WE LOVE YOU YA BIG APE.

The article discusses the Peter Jackson version of "King Kong" which uses the original movie as its starting point and incorporates an abundance of digital effects. Seeing the original movie is what made Jackson want to be a filmmaker. He watched it on a black-and-white TV as a nine-year-old in New Zealand, and it was the start of a lifelong obsession. Last week in New York, after Jackson showed his movie to an audience for the first time, a few male critics were disappointed that in his version Kong doesn't undress Naomi Watts, who's cast in the Fay Wray role as Ann Darrow. Kong is a computer-animated creation whose movements are harnessed to an actor's performance via motion-capture scanning technology. The brilliant actor inside the effect is Andy Serkis, who brought Gollum to life with similar techniques in The Lord of the Rings. While Jackson behaves like an obsessed fan reinterpreting Hollywood gospel, the original Kong was more about art aping life. Its co-directors, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, made action movies inspired by their own exploits as real-life action heroes. In 1976, Dino De Laurentiis produced a blockbuster King Kong remake that attempted a politically correct makeover in a contemporary setting. It marked the screen debut of Jessica Lange.