Beauty Killed the Beast

At the climax of the original KING KONG, a crowd gathers around the big ape's dead body after he fell from the top of the Empire State Building when a New York cop points states the obvious to Robert Armstrong's Carl Denham..

"Well, Denham, the airplanes got him."

(I guess his bullet-ridden corpse was a big clue.)

However, Denham contradicts him, proclaiming, "Oh no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."

Then the gathered throng ad-libs, "Beauty?" "Beauty?" "What is he, drunk?" (Maybe I imagined that last line.)

So here we are in 2017 and King Kong lives again (must have been a flesh wound) in KONG: SKULL ISLAND, released a week before the new Disney live action version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.and naturally, controversy prevails in the atmosphere. KONG's alleged racial insensitivity is being recycled from Peter Jackson's ten year old version, so it barely registers a blip this time around. I guess #KONGLIVESDON'TMATTER. No, this time, the bonfire is burning at Disney over a ("GASP!") homosexual character perpetuating the gay agenda to influence and brainwash influential young minds around the world.

In new BATB, Josh Gad plays Le Fou, the goofball henchman of Gaston, the narcissistic heavy of the story To add a little garnsih to the character, Le Fou has a big crush on his handsome friend and ay, there's the rub.(For Le Fou, anyway)

It seems some people have a problem with this piece of whimsy, elevating it to this to an outrage of Def-Con 4 l proportions. "Homosexuals? In a family film? Not on my watch!" I find it amazing that we are having this conversation in this day and age of tolerance, acceptance and peaceful coexistence...oh, wait. That sort of thinking is so last year...

A drive-in theater owner in Alabama has refused to show the film. They released these statement on their website:

As of December 16th the Henagar Drive-In is under new ownership. Movies scheduled prior to that date and four weeks after this date were not scheduled by the new owners. That being said…It is with great sorrow that I have to tell our customers that we will not be showing Beauty and the Beast at the Henagar Drive-In when it comes out. When companies continually force their views on us we need to take a stand. We all make choices and I am making mine. For those that do not know Beauty and the Beast is “premiering” their first homosexual character. The producer also says at the end of the movie “there will be a surprise for same-sex couples”. If we can not take our 11 year old grand daughter and 8 year old grandson to see a movie we have no business watching it. If I can’t sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me then we have no business showing it. I know there will be some that do not agree with this decision. That’s fine. We are first and foremost Christians. We will not compromise on what the Bible teaches. We will continue to show family oriented films so you can feel free to come watch wholesome movies without worrying about sex, nudity, homosexuality and foul language. Thank you for your support!

Russia actually considered a nationwide ban on BEAUTY, but has since decided to allow the film to be seen, now with a 16+ rating, meaning no Russkie young 'uns will have their minds polluted by Western gay propaganda. To pile on even further, a boycott has been threatened not only against the movie but also against the Disney corporation. Walt is spinning in his grave like a rottisserie chicken.

But what's all the hub-bub, bub? BEAUTY AND THE BEAST has a PG rating. How much hot man-on-man action can there really be? The MPAA really frowns upon anal sex, suggested or otherwise. And to make the whole brouhaha just a bit ironic...Josh Gad is straight while Luke Evans who plays Gaston is openly gay. Put that in your phallic-shaped pipe and smoke it, Henagar Drive-In.

I would support a  boycott on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST for other reasons, like that Disney is regurgitating its own product back into society. A live action version of a cartoon remake makes my head spin at 78 rpm. This is, of course, the Disney way and basically always has been. Next up are live-action versions of THE LION KING and PINOCCHIO with Gepetto probably played by Morgan Freeman. The Mouse Factory is exactly that, a big soul-less machine cranking out widget after widget in the name of commerce first and foremost while creativity and originality have gone the way of the dinosaur (not a successful character in the Disney canon).This don't mean a fig to Disney acolytes around the globe who will flock to this because SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!

The Beauty/Beast story has been re-told cinematically over the ages, most recently in a 2014 French version with Vincent Cassel. Of course there's the Disney animated cover, a classic of the genre from the 1990s (yes, even with Robby Benson as the Beast). TV has its own versions in name only, the most popular being the 1980s series with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton in the New York sewer system. (How romantic!) Another rendition of the classic story was made for the small screen starring George C. Scott as the furry freak brother, who starred with his then-wife Trish Van Devere. It might have been more interesting with the first Mrs. Scott, Colleen Dewhurst, though there might have been some confusion on who was playing The Beast.  There have also been those low budget knock off variations on a theme like MERIDIAN and TANYA'S ISLAND. Though I don't know for sure, at some time there must have been a porn version called BOOTY AND THE BEAST. Boy, talk about your low-hanging fruit. So to speak.

Nothing, but nothing beats the spectacular Jean Cocteau masterpiece  from 1946. a true work of art that occupies a space on my favorite films of all time. But hold on just a doggone minute....Cocteau was...GAY! Not only that, his lover was Jean Marais, the actor who played the Beast. Holy merde! Where does that leave Beauty in all this? Maybe they should have called it BEAUTY AND THE BEARD. (Ba-dump-bump!) I guess it really is a fairy tale after all, isn't it?

The bottom line (no pun intended unless you swing that way) is that I feel compelled to support a product I feel to be repellent, but for completely different reasons. While I abhor this era of remakes, reboots and re-imaginings, building the cultural landfill to epic proportions that will eventually bury us all, I hate ignorance, intolerance and narrow-minded assholes even more. If I have to choose my battles, I'll take on the latter first because the threat is so immediate. The former has been a lifelong struggle that I will always rail against until the end of my time.

But who am I really kidding? I won't pay money to see the new BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. I'd sooner watch the cartoon again since it's the same goddamn movie.  The Cocteau film is an even better bet. But if I choose to go out, I'll opt for the fun and games of KONG: SKULL ISLAND. Wait a minute, what? King Kong now identifies as gender non-binary?

Carl Denham might want to change his answer.

Thanks/No Thanks

Thanksgiving, a time to give thanks for giving. It's also a time to decline those that keep on giving when enough is frickin' enough.

THANKS...to the late, great Dino De Laurentis who passed away recently at the age of 91. Dino was a combination pizza (with lotsa mootzarell) of a legendary movie producer whose filmography ran the gamut from Fellini masterpieces to MANDINGO, one of the most reprehensible films ever made. He also gave us this swell Tinsel Town anecdote.

Back in 1976, two big budget movie remakes (You think those are only indigenous of this era? Au contraire, mon frere!) opened during the Christmas holiday season: Dino's horrific KING KONG with Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange and Rick Baker in a monkey suit and Barbra Streisand in A STAR IS BORN, produced by Babs' boyfriend at the time, Jon Peters.

Peters and De Laurentis had run into each other at some function with the younger producer chiding his Italian competitor.

"Dino, A STAR IS BORN is going to out-gross KING KONG at the box office, " Peters reportedly declared.

"Well," Dino replied. "That's because your monkey can sing!"

R.I.P., Dino.

NO THANKS...to any show whose title ends ...WITH THE STARS. seriously. The American public just can't handle the stress any longer. For one thing, the daughter of a politician is not a "star", let alone some mook from Jersey that calls himself a "situation". Maybe they should combine the CELEBRITY REHAB show with this dance-off so the world can watch a bunch of substance abusers trying to cut a rug under the influence. Slapstick a'plenty! Now THAT'S entertainment!

THANKS...to the two best casting choices of the year...Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddy Mercury and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. No, it's not in the same film. Now THERE'S an idea...

NO THANKS...to awarding Tina Fey the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. A little soon, don't you think? Shouldn't this be for BODY of work instead of an overrated TV sitcom and an overworked, however spot on, impression? Five years from now I could even accept, but this just kind of reeks of knee-jerk political backlash. It makes just want to say Feh to Fey.

THANKS...to AMC for THE WALKING DEAD, the best zombie TV series ever. It's also the only zombie TV series ever.

NO THANKS...to AMC for a six episode season for THE WALKING DEAD. That's not a season. That's a mini-series. Now we have to wait another year until season 2. How will we get our undead fix in the next 12 months? Well, there's always C-SPAN.

THANKS...to ME for coming up with another Thanksgiving movie besides PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES. May I suggest the 1984 Woody Allen classic BROADWAY DANNY ROSE. It's a sweet little Damon Runyonesque showbiz tale of a dime store talent agent who poses as the boyfriend for a married lounge singer's mistress. DANNY ROSE has a funny little Thanksgiving scene toward the end of the picture where he prepares turkey TV dinner as for all his clients. It's a minor Allen film, but one of my own personal faves that actually deserves a place on the Thanksgiving film rotation.

Happy T'Giving to all of ye. Even you, Palin family. Poor guys can't manage to put one in the win column, can they? Yes, I can jerk a knee with the worst of 'em

Gobble, gobble.

2006-The Year in Pix

2006-The Year in Pix

I am not a film critic nor do I play one on TV. This is my outlet (and this is my gun), therefore the rules of engagement do not apply to me, meaning I don’t have to adhere to any timeline. That said, here is my list of favorite films that I saw in 2006. Whether they were released this year or not means nothing to me. It’s like the adage about an old joke. If you’ve never heard it before, it’s new to you.

The year 2006 was pretty much of a wash for me personally, but movie-wise, I basked in the glow of the Great God Cinema. The total of films came to 118. That’s basically a movie every three days, not counting those that I had seen again. Since I had made a conscientious effort not to watch as much crap as I had in years past, my film diet consisted of a lot more protein and less trans fat, so the percentage of good product versus bad weighed heavily in my favor.

Certainly there were disappointments, no more so than in two supposedly blockbusters that landed like a pair of bombastic farts at a funeral. Peter Jackson’s King Kong seemed so calculated to be a companion piece to a video game that it became difficult to tell the two apart, a botch job unworthy of the Lord of the Rings master. But nothing really stunk up the joint more than Bryan Singer’s lame-ass Superman Returns, a turd barely better than Superman III or IV, only by the nature of its budget.

On the other hand, the reboot of the Bond series with Casino Royale was a welcome breath of fresh air, thanks to both director Martin Campbell and star Daniel Craig. Seeing Craig swagger about like a royal prick seemed rather off-putting at first until it came clear that he could back it all up in spades, He reminded me of the young Errol Flynn’s first appearance in  The Adventures of Robin Hood, entering a castle with a dead buck around his neck and acting like he owned the place (which of course, he did). Anyway, a worthy new beginning for Bond, James Bond. By the way, when was the last time you ever saw a Bond movie appear on a Ten Best list? Check it out. Royale appeared on many, including Owen Gleiberman’s film of the year in Entertainment Weekly.

One particularly putrid piece of work was Maniac, quite possibly the worst film ever made. Directed by Dwain Esper, the only guy who could make Ed Wood look like Antonioni, this 1930s exploitationer about untreated mental illness combined a couple of Poe stories with some gratuitous nudity and violence, including a duel with hypodermic needles. The cast is so supremely wretched that they seem to have not only never seen a movie before, but also have never seen anyone act either. It was like watching a dog try to ride a bicycle. Oh, by the way, I recommend this to anyone interested in really shitty cinema.

A few notable moments from this year’s crop:
The My Forgotten Man number from The Golddiggers of 1933-An ode to the homeless in the Great Depression that holds up even today. Not much has changed since then.

Hammy the Squirrel’s caffeine induced slow motion sojourn in Over the Hedge, the funniest sequence of the year.

Wildest Ride of the Year: Night Watch, the wild and crazy Russian vampire romp

Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, a film I had been trying to catch up with for years now. Truth to be told, I consider Blanche DuBois to be one of the most irritating characters in modern literature, as well as with Vivien Leigh’s performance and felt uncomfortable most of the time Brando was not on screen. But once he was, I was hooked. Talk about living up to one’s reputation. I was also taken by Kim Hunter as “STELLA!!!!!!!!!!!”

Some movies that exceeded expectations:
Walk the Line (particularly Joaquin Phoenix), Tokyo Godfathers,The Bourne Supremacy, The Alamo(2004), Cars, George Romero’s Land of the Dead, Millions

Some great revisits:
Car Wash, Which Way is Up? (Richard Pryor’s funniest), Topaz (underrated Hitchcock), Brewster McCloud (overlooked Altman), The Hill (one of Sean Connery’s best), Lantana (one of the best films of last ten years), The Paper Chase, Casino Royale (1967) -a guilty pleasure to the Nth degree

Now the bestests:

Best Oldies:
Yojimbo,
Captain Blood,
Diabolique,
Pather Panchali,
Hitchcock double bill of Notorious and Shadow of a Doubt
Fellinii’s 8 ½
Melville’s Army of Shadows and Le Cercle Rouge
Lola Montes
 All Quiet on the Western Front –Again, a timeless message that still resonates.

The Ten Best (in no order except #1)

Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion-a fitting swan song to a class act
Brewer's Hustle and Flow- Terrence Howard elevates himself to the rank of one this country’s finest and, though damn near done in right at the very end, this film is hard to beat.
Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle-The animation genius of the modern age
Ki-Duk Kim's 3-Iron-Best love story of the year
Carol Reed and Graham Green’s The Fallen Idol –Uncovered jewel and finest classic of the year, so perfect to view it on the big screen
James Marsh’s extraordinary Wisconsin Death Trip-Best documentary of the year and possibly of all time
Chan-Wook’s Old Boy-the incredible brutal roller coaster experience
Scorsese’s The Departed-Marty, this is your year. Revel in it.

and the Best Picture of 2006

Paul Greengrass’ United 93
Not to get all PC about it, but there is no way I could ignore the impact of this incredible piece of filmmaking. I resisted this for the longest time, being one of those who believed 9/11 was too close, too open of a sore, too painful to relive, especially since the word on the street was how realistic the film is. After much hesitation, I watched it at home, wanting privacy and not a shared emotional experience as I would in the theater. Well, let’s just say, I was a wreck by the end credits. But it had been totally cathartic and extremely therapeutic. Many suppressed and dormant feelings have resurfaced since that viewing and while that’s a helluva thing to lay on just a damn movie, this what I’ve taken away from it. I really don’t want to be known as one of those idiots who uses that day as a metaphor for everything that occurs, especially since it has become both a cliché and an excuse for more self-indulgent pinheads than I can fathom. Perhaps if I didn’t have all this bottled inside me, I wouldn’t so introspective about the film. However, I will say unequivocally that Paul Greengrass is a remarkable filmmaker. There's an honesty that he brings to United 93 that makes this story compeling from first frame to last. His documentary approach to this and The Bourne Supremacy has energized recent cinema and I certainly look forward to any work by this director.

So there you have it. Stay tuned for 2007…

FILMAPALOOZA!

Have a nice life.

KONG-founded

Each year I give myself the birthday present of attending a movie in an honest to God cinema. For three years in a row, it was Peter Jackson’s adaptation of THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. This year, I reserved this special for Jackson’s remake of KING KONG. I must say that I wasn’t very moving. Well, not moving in the figurative sense. Literally, I did squirm.

After all the deserved awards and acclaim Jackson received for his triumphant Middle Earth saga, he decided to revive, KING KONG, his pet project. This re-imagining (as it’s now called) of the classic film inspired him to be a filmmaker in the first place. For something that has been burning in his soul for so long, how could Jackson have treated the whole thing so ham-handedly? The whole enterprise is one big bloated, overblown mess. It is clearly a half hour too long, if that little. The “new” characters and makeover of the originals are so bland that Jackson doesn’t seem to care for them himself. Bruce Baxter, the male star of the movie within the movie, starts out as a jerk, then a coward, performs a heroic act, then reverts to cowardice again in the final reel with no pay-off. Jack Driscoll is now a playwright, a botch of an idea that never pans out. Driscoll should have been the Kyle Chandler character, the actor who was a coward off-screen until he becomes a hero on the island. As for Carl Denham, Jackson is even more clueless. By casting Jack Black, he could have been a lovable rascal but instead turns into a half-baked charmless creep that can’t sustain a whole picture with (again) no comeuppance. The allusions to Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS are ill-advised as well, thrown in for no other good reason than to perhaps show that Jackson has read something else besides Tolkien. Much has been praised for the hour long Skull Island sequence and its non-stop action. To me, it wasn’t so much relentless as it was endless, and not much more than an amped up JURASSIC PARK. The brontosaurus stampede was not only cheesy, but pointlessly absurd as well. The giant insects would have been enough without Jamie Bell stupidly shooting them off of Adrian Brody with a tommy gun. Nice grouping! The highlight of the action scenes, Kong’s triple threat match with three T-Rexs, also drug on far too long. Everything had been put together with gaming in mind and that non-stop action is fine in that context, but it’s bad filmmaking and I grow weary of it all. Can’t someone just make a fucking movie anymore?

However, what is good about Jackson’s KING KONG is great, especially when he concentrates on his two lead characters. Naomi Watts is quite wonderful as Ann Darrow, the only character who is fleshed out satisfactorily. She is luminescent and her sincerity carries whatever scene she’s in. As far the star of the show, he is the reason Jackson made this damn movie in the first place. The big boy is stellar, a balls out action hero of the first order. Andy Serkis and the CGI team transform him into a star for the ages. One can’t help but cheer for the big lug whenever he gets his dander up, especially fighting back against the biplanes that eventually do him in. The love story at the core of this Beauty and the Beast tale cuts through all the fat and blubber that surrounds this three-hour supposed epic and almost makes the whole experience worthwhile.

The outcome is that this is not as cheesy as the 1976 version nor is it anywhere as horrific as its sequel KING KONG LIVES. Anyone remember this jewel from the eighties with Linda Hamilton where Kong gets an artificial heart? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? This is simply the second best KING KONG. Sorry to be a purist. The original rules.

As for Peter Jackson, well, I hope he starts to scale it down a little. I think I’ll get my wish for his next project, an adaptation of THE LOVELY BONES. After this blockbuster decade of his, I’d really like to see him pull back, regroup and perhaps get back to basics. I prefer to continue admiring the work of the man who made HEAVENLY CREATURES. I don’t need another George Lucas in the making. But with the release of this film, along with the concurrently released "Peter Jackson Production Diary DVD set" and the goddamn video game with his name above the title, perhaps he's taken a turn for the worse.

Instead of becoming George Lucas or even Steven Spielberg, maybe Peter Jackson, with his newly acquired, King Kong sized ego, might have tragically reinvented himself as Carl Denham himself.

Monkey see. Monkey do.