What do King Kong and the Heart of Darkness have in common?

A lot....apparently. We went and saw King Kong last night and I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of what I thought would be perhaps a run of the mill action adventure movie. What I found instead was a beautifully directed movie with a strong subtext engaging themes of primal human sexuality and desire, the modern world's indifference to that which it cannot tame or commodify and so destroys, and of course the contrived difference between the civilized and uncivilized world...

Of course, as it is a movie for the masses, Jackson makes his themes clear by having one of the crew men be reading The Heart of Darkness and quoting from it directly to make the symbolism of Kong and the other characters more clear to those not familiar with this novels treatment of the hypocrisy of imperialism and the darkness that lurks within all men. A darkness that can be only be tamed...by beauty and compassion...

I highly recommend this movie.