Tag: King Kong

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Never Seen It: Watching King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) with Podcasters Mason Barton and Stephen Hildreth

With the arrival of Godzilla vs. Kong in theaters and streaming, I sat down to revisit the classic 1962 film King Kong vs. Godzilla with someone who has never seen it. Mason Barton is nine years old — the prime target audience for kaiju films. He reviews movies in his new podcast with Stephen Hildreth, a filmmaker who partners with Mason’s father Chad Allen Barton in the Memphis production company Piano Man Pictures. I edited our conversation for length and clarity.

Chris McCoy: It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen this movie.

Stephen Hildreth: I have never seen this movie.

Mason Barton: GO KONG!

CM: You’re rooting for Kong. What do you know about this movie?

MB: Absolutely nothing.

CM: Stephen, what about you?

SH: I know nothing about this movie.

MB: King Kong and Godzilla are going to fight, and they’re most likely going to end up fighting something else, because they would never say who would win or who would lose.

97 minutes later…

CM: OK! Mason and Stephen, you are now people who have seen King Kong vs. Godzilla. What did you think?

MB: It was great! I liked the stuff that didn’t make sense. It was funny, weird, and had really good fight scenes.

CM: The fight scenes were outstanding.

SH: They were really great.

CM: Some of the best in any Godzilla movie, I think. And they used everything! They had guys in suits, they did some stop motion. At one point, it was just a couple of hand puppets going at it. And the octopus! That was a real, live octopus, wasn’t it?

SH: Yeah, that was impressive. All of the practical effects were kind of amazing, like the entire sequence with Kong, where it’s rear projection, and we’re looking through the train car. Cut around to the reverse, where they have the little doll for him to carry, to look like the woman. That was all brilliant. I loved the real, live octopus. 

MB: Wait, what?

SH: The octopus that attacks Kong on the island was a real, live octopus.

MB: Is it that big?

SH: No, they just shot it to look big. They’re pretty big, but not that big.

MB: I have a question. The balloons they used to carry Kong—why were they yellow?

SH: I think those were weather balloons.

CM: So, Mason. You were rooting for King Kong. Do you think Kong won?

MB: Oh yes. He beat up Godzilla so hard, Godzilla just straight up left.

CM: That’s true. But there was that earthquake there at the end, so we don’t really know what happened while they were fighting underwater. I feel like if there hadn’t been that convenient electrical storm, Kong wouldn’t have won. He got re-energized. But since when does Kong get power from electricity? He’s like, Electro-Kong.

SH: WWE owes a lot to movies like this. It’s scripted like a wrestling match. Hulk Hogan totally stole his honk-it-up move from Godzilla. Watching this, I’m convinced. There’s a lot of little contrivances, but I’m willing to accept it to see two giant monsters fight one another.

CM: You’d think they could unite in their love of property damage. At the end, when they’re fighting over that giant pagoda, both of them were just like, “Yeah, let’s just smash this pagoda, then get back to fighting.”

SH: That reminded me of one of those bonus rounds of Street Fighter where you get points for just smashing the car.

Be glad that’s not your pagoda.

CM: Mason, why were you for Kong?

MB: Because I think he’s just cooler. And it’s a little bit unfair. Godzilla’s got like, five powers. And King Kong still just came around and beat the crap out of him.

CM: Stephen, what was your rooting interest?

SH: I was rooting for property damage.

CM: We’re all winners.

SH: There was a part at the beginning where I thought they were teasing that they would both be fighting Mechagodzilla. Maybe that was something they were teasing for the new one?

MB: I thought that the entire time, too.

SH: Like it was going to be, oh no, this is not really Godzilla. It’s evil Mechagodzilla.

CM: No, this was 1962. Mechagodzilla didn’t come along until about 1973. Terror of Mechagodzilla, in 1974, was Ishiro Honda’s last Godzilla film. It’s actually really good. All the Ishiro Honda films are. I mean, you could tell which parts were the Japanese parts and which parts were the American parts, couldn’t you?

MB: Yeah.

CM: The American parts were just three white guys standing in front of a sheet. But Ishiro Honda was a genius. He was also Akira Kirosawa’s favorite assistant director. He went from Terror of Mechagodzilla to Kagemusha and Ran.

SH: There are some really nice compositions in this.

CM: It’s gorgeous!

SH: And the matte paintings! Especially on the island, when they get there. We just reviewed the first Coming to America for our little thing. That was the one knock that I really had for Craig [Brewer]’s version. When you get to Zamunda in the second one, the palace doesn’t feel as epic as it does in the first one, Maybe it’s because it’s CG. Really, the palace, it’s not that big on the set. It’s just a matte painting beyond that, but I’m a sucker for a good matte painting. Cause they’re just gorgeous and they look fantastic. The ones in this were all incredible.

CM: All of the special effects were just perfectly executed. There’s just something about the guy in the Godzilla suit, stomping on little miniature buildings, you know?

SH: When he falls into the hole, after they have that whole blast setup to trap him, it has such a human quality, even though it’s this giant monster falling into hole. ‘Cause it is just a guy in a suit. Maybe it’s something like that that makes me identify with Godzilla. His face is a little inviting to me. Kong’s is kind of horrifying, a little bit…

MB: A little weird.

Kong faces off against an actual octopus on Skull Island.

CM: Have you seen the original King Kong?

MB: I tried to watch it for a little bit, but I couldn’t get into it.

SH: Black and white? Stop motion animation?

MB: Yeah.

CM: Do you not like black and white?

MB: No, there’s been one or two I’ve seen that I liked.

CM: What don’t you like about them?

MB: Usually, they’re so old, the sound is real bad. It’s not like I don’t like the black and white photography, as long as the sound quality is good.

CM: I get that. They perfected shooting in black and white long before they perfected sound. So you’ve never seen any Godzilla movies?

MB: None. The only thing I’ve ever seen close to this stuff is Kong: Skull Island.

CM: Well, you were the target audience for this in 1962. As time went on, they got a lot weirder. Three years later was Invasion of Astro Monster, which is probably my favorite. It’s got goofy aliens in UFOs, and I just love it. But at some point, you should go back to Ishiro Honda’s original Japanese version, Gojira. Have you ever watched a film with subtitles before?

MB: Yes, and I do not like it.

CM: Well, if you feel like trying it, the original Godzilla is an entirely different vibe. It’s genuinely scary. So, are you going to see Godzilla vs. Kong?

MB: Yes! I’ve already put a bet on it.

CM: You got your money on Kong for that one, too?

MB: Yes, but what I’m also thinking that they’re just going to team up and fight somebody else. And then that means that the person I bet with, we’re both going to get $15. 

Kong calls this move the “Arbor Day.”

CM: Did you feel like Godzilla was the bad guy in this movie?

MB: Yes.

CM: And what about Kong? Did he feel like a bad guy? 

MB: Not really.

CM: Kong is always sympathetic, because he was just minding his own business, and people come and Kong-nap him from his island. And whose bright idea is it to take the giant ape into the middle of New York City, anyways? Hey, let’s put him on Broadway! It’s just stupid. Carl Denham is the real villain of King Kong.

CM: I thought one thing was interesting. If you watch King Kong now, when they’re on Skull Island at the beginning, the racist caricature of the natives is really obvious. I can totally see a Black person watching this and saying, I’m not finishing it. You kind of have to divorce the special effects masterpiece part of it from that part. But in this film, they felt like they had to do the Kong origin story again. So they felt like they had to go and do that part again, too. But it’s Japanese people trying to do it. So maybe it’s not as racist, or it’s racist in a weird way I don’t even understand.

Kenji Sahara and Tadao Takashima get their first glimpse of King Kong.

SH: They’re still doing like, a form of brown face with those characters, but they’re Japanese people doing it.

CM: Some of those people were just different flavors of Asian, with darker skin, without much makeup. But some of them were obviously people who were painted up. And what’s even weirder is, it felt like a critique of colonialism, almost. Here were these guys in pith helmets giving cigarettes to the native children. Classic colonialist move. Those guys looked like buffoons. But when they were making the American cut, they were like, leave that stuff in there! Americans can relate to that! Those English punch-ins, they probably cost like $200 total. It was two white guys in front of a curtain explaining what happened.

SH: Yeah. It seemed like there were a lot of news reports in this.

CM: They’re not in the original. It’s more of a traditional …

SH: … flowing story.

CM: I guess the American producers thought there needed to be a play-by-play and color commentary on this thing.

SH: I wanted the United Nations Wide World of Sports, where Howard Cosell calls the fight between King Kong and Godzilla. That was the one thing that I was aching for at the end of the film. You get a little bit of that from the guys in the helicopter.

CM: I was just rooting for all the humans to die.

SH: They’re the real villains. Kong is the reluctant hero. Godzilla, he was asleep and his home, and they just busted up into his place…

CM: … with atomic weapons. And now he’s all radioactive. Like Mason said, the atomic fire breath really gives Godzilla the advantage. He can just roast Kong from afar.

SH: That’s why in the new one, they give him an axe.

CM: Kong’s got an axe?

SH: A giant axe, and he blocks Godzilla’s fire breath with it.

CM: I mean, why not just give him a lightsaber?

SH: And a Captain America shield. Let’s just throw all the properties in there.

Godzilla demonstrating the Flying Lizard technique.

MB: I would say the best scene of the entire movie is when Godzilla kicked King Kong. That looked amazing.

CM: And the tail flip!

MB: That was good too!

CM: It’s fun to watch it and say,”That’s how they did it!” And it’s fun when you say, “I have no idea how they pulled that off.”

SH: Their trickery was amazing. That was a great thing to see. I’m really glad you asked us to do this.

CM: OK, final verdict, Mason, would you recommend other people watch King Kong vs. Godzilla?

MB: Yes, and you should watch it before you watch Godzilla vs. Kong.


Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Kong: Skull Island

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it: Kong: Skull Island is a bad movie.

That doesn’t really tell you much, because movies can be bad for many different reasons. Unlike the cynical cash grab of Independence Day: Resurgence, I got the impression that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was attempting to make an enjoyable film. So rather than just lambasting everyone involved, I’ve decided to use this as a teachable moment. Here are five lessons to take home from Skull Island.

1. There’s a difference between a screenplay and a list of things that would be cool to put in a movie. Granted, a screenplay is, on some level, a list of things that would be cool to put in a movie. But a good screenplay must put the cool things in the correct order, something that does not seem to have been a priority here. Effect should follow cause, and then each effect should become a cause for another effect, and so on. Emotions should ebb and flow, and the screenplay’s job is to map out those beats. A lot of stuff happens on Skull Island, but none of it makes much sense, so there’s no emotional movement. It’s 1973, and as the Vietnam War winds down and Nixon’s grip on power is failing, Bill Randa (John Goodman), director of a shadowy group called Monarch, is eager to get to Skull Island. He sees his chance in the chaos (“There will never be a more screwed-up time in Washington,” he says in the film’s only real laugh line.) to piggyback on an expedition to the South Pacific mounted by Landsat. Which brings us to …

2. Suspension of disbelief is a gift from the audience. Don’t abuse it. King Kong is a giant monster, but monsters don’t really exist. (Insert your own Trump joke here.) People going to see a King Kong movie know this, but they are willing to accept the existence of cryptids for a couple of hours in exchange for some entertainment. But just because they’ve accepted one impossible thing doesn’t imply permission to just throw a bunch of other unbelievable stuff at them without some background work. Take the Landsat expedition, for example. Why are a bunch of space scientists humping it halfway across the planet to look at an island? Why introduce them at all when you’ve got a perfectly serviceable secret government agency to mount the expedition — led by national treasure John Goodman, no less! Which leads to …

3. Good casting will not save you. Kong: Skull Island has a great cast. There’s Goodman, 2015’s Best Actress winner Brie Larson as a photographer, the legendary Samuel L. Jackson as an Air Cavalry officer who is none too thrilled about losing ‘Nam, comedic genius John C. Reilly as a World War II aviator whose been stuck on the island for 28 years, and Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston, looking buff as a jungle guide. Dozens of people of questionable utility tag along on the expedition to deliver a couple of quips before being eaten by Skull Island’s spectacular collection of megafauna. Not that you’ll care about any of them, because they’re not characters, just loose assemblies of traits pulled out of a hat marked “Hollywood cliches.” Even the marquee star, King Kong, lacks depth, having somehow overcome his two greatest weaknesses — pretty girls and military aircraft.

4. Movie references are harder than they look. Quentin Tarantino has made an entire career out of stringing together borrowed scenes from other movies, so why not Kong? But here’s the thing: QT isn’t just throwing stuff in there to look cool (see #1). He knows the emotional beats he wants to hit and chooses a scene to reference that evokes the desired emotions. Thus, his references work on two levels at once. Kong: Skull Island throws out references left and right, most notably to Apocalypse Now. But director Vogt-Roberts does not seem to understand that. For example, the scene where Robert Duvall’s air cav cowboys attack a village to the tune of “Ride of the Valkyries” is meant to evoke horror at kids with guns treating battle as a lark. Nor does he understand that when Kubrick used the song “We’ll Meet Again” over images of detonating atomic bombs at the end of Dr. Strangelove, it was the blackest irony — nobody is meeting anybody again, because we’re all dead in a nuclear holocaust. When Vogt-Roberts uses the song as our surviving heroes ride to safety, the movie’s not even over yet.

5. It’s probably not the director’s fault. According to Hollywood Reporter, Kong: Skull Island will have to make $500 million just to break even. With half a billion bucks on the line, why did Warner Bros. choose an unprepared director whose only credits are a cheap Sundance comedy and Nick Offerman’s stand-up concert? Was it because he had a unique vision? No. It’s because he’s a rookie with no power whom the producers know they can steamroll, and he’ll make a good scapegoat if and when the whole thing blows up in a giant ball of red flame. I suspect Vogt-Roberts is about to learn that lesson.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Time Warp Drive-In: It Came From The Drive-In

The Summer Drive-In was built by Malco Theaters in 1950, on the cusp of the country’s big drive-in theater boom. At the height of their popularity, there were more than 4,000 drive-ins all over the country, comprising more than one quarter of all movies screens. Now, that figure is at 1.5 percent.

But the lost pleasures of the drive-in are not lost on Memphis filmmaker Mike McCarthy and Black Lodge Video proprietor Matt Martin, who, last year, started the monthly Time Warp Drive-In series, which brings classic films, both well-known and obscure, back to the biggest screens.

“We were accepted by a large part of the Memphis community,” says McCarthy. “[Malco Theatres Executive VP] Jimmy Tashie took a chance at, not only saving the drive-in, but plugging a program in that would use the drive-in for what its American function used to be.”

The eight-month series will once again run four-movie programs, once a month, each united by a theme, ranging from the deliciously schlocky to the seriously artsy. Last year’s most popular program was the Stanley Kubrick marathon, which ended as the sun came up. “Who says the drive-in is anti-intellectual?” McCarthy says.

The appeal of the drive-in is both backward- and forward-looking. The atmosphere at the Time Warp Drive-In events is relaxed and social. People are free to sit in their cars and watch the movie or roam around and say hi to their friends. It’s the classic film version of tailgating. “Matt from Black Lodge brought this up: It’s a kind of social experiment, like America is in general. It’s getting back to turntables and vinyl. Maybe it’s not celluloid, but it’s celluloid-like. You didn’t get to see that, because you weren’t born. But you can go back to that. It takes a handful of people who believe to make it happen. And that’s why Malco has been around for 100 years. They’ll take that chance.”

Malco’s Film VP Jeff Kaufman worked hard to find and book the sometimes-obscure films that Martin and McCarthy want to program. “I think we’ve got the material, and we’re trying to get things that people want to see, while kind of playing it a little dangerous around the edges,” McCarthy says. “This Saturday’s totally kid-friendly. We make a conscious attempt to show the kid-friendly stuff first, so people can come out with their kids.”

The series takes its name from the most famous song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, so the opening program is, appropriately, movies that were mentioned in the show’s opening number, “Science Fiction Double Feature,” that also appeared on Memphis’ legendary horror host Sivad’s long-running Fantastic Features program. “We’re showing what many people believe to be the greatest film of all time, the 1933 version of King Kong,” McCarthy says. “It’s not the worst film of all time, which is the 1976 version of King Kong.

The granddaddy of the horror/sci-fi special effects spectacle films, King Kong has lost none of its power. It’s concise, imaginative, and best experienced with a crowd. The evening’s second film comes from 20 years later. It Came from Outer Space is based on a story by sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury and was prime drive-in fare. It features shape-shifting aliens years before Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 3D imagery from the original golden age of 3D, and a twisted take on the alien invasion formula.

It Came From Outer Space

The third film, When Worlds Collide, was made in 1951, but it doesn’t fit the mold of the sci-fi monster movie. Produced by George Pal, whose credits include the original film takes on War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, the film asks what would happen if scientists discover that Earth was doomed to destruction by a rogue planet, presaging Lars Von Trier’s 2011 Melancholia.

The evening closes with The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains as the title scientist who throws off social constraints after rendering himself transparent. Directed by Frankenstein auteur James Whale, the film has been recognized as an all-time classic by the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry and will richly reward intrepid viewers who stay at the drive-in all night long.