If you haven’t seen the 1976 version of King Kong starring Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges, and Charles Grodin, I’m not sure I want to know you. It is a masterpiece, and I choose to believe it might have really happened. Did I mention Jessica Lange? Bridges is a stowaway anthropologist, or primatologist/paleontologist hitching a ride on the Petrox Explorer out of Surabaya. Grodin, the best deadpan actor of his generation, plays the heavy, oil-lusting explorer bent on hitting it rich. Lange arrives courtesy of a secondary disaster.
In summary, they find an island, a rather large ape, and then everything goes downhill, but not until Bridges puts on display all the inner workings of a real pro photographer. Quit your job and watch it. But it got me thinking about story. I keep getting asked, “How do I find story ideas?” Well, I’ll tell you. It’s actually quite simple and something that all of us can do. It might require a bit of restructuring of your life or parts of your life, or it might require training at Rex Kwon Do. Either way, at least you now know about the greatest movie of all time.