Notes: On 'The Ice Harvest' and 'King Kong'
November 27, 2005
Of the big Thanksgiving holiday films, “Rent” was the one to see, though I’d still suggest a second or third helping of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, which I’m sure many fans have already, but the other film I saw was the Harold Ramis black comedy “The Ice Harvest”, a nominal heist film/B-noir starring John Cusack as a mob lawyer who steals two million dollars from his boss, Randy Quaid, with the help of sleezo strip club owner Billy Bob Thornton. It’s worth mentioning for the cast, and the often depressing, though nifty steely blues Ramis employs as his primary color scheme, but it’s a film with little plot, characterizations that run the gamut of stereotypes (Thornton as ruthless mastermind, Cusack as patsy middle man, his friend Oliver Platt in full mid-life crisis mode, Connie Nielsen as the curvy femme fatale, Quaid as the one-scene only fat mob boss), and for a comedy, has nary a big laugh in all its 88-minute span. Ramis has done better, certainly “Groundhog Day” is one of the best comedies of the ‘90’s, featuring that now legendary Bill Murray performance, and “Vacation” and “Caddyshack” are ‘80’s screwball par excellence, but “The Ice Harvest” is a miss, and only worth the five-dollar rental fee it’ll cost you in three months when it’s out on DVD.
Finally, with the busy movie season, it’s hard to find time to sit down and dedicate a whole column to a classic movie (that’ll be best left to January through April, when Hollywood brings out it’s garbage after Oscar season), but I’d be remiss as a film buff not to mention the glorious first-time Warner Brothers edition of “King Kong” which came out two weeks ago. The print of this famous 1933 adventure masterpiece has always been spotty at best, but with a new transfer, taken from all sorts of different elements and cleaned up with painstaking precision, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s film crackles with new life, fully complementing Willis O’Brien’s landmark stop motion animation, the film’s primary highlight, given the stilted dialogue and often stiff acting. The DVD features a commentary track with stop motion master Ray Harryhausen, a sixty-minute Turner Classic Movies documentary on the adventurer, and John Ford producer Cooper, and an epic two and a half hour Peter Jackson heavy documentary on all things Kong, the highlight of which is a recreation of the famous lost spider pit sequence, which was deemed too disturbing to film in ’33. “King Kong” may be taken for granted in the history of cinema as one of those stodgy old beasts that garners tremendous respect but is rarely taught in schools, maybe because the first half hour is so slow, but thanks to renewed interest, in part due to this month’s much awaited remake, and this beautiful DVD (a great Christmas gift, mind you), I think the perception may be changing from revered classic to genuine all-time blockbuster. It’s one of the best American films of the ‘30’s, and Warner’s has treated it well with this impressive set.
by Adam Suraf