"It was Beauty Killed the Beast."

All right, I’ve sat through King Kong one and a half times now, and I’ve got to say that, as movies go, this one didn’t annoy me anywhere near as much as others I’ve seen lately.

Maybe because the whole premise is so fantastic you have to at least partially suspend disbelief to even sit down to watch it. I don’t know if that’s the case though, because I thought that about Superman Returns and still had issues. Maybe it’s because the movie has had a soft spot in my heart since I was a child. Maybe it’s because the thing is a tragedy about a big gorilla misunderstood by the world. Or maybe it’s because the CGI of Kong was perhaps the greatest drawing I’ve ever seen, and it was magnificently animated.

Whatever the reason, the movie didn’t bug me … too much.

There were issues, of course. Why, on an island in the middle of nowhere, are there dinosaurs co-existing with gargantuan primates? What happened to the other primates? We see carcasses, but no evidence of what may have happened to them. We see huge sauropods, creatures that I assume were either Velociraptors or similar, and huge reptiles similar to komodo dragons. The bats are huge, the mosquitoes are huge, the millipedes are huge and the scavenger worms and insects are huge. Cockroaches and crickets and spiders, oh my! – all the size of small dogs. Can bats with a wing span of twelve feet even fly? Is that even possible physically? I know the fruit bat is big, but it’s not that big. This thing was like a hang glider.

Okay, so they’re big. And they’re in a completely isolated environment … on an island. Where things like FOOD SOURCES and SPACE are limited, and DROPPINGS from these extremely large animals are going to have to be broken down by something in a big hurry to prevent disease from running rampant. Maybe that explains why things that scavenge and come out in the dark are huge too. Huge and head-swallowing.

So, an isolated island yet to be discovered by western science in the early portion of the 20^th century isn’t all that hard to buy. It’s the fact that the place seemed riddled with constructs of man. It’s the fact that somehow, someway, a mountain gorilla from Africa found its way there and then mutated into a 25-foot high monster that the natives worship. Okay, where’d the dinosaurs come from? Where did all these wonderful things come from? I guess they could migrate there from other places, and then over the course of millions and billions of eons as evolution requires they become the things they are. But there are problems with dinosaurs having survived on an island, and then mountain gorillas coming along in the same time line. Sort of a problem for the native life there too … or did they evolve from the mountain gorillas eventually? Did that occur before the gorillas became gargantuan? If so, what triggered that mutation? Africa is a large continent, and the mountain gorillas are only mountain gorilla sized there; on an island, is it the drinking water that makes them grow? If so, how come the native humans haven’t grown? And if they evolved from the primate life there, shouldn’t they be huge, too?

So I’m confused by the whole island thing. And the fog; what’s with the fog? In the previous incarnation of King Kong, the explanation for the fog was that it was produced by gases emanating from a vast oil store beneath the island. In this movie – there’s no explanation at all. (This movie, however, at least showed the audience that Kong was the last of his kind, a species on the verge of extinction for whatever reason. No one ever explained that in either of the other movies before.) That’s fine; ultimately, the fog bank is necessary to obscure the island and make it more mysterious, but there has to be some reason why ocean winds and tides don’t sweep the fog bank away. I lived in Daly City, for Pete’s sake – it’s foggy about 300 days a year, but even there they get a day or two of sunshine a month. A permanent fog bank? Please.

Jack Black, however, was great. He played about as slimy a character as I’ve ever seen him portray. This clever shyster was a performance equaled only by his portrayal of a nerdy arms construction technician in The Jackal, in which his arm is blown off by Bruce Willis while testing the device he’s constructed. He was good; very good. In the end, we don’t know if his character is the antihero or the villain, but he got away with everything he did. His character closes the movie with an attempt at a poignant line that only accentuates his own foolishness and P.T. Barnum-style spin on reality. (That is to say, he never accepted responsibility for the deaths of the movie crew, the ship’s crew, the citizens of New York, or Kong. He blamed Naomi Watts for Kong’s death, in fact.)

Some scenes in the movie were actually so well portrayed, they creeped me out a bit. When the movie crew is being accosted by the native population, I was able to actually sense the fear and confusion of the actors in the scene. It was kind of scary to see the islander pole-vaulting over breaks in the rock to reach the ship in order to abduct Naomi Watts. There was some really creepy undertones to the ceremony in which she’s offered to Kong. All of those things were very well done, and I think Peter Jackson really captured something so completely foreign to those of us that haven’t experienced tribal cultures that it frightens us. The language is alien, the religion is alien, the culture is alien, the entire setting makes us feel unable to protect ourselves and confused. We have no way to connect and relate to what the natives think, feel and believe, and there is no way to communicate with them to try to arrive at understanding.

They also don’t seem very interested in communicating. They attack with what seemed little provocation and with nothing in mind but slaughter. As an audience member, I was a bit horrified that the westerners had no way to say they had come in peace and didn’t mean any harm … and that the natives didn’t seem to care. Their dogged persistence in taking Naomi Watts was disconcerting too; the westerners weren’t even safe back in their own ship. Knowing they held superior fire power and technology did not deter the natives from taking what they wanted … we just never got to see or understand (and, there probably wouldn’t be any way to understand) why they so wanted her. She’s a pretty girl, but come on.

The plot’s a familiar one, so I won’t go into that. There were some clever things they did, though, that I really liked. They showed the desperation of the people in the depression, and they contrasted that nicely with the money and opulence of those that were successful during that time. The dichotomy was almost laughable, and that’s very accurate. There was almost a classe-style difference in the US at that time, and the brief look at the differences the movie gave was well-done. Also, the actress Jack Black’s character was trying to hire for the female lead in his movie backed out, so he was rattling off a list of actresses that he thought would make suitable substitutes. When he said “Fay”, the young “Preston” to whom he spoke said, “She’s doing a movie with RKO and isn’t available.” That was brilliant. (The only movie that Faye [Wray] would have been doing at that time would have been the original King Kong, in case you’re not aware. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 96, and her only real claim to fame was still being clutched in Kong’s hairy paw.)

The unveiling of Kong for the movie could have been done better, but the animation of the lead character was nothing short of spectacular. The way he moved, the way his fur reacted to his movements, the play of the light and shadow on his fur (each little tuft lit and shadowed and moving), the imperfections in his face (his head was a bit lopsided, one of his lower canines was larger and protruded more than the other, the wrinkles on his face and the folds of his skin weren’t symmetrical, his eyes were two different sizes … I could go on and on about the detail of the CGI), the way he did gorilla-like things – Kong was practically impossible to distinguish from a living ape. That is, until he interacted with Naomi Watts, at which time he became clearly an ape in love. Oh well … it is what the movie’s about, after all.

I haven’t seen anything as visually beautiful as Kong in CGI animation since Jurassic Park. Say what you will about that movie, its creatures were among the best drawn in history. It was really hard to recall that they weren’t actually dinosaurs in the movie. There have been lots of animated characters throughout the history of movies, and each time I see one they get better, but Kong was fantastic beyond my ability to express. Even Spider-Man (Spiderman) in Spiderman (Spider-Man) 2 wasn't as well-animated as Kong. If the producers and animators of Hulk by Ang Lee had done as good a job with him as this crew did with Kong, that movie would have been much more successful, I’m sure.

Okay, maybe not.

The movie was weak in places. Naomi Watts was a bit hollow and wooden, and she didn’t have a lot of speaking lines, considering. She also left me wondering with whom she was actually attracted, Kong or the male lead (whatever his name was … I honestly don’t know, but the character was referred to as “Driscoll”). But, that is by design, since the real story is not guy and girl, but girl and gorilla. The scene on the ice is the tell-tale for that, but the scene where she’s doing her vaudeville act for Kong is the one that tells us that they won each other over. They even watch the sunset together and express “beautiful” together, each in their own way. I thought the ending, for all the spectacular CGI involved, could’ve had more punch. Kong kept gettting larger and smaller throughout the movie. The other CGIs in the movie didn't seem anywhere near as realistic, in particular the stampeding sauropods. There is no explanation of how Kong was fed or his droppings handled on the voyage back to New York in a vessel that clearly wasn't large enough to house him. How did they keep him sedated? That much chloroform released on a small ship, especially in the hold, will probably kill the passengers and crew. The scene with Kong atop the Empire State Building was actually a bit anticlimactic for me, but overall, the movie did what it was supposed to do – entertain.

And for me, that’s really unusual. I liked it.

-JDT-

Days Gone By

I didn’t grow up like other kids. In case you haven’t noticed by now.

I read about the cliques of boys, tiny “gangs” of “Li’l Rascal” type ensembles, having adventures in small towns and experiencing the slices of Americana like those kids in the short story/movie “Stand by Me”. I hear about life-long friendships forged from grade school, the ones that make life complete, carried on over the distances of time and space by phone conversations and letters, or now, email. I hear about the ones that grew up to be successful and left town, going on to bigger and better lives, and those that stayed behind in the sleepy hamlets to live out their own lives not far from family and familiarity. I never experienced that.

I read books by folks that grew up in a different time, on a different patch of the country, and how they made life interesting. I read about their pre-pubescent longings and aches for the pretty girl sitting across from them in Mrs. Henderson’s 5^th grade class, and the collection of friends with interesting nicknames like “Stinky” and “Socks” and “Slim”, and their wild plots to take advantage of her whether they knew what they’d do once they had her or not. I hear about them sneaking out and having hiding places and forts behind the empty lots near the junkyard by the river, exchanging stories about what Billy Stecker said and how that caused them to plot their way through a misadventure that made the summer of that year unforgettable for all of them. I read about the special places, like old man Claver’s farm, and the time they found the dead coyote on the lot. The way they thought that the strange, quiet old man from out of town was a sinister, underworldly creature of demonic or supernatural design come to steal souls. I read about the way they lived and spoke, and the ideas they had about the world around them, which usually never extended beyond the new shopping center off the highway just beyond the town limits, and how TV and radio played various roles in their lives. I hear about the quiet, tree-lined streets and sidewalks, the way that everyone knew the names and phone numbers of their neighbors, and the way that parents of children all related to each other. Everyone’s old man knew everyone else’s old man; sometimes the friendships were inherited.

I read it, and I’ve even heard it. I’ve never lived it.

I grew up a loner. I was always outcast and made to feel strange. When other boys my age were ready to pursue girls, however platonic the relationship that blossomed from that pursuit turned out to be, I was shy and quiet and reserved, unable to speak to them intelligibly and to carry on like normal boys did. That was especially awkward for me when I crossed into 4^th grade and for whatever reason, became popular with the girls in my class. I was without prior experience to fall on, and without courage to follow through on the “advice” I was getting from my “father”, whose sentences always seemed to begin with “When I was your age …” They were interested in me, and I didn’t have a clue what to do with them or about them.

All of that seemed to change in the 6^th and 7^th grade years; I couldn’t get their attention to save me. There was a kindly girl, a gentle soul, in the 8^th grade – whose name escapes me all these many long years hence, but I think it may have been “Kathleen” – who seemed to express interest in me again in the 8^th grade. Actually, it wasn’t until the dance at the end of the 8^th grade year. Like all the others, she slipped into the vapor of history without ever getting so much as a dance from me, which is all she asked for as she tugged gently on my arm and said “please.” I just couldn’t do it; I didn’t have the guts then, and things didn’t get any better as I entered high school. I set my feet against the hard tile floor and stubbornly sat in my folding chair until she eventually gave up and went away. I don’t think I ever saw her again.

Stories like “Stand by Me” serve to accentuate the differences in the way that I grew up and the normal way that boys generally grew up. I’ve wondered, more than once, if there is a consequence that I pay to this day for the strangeness that surrounded my formative years. My difficulty in making and retaining friends is a combination of bad relationship habits and poor correspondence. I could have kept up with any of them, those friends that I have made as an adult, and kept those friendships alive. On the other hand, my phone’s not ringing off the wall either. No one’s breaking down my door to spend time with me. And the “friends” that I made in high school weren’t exactly prize-winning, textbook friends. I never finished more than a semester at college, so I can’t say what may have come from that time and those circles. The idea of friendship that I grew up with was far shallower and less meaningful and fulfilling than the examples of which I grew up reading and hearing.

My “friends” were people that tolerated me – for whatever reason – until something better came along for them. A new kid came to school; a new girl found interest in one of them; a new record was released. They had a clique formed well before I met them because they had a common grade school they went to; I joined them in 6^th grade only to move on to the deep south (for another heapin’ helpin’ of being an outsider) for a year and a bit, then returned in 8^th grade in time for all of my classmates to scatter to various high schools. Those that went to the same school as me formed new friendships with each other and with new people, and I was again outside, for the most part, looking in. I got popular briefly when I got my driver’s license ahead of most of them; when they received theirs, I was again left out. That’s just the kind of people they were. I was convenient. I was better than no company at all. And that’s about it. I can’t count the number of weekend evenings I spent with my “family”, doing things like watching TV and playing games with my “brother” because there wasn’t anything else to do.

I was more like my “parents.” They, were loners too, withdrawn to familial ties and establishing relationships prominently with each other and not extending them beyond that boundary. My “mother”, in particular, was isolationistic to the point that my “father” – due in part to being a gutless, spineless wimp – never got to see his distant family. At least not until they died. When I was a child, we’d make trips every few years to see them. As I grew up, those ceased. Eventually, the paternal relatives were dropping dead without his having seen them. I almost pitied him … almost.

My “mother’s” family, however, was ever present. At least, they were a lot more present than the other side. They all lived in uncomfortable proximity; sometimes within our own walls. More than one of them came to park a carcass in our “spare room”, which usually meant my room. I had to share a room with my “brother” and endure him, sharing in blame for the stink of the room, which was always a pig sty. There were drunken arguments and quiet hung-over days that followed every holiday, birthday, and sometimes just random weekends.

I can recall my “parents” visiting people they called friends (usually neighbors) for typical 70’s or 80’s style dinner/cocktail parties. The soirees usually ended up with my “mother” slurring, sloshing, falling down drunk and my pathetic “father” trying to get her home. The embarrassment that followed those episodes usually meant they were never invited back, or if they were, they didn’t accept. Farther and farther into isolation they receded, and even after the alcoholism was “healed” by their spiritual rebirth, their habits of clinging desperately to each other and shielding themselves from outside lives continued. It still does today.

The world has changed a lot in the ensuing generation(s) I read about in those interesting books and articles. People are more cocooned, segregated and separate than they’ve ever been before in our society. They’ll as likely sue you as speak to you. There aren’t any parents at home with the kids anymore; they’re both working 70 or 80 hours a week earning a “living” (if you can call spending all of your time and waking hours accumulating your paycheck “living”), and there is no more time for friends and family vacations and backyard barbeques. There is no more time for forging those life-long friendships that stay with you from cradle to grave. There is no opportunity to have those influences in your life. Children play Nintendo and Xbox and PlayStation, they don’t play outside. There’s no one supervising them. When I was young, you still COULD play outside without parental supervision. Now, you’ll be abducted if you do.

Yes, the world is very different than it was in those wonderful stories and wonderful places. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have those types of things in my upbringing. What would I be like today? What would my life be like? Until recently, I still dreamed of the candlelit dinner parties with close friends around good food and wine, laughing and passing the night away each and every Friday or Saturday. I gave up on that when I realized that my life would never be a Michelob or Beringer commercial, and that, in general, people don’t seem to like me. Maybe I’m too much like my “parents”.

I guess I’ll never know what it is to have friends like the people who write those wonderful articles and books, and I’ve wondered if my upbringing has fashioned that for me. If so, am I going to forge that same binding for my children?

I hope not.

May God help me. And them.

-JDT-

Peace ...

May God rest the soul of Anna Nicole Smith in His bosom.

I pray she at last has the peace that she was denied in life.

Goodbye, Anna. May you finally find joy.

A Great Tribute

My wife found this commercial again after searching for nearly five years.

This is, without any question, the greatest commercial of all time.



-JDT-

"It Rained on our Parade"

She walked to the tall, gleaming stainless steel rack and took one of the blue, hard plastic trays from the stack, yanking mightily to finally break it free. She shook her head in disgust as she stepped lightly to the shorter shelf loaded full with Chicago Sun-Times newspapers. She bent over the full-color front page, reading the grim headline.

"IT RAINED ON OUR PARADE", the paper pronounced, with a picture of a rain-soaked and saddened Brian Urlacher blazened across the tabloid-sized page.

"Yes, it certainly did," the woman softly muttered. At that, I could not contain the giggle that burst from my lips and shook me the whole way into the expansive cafeteria.

Most of the time, the huge area is busy with people chattering and ordering, gathering their sundries for breakfast, recounting their weekends. Friday, February 2, 2007, it was absolutely bustling with people abuzz about the upcoming Super Bowl, the blaring music of the long-dead "Super Bowl Shuffle" from 1986 roared over the speaker system and all the blue-and-orange clad workers were dancing and toe-tapping as they stood awaiting service at either the food prep counter or the registers. It was an absolute middle eastern market, filled with laughter, joviality and plans for victory parties and celebrations to come. There was much boasting and recollection of the "glory days" of the last time a Chicago team had gone to a Super Bowl. The anticipation of again returning as conquerors was tingling through the air.

Today, the cafeteria was an absolute morgue.

No one spoke as they moved monotonously through the register line -- which was short and somber. The food preparation area was nearly deserted. A few hushed whispers of those that clearly aren't football fans wisped through the air, drown out by the blasting furnaces working against the sub-zero weather in the expansive, high-ceiling auditorium.

I laughed aloud as I gathered my breakfast -- an apple fritter, a rare treat for myself, and hot coffee to warm the chill in my bones from the frosty cold outside. I saw the same shaved-headed lad who works the registers most mornings today, quiet but friendly, no longer pushing his audio bytes of various plays from throughout the Bears' season through the laptop he'd brought in on Friday. I chuckled from my belly as I moved through the line and paid my total, watching the downcast, hollow eyes, the long faces, the lack of smiles. The auditorium was so quiet; no one sat in the dining area. No one was laughing. No one was wearing any Bears jackets, hats, pins, ties, belts, buttons, sweaters. And no one seemed to be buying newspapers, for some reason.

"IT RAINED ON OUR PARADE."

"Yes, it certainly did," she agreed. And I laughed aloud again recalling it.

I laughed all the way back to my desk -- up a flight of stairs, a walk of a few hundred feet, and around a corner. I suspect I'll laugh a lot today, as people bemoan the death knell of the Bears' Super Bowl run. And I can see in their eyes, in their worried tones and furrowed brows, that they wonder if it will be another 21 years before they can boast and brag again about the "Monsters of the Midway."

I hope so.

-JDT-