In the wild discussion in last Thursday’s post about NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and its questionable logic a couple of people made reference to the recent bloated version of KING KONG. Someone pointed out how ridiculous it was that Naomi Watts is just wearing a sheer white gown when it’s snowing and freezing. I could sort of buy that because I knew Kong would grab her and she’d be wrapped in the world’s biggest fur.Other things we could debate – would a giant insect do that? Did the movie really need to be five hours long? Were the survivors from LOST on the other side of the island? Etc.
But there’s one flaw in logic I just can’t get beyond.
These people go to a remote tropical island and discover its inhabited by dinosaurs and a giant gorilla. And the explorers decide, “Let’s take the gorilla! We could put him on Broadway, charge admission.” Excuse me, but you’ve got DINOSAURS there!! Creatures no one in a gazillion years have seen. Why not bring THE DINASAURS HOME??!! Don’t you think THEY would be a slightly better attraction than a large gorilla?
It reminds me of the old joke about how CBS developed the 1986 sitcom, MY SISTER SAM. A group of program executives were watching an episode of MORK & MINDY starring Robin Williams and Pam Dawber and one cried out, “Quick! Get us the girl!”
OK, I think I got ya' answer right here, Ken. Adrien Brody and Jack Black were told the Naiomi Watts role might go to Cybill Shepherd, and now they're both suffering from a reptile dysfunction.
ReplyDeleteThere's also that fuzziness quotient on back-end merchandizing. Who's gonna buy their kid something called Tickle Me Serpent?
Finally harkening back to his wonderful link to CS in At Long Last Love, I'd just like to call in on the request line and ask Pat Reeder if he has any Fran Drescher musical stylings he'd be able to share? Maybe a cover of Frankie Laine's Rawhide or somethin'?
speaking of Cybill Shephard, re: that photo you posted of her a few days ago--when did Cybill Shepard play the Unabomber?
ReplyDeletehehe, "a reptile dysfunction"
ReplyDeleteBeautiful.
Peh. Dinosaurs are so 1,000,000 years B.C.
ReplyDelete>>A group of program executives were watching an episode of MORK & MINDY starring Robin Williams and Pam Dawber and one cried out, “Quick! Get us the girl!”
ReplyDeleteOne could have forgiven them if they said, "Quick, Get us Tom Poston."
I was sure you were going to off on "10,000 years BC", what with dinosaurs building the pyramids and stuff
ReplyDeletetb said…I was sure you were going to off on “10,000 years BC...”
ReplyDeleteNow hold on there podner. I believe blogward had it right the first time. If we’re talking about the 1960’s classic starring Raquel Welch in that fuzzy (to coin a garment) bear teddy -- and I think you know we are – then the picture was One Million Years B.C.. Which is hard to believe because it seems like only yesterday.
And let’s lose the historical revisionism. Dinosaurs didn’t build the pyramids – it was my people, and one week every year we have to chow down while mumbling the names of plagues just so we won’t forget it. Why do we make such a big deal about leaving work early? Well, if you check your history books, until about 1956 that was pretty much the last time the Jews kicked ass. We had kind of a dry spell.
Everybody knows the dinosaurs were long gone by 10,000. Now a million is a whole other era, but for all I know you could be a pleistocene-denier.
No, my friend, we’re obviously talking about the classic epoch starring the lovely and alluring Raquel, and the accompanying poster that had college students all over the country paying room damage fees for the implementation of overly aggressive masking tape.
As you’ll recall, “Rocky” Welch hooked up with this dude who had a habit of being evicted from otherwise rent-controlled caves overlooking the Bedrock Amphitheater. So called because patrons were allowed to watch the feature either on land or under water. Wife Wilma and daughter Pebbles go unseen in the action. Hope this clears things up.
Hey, I liked the girl (I mean who else could play opposite Robin Williams for four years and stay reasonably sane). Mark Harmon liked the girl too.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the conversation went like this:
ReplyDelete"That Robin Williams is hilarious!"
"Yeah, but would you want to spend 10 hours a day with him over the next five years?"
"Get me the girl!"
I was about nine when "One Million B.C." was released. I never saw the movie, but my dad took me to a car show where they were selling the famous fur bikini poster for a dollar. Without fully understanding why, I HAD to have that poster. I happily parted with my allowance (actually, I think it was 4 weeks' allowance). When we returned home, my mom and grandmother looked from the poster, to me, to the poster again. Then they looked at each other with expressions that seemed to say, "Oh God, it's starting."
ReplyDelete10,000 BC is a bad movie in theatres now, and has wooly mammoths involved in building the pyramids, so I don't think the 1966 classic bad movie (Itself a remake of a Hal Roach picture with Victor Mature in a fur bikini.) in which Ray Harryhausen failed to bring Raquel Welch to life when animating her was intended by TB. I think he referenced the movie he intended to reference. BTW, Ray's animated Raquel (in the pterodactyl's claws) WAS more lifelike than the actual Miss Welch, running around inhaling and exhaling in her fur bikini.
ReplyDeleteThe guy Raquel hooked up with in the movie was John Richardson. In the picture Raquel has a great catfight with the divine Martine Beswicke over Richardson. In the movie, Raquel wins him. In real life, John and Martine moved to Italy together and had a romance of several years. As it happens, Martine is a dear, long-time friend of mine, so I know whereof I speak.
Sorry A BUCK SHORT, if you're going to correct historical revisionism, first learn your history. According to Hollywood, the pyramids were built by slaves. How to put this? Hollywood makes things up. (Mammoths building pyramids for instance, which would require wooly mammoths to be in AFRICA, when they were in Siberia. All that wool wouldn't have been very comfortable under the Egyptian Sun.)
The pyramids were not built by slaves, Hebrew or otherwise. Hollywood myth. Free men, who were paid, built the pyramids. Learn history before you correct it.
But your Reptile Dysfunction gag is great.
As for taking home souvenir dinosaurs along with the big ape, as I recall from watching both the original KK and the Jackson remake, they didn't really have a way of luring a dinosaur into their trap. One would expect that a second expidition would set out to capture some dinosaurs, since capturing Kong went so well for everyone.
The reason the film makers didn't have Denham and Co capture a dinosaur instead is that dinosaurs can't climb the Empire State Building.
ReplyDeleted. mcewan: my regards to the glorious Martine Beswicke, who was another female icon of my adolescence, thanks to things like "Prehistoric Women" and "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde." How cool it must be to know her.
ReplyDelete