It’s the weekend again, and that means Film Focus. Here’s Mike Laidman with what’s new in local theaters.


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Choice is good, choice is great. And choice is exactly what audiences are getting this weekend with the release of Kong: Skull Island - a huge fantasy epic about, you guessed it, King Kong - and the Light Between Oceans - an intimate romantic drama that will do what it can to tug on your heartstrings.

Follow along as we take a deeper look at exactly what makes Kong tick, and whether or not you should bring a hankie when you see Oceans.

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Mike Laidman

Welcome to another edition of Film Focus. I’m Mike Laidman.

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Kong: Skull Island (2017, Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
A team travels to an uncharted island in the Pacific.

It’s been over 10 years already since Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong opened, and while his was an homage to the original 1933 film, Kong: Skull Island, takes a bit of a different approach.

A diverse team of scientists, soldiers and adventurers unites to explore a mythical, uncharted island in the Pacific, as dangerous as it is beautiful. Cut off from everything they know, the team ventures into the domain of the mighty Kong, igniting the ultimate battle between man and nature. As their mission of discovery becomes one of survival, they must fight to escape a primal Eden in which humanity does not belong.

One of the problems big-budget action/fantasy movies have is maintaining a compelling story and solid acting. Luckily, with a cast that includes Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, and John Goodman, the acting is good across the board. Add in a fast-story and all the eye candy one could hope for out of a modern blockbuster, and Kong: Skull Island checks off all the important boxes. All that’s left is for you to see it and decide if it lives up to this lofty billing.


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The Light Between Oceans (2016, Derek Cianfrance)
A lighthouse keeper and his wife raise a baby they rescue.

Taking a swing in a completely different direction is The Light Between Oceans, starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander.

Tom Sherbourne, a young veteran still numb from WWI, takes a job as a lighthouse keeper off the coast of Western Australia. As the island's sole inhabitant, he finds comfort in the solitude of his surroundings. When he meets the daughter of the school's headmaster, he is immediately captivated by her beauty, wit, and passion, and they are soon married. When a rowboat with a dead man and infant girl mysteriously washes ashore, his wife Isabel believes their prayers may have finally been answered. As a man of principle, Tom is torn between reporting the lost child and pleasing the woman he loves, and against his better judgment he agrees to let Isabel raise the child as their own, making a choice with devastating consequences.

Although well-acted and produced, it tries to elicit emotions a little too obviously.