Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Yes, I'm still alive and kicking -- I've just been in social hibernation for the past month or more. I've had things I wanted to say and reply to on LJ, but I kept leaving my LJ correspondence until the end of the workday (usually after 9 PM at night), when I was too tired to think coherently or type a complete sentence.

Here's a quick rundown of where I am and where I've been:

Having learned last Christmas (the hard way!) the folly of waiting until the last minute to make my drive to Wisconsin, I drove up here to the family domicile on Monday the 19th, enjoying blessedly clear highways all the way.

Since arriving in Wisconsin, I've seen two of the "big" movies released this season, King Kong and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and enjoyed them both immensely.

I went with my brother Tuesday afternoon to see Kong on the biggest screen this side of Milwaukee (the "ultra-screen" at Westtown Cinema), and the auditorium seemed more than half empty (though it was a 4:15 matinee, and Milwaukee area schools aren't out on vacation yet).

Admittedly, we really only went to see Kong because of our respect for Peter Jackson's film-making, rather than from any particular fondness for the source material or any burning desire to see Kong "done right". And perhaps the fact that everyone already knows that "the big guy buys it in the end" makes Kong seem a less-than-obvious choice for a holiday movie outing.

However, I was astonished and pleased at how Jackson and company had improved upon the original source material (which, however beloved it may be for Jackson, has never been particularly iconic for me or anyone I know, besides having many disturbingly racist overtones and undertones in every previous incarnation I've encountered).

This is a wonderful movie that anyone from their mid-teens on up could find both entertaining and moving. I was in tears of genuine affection and mourning for the tragic fate of the giant Kong well before he drew his final breath at the end.

The only caveat my brother and I both had with the film was that the 8 (count 'em, 8!) battles with monstrous creatures on Skull Island got a little tedious, after a while.

A friend of mine had called Kong the most original and entertaining action film since the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the middle of the film on Skull Island seemed, at times, rather too reminiscent of the vastly inferior non-stop shock-fest of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Personally, I think we could have done without the battle with the creepy-crawlies at the bottom of the chasm, or cut at least a FEW minutes from the dinosaur stampede, perhaps.

I was amazed at how well Jackson and company managed to convey a real relationship of growing mutual affection and understanding between Ann Darrow (the Naomi Watts character) and Kong, even while presenting Kong as very much a gorilla and a very different species with different reactions and thought processes from the human Ann. Making her a vaudeville comedian specializing in physical comedy was a stroke of genius, as she used her talents (in an almost Scheherazade-like fashion) to make an impression on Kong, changing her status from "annoying object" or "prey" in Kong's eyes to "pet" and then even "kindred soul".

This Kong definitely HAD a soul of his own, and I loved that it wasn't some sort of weird romantic interest in Ann's physical beauty (which would be very odd indeed by gorilla standards) that Carl Denham (the Jack Black character) was referring to as he spoke Kong's epitaph at the end ("It wasn't the airplanes -- it was beauty that killed the beast"), but rather (whether Denham knew it or not) Kong's love of aesthetic beauty, which led him to climb the highest building -- even though it meant he was cornered, with no unexposed avenues of escape -- in order to share a moment of beauty, one more spectacular view, with his kindred spirit Ann.

Oh, and how touching and perfect was that scene of Kong PLAYING on the ice of the frozen lake in the park, enjoying the novel experience and egged on by Ann's gemuinely joyous and affectionate laughter? Only to have their moment of peaceful enjoyment so rudely interrupted by military bombardment. What a great way to ensure that, whatever one's qualms about Kong's inadvertent (or not so inadvertent) lethality in regard to humans who got in his way, from that moment on the viewer would be firmly identified with Kong and Ann and feel with them that the military assaulting them so callously were the REAL beasts. Neatest way to cement an emotional identification that I've ever seen.

I'd gladly go to see this definitive Kong again, even on a less-huge screen. It's not just the monster-fest or special effects showcase that you might think, but rather a truly soul-touching story of a few lonely souls (two human -- Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody -- and one giant gorilla) trying to overcome their isolation and learn how to communicate their feelings to one another.

Plus, I enjoyed seeing Colin Hanks (Alex from the first two seasons of "Roswell", which I've developed a fondness for in Sci-Fi Channel re-runs) playing an important supporting role on the big screen. And I never would have thought that I'd find Adrien Brody the least bit attractive, physically, but after seeing him play Jack Driscoll, I have to say I finally get how he could be a leading man.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I accompanied both my siblings to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and was delighted by the quality of this adaptation of the first of the "Narnia" books by C.S. Lewis.

I was expecting Aslan to have a deep bass voice, for some reason, but the lighter, lilting, intelligent tones of Liam Neeson were a pleasant and very effective surprise. And James McAvoy as Mr. Tumnus the faun was wonderfully engaging and moving. All the children seemed very much like real, actual children, with their strengths and their weaknesses and their capacity for both great heroism and great obnoxiousness, at times. Placing the start of their adventure within its historical context of the evacuation of children from London during an early stage in the German bombardment of the city during WWII was a very effective, and perhaps even (given most young viewers' lack of familiarity with that era) very necessary, addition to the content of the novel.

During my hibernation and general licking of emotional wounds covering most of November and early December, I hadn't really seen any movies in the theater since the wonderful and very re-watchable Serenity. However, I began to correct that oversight last week, after grading my last final exam and in between bouts of cleaning and packing for my holiday travels.

From Sunday to Friday last week, I saw:

1) Goodnight and Good Luck (very good, and made me realize, perhaps for the first time, the similarities between good academic writing and good journalism, in the need to be specific about sources and back everything up, and not just resort to vague generalizations or "many people say..." -- which I would never let my students get away with, but which some so-called news programs today seem to rely on as their bread-and-butter),

2) Zathura (entertaining enough, I guess, but a little too much of a duck-billed platypus of a movie -- not really fitting into one type of film or the other -- to be really enjoyable or memorable),

3) Pride and Prejudice (which I am so glad my sister vehemently recommended, since I'd been unexcited at the prospect of yet another film adaptation of my all-time favorite and most re-read novel -- I was amazed at how faithful they were able to be to Jane Austen's book, and yet condense it down to a gorgeous two-hour movie, and the spectacular location shooting sure didn't hurt any, either), and

4) Capote (which I went to see mainly because it was the sort of out-of-the-way film that I might not be able to find playing anywhere convenient in Milwaukee, but found surprisingly engrossing, even though I've never had any particular interest in true crime books or in Truman Capote; the juxtaposition of Capote and his approach to writing In Cold Blood with Nell Harper Lee and her publication of To Kill a Mockingbird was fascinating, and sometimes chilling in its own way).

I've brought along a couple of boxes full of study materials, in order to try to work on my dissertation while I'm here, but I seem to have given myself permission to put that off until after Christmas day. We'll have to see how well my good intentions to work during this holiday actually play out.