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WelcomeTo The Money House
King Kong
Now that Peter Jackson's King Kong has been released as a 2-Disc Special Edition by Universal (UPC#025192994524, $31), enterprising fans will undoubtedly find a way to upload the 188-minute film and trim it down to a more dynamic running time. As it stands, the film plays like Jackson had gotten confused in the production rush and released the 'DVD Director's Cut' to theaters by mistake. Jackson achieved a pinnacle of motion picture art with his extended DVD editions of the three Lord of the Rings films, but he appears to have lost touch with the realities of moviemaking in the process. A good hour of King Kong, and maybe even more, does not belong in the theatrical release of what should have been a brisk, spectacular romp. Even some of the elaborate special effects sequences, such as the dinosaur stampede, could go and not be missed, and there are entire subplots involving secondary characters that could easily be excised. But that was the theatrical release. The King Kong DVD, on the other hand, is a thrilling achievement, and with the ability to hit the 'Pause' button whenever you wish, in order to take an intermission or move from the couch to the recliner, the 2005 production is a gripping, pulse-pounding way to lose an afternoon.Everyone expected that Jack Black, playing the entrepreneur who organizes an expedition to 'Skull Island' while ducking from creditors, would channel Jackson into his performance, but the surprise is that the plays the character like a young Orson Welles instead. It is an unexpected and engaging touch. The film is set in the Thirties and the first shots of New York City, teaming with life and period decoration, are as exciting as the dinosaurs later to come. Naomi Watts is the vaudeville showgirl who signs on to the expedition for a meal, and the filmmakers smartly draw upon her character's skills as a performer to capture the attention and affections of the enormous ape the heroes encounter on the island. It is at the point where her character is abducted by the island's native population - about 50 minutes in - that the film's action and fantasy effects are thrown into high gear and, from that point forward, the movie explodes with state-of-the-art thrills. The T-Rex fight is likely to become your newest favorite demo scene. The effects are so deftly executed, in fact, that Jackson was able to imbue the title character with genuine emotions, giving the movie a heart as big as its spectacle.
Not only does the DVD enable a viewer to take in the spectacle at a flexible pace, it delivers that spectacle with a glorious sense of confidence. The picture quality is on the mark from the first frame to the last. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound is bursting with detail and power, and the temptation to jack up the volume is irresistible. Rear-channel and right-left separations abound, and the bass would make Kong's own chest flutter. There are optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, and a 2-minute piece about making a tie-in car commercial. The letterboxing has an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback.
The second platter offers up a cute 17-minute look at the backstory of the 'Skull Island' setting, presented as if it were a genuine natural history documentary. Not only is it a clever and entertaining concoction, but it also answers numerous questions and kibitzes about the island's architecture, human population (a pastiche of descendants of shipwreck survivors and nomads who have reverted to a more primitive state to eek out an existence on the island's edges), and unusual preservation of creatures from the past. Additionally, there is a 28-minute piece about New York City during the Great Depression, combining clips from the film with newsreels and other archival footage.
Finally, there is a 152-minute collection of featurettes - most run about 5 minutes - that chronicle the progress of the film's post-production. The pieces were designed originally for broadcast on the film's website, so each one is about something and is organized coherently in that regard, although the variety of subject material creates a comprehensive portrait of the post-production effort. This is only the post-production. Another 216 minutes of featurettes are offered up on two platters in the Universal release, King Kong: Peter Jackson's Production Diaries (UPC#025192947223, $40), to cover the actual shooting of the film, everything from what the buttons on a camera do to making miniature ferns. The post-production segment alone is more extensive and detailed than almost anything else that has come out on a DVD about the day-to-day work that goes into a film, and when combined with the Production Diaries release, it is a remarkable journal of the film's creation. It is promotional (some segments in the Production Diaries are playful put-ons, such as a piece about a wizard-like paparazzi and a segment where Bryan Singer arrives and takes over from Jackson), and doesn't investigate conflicts too closely (there isn't anything about the reported panic overhaul of the musical score, beyond cryptic comments such as, "It is an incredibly condensed schedule. We're doing what would normally take 4 to 5 months in 5 weeks."), but it is expertly designed to give viewers a complete idea of the scope of industry that went into creating the film, and entertain them at the same time.
At the end of the post-production diaries on the Kong DVD, there is a montage of Jackson taken from all of the diary entries in both releases, and during the year represented in the clips, he lost an almost disturbing amount of weight - it looks worse because he clearly didn't have time to shop for new clothes, and so his old shirts hang loosely on him. Perhaps, however, he can take a hint from his own physiological management and when he does get around to doing a 'Director's Cut' of Kong, instead of making the movie bigger, he himself can trim it down to a less indulgent and more expedient size.
March 31, 2006
DVD Roundup: This Week's DVD Releases
The Review VaultDouglas Pratt's DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter is published monthly.
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