Bloomin' lovely

 Spring has finally sprung - everything is blooming.  Sunhats have replaced woolly hats, and I even wore shorts on Sunday.

I need the backstory

 

Green and wet all of a sudden

 

Hogbacks, cold but sunny

 

Spring weather reliably unreliable

 

Fortunately that wasps' nest seems unoccupied:

Back yard no longer so brown and blighted:

The goldfish have multiplied alarmingly, though...

Film review: King Kong (1933)

It's been many a long year since I last saw this classic, so it was interesting to see it through new eyes.  I won't bother summarizing it, because if you don't know it, you are under an iron obligation to go and watch it, ideally in the spanking new print that was on the Blu Ray we just bought.  The first thing one notices is that it takes its sweet time getting to Skull Island.  You'd think that time would be spent perhaps introducing different personalities among the crew so that you would feel for them as they get (pretty brutally) dispatched on the island, but not really.  Besides the principals, Fay Wray's Ann Darrow (who is only on the voyage because she was essentially starving, this being the Depression and all), arrogant and reckless film director Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong), and honestly rather lunk-ish love interest John Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), the only character we get to know is the Chinese cook Charlie (who was so sick of cooking potatoes he wanted to go back to China).  Still, once we arrive at Skull Island it's suitably impressive.  The fog is thick, the sets are excellent (especially the huge wall and gate) and the extras are plentiful.  (One has to wonder why the island natives are of obviously African Descent (although apparently the actors playing the leaders aren't) when this is a Pacific Island.)  In general, this film does a fantastic job on world-building.  And then of course there are the special effects, which are incredible.  Yes, the movement of Kong is a bit jerky in places, but the decision made by Merian Cooper (on whom Denham is modeled) not to use a man in a gorilla suit has meant that this film is legendary, when it would have in all probability have been forgotten otherwise.  As with Jurassic Park and Terminator 2, the special effects absolutely hold up and put films that followed for decades to shame.

Another thing that surprised me on a re-watch is how little sympathy we're supposed to have for Kong (in stark contrast to the 1976 re-make with Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges).  Granted, he is good to Fay Wray, and saves her from a steady stream of attacking creatures 

 

(really, it gets a bit ridiculous at times) but she is never less than terrified by him, and he kills other humans with complete impunity, sometimes by chewing them up (but never swallowing), and in the worst instance (because it's completely unprovoked), when he takes a woman from her bed high up in the Empire State Building and finds she's not Fay Wray, he just drops her casually to her horrific death.  We also see him literally grinding a couple of natives underfoot, as if putting out cigarettes.  (What with all the death and gore and the scene where he practically strips Fay Wray (significantly sexed-up in the Jessica Lange version) this is definitely pre-code.) Granted, his death is fairly tragic, and there is the immortal last line about how "it was beauty that killed the beast" (which bookends an opening "Arabian proverb" (actually made up by Cooper) - 

"And the Prophet said:
And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty.
And it stayed its hand from killing.
And from that day, it was as one dead.")

but given the carnage he's brought on New York (he takes out an entire above-ground train line!) he is unlikely to be mourned. 

Another thing that surprised me was how little is left of the film after he gets gassed on Skull Island.  The film is about an hour 40 and there's only half an hour left at that point.  Clearly the time of the movie that is spent on special effects expands in my young memory and the time that is just humans talking to each other faded away, because there's a bit too much of the latter.  Oh, and one other thing that many people have pointed out: Kong's size is totally inconsistent throughout the film.  Estimates vary, but he changes from about 18 feet tall 

to about 40 feet tall.  

Cooper was well aware of this and rightly calculated that it didn't matter,  Kong literally rises to the occasion.

Spring in all its extremes

 

Hot in Holly

 

Goodbye Sunoco

 At the intersection of Court and Dort there has always been a BP on one side and a struggling competing gas station on the other.  This competition has worked to our advantage, because it has meant that both of them sell the cheapest gas around.  However, the gas station on the South side of Court has struggled.  Most recently it was a Sunoco, but that closed last year (I believe).  Then, a couple of months ago, the brush behind it got removed, and then a couple of days ago the whole thing just vanished.  Here's a shot taken facing West from Dort.

And this is from today, first is looking back on Court while heading West, the second shows the BP across Court, no longer obscured by a rival gas station.  You can still see it on Google, but that will fade eventually.

Presumably relatives of Oscar

 

Flooding in For-Mar

 

The two different kinds of outdoorsy types: