Cut... Pulleeeeze...

Recently my friend Chris quite justifiably lambasted Peter Jackson in his web log, for forgetting to edit King Kong. The movie had its cinematic moments ("I'm just an actor with a gun, and I've lost my motivation") and looked great (the sunset which so vexed Mr. Perlow, and the scenes atop the Empire State Building). But I wholeheartedly agree, Mr. Jackson forgot to wipe and flush.

It would seem, however, that this is not an isolated occurrence. I have only one word to mention as a case in point:

A..................L..................E..................X..................A..................N..................D..................E..................R

That movie came out nearly two years ago, and was nearly three hours long. I figure that's at least twice as long as it needed to be. Oliver Stone was at the peak of his powers when he did "Natural Born Killers"... back then he still new how to edit... or at least hire editors... Natural Born Killers had 10 editors; Alexander only had four. Those six could have argued Alexander down to a viewable hour and a half.

Of course, to concede a point to Mr. Perlow, King Kong had only ONE editor. Which might explain why it exeded three hours in running time... time the audience could have spent... running... screaming...

What ever happened to the good old days when one editor was enough? Oh yeah, Star Wars. Platoon. Lord of the Rings. Success. Ego. Full metal marketability. Who cares if it's good? Everyone's going to see it ANYWAY...