This article was originally supposed to appear in issue 25 of Virtue Magazine, but due to other commitments and magazine deadlines, it didn’t run. Instead of waiting another two weeks, we have decided to post it here at VirtueBlog. Feel free to post your thoughts on both the movie King Kong and Taylor Gage’s review of it!

“Kong” Runs Rings around the Originals

Rating: PG-13 (for frightening adventure violence and some disturbing images.)
Length: 3 hours 7 minutes
Company: Universal
Starring: Jack Black, Naomi Watts, Andy Serkis, and Adrien Brody
Review Rating: ****1/2
Box Office: $464,522,000 (World Wide)

“The beast looked upon the face of beauty. Beauty stayed his hand, and from that moment he was as one dead.”

Released on December 14th, 2005, Peter Jackson’s latest epic, King Kong, has it all: a ferocious gorilla, blonde beauty, and dazzling special effects. After directing the magnificent Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson achieved worldwide fame for his remarkable work. Thankfully, this third version of King Kong takes itself seriously and avoids the campiness of the 1976 version and the absurdity of the 1933 original.

The movie opens with Carl Denham (Jack Black), an eccentric movie director, desperately trying to sell his latest idea to film executives. In an effort to save his career, Denham races to set sail from New York City to film his movie before the executives can retract his commission. After his lead actress quits, he quickly searches for another to fill her slot, and finds the beautiful but jobless Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts). An uneventful trip ends in a tumultuous docking at their exotic destination: an uncharted island untouched by civilization. However, a tribe of vicious natives soon abduct Ann Darrow so that they may sacrifice her to Kong. Leading a search party into the depths of the wild island, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), Ann’s love interest, and the other men discover prehistoric creatures, which look like they were lifted from Jurassic Park.

From there, the film maintains a breakneck pace as King Kong enters the plot. Amazingly, the giant gorilla’s completely CGI figure looks very realistic. Instead of a returning to the gorilla suit used in the 1976 version, Andy Serkis provided Kong’s movements through the same motion capture techniques used to create his Gollum character in the Lord of the Rings. While most of the computer graphics are well done, a couple scenes, such as the brontosaurus chase, appear rather unrealistic; however, most of the other visuals are top notch.

While Peter Jackson’s films remain notable for their special effects, King Kong also contains several remarkable performances by lesser known actors. While Jack Black is better known for his roles in comedies, like Shallow Hal and School of Rock, he acts the part of Denham with enthusiasm and wit. Naomi Watts, famous for her role as Rachel Keller in The Ring, tenderly endears her character to both Kong and movie viewers. Finally, Oscar-winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist, The Village) delivers yet another remarkable performance as Carl Denham’s screenwriter.

Throughout his remake of King Kong, Peter Jackson treats his viewers to a truly compelling, yet very lengthy story. Surprisingly, screenwriters Phillipa Boyens, Fran Walsh, and Peter Jackson put their characters into dilemmas, causing them to make moral decisions which bring greater depth to the characters. Certainly Jackson could have fixed King Kong’s few flaws, but the film remains one of 2005’s best films.
—Taylor Gage

Where do you draw the line? That’s what Matt Welch at ReasonOnline wants to know.

In his “Pro-war Libertarian quiz,” Welch asks the question: How far are you willing to go to win the war on terror?

Writes Welch:

By now, we all know the pattern:

1) A new revelation is published or broadcast about a controversial new policy or by-product of the War on Terror. (Abu Ghraib/torture, extraordinary rendition, the outing of Valerie Plame, an alleged plan to attack Iran, secret propaganda in Iraq, FISA-free NSA surveillance of Americans, and so on.)

2) Some supporters of Washington’s foreign policy wonder whether the reporter or news organization or leaker who revealed the information might be guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy.

3) The media, Democrats, and anti-war activists are criticized for piling on, for ignoring worse crimes committed by the enemy, and for hysterically exaggerating the underlying issue.

4) Think-pieces are written about how this controversial or possibly illegal policy should actually be legalized and embraced.

5) Some self-described small-government conservatives and libertarians exasperatedly ask if critics of the policy understand that we’re at war, and explain how this latest kerfuffle illustrates why libertarians should never be invited to the grown-ups’ table when discussing foreign policy.

So Welch has come up with 10 questions to ask the pro-war pundits, since he wants to know “how far is too far on the war in terror.” (Welch’s answer to every question is “no”).

1) Should the National Security Agency or CIA have the ability to monitor domestic phone calls or e-mails without obtaining judicial approval?

2) Should the government have the ability to hold an American citizen without charge, indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, if he is believed to be part of a terrorist cell?

3) Can you imagine a situation in which the government would be justified in waterboarding an American citizen?

4) Are there American journalists who should be investigated for possible treason? Should Sedition laws be re-introduced?

5) Should the CIA be able to legally assassinate people in countries with which the U.S. is not at war?

6) Should anti-terrorism cops be given every single law-enforcement tool available in non-terrorist cases?

7) Should law enforcement be able to seize the property of a suspected (though not charged) American terrorist, and then sell it?

8) Should the U.S. military be tasked with enforcing domestic crime?

9) Should there be a national I.D. card, and should it be made available to law enforcement on demand?

10) Should a higher percentage of national security-related activities and documents be made classified, and kept from the eyes of the Congress, the courts, and the public?

Welch concludes:

My belief, crudely summarized, is not only that you do not need to imitate totalitarians to beat them, but that it doesn’t actually help.

But that’s just me; before the next scandal cycle of bloggery bickering begins, I’d love to know where my pro-war friends draw the line.

I’d love to know.

The AP is reporting that a “lovers dispute over a cell phone” resulted in the woman swallowing the cell phone!

Police said they received a call at 4:52 a.m. Friday from a Blue Springs man who said his girlfriend was having trouble breathing. When they arrived at the house they found the 24-year-old woman had a cell phone lodged in her throat.

“He wanted the phone and she wouldn’t give it to him, so she attempted to swallow it,” Detective Sgt. Steve Decker of the Blue Springs Police Department. “She just put the entire phone in her mouth so he couldn’t get it.”

I’m not sure what was going through the woman’s head at the time, but trying to put an object in your mouth and swallow it does not strike me as being a particularly good way of ending a “lovers’ dispute.” Especially when the object is a cell phone!

The next time you drive around your neighborhood looking at Christmas lights displays, keep Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio in mind.

For three years, Carson has hooked up roughly 25,000 Christmas lights around his home and programed them to . . . well, dance.

To Christmas music.

Playing on FM radio.

Not only has Mr. Williams attracted hundreds if not thousands of people who drive by to view the amazing display, he has also attracted the attention of national media, including NBC’s Today Show and the Associated Press:

This is the third year Williams has assembled the display, which grows every year. He said he merely built on a suggestion from his wife, Sherry.

“She wanted some lights on the house, and I work with computers, so I said, ‘There’s got to be a way to control it with computers,’” Williams said.

He explored the Web and found examples of other synchronized displays. It takes him about an hour to program each minute of the display, which flashes to music by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

That doesn’t mean neighbors have to listen to the sound track repeat itself all night.

“The sound, we actually broadcast on a low FM transmitter, so there’s actually no sound in the neighborhood,” said Williams, an electrical engineer with Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions.

A sign tells passers-by where to tune to listen, and Williams often stays outside for hours at a time chatting with visitors and directing traffic.

Williams hasn’t had any problems with neighbors so far, and he has said that if anyone complains about the display he will shut it down. You can read the entire article about him and his house here.

Make sure you check out this incredible three minute video showing how the whole thing works! Remember to turn on your speakers, so you experience the whole thing with the music! (The ending is especially fantastic.)
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Thought this was interesting:

The military has unveiled a non-lethal laser weapon, named the PHASR, that emits a…laser…beam…that is designed to temporarily enemy targets without causing any permanent damage. Note to all maniacs and sci-fi geeks: this does not use a high-powered laser to vaporize things and give people gruesome, painful deaths. However, the military hasn’t released any other information, other than it exists. We don’t know how it works or what it does exactly, except that it does not use a high-powered laser to vaporize things and give people gruesome, painful deaths. (Drat!)

Of course, there is some sort of regulation on this from the UN, of all places. Apparently the laser weapon has to comply with UN regulations on blinding laser weapons. Specifically, the 1995 UN convention called the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, which banned blinding laser weapons. Now, it strikes me as funny that the UN has time to address evil blinding laser weapons by the US military, but somehow is too busy or just wants to ignore evil despotic rulers that oppress and mass-murder their own people, want to find yet more ways to oppress and mass-murder their own people, and bribe certain members of the UN Security Council shamelessly. Wait, I just answered my own question. Drat again!

Though I do want to ask why exactly are we so concerned about permanent eye damage to our enemies when those enemies have no qualms about dropping nuclear bombs on major cities.

That weapon seems a little big, though…

How many total people has Osama bin Laden killed? And what percent were Americans? Muslim? Jew?

Does anyone know?

At least one person was killed and over 80 others injured when a five-car commuter train derailed in Chicago’s South Side early this morning. A total of 189 people were on the train. Officials apparently don’t know for sure what caused the crash yet.

Stephanie Smith, who was sitting in the second car in the upper tier, said she heard brakes screeching before the train came to a halt.

“I just went flying into the safety seat bar and fell to the ground,” Smith, a master’s student at DePaul University, told the Chicago Tribune. “We were skidding out of control. Weaving back and forth. People were weeping and screaming.”

The engine ended up on its side and there was a 30-foot gap between two of the cars. Several windows on the train were broken.

Dozens of emergency vehicles and two medical helicopters were at the scene and workers erected three red emergency triage tents to treat people near the tracks. City officials asked for assistance from suburban emergency response teams, said Fire department spokesman Larry Langford.

More details here.

For those of us who are Star Wars fans:

Actor Michael Sheard, who played Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back, has died of cancer at the age of 65.

Sheard also appeared in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, where he played the role of Adolph Hitler. Sheard played Hitler a total of five times in his acting career.

More on Sheard can be found here.

In Star Wars, he was memorably choked by Darth Vader – and said George Lucas told him it was “the best screen death I’ve ever seen”.

At the time, Star Wars was “just another part in a very busy actor’s career”, he said, but it has secured him a place in the hearts of Star Wars fans and an Admiral Ozzel action figure came out last year.

This week we decided to do our roundup via video. Choose between original and extra crispy. Er, that’s not right, choose between the high bandwidth version (2mb) and the version for dialup users (570kb).

Related Links:

• Wake Up the NEA


• Pat Robertson


• Cindy Sheehan

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is!

The UK Guardian is reporting that two skeptics of global warming, Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtse, have agreed to a $10,000 wager with British climate expert James Annan. The two Russian physicists are betting that Earth will experience a global drop in temperatures in the next dozen years or so:

To decide who wins the bet, the scientists have agreed to compare the average global surface temperature recorded by a US climate centre between 1998 and 2003, with temperatures they will record between 2012 and 2017.

If the temperature drops Dr Annan will stump up the $10,000 (now equivalent to about £5,800) in 2018. If the Earth continues to warm, the money will go the other way.

The bet is the latest in an increasingly popular field of scientific wagers, and comes after a string of climate change sceptics have refused challenges to back their controversial ideas with cash.

The article also has some interesting information on the views of the two Russian physicists.

The pair, based in Irkutsk, at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, believe that global temperatures are driven more by changes in the sun’s activity than by the emission of greenhouse gases. They say the Earth warms and cools in response to changes in the number and size of sunspots. Most mainstream scientists dismiss the idea, but as the sun is expected to enter a less active phase over the next few decades the Russian duo are confident they will see a drop in global temperatures.

This should be an interesting story to watch unfold. Hopefully these two Russians can help strike another blow against the myth of “global warming.”

Stay tuned!