The View From The Mountain

Film director Dan Trachtenberg, who revived the previously moribund Predator franchise with the surprise Hulu hit Prey , and then continued the Predator revival with the superb animated film Predator: Killer of Killers , continues to redefine the alien hunter/killers with his latest, Predator: Badlands . Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a young Predator—whose race have been identified in this film for the first time as the Yautja—who has been considered the useless runt of his clan and is about to be killed because of it by his own father, until his brother saves him at the cost of his own life. Dek escapes in his brother’s spaceship to an alien world, where he must regain his status within his clan by bringing them the head of the Kalisk, a supreme apex predator who has never been defeated by any of the Yautja that were sent to hunt it. When he arrives (more like crash-lands) on the planet, Dek finds an unlikely ally in the form of Thia (Elle Fann...

When I was a kid, the original King Kong was a Thanksgiving Day staple in New York City. I visited my grandmother, who still lived in the City then, for turkey day. One of the local NYC channels would run King Kong , often with Mighty Joe Young , on the holiday. When the remake of King Kong , starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, was released in 1976, I was taken to see it in the movie theater by my mother’s then-boyfriend. The three of us had plans to go Christmas shopping, but my mother had to work a night shift at her job in the city. It was her idea for us guys to see a movie to pass the time until she could meet up with us after work. It's hard to believe all of this took place almost fifty years ago now. I don’t remember the name of the NYC theater where I saw the ‘76 Kong , but it was very large and ornate, a real temple of the cinema. It was just too bad the movie didn’t match the majestic setting that I saw it in. I was eleven at the time, and was something o...