The Jessica Journals:

Apparently, my readership no longer consists of merely my youngest sister but has risen to almost a handful of individuals, amongst which I can number Steve Erbach who most kindly responded to my last blog entry as follows:

The solution is to go to movies like "King Kong" or "Van Helsing" (one of your sister's personal favorites) rather than try to find satisfaction watching movies in a genre that enjoyed its pinnacle of success decades ago ("Father Goose", "Roman Holiday", and "The Philadelphia Story" come to mind). The most notable examples of romantic comedy in recent decades are too few and far between ("Sleepless in Seattle" being one of the few) to offer one much hope that anything new or even diverting can percolate to the surface of one of these insipid excuses for movies.

You might as well go for the faux peril and artificial thrills of the action-adventure genre, though those are getting depressingly samey, too. A "Raiders of the Lost Ark" doesn't come along very often.

Truer words were never spoken.

I am, as you may or may not know, a die-hard fan of action movies, provided, of course, the movie in question is not Spider-Man 2. Who, after all, gushed over The Scorpion King? Who spent approximately 10 pages more than necessary describing the wonder that is V: The Final Battle? Who once spent all day standing in line just so she could watch Collateral Damage? Even more than that, I am one of the few people who consider Battlefield Earth to have reached a pinnacle...of what I'm not exactly sure, but whatever it is, BFE is definitely there.

As I did briefly mention in my last journal entry, I have already watched V For Vendetta. While I found it enjoyable enough as movies go, I think its sole purpose was to allow the Wachowski brothers to inform the world they possess a deep-seated terror that their rights to engage in homosexual activities will be taken away. The lack of goose-stepping was the film's major deficit.

For a brief moment I was worried that having watched the only action movie out at this moment I would be left bereft of all entertainment. However, I then remembered that A-Town is home of the cheap seats and all of the second-run movies found therein.

...One of which was King Kong.

The most recent version of King Kong is, at it's heart, a story of passion--of Jack Black's consuming fanaticism for film-making, of Adrien Brody's desire for Naomi Watts, and, above all, the heart-tugging affection and love experienced between our heroine and a big green screen.

It is also the story of Jessica Menn's lust for Thomas Kretschmann.

But, if you're not one for the touchy-feelies, this movie still pleases, provided you are pleased by dinosaurs, gigantic insects, other oversized monsters and the carnage they wreak.

There's also a bunch of coked-up, half-naked savages.

All in all, I found it an enjoyable movie. However, it was directed by Peter Jackson, and, just as I have done following other Peter Jackson movies, I walked away from King Kong having sat through the whole movie never once experiencing a deep or even--dare I say--genuine emotion. I can almost imagine Mr. Jackson saying to himself, "At this point in the film there needs to be longing. Ah, longing is [this sort] of music and [this sort] of camera angle and [this sort] of expression upon the face of the actors." Emotions are very deep and primal things, and I, personally, think their portrayal suffers when they are reduced to a mere set of stock actions, and I am very curious how well Mr. Jackson actually knows or understands the characters he writes about.

But, when it comes down to it, it's just a silly action movie, not Sophie's Choice, so why am I griping?

Besides, who needs deep emotion when you have Thomas Kretschmann?