Lead Article – Watching Kong on Holy Saturday
I think the 2005 King Kong has just become one of my top-10 movies. The cinematography is gorgeous – which is a must for a movie about beauty in a savage world.
The movie’s power is in three savage worlds clashing into each other – one a world of tribal brutality and human sacrifice, a story that played out on every continent, one the “civilized” world but corrupted through a showman’s greed and one the primal world of nature.
Into this world Kong meets Ann Darrow, the beauty. The movie does a brilliant job of showing that the beauty she brings is not merely show-biz beauty – she alone of all creatures is willing to communicate with Kong, shows a desire to understand him.
After Kong saves her (in one of the best fight scenes in cinema) she tries to entertain him with some juggling tricks that Kong had previously responded well too. He ignores her. She looks out and sees the sunset. “Beautiful” she says, with a hand gesture that will play a role at the movie’s climax.
The beasts that surround Kong just want to fight and eat him, the humans on the island are scared of him, and the businessmen want to profit of him. But Ann is able to explore the genuinely beautiful world with him. While there are dangers on this pristine island, there is beauty too but greed prevents Denham from seeing it.
In the movie’s famous final line “It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast,” it’s not clear that Denham has fully learned his lesson. Ann and Kong ontop the Empire State Building aren’t exploring bodily beauty – once again they are looking at the sunset. Kong repeats Ann’s hand gesture for beauty as they look out on the beautiful sight. They thus can share a memory of a happy moment with each other.
The 2005 Kong Movie is 3 hours, so I treated it like a miniseries, watching it in roughly 1 hour segments. I finished the last segment this morning, on Holy Saturday. Perhaps there is something of providence there.
The bible takes place in a world overrun with human sacrifice, a practice God and the prophets have to deliberately shut down, on multiple occasions. Then Christ, the most beautiful enters the world. The world does not understand his beauty, and kills him precisely because of it.
Nonetheless, ultimate goodness and beauty will rise. Unlike Kong’s final descent from the Empire State building, Christ’s descent into the netherworld is not the end, is only the beginning.
Best of the Net (Part 1) – Wheelchair Combat?
Not quite related to the Easter theme, but wanted to signal-boost before the video falls off the algorithms – here Shad of Shadiversity, a disabled person himself, discusses the potential pitfalls of misguided representation.
Best of the Net (Part 2) – The Jewish Roots of Catholicism
Update on Under and Fueled by a Hostile Sun
The initial design goal of “Under a Hostile Sun” was to have an RPG that does not depend predominately on combat, but is instead exploration focused.
While that remains the main goal, I am however looking to build some sort of a combat system, perhaps inspired by the 2005 King Kong. A combat system that is asymmetric, focusing on humans trying to survive against creatures a power scale greater than them. Will share more when it’s ready.
See me comment on Godzilla!
The Martian Muckraker 