King Kong is in my opinion the most widely recognized motion picture of all time. The scenes and imagery of this film is massively iconic, as the depiction of a giant ape in New York is shown over and over through out history. I had never seen the original King Kong before now, yet I did have some expectations and ideas of what was in this film. And I can safely say that I was very surprised by the amount of gore and horror in the film. I always assumed it could only be so violent because of the time it was made in, but it very explicit in that sense. People were crushed, burned and eaten alive, a dinosaur had it's head split in two, another dinosaur was repeatedly shot to death and a giant gorilla was gunned off a sky scraper. This film terrified people of the time of its release and I fully understand why.
I really liked the use of stop-motion animation for this film because of how much effort must have gone into creating each animatronic. I thought it must have been particularly difficult with creating the dinosaurs as there had never been an attempt to animate dinosaurs in a moving picture before King Kong. This must have been a daring task to take on for a film crew of this era.
Overall I found King Kong to be an exciting adventure movie with airplanes and dinosaurs thrown in. It stands out boldly as the first adventure thriller that took on a massive brief to create the most memorable film of all time.
Hey Cat - you've really got to look at the brief again and at the requirements in regard to the film reviews; we're trying to give you a skillset here just as important to your future success as a degree student as your Photoshop/Maya stuff - you're asked to use quotes from published sources, to use Harvard referencing, to include bilbliographies and illustration lists. Right now, however reflective of your enjoyment of the film, this review is void because it is entirely unsubstantiated and subjective - which it shouldn't be at this level of study. Don't want to be a nag-bag, but you're 'off brief' and not learning very much in terms of actual technical know-how when it comes academic writing, critical thinking and use of scholarly conventions. Trust me - when you come to write your essays (and ultimately your 9,000 dissertation), you're going to want to be good/quick at this. Don't re-edit this review - just please ensure that 2001 is written in accordance with the formal requirements of the brief.
ReplyDeleteHi Cat,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I am so sorry...I appear to have completely NOT been following your blog, and have missed all your other reviews :(
Everything Phil has said above is true... although you are asked to write a 'review', it should be more an analysis of the themes within the film, rather than your personal opinion. You should write in the 3rd person, which will immediately make your writing sound less personal - there is a guide available on myUCA in the unit folder, under Essays and Articles, that shows you how to do this.
Have a look at some of your classmates reviews to see how they should look - Mark's is a good example here -
http://mstamp176.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/review-king-kong.html
So, you need to have a look at what other authors have written about the film, find 3 quotes to support your argument, and also include some images. You will need to reference the other sources both in the text and in a bibliography and illustrations list at the end. Have a look here for details on how to use the Harvard method of referencing -
http://community.ucreative.ac.uk/Harvard-Referencing
Have a go at the 2001 review, and I'll get back to you with further advice :)