryhausen), are the stars of this picture. Ray Harryhausen injects real feeling and character into the giant gorilla, making him the best actor in the film, and one of the more believable characters ever to be seen on the screen. I personally think that this movie should have been more about King Kong destroying New York, as that scene, while incredible, seems short in comparison to what seems like the very tedious scenes in which King Kong battles dinosaurs on his home island, and leaves me hungry for more.
The Decline of Western Civilization Part III (1998)
Death of Punk?
Before seeing this movie, i heard a bit of hype that it was the bell tolling the end of Punk. Now, i wouldn't attribute it with that kind of importance, but in defense of that statement, the music of the bands depicted in this installment of the "Decline of Western Civilization" series, pales in comparison to the music of the bands featured in the first of the series, (i.e. the Germs, the Circle Jerks). But, it must be said that this movie is more about the lives of a handful of homeless punks in LA. It is a touching film, despite Penelope Spheeris' constantly embarrassing and exploitive interviewing techniques. The punks in the film are too interesting to be exploited to the point of their own embarrassment, however, but i couldn't help but want to see their lives documented by a better, more trustworthy director.
Freaks (1932)
Browning's haunting, heartbreaking sideshow masterpiece
Tod Browning's Freaks is a horrific movie in many ways, but also one of the most human. It shocks and disturbs with its visions, yet empathizes with the hard lives of the sideshow freaks. The freaks are not actors, but real sideshow freaks. They are presented here as the most human characters in the film, the most "real", with real passions to be loved, respected, and, even, feared. True, not every sideshow freak was a knife-wielding avenger, (which the climax of this movie MIGHT suggest to a very naive person), but Browning was merely trying to show, i think, the necessary comraderie between the freaks and their need to protect themselves against those that would hurt them. The movie, (especially the scene in which the freaks take their revenge, depiciting the freaks crawling through mud, in the driving rain), is truly frightening in a nightmarish way that was Browning's specialty and genius, but not without his sympathetic way of making the most unusual characters the ones we care for, and identify with, the most.