The Thing and King Kong

The 1933 King Kong is just about a perfect classic film. I am a fan of stop-motion animation and the creatures in that film still hold up for me. It's amazing what they were able to achieve with such old school special effects. The 70's version is pretty hokey when I watch it now, but I still have a soft spot for it, since I first watched it by sneaking into my brother's bedroom well past my bedtime when I was a little kid. I even had the movie poster in my room, I loved it so much. I was very much looking forward to Peter Jackson's version, but I must admit that that movie is much longer than it needs to be. It felt very padded out to me with some unnecessary subplots. The last 90 minutes are a lot of fun though and the effects, especially on Kong and the old style New York, are quite impressive. Still, nothing holds a candle to the original film - I can't imagine what it must have been like to be a kid watching that in the theater when it was originally released.