This year's remake of King Kong has brought Hollywood's vibrant Era of Remakes to a supreme climax.

It easily beats such recent remakes as The Mummy, The Producers, Planet of the Apes, War of the Worlds, Phantom of the Opera, House of Wax, Dukes of Hazzard, Dawn of the Dead, The Flight of the Phoenix, The Time Machine, The Longest Yard, The Manchurian Candidate, The Stepford Wives, The Italian Job, The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Bad News Bears, The Ring, The Musketeer, The Honeymooners, The In-Laws, The Ladykillers, Thunderbirds, Psycho, S.W.A.T., Bewitched, Godzilla, Herbie, Alfie, Willard, Shaft, SpiderMan, Guess Who, Dark Water, Starsky and Hutch, Pride and Prejudice, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Yours, Mine and Ours, Walking Tall, Freaky Friday, Charlie's Angels, Ocean's Eleven, You've Got Mail, Cheaper by the Dozen, Around the World in 80 Days, and, to an extent, 13 Going on 30.

This great remake it is sure to remain on top of next year's planned remakes of Pink Panther, Oh, God!, The Fly, Some Like it Hot, Revenge of the Nerds, Charlotte's Web, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Swiss Family Robinson, Miami Vice, Lady Chatterley, Logan's Run, Poseidon, Black Christmas, Day of the Dead, The Evil Dead, Foxy Brown, The Hills Have Eyes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Omen 666, Porky's, Rock'n'Roll High School, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Shaggy Dog, The Warriors, When a Stranger Calls, The A-Team, Casino Royale, and even Horton Hears a Who!

Why remakes?

As every progressive grad student knows, the postmodern world leaves no place for any idea, event, or character worthy of an original film. History ended in the 1960s. Our lives are unworthy of original art. The only legitimate idea that still warrants a new original movie is that which reflects on the victorious struggle of oppressed minorities against the tyranny of the degenerate, white male-dominated culture of American capitalism. That seems to be the only justification for such original movies as Good Night And Good Luck, Syriana, The Motorcycle Diaries, Fahrenheit 9/11, and others. Otherwise, it's either historical revisionism as in Kingdom of Heaven and Alexander - or it's the remakes.

Are Hollywood remakes necessary?

Absolutely. Remakes help to rectify ideological blunders committed by filmmakers in the unenlightened age before political correctness. Remakes associate familiar concepts with new progressive ideas. Remakes add colorful technological luster to existing progressive narratives, making them more attractive to the masses. And finally, in the absence of original films, remakes generate wealth for progressive celebrities, who, in turn, contribute lavishly to the political and cultural organizations that battle the tyranny of American capitalism.


Why King Kong?

The original King Kong came out when Stalin was at the peak of his power, America suffered from the Great Depression, and the entire world was holding its breath for a world-wide socialist revolution. Today, when the legendary giant of the first workers' state has fallen and the United States became world's only superpower, new times called for a new King Kong. This remake was historically inevitable.

What is this movie about?

Most critics only scrape the surface of Kong's complex metaphoric structure, but its symbolism goes much deeper than the obvious. As every great work of art, this remake offers multiple layers of meaning. One of them is the tragic fall of the Soviet Union, a gentle giant of socialism destroyed by the dwarfs of materialistic bourgeois culture and US militarism.

Like the great Kong, the heroic Soviet people used to live happily on their land, hidden from the world by the Iron Curtain and surrounded by the fog of legends. But the wretched Western entrepreneurs had to enter this uncharted territory and ruin the perfect balance between the Party (the tribesmen guarding the wall around the island) and the Soviet people (Kong) who led an austere but noble existence fighting class enemies (T. Rex), spies (carnivorous bats), and saboteurs (giant cockroaches). Occasionally the Party made sacrificial offerings to the people (purges and show trials) - and everybody was happy.

But the capitalists bribed the Party leaders, frightened them with superior firepower, and weakened their defenses with the glittering lure of bourgeois materialism, as exemplified by Naomi Watts. When the stupefied apparatchiks allowed the people to gaze upon decadent Western culture, the Soviet people could no longer go back to the way they were. Roaring, laughing, and raving, they jumped after the shiny bait and followed it wherever the capitalists wanted them to go. The rest is history.

Could it, perhaps, mean something else?

Another metaphoric interpretation is that of the fall of Baathism in Iraq . Saddam Hussein (Kong) lived happily in Iraq ( Skull Island ), accepting willing sacrifices from his people and the international community (Oil for Food). He also fought occasional domestic and foreign enemies - Kurds, Shiites, dissenters, Iranians, and Kuwaitis. This productive symbiosis could last forever if the West had not developed attractive technologies of mass destruction.

Lured by the beauty of yellow cake Plutonium, Saddam came out of hiding and confronted America, only to be chained and publicly humiliated in the circus that is the Baghdad courthouse. The picture of Hussein's felled statue has already become a sad iconic image in American popular culture - an image on par with the murdered King Kong and the sinking of the Titanic.

What is this movie's social significance?

Although the masses may not be equipped to comprehend and articulate such subliminal messages, the new King Kong will surely make many of them pause and think about the root causes of this tragedy. The masterly conceived plot will assist them in their inquiry, showing them the cold heart of the capitalist system that encourages greed, profit, and exploitation - the true "Heart of Darkness" of this world. In a socialist society, this never would have happened.

What if Kong had traveled to Stalin's Moscow instead of New York?

The world history would be different. Kong would've become a great friend of the Soviet people and awarded the coveted Hero of Socialist Labor medal. As we now know, Stalin had financed biological experiments intended to create a cross-breed between apes and humans in order to build the perfect Red Warrior. It is logical to assume, then, that in the USSR, a bond between Kong and the fair maiden would be encouraged and protected by the mighty state.

The nosy playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) would be purged and sent to a re-education facility in Siberia for placing his personal lust for the girl over the common good and advancement of a worldwide revolution. The vile, profiteering producer Denham (Jack Black) would be locked up in an asylum for the politically insane. The entire crew of the Venture ship would be shoved into a box car and shipped off to the Gulag.

But imagine an army of baby Kongs facing the capitalist enemy! Each Red Warrior would be armed with a howitzer and led by a blond female officer, Natasha, who would sit on its shoulder, issuing brief, precise orders! The world would be ours within weeks! Another wasted opportunity...

Is this movie escapist entertainment?

That's what the uninitiated are supposed to believe.

Certainly, King Kong is a metaphor for "free market" asphyxiation. On one side, we have the honest and humble goals of humane and compassionate government programs, and on the other, the dominating capitalist gorilla stomping the life out of Social Security.

On a related note, does anyone remember Angelo "King Kong" Mosca?

Golly, and here I had once mistakenly believed...

Such waste was produced by fashionable elite fools...

Because of the Crappy Celebrities Covered in Poop!

Silly me...

I think 2006 calls for a remake of Brokeback Mountin'. Because once just wasn't enough. Perhaps Hollywood could also do Brokeback spinoffs. Everything from Brokeback Field Goal to Brokeback Talk-Radio could be made!

As in astro-physics and the red-shift of the past -
(a theory proven by Hollywood's 'Back-to-theFuture' movies over and over and over again -and as did the greatest scientist-statesman of all time - inventor of the News Concoction and Historical Revision Machine* and the Internet - A.Grrrr)
- we "Progressives" are progressing so far into the future that we are catching up to the past.

We now relive the glory of the 1960's and soon we will relive the Kruschev, Stalin and the ultimate of Progressive eras -that of V.Daddy-Lenin!

* Please find Komrad R.Square Eye's article on this greatest invention and gift to the proletariat here: https://thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=105

(Oh - and remember - there are not now, nor were there ever - any communists in Hollywood! Just lots of people who believe in utopia called socialism!)

Comrades....

Did you hear of NBC's great patriotic assault on the bougeois religion of the oppressors?

"The Book of Daniel" is going to usher in a new era of television greatness as people are weened from their opium.

Come tell NBC what a good job they're doing, I have their info posted on The Dick List at:
https://dicklist.blogspot.com/2005/12/b ... u-nbc.html

Look at https://www.kingkongmovie.com/

Dear friends,

The evolution of the cinema is a thing of immense beauty. Remakes of recent films intentionally create a sense of deja vu. One is meant to ask oneself, "didn't I just see this film last year? How is it that it does not look completely familiar?" The answer, of course, is you saw last years version! In fact, the newest thing in Hollywood is to start work on the remake before the original is finished. The remake can then profit from advertising from the original in the next cycle. Eventually, there will be one continuous film for the masses that evolves over time in a Hegelian fashion. All will be right with the world.

I saw the latest King Kong, and I really hoped that Mr. Jackson would fully explore the sexual relationship of the ape and his girlfriend. In my favored version, ape woos woman with fine dining and caresses, then does the dirty deed. Soon, he is married and unable to leave his lair without telling his wife where he is going. She complains bitterly that their dwelling is drafty and belittles Kong for his lack of education and money. Eventually, Kong can take no more and smashes her into a rock. Kong endures an embarassing trial with Tom Mesereau as his lawyer. DNA evidence is strong, but it becomes apparent that race is a bigger factor as a jury of four chimps, six orangutans and two howler monkeys lets Kong walk. Kong loses the ensuing civil suit and has to sell his lair on Skull Island. He then goes on a rampage through Manhattan killing thousands until he jumps from the spire of the Empire State Building. The final line: "T'was marriage killed the beast."

Comrades, you guys have one superior sense of humor, I'm always amazed. If only I could pen such quips.

But I found one movie remake you missed!

The 1940's movie "Shop Around the Corner" directed by Ernst Lubitsch:

"One of the most charming and romantic films around, this 1940 comic romance finds James Stewart (Vertigo, It's A Wonderful Life) working in a small shop in Budapest and longing for a girl to call his own. His coworker, Margaret Sullavan, feels the same, and soon they are both corresponding and falling in love with their respective pen pals. What they don't realize is that they are writing to and falling in love with each other, but the problem is that they can't stand each other in person. "

The remake:

The 1998 movie "You've Got Mail", which I didn't bother to see (modern movies, you know, mostly garbage).

Please give me the credit if you can see your way clear to updating the list of remakes above.

Thanks Coms...

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We added "You've Got Mail" to the list. Thanks for the tip, Lil Prol!
- Red Square

Hollywood should make a movie about themselves making a remake of that same movie as if there was already a movie like it and then a year later make a remake of that!

WHOOO HOOO I did something! Thanks Red!

I hate to be anal, but here is a blurb from amazon dot com on "You've Got Mail" so that you can see for sure that it's a remake of "The Shop Around the Corner". Needless to say, don't be fooled by the positive review of the remake. I didn't see You've Got Mail, but I'm sure it's garbage. Anyway I don't care for the new breed of Hollywood starlets like Meggie Ryan. nor Tom Hanks:



"The underlying narrative is an even more old-fashioned romantic pas de deux that is casually hooked to a newfangled device. The script, cowritten by the director and her sister, Delia Ephron, updates and relocates the Ernst Lubitsch classic, The Shop Around the Corner, to contemporary Manhattan, where Joe Fox (Hanks) is a cheerfully rapacious merchant whose chain of book superstores is gobbling up smaller, more specialized shops such as the children's bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly (Ryan). Their lives run in close parallel in the same idealized neighborhood, yet they first meet anonymously, online, where they gradually nurture a warm, even intimate correspondence. As they begin to wonder whether this e-mail flirtation might lead them to be soul mates, however, they meet and clash over their colliding business fortunes."

lil prol wrote:"You've Got Mail" ... As they begin to wonder whether this e-mail flirtation might lead them to be soul mates, however, they meet and clash over their colliding business fortunes."

In other words, two lost souls that are being alienated and pitched against one another by the heartless capitalist system, rediscover their humanity when, stripped of their social functions, they talk as peers using the ultimate egalitarian equalizer such as AOL.

I saw the movie and it was totally forgettable. But the older black and white version I do remember seeing, even though I never knew its title.

Red Square wrote:

lil prol wrote:"You've Got Mail" ... As they begin to wonder whether this e-mail flirtation might lead them to be soul mates, however, they meet and clash over their colliding business fortunes."

In other words, two lost souls that are being alienated and pitched against one another by the heartless capitalist system, rediscover their humanity when, stripped of their social functions, they talk as peers using the ultimate egalitarian equalizer such as AOL.

LOLLLLLLL I wish I could have thought of that, Red Square! How you people can phrase things!