Good slightly-more-on-time Dan, and hello
to you Andrew.
I unfortunately haven’t seen the original
‘King Kong’ from 80 years ago, but I have seen the remake from 8. Years ago
that is. I did some reading though, and it seems the original King Kong is
basically the forefather of modern visual effects driven films, and that the
director Merian C. Cooper and the filmmaking team basically rewrote the FX
handbook in order to make the film they wanted. And this was in 1933, years
before Orson Welles did ‘Citizen Kane,’ a film I have seen which has some
amazing visual moments in it.
So, ‘King Kong’ a la 2005. It’s pretty
good, great in fact. I really liked it. It was about 30 minutes too long, but
it was so amazingly well made in every possible way that I didn’t even notice
till after the film was over. There’s not a frame that isn’t visually
impeccable, and I was never once bored in the entire film, in fact I was
frequently on the edge of my seat. But what I think worked incredibly well, was
that it was a monster movie with no villain. Or at least, no actual villain,
because you could say that human nature was the villain here. Carl
Denham’s ambition ruining himself, getting people around him killed, and
getting Kong captured and displayed, but also Kong’s love for Anne Darrow which
drives him to his ultimate battle on the empire state building. For not having
a villain, it was an incredibly driving monster film. I also really liked the
music, and I propose an addition to the blog below that relates to this. All in
all, I can’t really compare it to the original for lack of having seen it, but
this remake was pretty fantastic.
I have a topic about future careers. In
school for the last couple of weeks, the career guidance counsellors have been
sending those of us in our second last year of school all sorts of messages about our
future. I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, an architect, a
lawyer, a real boy etc. And I especially don’t know when I’m put on the spot
and asked full frontally. But I do have an ambition which you two, Dan and
Andrew, already know, which is to be a writer. I have a number of books I’d
like to write, which fall into either series which are always fantasy books,
or stand alone titles which are frequently little stories about a small
group of people in unusual circumstances. But as well as writing novels, which
if I could make a living off would be about seven kinds of amazing, I want to
write other things to. I’d like to be a new kind of critic that doesn’t just
criticize end results of a film, but objectively and without bias looks at a
film, tries to identify with the filmmakers and the production, and positively
comment on the result. Although this positive comment might be that
the filmmakers have probably learned exactly how not to make a film... I’d also
like to be some kind of social commentator, though I’m not sure how. Maybe
write some kind of article giving thoughts not on a particular topic, but
instead just on the culture and social systems that we live in, although I guess that does count
as a topic. So that's what I'd like to be, novelist, critic and journalist (kinda). What about you two, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Blog Addition:
I propose that we each give a daily
favorite piece of music. It’ll be a little blog post that you, Dan, will post
up. Each of us gives the piece of music, who composed it and the date etc. And
a sentence or two why its our favorite of the day. And then, the other two have to listen to said song.
It’s in an attempt to, what I’m calling, learn more about each other as adults.
Anyway, I’m still really sick, and my bed
is becoming less comfortable by the day so here’s hoping that I am able to
leave it soon.
Dan, I’ll read from you tomorrow. Andrew,
on Thursday.
R. A. Lyons.
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