in the heat of the night . king kong

in the heat of the night is one of dads favourite films from his college days, which means that it has gained legendary status at our place in his stories- everytime a new movie comes along it is compared to the idea of ‘in the heat of the night’ and is invariably not as good. the other day i saw it at home with dad- and it was to be quite honest not the classic it was made out to be- though not that i was expecting it to be- but it was actually quite good. a murder gets committed in the american south and a black police officer from the north helps the local officer solve the crime. a story that revolved more around the race relations than the revealing of the murderer. sidney poitier and rod steiger were terrific.

mukul has been raving about king kong ever since he saw it a week or so back. sonal, mukul and me went off to the hub for an afternoon show. the story is part titanic, part jurassic park, part creatures and a large adorable monkey. its like a classic hollywood adventure movie about human nature and the unknown, love and the untamed wild - at least i guess that’s what all the joseph conrad’s ‘heart of darkness’ quotes were about. i loved the film.. like i was telling muksi it seemed like a complete movie going experience- like a hollywood version of a bollywood film- a little bit of comedy, a lot of love and some great fight sequences thrown in. and the special effects were so fantastic that they did not seem “special” in any extraordinary way. i also loved the slight but definite references to other films and genres of film making- as if so many new films owed so much to the original 1930s film.

a quote i remember from the film- again jack black as the pompous director – “it was beauty that killed the beast”