Today we went to see two very good, very long movies: Munich and King Kong.
Munich (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, and right up there with Syriana in terms of cerebral style and complex subject matter. Spielberg did a very good job of not trying to answer a question for the audience, instead laying out as many facts and viewpoints as he could about the morality of assassination and effectiveness of retribution. The acting was excellent, the story was tense and never action-movie-ish, and the flashbacks recreating the Munich massacre were unsettling (it happened three years before I was born, but the iconic image of the masked terrorist on the balcony has always made me uneasy). I cannot recommend this film enough; like Syriana or Good Night And Good Luck, the film’s subject is as relevant and difficult today as it was generations ago.
King Kong (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was also one of the best I’ve seen this year, but for entirely different reasons: it was pure escapist fantasy, but it was done so expertly and so convincingly that I lost myself in it. It was funny, brutal, touching, disgusting and engaging, and it looked remarkably real. Only once or twice did I think to myself, “Hey, that’s CG,” and that was during the wide shots of people running through the jungle or driving through 1930s New York; the Kong effects were nothing short of mindboggling. Peter Jackson did it again; he took a beloved, oft-told tale and told it again, finding a new — and ultimately truer — way to tell it.
[UPDATE | 3 Jan: I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking about Munich, kept running over it in my head, especially the scenes of the massacre. It’s obviously affecting me even more than I thought it would.]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 
Yes and Yes. Both great movies. Both almost 3 hours and not once did I think “oh when will this movie end”. I blubbered through the last half hour of King Kong (no surprise there). And Munich freaked me out. Go see both! A great movie day indeed.
I will have to check with my better half if there are any of those three she doesn’t want to see. I will be in the US next week and will be able to see at least one of those three (Munich, Syriana or King Kong). Thanks for the recommendation!
I have yet to see Munich (it’s on my to-do list), but Kong I loved. Except for the last line. The only saving grace it may have is if the original finished with the same line ,”It wasn’t the planes that killed him…it was beauty.” Blech. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. Other thank that, i agree, fabulous movie.
It was, in fact, a line from the original. It referred to the Arabian proverb mentioned at the beginning of the film: “And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.”