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I doubt they exist anymore, but if Kubrick's estate ever wanted to put these out there for the public that has bought the existing films over and over a lot of fans would be falling over themselves to see that material.
I've actually read some talk on home video forums about the possibility of The Criterion Collection doing a new release of EWS. At the time, so much of the focus was on Cruise and Kidman, who were still a couple, the long shooting schedule and Kubrick's death, which brought his older works to the forefront.
The fact that Cruise and Kidman did eventually split in real life puts another layer to consider while rewatching EWS.
Win:
1. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) My all-time favorite film, ever!
2. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) There’s nothing else like it! Any list of the Top Ten Films of Cinema that does not have 2001 on it needs rethinking.
3. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) Well, there’s nothing else like this, either. Malcolm McDowell should have won an Oscar—or at least been nominated.
4. THE SHINING (1980) The thinking man’s horror film; this movie still freaks my .
5. LOLITA (1962) James Mason’s superbly modulated performance holds the film together, even when he’s upstaged by Peter Sellers—but for my money, Shelly Winters gives the best performance of her career. She really brings the pathos.
Place:
6. EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) This weird-ass piece of continues to grow on me, but I feel it has pacing issues and could have used more time in the editing room. But I like Tom Cruise—and I LOVE Nicole Kidman!!
7. FULL METAL JACKET (1987) Like most people, I too prefer the first half. Nevermind that Platoon stole this movie’s thunder: Lou Gosset’s Oscar-winning D.I. in An Officer and a Gentleman stole Lee Ermey’s thunder five years earlier!
8. SPARTACUS (1960) Compared to the other epics of antiquity from its era, this one is as good as any and better than most.
9. PATHS OF GLORY (1957) As strident an antiwar film as ever made. I mean that in a good way.
10. THE KILLING (1956) A crackerjack suspense thriller; Kubrick’s own Reservoir Dogs.
Show:
11. BARRY LYNDON (1975) Meticulous and beautiful, but this one has not grown on me. Makes Last Year at Marienbad look like a taut and suspenseful thriller.
12. KILLER’S KISS (1955) Not bad, son; if you were in my class, I would give you an A-plus.
13. FEAR AND DESIRE (1953) Well, we all gotta start somewhere.
MOD EDIT: Some s- and f-bombs removed
Agree. It is criminally underrated.
On a sad note, Sue Lyon died. She was a great Lolita.
2001 is one of the best films I have ever seen. Perhaps the best.
Eyes Wide Shut is fantastic. This and 2001 are in my top ten favourite films ever.
(Big gap)
The Shining is ok, I will watch if it’s on telly.
Barry Lyndon is beautiful to watch but I have no real urge to watch it again.
Dr Strangelove’s humour doesn’t really work for me (and I dislike Peter Sellers anyway)
Full Metal Jacket was too harrowing for me to enjoy, never want to see it again
A Clockwork Orange ditto
Even as a Kubrick fan, I can totally understand this view. These aren't audience-friendly films but that's the appeal for many of us and that's where Kubrick's genius comes in. I still recall when I was in high school that "2001" was shown on a local channel as the premiere film the day it went on the air and a student came in the next day and was frustrated because he didn't understand it. There are layers you can go back and discover all the time.
I also have a hard time watching Full Metal Jacket, but that's what makes it effective in a way. As for Dr. Strangelove, I've never warmed to it and find it somewhat overrated. Again, that's where I can go back and look into them rather than waste time with any number of new films that get released.
I agree with a lot of your views. I find Clockwork Orange an unpleasant and dated experience. And Full Metal Jacket still feels like it missed the Vietnam War film wave being inferior to Platoon and Apocalypse Now.
Personally I love Dr Strangelove, but my favourite of his is 2001. A seminal moment in cinema history.
Eyes Wide Shut I'm also very fond of. Forgot to watch it this Christmas...
While everything - of course – comes down to personal taste, Kubrick’s films can be a *bit* for those expecting “populist entertainment.” A standard joke from some years ago, was that every time Kubrick delivered a film, studio, executives would attempt to position it as his first “popcorn” movie. Naturally, when they got around to actually viewing the film, they discovered – to their horror – that Stanley had delivered yet another Kubrick! IMO, I think (IMO) the closest he came to this was “The Shinning.”
Its’ worth noting that even “2OO1” – widely considered a classic today (and it’s my personal favorite film of all time), only gained that opinion over time. Even today, many viewers dismiss it as being slow or pretentious. Star Wars it is not! For additional perspective, you can read the original reviews of the movie (many of which can be found in Jerome Agel’s excellent 1970 book “The Making of Kubrick’s 2OO1”). Many critics hated the film, and some only changed their minds after seeing it for a second or third time.
And, like them, it often takes multiple viewings of his films before I can truly appreciate them.
I agree, Paths of Glory is an incredible film. Very moving. Due for a rewatch i think.
I like how loyal Warners was to Kubrick over the years. They showed him proper respect as a filmmaker and never, as far as we know, had problems with his time-consuming productions.
You'd never see that today. If Kubrick were still working, he'd likely be doing productions for Netflix or something.
So much of his work was before I became a big film fan and Dwayne is absolutely right about Kubrick's work not being appreciated until later. I do remember FMJ being somewhat underwhelmingly received, particularly after Platoon. Shining got attention, but it was also a slow build. Teens like me were more fascinated by Halloween and Friday the 13th movies at the time and it wasn't until later it built the classic reputation and didn't help with Stephen King's negative view of it.
I was always fascinated by A Clockwork Orange. My uncle saw it when it was first released and had a program from it and the artwork fascinated me as a child. I caught it when it was on cable a decade or so later. But it was also like FMJ in that after Alex gets captured it doesn't maintain the momentum it did in that first part of the film in which Alex and his droogs rampage all over.
I could talk Kubrick all day.
On youtube i only see Uk 8 disc bluray set in a 8 disc keepcase with a sleeve, but with a book. Include 7 movies and bonus disc (with two features on BD insteed of dvd) with all of then with Dutch ranking logo. Or versions include 9 disc sets who Include extra movie Dr Strange Love who is from Sony. Also difrent disc art. Both missing the two dvd's.
Whyle both get new disc art in other country's, Warner re-used earlier BD's and bonus disc. Not realy a big issue if it lower the price and bonus disc also include Dutch subs and if the BD include same as Uk ones. Also no book. Insteed of the book the package with some cardboard thing and and the 2 dvd's. There at those 3 dvd's also to new 10 dvd set.
When we first get the famous blood scene,
early on in the movie, it's hard for a 1st-timer to predict its meaning. But since most of us have probably watched this film more frequently than Kubrick himself at this point, it's interesting to give meaning and purpose to this seemingly random "bloody" mood-setter. On his website, Paul Matthew Carr explains the scene thus:
The blood flowing – gushing – from the elevator represents life pouring out, leaving the body, draining life. At the same time there is so much of it, a river; the blood begins to engulf us.
Other analysts seem to agree with this idea.
But my reading is completely different. First of all, look at the elevator. It looks like a face, with two cold eyes looking directly at us. It's as if the hotel is announcing to us that it's alive, an idea that is actually confirmed by Mr Halloran when he explains to Danny that the hotel is doing a lot of "shining" too; it can communicate with us without speaking words out loud. Secondly, the blood gushing from the elevator doesn't strike me as indicating that life is being sucked out of anything. Rather, the abundance of blood enhances the feeling that the hotel is a living entity, or at the very least that it's inhabited by an organic evil, by something with veins and a beating heart. Is it warning Danny or just intimidating Danny by "shining" these things onto him? Or has Danny simply taken a peek, and has he seen what he probably shouldn't have?
Either way, I believe it's a common misconception about horror films that blood indicates death; most often, it's a sign of being very much alive. Naturally, death is always around the corner, but blood keeps vampires alive, separates the living from the (un)dead, and in many other cases too seems to spark life rather than terminate it. Take Carrie for example. Once she's covered in a pig's blood, and no sooner, does she begin to realise her full potential. It's then that the Freudian image of the repressed personality breaks out of its cage. Well, in my opinion, the blood rivers shown so early in THE SHINING cannot be about draining life, cannot announce death, not before the Torrances have even started working in the Overlook; I think these rivers of blood are warning us that the hotel's many halls are like veins in a living creature, filled with blood.
What do you think?
On a side note, I learned that Cate Blanchett played the voice of the masked orgy girl who redeemed Bill in Eyes Wide Shut. I knew she sounded familiar.
On another side note, A Clockwork Orange was the movie and the novel of my teenage.
Great take on this.
I don't know that I have a real take, but the blood could be like the exiting of the elevator of yet another victim of the Overlook or the harbinger of the bloodletting to come.
That's the beauty of many of Kubrick's films: you can make your own interpretations of his work. I recall having a discussion of Eyes Wide Shut with a friend of mine who insisted Harford didn't suffer enough for his indiscretions and I argued the whole sequence of events he went through was the suffering for him. He learned from it and was a changed man. These things are also part of what makes the films so rewatchable.
Naturally a 70mm print of “2OO1” will be shown, but the museum is also showcasing movies that both influenced Kubrick and those – that were in turn - influenced by him. Among the former: “Ikarie XB-1” (1963, Dir. Jindřich Polák’s) and “The Virgin Spring” (1963, dir. Dir. Ingmar Bergman), and among the later: “Solaris” (1972, Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky) and “Contact” (1997, Dir. Robert Zemeckis).
See: http://www.movingimage.us/exhibitions/2020/01/18/detail/envisioning-2001-stanley-kubricks-space-odyssey/ for details.
A review : https://screencrush.com/2001-a-space-odyssey-easter-egg-momi-exhibit/
I’ve been obsessed with “2OO1” since I first saw it at the age of 7 in late 1968, so several trips will be required for me!
BTW: How am I going to fit in my pre NTTD Bond-a-thon before April with all of this going on?
One of the best Kubrick endings, along with Spartacus and The Killing.
I completely agree! Though uncredited (*), the late Liz Moore (1944 – 1976) created quite image. As I write this I’m staring at my “The Ultimate Trip” poster from 2OO1 and the StarChild is looking right at into my eyes!
“*” Kubrick did provide her with a screen for her work on “A Clockwork Orange” and she did some preliminary work on “Star Wars” before her death. You can read more about her here: https://powderroom.kinja.com/liz-moore-the-woman-who-shaped-star-wars-and-other-cla-1573282961
And here: https://www.brianmuirvadersculptor.com/liz-moore---a-tribute.html
1. 2001
2. Eyes Wide Shut
3. Dr. Strangelove
4. Barry Lyndon
5. Paths of Glory
6. A Clockwork Orange
7. The Shining
8. Full Metal Jacket
9. The Killing
10. Spartacus
11. Lolita
12. Killer’s Kiss
13. Fear and Desire
At the risk of derailing this thread (and I don't have any particular problem with your ranking of Kubrick movies), I fail to see why Vertigo should be among anybody's top 5. It's even, at best, in the mid-range of Hitchcock films for me, with probably 10 or so being more worthy than Vertigo.
Vertigo is on my top five films. Well, maybe in the top ten.
Now, back to Kubrick.
I adore Kubrick but I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t seen quite a few of his films and I only very recently watched Barry Lyndon for the first time (went and bought the Criterion edition as soon as I finished it - what a stunning masterpiece).
Still need to watch:
The Killing
Paths Of Glory
Lolita
Eyes Wide Shut
My current ranking of the Kubrick films I’ve seen so far (own all of them):
A Clockwork Orange
Dr. Strangelove
2001
Barry Lyndon
Full Metal Jacket
The Shining
Spartacus
For those of you available on July 23 at around 7:00 PM EDT, the Museum of the Moving Image is having an online event called “Apollo and the Odyssey: The Shared Orbit of NASA’s Lunar Mission and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.” The online discussion will feature Todd Douglas Miller (dir. “Apollo 11”) and several individuals from the Sloan center’s Science and Film group.
http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2020/07/23/detail/apollo-and-the-odyssey-the-shared-orbit-of-nasas-lunar-mission-and-stanley-kubricks-2001-a-space-odyssey
From the write-up:
The In the late 1960s, while NASA’s Apollo program planned for humanity’s first steps on the Moon, Stanley Kubrick and his production team worked on their own ambitious voyage, 2001: A Space Odyssey. This conversation will explore the cultural and scientific points of intersection, influence, and competition between the U.S. space program and Kubrick's film, supplemented by rare archival footage and images.
A similar event was scheduled for last week with Rosamund Pike (DAD) concerning her portrayal of Marie Curie for the film “Radioactive.” That event consisted of an online screening of the movie, followed by a Q&A.