King Kong (super-sized, 15 or 20 times bigger than he was in 1933) is regarded as an ally or good guy of some kind because he’s forged a tender emotional bond with a little Asian girl…check. So he’s been brought in by military authorities as a kind of pinch-hitting bruiser who can take on Godzilla…check. On the other hand Godzilla sure can take a punch. HBO Max will begin streaming Godzilla vs. Kong on 3.26.

33 years ago I was poking around Book Soup on Sunset, and I came upon a thin paperback version of Bruce Wagner‘s “Force Majeure“, which I’d been reading about. This was the original novella that was only 80 pages long. But as Hollywood satires went it was one of the tastiest and most downbeat (as in “fuck me, I can’t believe my life is over and I’m not even middle-aged yet”) I’d ever read.

Those 80 pages were honed to perfection. Every line was spot-on, every phrase tight as a drum.

Three and a half years later a much longer version of “Force Majuere” appeared — same author, same Bud Wiggins character, some of the same situations (including that legendary Malibu moment with a powerful red-haired producer blowing Wiggins while The Best Years of Our Lives played on a nearby TV), only this time it was 468 pages. It arrived in Book Soup on 8.2.91.

I didn’t find it as satisfying as the 80-page version. It was very well-written, but with each turn of the page I was muttering “if you can say it in 80 pages why write a 468-page version?”

Today I was searching around for my old, coffee-stained copy of the 80-page original. No dice. So I ordered a used copy on Amazon, for only $13 and change.

A draft of Quentin Tarantino‘s Crimson Tide punch-up, signed by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. A 1998 copy of Any Given Sunday, signed by Oliver Stone, Jamie Foxx (“peace”), Dennis Quaid and Cameron Diaz. And a musty, somewhat early draft of Chinatown (153 pages, Evelyn Mulwray kills Noah Cross at the finale), bearing some resemblance to the finished film and signed by the great Robert Towne, Dick Sylbert, Robert Evans and James Hong.

Polanski wasn’t around, of course, but if he had been he probably wouldn’t have signed because it’s a version of the film he had no influence upon.

I’m the only one who gets them mixed up, right? Sees one and thinks it might be the other, etc. Name any two actresses from the recent or far-off past (and when I say “far off past” I could be referring to a time before the ’80s) who shared this much of a resemblance to each other.

Two and three-quarter years ago I posted one of my “Jesus, things really suck out there” pieces. It was titled “Definitive Saga of The Destruction of Theatrical Experience Still Required,” and the idea was that the next great Hollywood expose or tell-all could or should be called “Super-Vomit: How Hollywood Infantiles (i.e., Devotees of Comic Books and Video Games) Degraded Theatrical and All But Ruined The Greatest Modern Art Form.”

Not filmed dramas per se but the stand-alone, non-sequelized, franchise-resistant form of dramatic endeavor that used to be Hollywood’s bread-and-butter when theatres showed movies of substance (1920 to 2015). This kind of thing hasn’t completely disappeared from theatres, but it nearly has. Streaming and cable are where the goods are now, and half the time you’re talking long-form serials.

Otherwise a form of dramatic story-telling that has existed since the time of the Greeks — a tale told in one sitting, three acts delivered within 100 to 160 minutes and that’s all she wrote — is showing signs of serious theatrical erosion and may even be extinguished down the road. What does Kenneth Lonergan have to say about all this? Oh, Manchester By The Sea, how we loved ya, how we loved ya…your brevity, discipline, dramatic choices, shape.

That was then, this is now. We’ve all been living in a Covid penitentiary for roughly 11 months. It’s unlikely any of us will be paroled until sometime next fall, and perhaps not until early ’22. I’m very happy to be alive and well and writing this column and bringing in ad dough, etc., but spiritually speaking I’m the star of a downish indie flick called Each Dawn I Die.

And all I can say is “boy, would I love to be back in the old Hollywood Elsewhere misery pit of April ’18!”