C-U is enjoying a bit of a warm spell today--the temps soared into the 40s--and so John and I set out on our bikes to catch an afternoon showing of King Kong. I'm a huge Naomi Watts fan, and not a few people have commented on how my sweetie is a ringer for Adrian Brody, so predictably I find him kind of cute as well. And Jack Black? In King Kong? The alliterative rhyminess itself is a draw. Besides, it's break, for crying out loud. And I did some good writing this morning. And the movie is showing at the local Art, where the popcorn is cheap and there are no annoying commercials or on-screen trivia games before the movie starts.
Still in all, I was a little nervous when we found out, upon buying what at the time seemed a sufficient amount of popcorn, that the movie runs more than 3 hours. The popcorn kid proudly announced to my horror that the credits put it well over the 3:15 mark. I have a probably not uncommon fear of getting stuck in super long movies. Sometimes the fear seems work-related--as if 2 hours of guilty pleasure is quite enough, more than I deserve. But I'm on break. I should relax.
And yet after an hour I could not figure out what cutting-edge remake I was in fact watching. Was it: 1) Apocalypse Now Redux II; 2) Jurassic Park; 3) TRex meets Large Monkey on MTV's Battlebots; [see image of poster above for 2&3] 4) the lost final episode of last season's Lost; or 5) Brokeback Mountain on a Depression-era steamer? And after two hours I was biking home. Fast. That's right, I didn't even stay for Kong to get transported back to New York, though I think what may have happened is this: the remaining passengers on the ship run into Ben Obi-Wan Kinobe and board a starfighter to finish chronicling Narnia.
This is not a matter of suspension of disbelief, it seems to me, but true generic confusion. And I really didn't want to use this blog to write about movies.
