Terrible idea. Terrible, terrible, terrible… terrible idea.
Let me elaborate. The story is that certain groups (read: theatre owners), with the intention of rescuing the film industry from the depths it has descended to, are pushing the FCC to block rude behavior by jamming cell phone signals in movie theatres.

What? In the first place, I was under the impression that jamming may be illegal, so what they really may be talking about is permission to circumvent the law in order to “rescue the ailing film industry”. I have two issues with this logic: —>

And the Prophet said, ‘And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.’

King Kong is a glorious film- it succeeds just as gloriously as it fails. The best thing Peter Jackson has going for himself here is that he respects Kong. The scenes between Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and King Kong (Andy Serkis in a Gollum-suit) are magic; they play like a beautiful romantic silent film. The two sunsets and a poignant playful ice dance between them are pure movie magic. The choice of actors is perfect- Jack Black, Colin Hanks and Adrian Brody are just right.

The trouble is that the middle act suffers from Lost-World-itis; a disorder of directors of creature flicks who have been told that their creatures make their movies great. They believe that more creatures will make it greater. It is the juvenile, sugar-high, Tarantinoesque obsession with more. Tarantino usually gets away with his distractions; mainly because his films are entirely distractions strung together until they gel into a coherent mess. Not so with King Kong. The middle act on Skull Island involves multiple creatures over and over and over and over and over…

There were 2 hours of the best film this year hidden in 3 hours of mess.

UPDATE: The script/program to get your Netflix Ratings is now ready for others to use. It is still in very early stages of development, but it has worked for a lot of people. Enjoy!

One of the things I love about my Netflix account is my ratings. As of now, I have 1323 DVDs (not all DVDs are films, but most are) rated there. This is a tremendous resource about my preferences that Netflix (and I) have. The trouble is that the only way I can get at them is by going to the website, logging in to my account, clicking through 2 pages to get to my ratings page. —>