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callshana
Reviews
King Kong (2005)
Long Live the King!
This is the best movie I have seen this year and it's quite possibly the best of 2005, if not the decade. Peter Jackson and his collaborators have made a three-hour film (without a single wasted frame) that is both a loving tribute to and a vast improvement on its source material. The CGI effects are, unsurprisingly, spectacular, but what's truly impressive is how they've been used to serve plot and characterization. You believe in these characters driven artist/hustler Carl Denham; haunted showbiz trouper Ann Darrow; clever, resilient Jack Driscoll; the ragtag crew of the S.S. Venture; the terrifying and terrified natives of Skull Island; and the magnificent, melancholy Kong you share their experiences, and, most of all, you care about what happens to them. Even if you haven't seen the 1933 version, you'll be moved by this funny, frightening, breathtaking, and heartbreaking film.
Orson Welles' Sketch Book (1955)
Welles Conquers the Small Screen
This six-episode series, produced on a shoestring budget for the BBC, proves that above all else Orson Welles was a great storyteller. The camera cuts back and forth between close-ups of Welles and his charming sketches as he tells anecdotes ranging from the tragic (such as the case of a black U.S. serviceman who returned to the South after a tour in the Pacific, got into a dispute with a bus driver, and as a result was beaten blind by a policeman) to the hilarious (the varied reactions to the Mercury Theatre of the Air's infamous radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds). This is as minimalist as television gets - just his drawings, his subtle facial expressions, and that wonderful, wry voice - and it's riveting; a great showcase of Welles's talent, wit, and charisma.