Apes and bombs (but not Donkey Kong)

Last weekend Kim and I saw King Kong. It was great! It was long! It is not to be seen if bugs scare you or gross you out. It is not to be seen if you abhor excellent special effects, or oppose the idea of giant ape/pretty girl emotional bonds.

But it was a good movie. They did an excellent job with Kong, with his movements, with his carriage, with his fur, his facial expressions. The story was more or less the same as the original - there was no surprise ending - but I wasn't distracted by that. It wasn't like I was sitting there thinking He's gonna die - can't we just get this over with? Yup. I recommend seeing it in the theater. It's that kind of the movie. But like the Lord of the Rings movies, make sure you go to the bathroom ahead of time. There are no breaks.


Before that - the weekend before, I think - I saw Munich with Mom and Wood. I think that was a good movie, too, in that I think it was very effective at accomplishing what it set out to accomplish. It made me very depressed, or deepened and existing depression, but I don't think that was exactly the point. Hopefully. It was exceptionally effective at convincing me that violence begets violence - there is no point at which you can expect that chain to end.

It was so effective that it took me several hours to unwind myself philosophically. I had a hard time figuring out if that kind of despair is real - if there is a valid reason (within my philosophical framework) for the degree of morbid depression that comes from knowing that someone will always start violence, and there is no effective way of completely preventing it or retaliating against it in a conclusive, just way.

I sorted it out later that day, but the movie had me good. It is well acted. I think I like Eric Bana as an actor. Something about him playing both Hector and the Hulk, maybe - both extremely sympathetic characters for me. But you'd do fine to see it on DVD.