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Let's find out what JammerLea has picked for this series this time!

I voted yes on King Kong mainly for the stop motion special effects. However, personally, this wouldn't be on my list of top 100 films. Besides the obvious racism and misogyny, sometimes it was so slow that my mind kept wandering. When something finally happened, it was usually something being killed. For example, the way they kept shooting that stegosaurus went on forever, it was kind of upsetting. And King Kong is supposed to be a beast, I get that, but he kills everything and anyone and this made me appreciate later adaptations (and "rip-offs" like Mighty Joe Young) where you feel more sympathy for the ape. I guess I prefer my Kong to be more than just a brainless brute who smashes things.

He seems to have no idea how to cook for a large amount of people either. His timing is all off. He's got tons and tons of pasta cooked and ready to go but there are piles of raw meat sitting out on the counters. The meat is going to take way longer to cook than the pasta, Giorgio. Get it together.

I think you hit exactly why this film needs to be included. It really showed how movies could physically create totally fictional, fantastical realities for actual actors to interact with. It's exciting, it's thrilling, and it has this two-story ape engage with human actors as its own character. This certainly did not pre-date cartoons, but it does pre-date Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated feature, by four years, while only being six years after the first sound picture, The Jazz Singer. We are in brand new territory here, but the fundamentals of storytelling are still adhered to and valued, even if the love story is rather undercooked. From a personal standpoint, I love stop-motion, I find it fascinating to watch and I lament its demise in the wake of more efficient means of creating these kinds of characters. From King King to Ray Harryhausen to Nightmare Before Christmas to Studio Laika, I love that medium so much. So I see King Kong as a sort of progenitor of that whole field (even if the technique was not invented for the film). The racism IS deplorable in this movie, as is the troubling idea bandied around at the time (thanks to movements like "scientific racism") of Africans being more closely related to apes than other races. The very idea of a white woman being kidnapped by an ape from "Darkest Africa" is subconsciously mining that concept. There was a lot of and Eugenics going on in America and Europe at the time, and this movie struck such a chord with audiences that it might have been cultivating those cultural currents. Was it conscious of the filmmakers? I don't know. It doesn't seem malicious the way Birth of a Nation was. Do I wish it wasn't in the film? Undoubtedly. I think you could have a King Kong that functions as a metaphor for the destructiveness of Colonialism, about the dangers and evil that inevitably come when one culture arrives and imposes its values and morals on another. White people come, extract resources from a native culture, and bring back a violated version of it for their own benefit. It could be a Beauty and the Beast story where the real Beast is racism if done right, but the way the Skull Islanders are depicted, the 1933 Kong definitely does not reach those heights. I still think it belongs on the AFI list though.

I felt really bad for these two characters, but on the other hand, I paid more attention to them than anyone else in this film. They were the only ones I that really felt like characters to me and were relatable from a customer service standpoint. There's always that one person who makes ridiculous requests. I also was concerned that the food fight took place in their kitchen, in which case I was ready to throw down for them. I only sort of paid attention, but it seemed after that show, when Giorgio is just hanging out with people, he suddenly decides that HE wants to cook for EVERYONE. And that's the other thing that drove me nuts. This is a large crowd, and two people cooking for them seems like way too little to get that much food ready in a reasonable amount of time. But then they proceed to ruin as much of the food as possible with their stupid food fight and I'm just like... you STILL have people WAITING FOR FOOD out there! Again, maybe this is my customer service background, but WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??? The manager already told them the guests were getting restless with hunger. Now they're going to be at the least incredibly disappointed, and at the most very very angry. Just... I don't know... get catering... order some pizzas... something more reliable than two people whose special skills do not seem to include cooking at any other point in the movie.

You can argue that some of that is in there, maybe unintentionally thanks to the work of the animators making Kong so sympathetic upon his death. But I think it's hard to watch the movie and not feel sorry for the death of the beast . . . and by extension, for the exploitation and destruction of the native peoples he is a metaphor for. I mean, yeah, they're still basically equating those people with gorillas. I'm just saying it's complicated.

So like the rest of the movie, the existence of the kitchen scene entirely hinges on Giorgio's ego and lack of consideration for other people's needs. Makes perfect sense, in retrospect.

all the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey, don't let it bring you down, new Handbooks on the way

Paul and Amy, I really enjoyed this episode. As an animator, I got a kick out of Paul being flummoxed and at a loss to explain why he enjoyed watching Kong the character so much, even though the effects techniques are relatively crude compared to today's sophisticated cgi. I think Willis O'brien and his crew are due a bit more credit than they were paid in this podcast. To my mind "King Kong" is an incredibly significant film for a key reason. Previously, special effects were just that, tricks that were used to enhance brief sequences in a film, to bring some realism to circumstances that were too difficult or dangerous to film for real. In "King Kong" the effects are undeniably the star. "King Kong" is the first time special effects are used to bring life to a central character of a feature length film. Willis O'brien had previously used his stop motion techniques in "The Lost World" on a variety of rampaging prehistoric critters, but Kong is different. Kong is a brilliant example of "personality animation", or animation where the character appears to be thinking and making decisions. In this film, for the first time, the barometer of special effects changes from "how realistic is this effect?" to "how engaging is this performance?". As your guest zoo employee points out, there are many things about Kong's design and performance that are not accurate to a real gorilla, but in animation we regularly speak about "realism" and "believability" as separate concepts. Kong's brilliant performance, executed by a team of unseen artisans, transcends its technique. It is engaging and believable. This is the film proved that a special effect could hold it's own as an actor, and it's the milestone that paved the way for Yoda, E.T., Roger Rabbit, Dobby, Gollum and so many more. Keep up the good work, alex

I shouldn't be surprised that Jason had no idea about spilling tea but honestly I'm still surprised.

As someone that performed for 10 years, Opera is so hard.

My new favorite quote...

After a brief hiatus, I got so excited to catch up on HH when someone told me that there were lots of Chef Kevin bits and segments on the show now. Imagine my disappointment when I tuned in to find out that he had NOT actually been dismembered.

More Jordan and less Kevin thank you

just want to say how truly grateful I am for H&S showing me love on the Chef Kevin AMA Pro Version and on this week's HH. for the past few years both my parents have had Alzheimer's disease, a form of dementia. my Mom was diagnosed in '04, my Dad in '15. during these years HH and this forum have provided a much needed escape from all the hellish bullshit of reality. making the pictures especially, getting lost in pixels for hours has been a valuable coping strategy throughout my Mom passed away in April. I played ukulele and sang at her funeral. so to have the boys be so nice on top of doing their great funny shows makes me feel that despite life's gloomy dark thunderclouds dropping constant pain and sorrow, sometimes a warm ray of light might shine through, offering a little hope and healing

Can we talk more about those kids that Dr. Pahmela is going to start hacking tonsils out of? There's the main kid, James, who despite not being a small kid himself and being obsessed with ice cream, jabs at Giorgio repeatedly about his weight. Then there's the kid in a neck brace from an unknown injury, but he taunts and teases James about the anesthesia, so I'm willing to bet he was there originally for tonsillitis and probably just got his neck wrung by the other kids in the tonsil ward. And there's the one kid in glasses and a red robe who, while Giorgio is singing with them, keeps hitting Green Acres in the shoulder. It's not in time with the music or anything ... just random slaps on the back. For me, even weirder than the pies-on-ladders was the stiff interaction between Giorgio and these kids. When James tries to run in fear of the upcoming operation, Pavarotti enters by blocking the doorway, putting his hat on him, and then they kind of waltz back into the room, and he's got this pissed-off scowl on his face like he's thinking "Ugh, fucking kids." But it's pretty clear later on that he loves kids and is really sweet with them. (Incidentally, OMISSION: Giorgio does mention here that he has two children ... that's the first moment we hear about his family. Sort of. In a real "gonna be just honest enough to still get laid" way.) (Also incidentally, OMISSION: the doctor who asks Pahmela about her wild opera fling is the same doctor who tries to sing for Giorgio when he's there with the kids earlier, so he's obviously some opera superfan groupie. It might also be why he's on tv at the hospital. Otherwise, one could only posit that they live in some kind of Metalocalypse universe where everyone's lives revolved around Giorgio.)

Apparently Hayes forgot how to sign into the old forum and that's why there hasn't been any popcorn gallery in a while. He should be along "any minute" to announce its return.

I don't understand why this movie needed to be a more painful viewing experience than most others, or why Paul provided a music-free cut of the film to help us get through it. You're watching a Pavarotti movie; the singing is the whole point! Especially the week after Paul talked on his other podcast about how opera in films like Shawshank Redemption and Pretty Woman is a shortcut to understand that a character has depth. The plot/acting is the painful part that you should fast-forward. You don't skip the breakdancing in "Body Rock", or the BMX racing in "Rad", or the splits and kicks in a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. Maybe opera isn't for everyone, but then neither is bicycling, martial arts, or Neil Diamond. If you skip the arias and songs then you're missing out on the one thing that Pavarotti was known for. (Actually, scratch that...you would still get the womanizing and the eating. Let me rephrase: if you skip the singing then you're missing out on one of the three things that Pavarotti was known for.) But the singing is what the movie claims is Pavarotti's get-out-of-jail-free card. His voice is the reason for the bottomless adulation he receives. No one ever compliments him on anything else other than his singing, or relates to him as a person. It's all about his greatness because of his singular talent, and it entitles him to act like an entitled creepy stalker. The movie fails because it takes for granted that the singing will sell Giorgio as a sympathetic character; we'll fall in love with him just as Pamela does. The problem is that the music itself only exits to serve Pavarotti's ego. Opera novices like June won't be more inclined to like opera any more after watching this movie, because each vocal performance only inflates the image of the man who exhibits narcissistic personality disorder even when he's not singing. Not once does Giorgio speak about opera as an art form, or the craft of singing, or the emotion of music. Each song is either a vehicle to show off his physical stamina, or a call for everyone in the vicinity to gather around him in adulation, or a vehicle for him to cynically manipulate and flatter his groupies and fans. The final line of the climactic aria "Nessun dorma" is "Vincero!" - "I will conquer!" - which is basically the theme of the film. It's all about him. He can do whatever he wants: have an affair but stay married with no consequences, destroy a kitchen's worth of food, return to the Met Opera after a self-imposed exile provoked by a hissy fit, soldier on even after his lover leaves him. The craziest part of the whole movie is that "Nessun dorma" is sung twice! There's still about 30 minutes left to the opera. So the movie effectively gives Giorgio an encore that no one asked for. There was no doubt that "Nessun dorma" would be the climax of the film, but do we have to hear it twice in its entirety, both verses? Apparently yes, so Pav can sing the high B even longer the second time (6 seconds the first time, a whopping 10 seconds the second time). I think it's musically thrilling, but the movie definitely pushes the audience as far as they can go to the point of admiring the singing and not caring for anything else. Especially nowadays, when the #metoo movement and general impatience for diva-ish behavior has finally caught up to the opera world that created the likes of Pavarotti.

So June was the guest on last week's Bitch Sesh episode and she mentioned that she likes a bigger boy!

Scarabocchi

I wanted to share this incredible find that I came across on some sketchy Russian mp3 website when I was looking for REM demos. All it said was "Михаи́л Стипенд 1983" for the credit, which piqued my interest, since that's around the release of Murmur, one of my favorite REM albums. Unfortunately, my computer now seems to be infected with quite a few viruses, rendering it almost unusable, but in the end, it was all worth it. Much credit to user Jordo for posting the other version. If I hadn't had heard that, I would have never known what this song was supposed to be. I've uploaded the file to my Soundcloud below...enjoy!

Oh, hellllooo! I just wanted everyone to know that just because my typing voice sounds like Mrs. Doubtfire, I swear I'm not doing a mom bit. And if you haven't been reading my posts in the correct voice please make the proper adjustments. Thanks!

Mr Branum has a really endearing laugh so when he's around dem boys? You better believe you're in for some endearment, pal. That's what the flim-flam men and women of finance call a, "Take to the bank. It? By you? Yes".