Halloween 2017 - King Kong

It's been a while since I worked on an update where I felt like I was half-assing it most of the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with the end result but if time wouldn't have been an issue this could've been a lot better. The problem was that this picture was made right in the middle of me and my family moving to the new house, so things got hasty and rather sloppy in the process of making the picture. That's why (if you look closely) you can see some of the sketch lines are still in some of the town houses, and around Town Hall. The reason for this sloppiness was because the drawing was getting too complicated and I had to move onto another piece if I wanted to get them all ready by the month of October. In the end I think this adds to the effect of an old timey movie, where the flaws are more easily noticeable than with some other modern movies.

"King Kong" is that movie concept that has been remade to exhaustion and yet not a single one has managed to recapture the spirit of the original (maybe with the exception of this year's "Kong: Skull Island"). King Kong has always been a very interesting adventure movie, not so much for its concept but for its execution. The human characters are only there for the sake of getting murdered by dinosaurs and monsters, and those who are given personalities are just as flat as an ironing board. No. The appeal comes from the jungle, the creatures, the fantastic special effects that have managed to age surprisingly well. I love the use of stop motion and how it makes things both very organic but also mechanical. Those puppets feel really alive, and when they get killed there's a legitimate emotional response to them dying. Few modern movies achieve this level of ingenuity and craftsmanship that turn them from harmless entertainment to being one of the pillars of cinema.

"King Kong" is a time capsule full of talent, innovation and likeability that manages to compensate its flaws in characters and story with a sleek execution and presentation that remains solid to this day. Few movies manage to be both incredibly entertaining while also being incredibly important to the art form that is cinema.