9/11: Too close for comfort

BRIAN SLOAN’S “WTC View,” screening tonight at Outfest at the Egyptian, is an involving adaptation of his play of the same name. It takes its title from a classified ad placed on Sept. 10, 2001, by Eric (Michael Urie), who is looking for a new roommate for his apartment with a view of the World Trade Center. Spanning Sept. 12 to Oct. 1, it persuasively depicts the effect of the tragedy upon Eric, whose apartment is only 12 blocks away, tracing his progression through shock, anger, fear and paranoia as he interviews a series of potential roommates. He has just broken up with his lover, and he also receives frequent visits from his best friend Josie (Elizabeth Kapplow), who lives on the Upper East Side and whose marriage has been strained in the wake of 9/11.

Although by and large a filmed play, the film is not static, and its theatricality is engaging. Sloan’s unpretentious approach pays off especially in a long, well-sustained sequence in which Eric, verging on nervous breakdown, is comforted by one of his potential roommates, a young Goldman Sachs employee (Nick Potenzieri). Sloan avoids cliche: Although both men are gay and single, they end up neither lovers nor roommates but rather one human comforting another in an hour of need.

What’s best about “WTC View” is that it invites the viewer to see larger meanings, or even lack of same, in 9/11 through the personal -- through an individual coping with experiencing the epic loss and destruction in close proximity.

‘Kong’-size series

Just as the latest version of “King Kong” opens, the American Cinematheque is presenting this weekend at the Egyptian its Kong Session, highlighted by Saturday screenings of the original 1933 “King Kong.” The series commences Friday with “Son of Kong” (1933), which finds Kong promoter Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) returning to Skull Island, where he and others discover the giant gorilla’s son.

This 70-minute sequel to “King Kong” will be followed by Kevin Brownlow and Christopher Bird’s new documentary for Turner Classic Movies, “I’m King Kong -- The Exploits of Merian C. Cooper,” an action-packed, fact-filled account of the adventurous life and career of “King Kong” co-director Cooper. He first teamed with his longtime partner, Ernest B. Schoedsack, a former newsreel photographer, to film the annual summer migration of 50,000 feudal Bakhtari tribesmen and their half-million grazing livestock across a mountain range in southwestern Iran, which created a sensation when Paramount released it as “Grass” in 1925. They would follow it up with “Chang” (1927), a fictionalized documentary shot in Siam that culminated in a jaw-dropping elephant stampede shot in Magnascope, which anticipated Cooper’s key role in the launching of Cinerama.

Cooper was a World War I bomber pilot, eventually serving with the Polish Air Force and subsequently being imprisoned by the Russians; he went on to be a Flying Tiger ace in World War II. Disillusioned by studio interference in the making of “The Four Feathers” (1929), Cooper plunged into the burgeoning airline industry but returned to Hollywood when David O. Selznick gave him and Schoedsack the chance to make “King Kong” at RKO, where he became a major promoter of Technicolor. After World War II he became a producing partner to John Ford at the height of the great director’s career.

Fifty-seven minutes is not nearly enough time to do justice to Cooper’s rich life, but Brownlow and Bird certainly make the most of the time, focusing on the technical and artistic achievements of the original “Kong” and drawing on the insights of colleagues.

Other Kong Session offerings are “Mighty Joe Young” (1949), screening Saturday followed by a discussion with its star, Terry Moore; and Ho Meng-Wha’s “Mighty Peking Man” (1977) and Joe Lemont’s “Konga” (1960), a Sunday double feature.

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Screenings

Outfest at the Egyptian

* “WTC View:” 7 and 9 tonight

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: (323) 466-FILM

Kong Session

* “Son of Kong” and “I’m King Kong -- The Exploits of Merian C. Cooper”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “Mighty Joe Young”: 5 p.m. Saturday

* “King Kong” (1933): 8 and 10:15 p.m. Saturday

* “Mighty Peking Man” and “Konga”: 6 p.m. Sunday

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: (323) 466-FILM