King Kong Directed by John Guillermin Starring Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange and Charles Grodin A L S O_.T O D A Y Blue Glow Robin Williams guests on "L.A. Doctors"; Rick Schroder goes bad in TV movie Now Showing New video releases for Jan 19 ___________________ Read the book before you rent the movie! Check out the Books in Film section at barnesandnoble.com ___________________ Y E S T E R D A Y The Faculty Reviewed by Charles Taylor It may lack the emotional intensity of old-school horror flicks like "Carrie," but this is still bloody good fun (01/15/99) In Dreams Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir With echoes of "Silence of the Lambs" and other thrillers, Neil Jordan's often captivating film is less than the sum of its parts (01/15/99) R E C E N T_. M O V I E S Penned in By Paul Sherman Sean Penn talks about the hurly-burly of Hollywood and why, despite his recent spate of great films, he wants to quit acting -- again (01/14/99) "The Thin Red Line" Reviewed by Charles Taylor What was supposed to be Terrence Malick's long-awaited comeback is instead a clichéd, self-indulgent throwback to the '70s (01/08/99) "Affliction" Reviewed by Charles Taylor Nick Nolte sears as a cop trying desperately not to become his father in Paul Schrader's masterful new film (01/08/99) "The Hi-Lo Country" By Charles Taylor Director Stephen Frears' laconic throwback to '70s westerns (01/04/99) Met expectations By Charles Taylor The 10 best movies of 1998 (12/24/98) BROWSE THE MOVIE ARCHIVES COLUMNS FEATURES REVIEWS INTERVIEWS

FOOL FOR LOVE | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - People often get huffy when the ridiculous aspects of the pop myths they take seriously are pointed out to them. (As they did when Robert Altman parodied Raymond Chandler in "The Long Goodbye.") The movie's detractors seemed most upset that this "Kong" was a comedy. How could a love story between a starlet and a gigantic gorilla not be? Parody has long been a conscious element of adventure and fantasy films, as it is in James Whale's horror pictures and the swashbucklers of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn. Semple isn't out to debunk the original. There's no cynicism in his approach. Bringing the silliness inherent in this story out in the open -- not just the ape-girl angle but all the portentous foreshadowing -- doesn't diminish it; just the opposite. Being free to laugh makes it more involving, and ultimately more affecting, than ever. You'll giggle when Jack tells the ship's drop-jawed crew about a warning scrawled in blood found on an empty boat near Skull Island ("From your wedding with the beast that touches heaven, Lady, God preserve thee"). But that won't keep you from getting swept up when they finally land and are making their way through the island's fog-shrouded interior. (The one part of the story Semple can't really satirize is the island's inhabitants. They're Hollywood's standard-issue, unga-bunga natives. But if that bugs you, then a movie with the inevitable racial and sexual symbolism of a blond goddess kidnapped by the ape king of the jungle probably isn't for you to begin with.) Guillermin isn't the sort of director whose imagination takes flight. But his clean, efficient craftsmanship is exactly what you want in a big-budget outing. He keeps the action clear and the picture moving along at a good, even pace. He and cinematographer Richard H. Kline evoke an often-forgotten feeling: the almost primal deliciousness of being enveloped in darkness at the movies, the darkness of Skull Island and, later, the black-velvet darkness of Manhattan. (Perhaps, with the advent of DVD, "King Kong" will at last get the "wide-screen" release it needs. The meanings and emotions of the movie come from its bigness.) Even good meat-and-potatoes directors can have lyricism in them, and Guillermin comes up with a couple of moments that are sheer pop poetry. In one, after Dwan has fallen in the mud trying to get away from Kong, the ape delicately scoops her up and whisks her off to a nearby waterfall. Then, fanning out his cheeks like Dizzy Gillespie, he blows her dry with a couple of mighty breaths as John Barry's mood music swoons rapturously on the soundtrack. Later, on the ship taking him to America, Kong is miserable, chained in the ship's hold. A wind blows Dwan's scarf down to him and he lifts it tenderly to his huge nostrils, delicately inhaling her scent. The moment when she falls down in the hold with him and he gently allows her to go is a heartbreaker, and it sets the stage for the epic sacrifice that climaxes the film. Kong and Dwan's relationship is the comic and romantic heart of the movie. The humor isn't just in the dizzy lines Semple comes up with for Dwan ("Sometimes I get too physical. It's a sign of insecurity, like when you knock over trees"), but in the way she plays out the post-sexual revolution version of being torn between two lovers. With his stooped-over posture and long hair and beard, Jeff Bridges' Jack seems almost as hairy as Kong, but he's also a '70s sensitive guy. He wants Dwan, but he wants her to be free to make every bad choice dangled in front of her. Kong, on the other hand, the unreconstructed male, just takes Dwan to his place. And in some way, she finds that a lot easier to deal with because it's so familiar. Jack and Kong wind up in something of the same boat because Dwan is the sort of enchanting featherbrain that men become besotted with and then watch as she floats out of their grasp. Speaking in a baby-doll voice that turns every syllable into a come hither, Lange does a very smart caricature of cuddly seductiveness, a knowing take on Marilyn Monroe's embarrassing irresistibility -- and a little less innocent. There are flashes that suggest Dwan allows herself to be just dumb enough to get by. For years after "Kong" it was impossible to convince people that Jessica Lange was an actress playing dumb instead of a dumb actress. If the critics (who treated her far worse than Kong treats Dwan) were so wrong about her ability, could it be they were wrong about the rest of the movie, too? This fabulously entertaining movie has never gotten its due, though it's one of those rare pictures that can be enjoyed by a variety of ages on a variety of levels. Watching it again, it struck me as something we'd never see today: a big-budget special effects movie allowed to take a satirical, yet affectionate, approach to its material. Five months after "King Kong" premiered, "Star Wars" opened, reinstituting all the movie clichés that had been cleared away earlier in the decade. "King Kong" is a sexier, far more imaginative piece of filmmaking. Seen now, it feels almost like a mainstream Hollywood version of the approach that the best '70s directors took to the genre films they had always loved. Nothing about "Kong" was more ridiculed than De Laurentiis' remark, "When the monkey die, everybody cry." To me, those are the words of a grand showman delivering exactly what he promised. SALON | Jan. 18, 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - C O M I N G_S O O N [ New releases available Jan. 19 ] Love and Death on Long Island Slums of Beverly Hills Smoke Signals Return to Paradise Buffalo 66 Fireworks The Only Thrill Mafia! [ New releases available Jan. 26 ] Kurt and Courtney Rush Hour Cube Marie Baie des Anges Whatever The Big Chill