Best Stanley Kubrick movie

EWS ending secretly human, all too human:
http://www.idyllopuspress.com/meanwhile/30784/eyes-wide-shut-resolution-with-helena-in-the-toy-store/

sonofagun

Top tier:
The Shining
2001
Barry Lyndon
Full Metal Jacket
Dr Strangelove
Paths of Glory

Second tier:
Clockwork Orange
Eyes Wide Shut
The Killing
Lolita

Third tier:
Spartacus
Killer's Kiss
Fear & Desire

EWS is a masterpiece of the "late style" type and I think The Killing is kind of a perfect movie.

Swap tiers for Strangelove and EWS and I can get with that.

I need to see The Killing again...it's probably been 20 years.

Rewatched Full Metal Jacket last year. It's sub-masterwork for sure. not solely cuz the second act is somewhat more conventional.

clockwork @ 'second tier' is crazytalk.

I keep meaning to read a good essay that explains what anyone likes about Eyes Wide Shut — the only SK film I actively disliked. Any recommendations?

DL, the BFI classic book by Michel Chion on EWS is one of the very best of its kind, and def made me re-evaluate it

Cheers. I'll seek it out.

I'm sure I musta said it upthread, but I have big problems with the last 20 minutes of ACO. So did Anthony Burgess.

I don't think ACO is a travesty or anything but it's the one I am least likely to want to watch again. It also seems more dated than the others.

i don't agree with all of it but i thought r. fiore's essay on ACO was pretty insightful:

http://classic.tcj.com/film/real-horrorshow/

comparison w/ Little Murders is interesting.

What we really come away from A Clockwork Orange with is the enjoyment of seeing evil triumph. We enjoy it (or should I say I enjoy it) because we find the burden of maintaining a moral order an oppression even as we understand that once we’re not watching a movie we are mortally fucked without one.

i like this idea. i find Kubrick's Alex fascinating because he's essentially an totally uncompromising aesthete--he's just about the only character in the film that someone like SK could identify with. and what's interesting about this is that it seems to suggest that ACO represents simultaneously a self-accusation and self-justification--it resides in that paradox.

Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, Lolita and bits of Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove and FMJ are the only Kubricks I can watch again. The didactic qualities of POG are exactly what makes the movie so lean and terrifying to me.

I agree with Ward Fowler's top tier just about. I haven't seen FMJ for a long time tho and only barely remember the 2nd half, the first half is definitely first class tho.

I saw The Killing recently and liked it, but his next one Paths of Glory was next level imo.

yeah he "became Kubrick" as someone wrote about PoG

I have a slight preference for Paths of Glory (based in part by how knocked out I was the first time I ever saw it), but I count The Killing as near-perfect. They're hard to compare directly because of genre, but I don't know that Kubrick's artistry is any more impressive moving from the one to the other. (And The Killing doesn't have anything as awkward as Paths of Glory's last scene.)

The Killing's achievement is more impressive when you hold it against The Asphalt Garden.

The record store tracking shot in ACO alone makes it top-tier. Plus the psychedelic sex posters.

Never Mind the Burgess, Here's the Sex Posters

The Asphalt JUNGLE

Paths of Glory's last scene has tot worked for me to date

The last scene is unearthly, and Douglas plays against it well.

Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, Lolita and bits of Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove and FMJ are the only Kubricks I can watch again.

Evidently Kubrick is one of those directors that turns you into the opposite of me.

just embrace our Kubridiversity.

The record store tracking shot in ACO alone makes it top-tier.

OTM. no matter what you think of it, there really is no other movie that looks or sounds or feels like ACO. it's pretty breathtaking at times.

think my placing ACO outside of the top tier is partly due to the fact that it was for so long, in britain, this mythical withdrawn film that once it was re-released, after kubrick's death, it couldn't possibly live up to the film that i'd imagined in my mind. of course there are great things, like that stunning opening shot - second tier kube is still p gd! - but overall i found it a bit grinding and heavy-handed, especially in the prison segment. but i shld prob re-screen.

Evidently Kubrick is one of those directors that turns you into the opposite of me.

which means your marriage proposal still stands

I'll look up at 6 o'clock, and there you'll be...

You'll BE there, won't you?!

ACO probably has the most astonishing first minute (or one of the 2-3 best) of any film ever -- those day-glo titles and wendy carlos's soundtrack blasting you in the face, then the slow pan back from malcolm and his gang. still gives me chills every time.

I actually spent a quarter-hour with my ACO dvd a coupla weeks ago, zooming and scanning all around that record store for album sleeves I recognized...I believe the only ones I could identify were John Fahey and Mungo Jerry. (And the 2001 soundtrack, of course.)

Magical Mystery Tour is in there too.

Yeah the intro is fantastic, the effect of which doesn't quite hit you watching it at home. You need to see it on a huge screen, just completely covered in punkish red with that oscillating synth sound blasting bizarre noise at you. It's also interesting that Alex & co. are all drinking hallucinogenic drugs the entire time and you don't see any fantastical drug sequences or anything because his real life is surreal enough. Maybe the milk bar is really just a boring looking regular bar but the Knivey Moloko makes you think it's a black room with nude white ladies in colorful wigs for tables.

I think you've hit on a big part of K's presentation of interiors in his films

the first 45 minutes is pretty relentless

Maybe already posted, but here's a full analysis of the ACO record store scene with all the sleeves identified.

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2006/04/13/alex-in-the-chelsea-drug-store/

I love Alex's maniacally gleeful expressions. The terrifying glint in his eye and the mischevious grin. Like when he's driving the stolen car.

you don't see any fantastical drug sequences or anything because his real life is surreal enough

I kinda wonder whether that bogus rear-projection shot during that driving scene isn't meant to look vaguely psychedelic - would Stanley have used such an unrealistic effect if it wasn't intended?

I think of it more like cartoon-like than psychedelic, even if I would like the latter.

from one of the stars of Room 237

http://www.realitysandwich.com/kubrick_apollo

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/02/stanley-kubrick-favorite-films-list-white-men-cant-jump

In the end, it looks like Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings in return for two things. The first was a virtually unlimited budget to make his ultimate science fiction film: 2001: A Space Odyssey; and the second was that he would be able to make any film he wanted, with no oversight from anyone, for the rest of his life.

LOL at the notion of Federally mandated final cut. Even the US government couldn't guarantee that.

Watching The Shining for the first time in, god, twenty years, I wondered what the hell Jack Nicholson is playing. In the first interview with the Overview manager he puts unexpected quotation marks around his words. Several scenes dribble on too long (Duvall with the doctor). Stunning use of deep focus: loved one shot of Torrance in his room with Danny way in the background.

if you believe Jack's account of Kubrick's wishes, he's playing "interesting" as opposed to "real"

The doctor scene with Anne Jackson always seemed clumsy and unnecessary to me.

Barry Lyndon is my favourite Kubrick, followed by Dr Strangelove and The Killing. Probably reactionary because I just watched Barry Lyndon yesterday evening, but fuck me what a fucking perfect movie and with so much chamber music and perfect narrative/performances. In my opinion this is his finest moment.

The extent to which the accepted wisdom on Lyndon has come around (2nd place Kubrick in both the '02 and '12 S&S polls iirc) gives me hope the same will happen for Eyes Wide Shut eventually.

Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, Lolita and bits of Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove and FMJ are the only Kubricks I can watch again.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 13, 2013 3:59 PM (1 year ago)

Wrong again, Maude!

http://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2012/11/07/Photos/MG/MW-AW102_aitf_m_20121107174619_MG.jpg?uuid=fcba08b6-292c-11e2-825a-002128040cf6

btw I wasn't ranking them. I don't care enough about Kubrick to watch his movies over and over so

http://static.tumblr.com/y8hwp0k/ampm28hbt/sophiareaction002.gif