Let the word go forth from this time and place that the the new King Kong DVD (Warner Home Video, 11.22) has a wonderfuly detailed multi-chapter “making of” documentary, but (and I’m very sorry to report this) the film itself doesn’t look that fantastic. Maybe a little bit better than versions shown on VHS and laser disc, but there’s no great visual-leap factor. The film is marked by the same dirt and grain and speckles its had since playing on “Million Dolar Movie” in the 1950s. WHV should have John Lowry-ed this thing — i.e., removed a portion of the grain (i.e., not a Lowry Sunset Boulevard treatment but the kind of treatment that was given to Casablanca ) and cleaned it up on a frame-by- frame basis. But some Warner Home Video fuddy-duddy said “nope…leave it as it is, dirt and grain intact…it’s more pure that way.” One very cool thing: Max Steiner’s Kong overture that precedes the start of the film.

If anyone wants to talk about anything during tomorrow’s debut airing of Elsewhere Live, send an e-mail with your phone number any time between tonight and when the show starts at 7 pm Sunday…and tell me what you want to discuss. If you really want to get my attention, send an AOL Instant Message — my AOL user name is gzornplatt2.

I was right about Walk the Line exceeding expectations. (One of the film’s p.r. reps was urging me to go with a safe projection of $15 million or so.) Jim Mangold’s Johhny Cash biopic did about $7.7 million yesterday, so figure about triple that for the weekend. And I hear the cards have been very good-to-excellent all along. The ace-in-the-hole is that it’s doing especially well among red-state rurals. In short, a very good showing over a weekend totally swampled by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($39 million yesterday — i.e., Friday — and a total of about $120 million by Sunday night).