Beasts at BAM

How old does a kid have to be for a dad to take her to a dinosaur movie on the big screen? Older than 20 months, I imagine. So my young-at-heart self will have to sit out the Brooklyn Academy of Music's pocket retrospective dedicated to the work of Brooklyn artist Charles R. Knight, which begins tonight. Knight's murals of prehistoric flora and fauna were a major influence on master animator Ray Harryhausen, as seen in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and One Million Years B.C.; they also gave Harryhausen's mentor, Willis O'Brien, inspiration for The Lost World and King Kong. The latter has a late show on Sunday; maybe I'll check it out (Kong is one of those movies that can be watched annually, as a ritual to cinema greatness). How dino-crazed was I? So much so that I never really cared about Welch in a bikini loincloth when B.C. turned up on ABC's 4:30 Movie.

A T-day tradition continues

A nostalgic All That Chat post yesterday reminded me of how much I enjoyed NY Channel 9's "King Kong Thanksgivings", with a triple-header of the original Kong, The Son of Kong, and the offshoot Mighty Joe Young providing the perfect antidote to football. It seemed to have petered out sometime in the 80s, after a 10-year run that enlivened a decade's worth of holidays for me. Fox Movie Channel is showing all the Apes movies and TV shows this weekend, which, while hugely enjoyable in their own right, aren't quite the same thing.

So, in scanning my parents' TV last night, I beat my chest in triumph to discover that the Tri-State area tradition has migrated to the MonstersHD channel, which we don't get on weak-ass Time Warner Cable in Brooklyn. All three movies, plus the limp 1976 remake and a Godzilla picture, were being aired in primetime, and the few minutes of the original Kong I caught looked spiffy in high definition. Too bad the King of New York is without a convenient berth for me, but perhaps TW can be prevailed upon to restore him to his proper place.

Happy (belated) birthday

Released seventy-five years ago yesterday, and still going strong in the cinematic consciousness. I wish my Cineaste article from the Spring 2006 issue, taking in all the Kongs but of course giving pride-of-place to the first, was online to celebrate. The original, one-and-only King Kong affected my moviegoing life in so many ways, and remains a timeless, peerless achievement. Meeting Fay Way at Film Forum was a special thrill, and I always like taking friends to the top of the Empire State Building, which sells little commemorative dolls to honor the film that affixed the landmark in the cultural firmament. (It is the great monster movie and the great New York movie, all in one.) And Thanksgiving has never been the same since Channel 9 stopped running its Kong marathons, which I always looked forward to. It's good to be the King.