Word: harryhausen
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...remote but able to power down the whole world. The kids have to recover it before it falls into the wrong hands. But this movie's delight is in its homey details, personified by the scary creatures they encounter on their quest. These are retro-hip homages to Ray Harryhausen's charming stop-motion animations of an earlier era. Their presence signals Rodriguez's desire to sustain his innocence - and evoke ours. Be prepared for enchantment. -By Richard Schickel...
...orange sky). And they give a vertiginous kick to the fight scenes. A mile-high car chase has cool dips and speed bumps. An arena battle begins as a Gladiator knock-off and then escalates, with lumbering monsters that recall the peerless work of stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen. A light-saber duel in the dark has loads of drama and glamour...
...else in cinema ever imbued rubber and fur with the lifelike feel O'Brien achieved in "King Kong." The only other man who came close was Ray Harryhausen. But as Paul Jensen notes, "[Harryhausen] worked hard to make good, imaginative pictures, but he never worked with a person who could take him further than he might go alone, as Merian C. Cooper did for Willis O'Brien." Harryhausen was the aging animator's apprentice on his last great picture, "Mighty Joe Young," for which O'Brien won the Oscar. One of the lessons he learned was not to do things...
...best discussion of O'Brien, Harryhausen and "King Kong" still in print, check...
...best fan site on "Kong" with superlative digressions on Harryhausen and O'Brien: http://www.aboyd.com/kong/index.html...