Stanley Kubrick RE-poll

shining by yards

eyes wide shut by also yards

Eyes Wide Shut

Usually comes down to Barry Lyndon or EWS for me….

Crazy that a movie as iconic and memorable as Full Metal Jacket can feel like a weaker offering.

I remain as ever baffled by the love for Eyes Wide Shut

That run through the early '60s sure was impressive, eh.

I wasn't on ILX when the first one was done, but almost certainly would have voted for Paths of Glory. This time, Barry Lyndon, followed by Paths and The Killing. But I get something from all of them, except A Clockwork Orange (which I hate), Fear & Desire, and The Spy Who Loved Me.

2001

For me it’s Strangelove or The Killing, I guess.

someday I might watch Eyes Wide Shut a 2nd time

Those are rookie numbers…gotta get to around 10 before it really starts to blossom.

"and I think it's fair to say tastes have changed."

2001 will win again. There will be more votes for BL, that's all?

Spy Who Loved Me, no question. It as a shame he couldn't convince Nicholson to play Jaws.

2001 will win again. There will be more votes for BL, that's all?

Probably true, although EWS or The Shining may land in second (4th and 9th last time).

However many votes 2001 gets, add one for Morbs

It's definitely between Paths of Glory and BL for me, lost count how many times I've watched them, the former is sort of perfect. Also detest Clockwork Orange and don't feel any motivation to watch EWS. Love some Xenakis but not into airfix models and actors in ape costumes.

Patrick Magee in BL - what an incredible wardrobe and makeup job.

Of the handful I’ve seen, 2001 gets the vote.

A-tier

The Shining
Barry Lyndon
2001: A Space Odyssey

B-tier

Dr. Strangelove
A Clockwork Orange
Paths of Glory

C-tier

Lolita
Full Metal Jacket
Spartacus
Eyes Wide Shut

Haven't seen

Fear and Desire
Killer's Kiss
The Killing
The Spy Who Loved Me

Also, lol at my cut and paste error. I hope Bond beats them all.

Lewis Gilbert secretly Kubrick after a shave in a pair of novelty sunglasses

pretty sure i voted shining in the 1st one, no idea what to do this time

I've been trying to introduce my teenager to black and white films, which he strongly dislikes, but he likes heist movies so we watched The Killing recently (I had seen it several times previously.) He liked it, but we both agreed the scene with the wrestler comes off as corny. Timothy Carey is pretty over the top too. Fun movie though.

I love Carey in The Killing - and Kubrick plainly adored 'ripe' performers (as Calz notes, see also Patrick Magee, or Leonard Rossiter in Barry Lyndon, Aubrey Morris in Clockwork Orange, even Nicholson in The Shining - my vote, of course).

AI

2001 by default

I had 2001 at the top of my all-time ballot for a while there but I didn't love it as much on my latest rewatch. I'd have it below Barry Lyndon and EWS now. I really don't like Strangelove

strangelove is really bad im constantly baffled by people who think it's either good or funny tbh but ive learned to take them as sincere

I haven't seen it in years but my suspicion is that it is very much a product of its time and has aged badly for several explicit and implicit reasons

"Also, lol at my cut and paste error. I hope Bond beats them all."

is this an obscure joke about how he was secretly helping half-blind Claude Renoir with some cinematography lighting issues on the set of that Bond movie?

I like Strangelove, but it's impact on me was when I was young and living in that era before history ended. Some of the comedy material is great, but more Sterling Hayden than Sellers imo.

Calzone - that’s almost exactly right about the Bond film! I think the connection to Kubrick was Ken Adam

Lol at calzone

but more Sterling Hayden than Sellers imo

George C. Scott, Keenan Wynn, and Slim Pickens too. (Scott's my favourite.)

9 masterpieces out of 13 - pretty damn impressive.

xp
yeah George C. Scott is brilliant as well, love that actor.

It's no stretch to say that Selles is the least impressive of the major performers, or, rather, that once I see him Doing His Thing there's nowhere else for him or me to go.

*Sellers

Still like George C. Scott's performance here, despite all the stuff I read about his out-of-control behavior in various Ava Gardner books.

There are few Scott performances I don't relish.

yeah I get exactly what you mean about PS there, it's as predictable as watching a washing machine doing a cycle.

I kind of get that Peter Sellers's mugging might bother some and that Strangelove has some kind of Big Lebowski-level of quotability that can also be irksome, but I still don't care.

Peter Sellers does kind of bug me in Lolita though.

Does the movie even need him playing three characters?

Love some Xenakis but not into airfix models and actors in ape costumes.

You mean Ligeti, calz.

Peter Sellers does kind of bug me in Lolita though.

He's terrible in Lolita, ruins the film.

Peter Sellers does kind of bug me in Lolita though.

― Ansible Dave’s Killer Breadboard (James Redd and the Blecchs

See, I love him in Lolita! That's one of the rare successful transpositions of a literary character to the screen.

He's completely different from any concept I had of Clare Quilty. Frank Langella was much better.

Probably not. But I like the Mandrake interplay with Ripper and Bat Guano at least. Just thank your lucky stars he knew when he was licked and they had to get Slim Pickens to play Maj. Kong.
(xp)

self-clowning here shows how many times I've watched 2001!

fair enough james redd, it's still a million times better than any Nolan movie, just mentioning this because Kubrick sometimes get's the blame!

Ground control to Major Kong.

I'm voting "The Killing" btw.

^good choice!

I've only seen it once or twice and it's stuck in my memory as a really top notch gritty noir

If you really want insufferable Peter Sellers, he sets the bar pretty high here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUZCXaStvnc

xpost
I'm guessing at least some of that grit comes from Jim Thompson (and another plus point for Kubrick - he often picked v interesting writing collaborators).

Sellers' Strangelove is a Goon Show skit, but I think he's genuinely funny in the other two roles ("It's the strings in my legs" - Terry Southern!). Tho yes, Scott is funnier.

He's insufferable in so many movies tbh.

The Killing also has a super-complicated flashback time-scheme which really works well, iirc.

Or maybe it just goes backwards, speaking of Nolan, been awhile.

Lolita is sort of interesting in its own right but as an adaptation always seems to me to be completely miscast, except for maybe Shelley Winters who is almost typecast in that type of role but still.

I’d agree that Sellers isn’t at the top of the pack in terms of laugh-getters for me in Strangelove but I still don’t mind him in it, i can forgive him for being predictable (or w/e) in it because after all its not hard to see the machinery at work with the other performances either tbh, the fact that everyones recklessly mugging is most of the fun.

The only thing that bugs me about Sellers in Strangelove is that he's clearly riffing on Bob Newhart as the president and I cant help but imagine Newhart doing it & being funnier

I can just tolerate James Mason as Humbert Humbert if I somehow think of that performance as a piece with some of his other roles such as in Bigger Than Life or North By Northwest but I’d much prefer somebody else who could play a louche Continental like, say, George Sanders pretending to speak German in Man Hunt.

Ah, interesting point about Bob Newhart.

by the time I saw Strangelove I was already familiar with Python and the Goons and despite having also seen 2001 and Clockwork Orange, I was still expecting to see something with much broader humor in the satire, so I was initially a bit disappointed. These days I find the movie more unsettling than funny which I think was the intention. Sellars is goofy as the title character, but his other two characters are very good I think.

I think if Bush/Cheney and Trump had never happened, Dr. Strangelove would seem more dated than it does

ICYMI, Jemaine Clement's imitation of David Bowie here is actually 2/3 James Mason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8f_XCH3zmM

The only thing that bugs me about Sellers in Strangelove is that he's clearly riffing on Bob Newhart as the president and I cant help but imagine Newhart doing it & being funnier

I've noticed Sellers doing this in other films, he was obviously a brilliant mimic.

I also love Mason and (esp) Wilson in Lolita.

Wilson? From Castaway?

*Winters

Peter Bull gives Strangelove's funniest performance imo

Yeah he’s good

I've noticed Sellers doing this in other films, he was obviously a brilliant mimic.

it sticks out to me in Strangelove especially bc its literally paired with Newhart's trademark routine, the extended onesided straight-man phone call, at a time when Newhart had released half a dozen hugely successful albums of that gag over the previous few years so obviously no accident. always struck me as bizarre that no one ever seemed to remark on that, its a pretty brazen choice.

had to look up Bull was the portly soviet union guy, yes brilliant as well.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41xs2QnoalL._SX389_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

#onethread!

(xp) First ever Pozzo in "Waiting for Godot" - in English that is.

I mean #onefilm maybe, although A.I. doesn’t quite count as Kubrick.

https://scontent-man2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/41626354_1889212937825022_8817086693501829120_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=TkYnFAi5-hkAX8z5yJK&_nc_ht=scontent-man2-1.xx&oh=00_AfCiyMtSuT4GTnamB7a_IR7qqiKITqz0jIgjydWpFX_iTA&oe=650B2B4B

I’ve expressed my opinion many times and have argued with multiple people here, and am reminded that ilx is the only place I want to discuss films.

Barry Lyndon and The Shining are really great, but I still think 2001: A Space Odyssey is the greatest film of all time

i could def be argued towards that trio in that order

Sometimes I feel like SK is kind of My First Auteur in that he makes highly entertaining films with such overt tropes and signature flourishes that you can’t help but be drawn into his cult. I say this as acknowledgment of my own basic taste rather than sneering at others.
Some days it’s Barry Lyndon, some days it’s The Killing, some days it’s 2001: A Space Odyssey for me.

I get that it's beautiful to look at on the big screen (and the soundtrack is the best thing about it for me; I couldn't not see it after looking at the music choices). But I don't see anything very profound in HAL, and what engages your intellect in this?

― xyzzzz__, Monday, January 9, 2023

I'm probably not going to express my ideas here very well, but:
besides the overwhelming visual impact of viewing it on a big screen and the soundtrack, what engages me most is its story about leaps in evolution that seem almost impossible, its vision of the past, and its stunning imagination of the future. HAL's dysfunction is focused on a moment in the middle of the film - possibly predicting something we as humans are going to be facing in the not too distant future - but the span of time in the movie is so vast

― Dan S, Monday, January 9, 2023

I think all of it as amazing, the visuals, grandiosity, the metaphysical quality, the disconnected narrative in three parts that could be pieced together through closely watching, the sense of becoming, the weirdness of so many scenes especially those with the monolith, the stargate sequence, the old man in the classical bedroom which anticipated AI by 55 years at least, and the strangeness of the last scene

Feel like reading that Ian Watson article on the other thread(s) about working with Kubrick is now starting to sink in: all that OCD energy that goes into the preproduction process can only be reined into something useful by the discipline of actually making the thing.

"The Killing" has one of my favorite endings of all time.

Sacrilege or no, I've come to really like the Soderbergh cut of "2001."

THE KILLING is on youtube for free with ads and i'll probbaly watch it tonight.

my vote is for BARRY LYNDON but i do really like most of his films

I tend to confuse The Killing with Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, heist films co-starring Sterling Hayden.

Repolling is a little disingenuous on my part because my take remains, as it did some 15 years back, that Barry Lyndon, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut are the collective apex, with 2001 a reasonably distant fourth-place

Top Kubrick for me is The Shining, Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket. Art meets pop-corn entertainment in a show of garish sound and color. Total cinema.

Eyes Wide Shut is up there. I've seen the remake of Lolita before the original and I still think first about Adrian Lyne's version. I'll take 2001 the book over Kubrick's adaptation, I found that the satire worked less well in a sci-fi setting, a few iconic scenes but not a great film. Dr Strangelove and Barry Lyndon were not memorable and dated. I'd be happy to rewatch BL and get corrected though. Haven't seen the rest.

Kubrick didn’t adapt 2001; he and Clarke wrote the screenplay together (using an idea from Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel”) and Clarke adapted it as a book.

Didn't Kubrick rewrite on set (there's footage from his daughter's behind-the-scenes documentary of him typing new script pages on the set of The Shining for example). He certainly junked, at quite a late stage, all the voiceover narration written by Clarke. So in some ways it's an adaptation, as much as a collaboration, I guess.

I can't remember where I read recently that the solo Kubrick screenplay credits, specifically for ACO and BL, are bogus -- that he wasn't much of a writer at all, etc. I don't know if that's true.

I am slightly surprised, Eric, by the unchanging nature of your top three because I do think part of the strength of these films is the way that they become more or less relevant, or interesting, over time. So actually the 'urgent, timely' bomb fear of Strangelove is now a period piece, like Oppenheimer (and to mention them in the same sentence is to highlight how impoverished the Nolan film is), whereas The Shining is makes total sense as the ultimate lockdown movie.

I did indeed watch The Shining again in 2020 and almost died. I thought after ten minutes, "Have I forgotten how much longer I have to endure Jack Nicholson's acting?"

Kubrick movies that I've watched for the first time in the past year:

The Killing - Fun, but a little disjointed/stiff. Great ending as mentioned above.
Barry Lyndon - Can't believe I kept kicking this down the road. Very funny. Voted for it in this poll.
Eyes Wide Shut - Loved it, and need to watch it again.

Revisited recently:

The Shining - Still absolutely amazing
A Clockwork Orange - Hadn't seen this since I was an edgy teenager. It's a tough watch, but I was able to appreciate more about it this time around.
Dr. Strangelove - Used to love this one. When I rewatched it a few years ago, I was less amused, I guess? I dunno, maybe I was having a bad day.

Haven't seen:

Fear and Desire
Killers Kiss
Spartacus
Lolita

I am slightly surprised, Eric, by the unchanging nature of your top three because I do think part of the strength of these films is the way that they become more or less relevant, or interesting, over time.

I'm sure it didn't hurt either Eyes Wide Shut or The Shining's cases that, in the last few years, I got married.

the two types of marriage

all these films (except barry lyndon) suck btw

tho not as much as polling them sucks

every time I start hoping that auterism might finally be dying I'm let down

anyway I don't like watching bosses torturing their employees on camera and being hailed as great artists for doing so

He can't even do that properly, he's no Fassbinder lol

Oh good, was waiting for these takes

every time I start hoping that auterism might finally be dying I'm let down

Don't worry, collectivism is resurging

I can't wait to be subsumed

as for "these takes" I know everyone has heard it all before that's exactly the damn problem

I can't remember where I read recently that the solo Kubrick screenplay credits, specifically for ACO and BL, are bogus -- that he wasn't much of a writer at all, etc. I don't know if that's true.

Many years ago I read Frederic Raphael's memoir about working on the script for Eyes Wide Shut and he was pretty negative about the experience, iirc it involved very little actual draft work by Kubrick and more of SK treating it like making a film, 'directing' Raphael to write the script SK was imagining and giving thumbs-up or thumbs-down to Raphaels scenes and ideas. Most of Raphael's bad feelings seem to stem from bruised ego, the resentment of feeling like a writer-for-hire rather than being treated like an equal collaborator. But although I cant remember any specific examples, I remember thinking that most of the the ideas Raphael was most hurt about SK rejecting were indeed very bad. Years later when I got around to reading the Schnitzler novel I was surprised at how closely the film followed it.

as for "these takes" I know everyone has heard it all before that's exactly the damn problem

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Tuesday, August 22, 2023 10:47 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

what is the problem?

men

Sad

Married men?

If you haven’t read it, James Fenwick’s Stanley Kubrick Produces is easily one of the best books on Kubrick, and it really illuminates why he struggled to get more projects off the ground.

Kubrick’s mercurial nature and tendency to ghost collaborators reminds me a lot of John Hughes

Married men?

Fassbinder was married once.

Oh yeah, forgot about that.

Raphael’s book was slammed by Michael Herr and Diane Johnson, but I don’t doubt its veracity. Writing Eyes Wide Shut was enormously difficult for him, and he went through multiple collaborators over the span of decades

You could have possibly included One-Eyed Jacks in this poll. I adore that film

Yeah its not really the takedown that Raphael thinks it is, Kubricks process was clearly that he knows he's better guiding & shaping material than generating it and he seems pretty upfront about that fact to Raphael as I recall, Raphael just seemed pissed that Kubrick didnt consider him an equal collaborator. Aka the eternal lament of all screenwriters.

Once again I refer you to the Ian Watson writeup about working with Kubrick that has popped up on three different threads now. Maybe will put here as well and forth time will be the charm.

as for "these takes" I know everyone has heard it all before that's exactly the damn problem

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Still listening to dad rock band The Beatles?

Eight Takes a Week

"Dr Strangelove and Barry Lyndon were not memorable and dated."

all movies become dated and it isn't a valid criticism imo aside from cases with egregious bigotry.

Rear projection dated, front projection dated. Move over, Rover, and let CGI take over!

shaddap an watch the goddamn movie

https://www.ft.com/content/c1717d96-7169-4223-8b17-cbb666be3a4b

I love the brief rear projection in Eyes Wide Shut.

I find that all Kubrick movies improve on a rewatch. His movies can seem cold and detached at first.

I'm going with Full Metal Jacket. It gets a lot of flack that the first half is far better than the second. The second half just as good, just in a different way.

The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir.

full metal jacket 1st impression: amazing! this movie is set in vietnam!
full metal jacket 2nd impression: amazing in a different way! this movie is filmed in beckton gas works, newham!

I find that all Kubrick movies improve on a rewatch. His movies can seem cold and detached at first.

Cold and detached aren't minuses.

amen brother

Cold and detached aren't minuses.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 23, 2023 9:39 AM (one hour ago)

overly cold and detached, then

But, no offense, what do those words mean in ref to Kubrick?

My man is not a beast!

But, no offense, what do those words mean in ref to Kubrick?

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 23, 2023 11:45 AM (forty minutes ago)

Its more early impressions made when I first saw his movies as a teenager. They just seemed to operate on a chillier frequency than more mainstream movies I was used to watching at the time.

I think there’s a pretty straightforward case to be made by the way he directs actors and edits dialogue. Keep the takes going until the emotion becomes either ritualised kabuki or evaporates away. Lines often land in puddles of silence. The effect is distancing and feels like a cold observation of human folly.

otm. Speaking of kabuki, I also used to have a similar problem with Kurosawa that I also got over.

Maybe someday I will too

Ha, forgot about that.

Rewatched FMJ recently and the second half has risen ime

"The Kubrick Stare" is one of director Stanley Kubrick's most recognizable directorial techniques. A method of shot composition where a character stares at the camera with a forward tilt, to convey to the audience that they are at the peak of their derangement pic.twitter.com/qd2XWc3oHU

— Cry-Baby Chloe 🦋 (@ChloeNumberIII) August 25, 2023

Some great Kubrick Stares overlooked in all the Trump-related stuff I've seen today (Nicholson, McDowell, and D'Onofrio being the three default picks).

https://i.postimg.cc/nLzqn740/kirk.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/ydRgNTkX/nicole.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/C1b50LQc/mason.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/QCbMBYs5/sterling.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/OGS1fFh.jpg

Excellent--stole that for a FB post. Not as good, but this works too:

https://i.postimg.cc/7P2PtFF3/2001.png

https://i.postimg.cc/1t9yr8QD/stare.jpg

Didn't realize there's a whole thread for this...I'll put this last one here--maybe the ultimate Kubrick Stare--then hand it back over to the right thread.

https://i.postimg.cc/bwC5BdkQ/judging.jpg

the kubrick crazy stare

I think that’s what PTA may have been going for, but to me that lacks the essential head tilt requiring the eyes to look up at the viewer. I always recognise it as an animal looking up from its kill. I think Peele might have got one with the chimp in NOPE but I’ve no way of searching at the moment.

Cruise's stare definitely isn't crazy, and neither is Sinead's; both are more looking right through you in a hateful way. I'd say Nicholson's is crazy, D'Onofrio and Trump are a mix of crazy and hateful, and McDowell's...is harder to describe: gleeful hate?

watched Dr Strangelove a few weeks ago on a whim and really enjoyed it. My 10 year-old watched some of it and it was so many layers of arcane. We may as well have been watching a presentation on Azure DevOps.

Voted The Shining as it's a comfort movie. The "funnest".

Strangelove gets funnier each time I see it, not less so. Slim Pickens being the underrated source of comedy

Strangelove is almost unique in being a farce that's watched as if it's an art film.

I remember calling Strangelove my second or third favorite film of all time right around the time the first AFI list came out (and I was coming of cinephile age), and that farce/art thing was probably a big reason why

You could also call it an art film that’s watched as if it’s a farce

Between Hayden, Scott, and Strangelove, there has to be some great Kubrick stares in there.

more or less agree w sellers strangelove discourse upthread but only re: his role as president. obv intentionally over the top silly as title char but used fairly sparingly iirc. v funny and good as group captain mandrake imo, not necc scott's equal but working at that level.

good dan s posts about 2001 upthread. i know i know "film bros" or whatever and it's not anything close to my favorite movie but it honestly just seems churlish to me to dislike 2001. oh here's a psychedelic fugue about the breakdown of the bicameral mind wrapped around a slow-cinema slasher movie in space, ho hum no thanks. come on.

(also think it is a much sharper tho obscurer attack on the postwar security state than strangelove is)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8_tJ6rVPyM

I always recognise it as an animal looking up from its kill.

like this gloss on it a lot. don't necessarily think of it as "hateful"-- in most of the classic cases it looks like so intense a state of concentration (on the night's ultraviolence; on the jupiter mission; on the orders from the house) as to be a form of love, collapsed and isolated. think it's the expression of kubrick looking at a project so the fact that he so frequently assigns it to murderous psychos is a fun autocritique and probably the kind of thing people mean when they say he's cold, tho i agree this is not quite the word.

of clemenza's deep-cut examples i really like kidman's.

i know i know "film bros" or whatever and it's not anything close to my favorite movie but it honestly just seems churlish to me to dislike 2001. oh here's a psychedelic fugue about the breakdown of the bicameral mind wrapped around a slow-cinema slasher movie in space, ho hum no thanks. come on.

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 29 August 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Film bros should be fired off into psychedelic space if they like it so much.

"it's full of piss"

also feel like people groping towards a line that 2001 is lib exitism for space nerds are confusing it with the space program, room-237-style

i think it's funny that the aliens coaxed him into travelling beyond the stars and then just left him to die alone in a super-ugly hotel room when they realised he'd decommissioned the killer robot (which is what they wanted all along)

every time i watch this movie the many things that annoy me about it annoy me more, yr pal the bicameral churl

i think it's funny

well sure

a super-ugly hotel room is a species of purgatory

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNzA4MzI5ZDMtODNmZi00NzQ3LTliOTYtMzJlODEyYjUyZjQzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_.jpg

it’s just a trumpier corner of the dimension from defending your life xp

https://intensities.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/scatman.jpg?w=400&h=300&zoom=2

the kubrick nap

except that's all of him lol (i like barry lyndon)

I remember you recommending Michel Chion's BFI bk on Eyes Wide Shut, and that is def a case of 'writing about' being better than the thing itself

it's a long time since i read it now but yes i definitely liked it

A pity Kubrick never cast Joan Crawford as the voice of HAL.

it's my opinion that the existence of film bros, let alone their likes and dislikes, should be entirely disregarded in this conversation and all other conversations

kubrick shd have made HAL a film bro

not seen 2010 since I was 13, iirc it was such garbage I might just watch it again for the lols.

if HAL had been a film bro, Kubrick would've named him TROY

fckn difficult listening hour o t fckn m here, love that it hits you the same way.

I once had an email chat with Gordon Stainforth (contributor to sound design and mix on THE SHINING) and asked him if he thought SK’s films were thematic spaces people could explore for themselves, and he strongly agreed.

good dan s posts about 2001 upthread. i know i know "film bros" or whatever and it's not anything close to my favorite movie but it honestly just seems churlish to me to dislike 2001. oh here's a psychedelic fugue about the breakdown of the bicameral mind wrapped around a slow-cinema slasher movie in space, ho hum no thanks. come on.

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, August 29, 2023

I’m not a “film bro”! just someone who has had a lifelong affection for a film

I finally watched EWS the other night, didn't like this murky creep shit at all, but I'm about as Tom Cruise averse as you can get. Although I did like The Colour of Money a lot.

i have always felt like EWS is the perfect movie for those, like me, who loathe the smug insufferable tom cruise

"it's full of piss"

now you've mentioned that clunker I feel guilty about the flippant remark there! the Nolan version is so dreadful, no hyperbole here, I cannot think of worse movie than that from the last decade of some impressively terrible movies.

nolan literally re-released 2001 with a yellow filter over it is what matt's referring to, tho if you're calling that the worst movie of the last decade that's prob valid

A pity Kubrick never cast Joan Crawford as the voice of HAL.

he did cast martin balsam tho

oh right, lol

I thought he meant ... never mind I won't soil this thread by even mentioning it. It's bad enough that Kubrick sometimes get's blamed for creating the space for an utter knob like Nolan to exist in.

thought about watching 2001 tonight but so far have just been watching flopson's post on loop

it’s basically as good as the full 200 minute long Barry Lyndon

Scott and Keith (from The Reveal) reach The Shining in their countdown of the latest S&S top 100: https://thereveal.substack.com/p/88-tie-the-shining-the-reveal-discusses

I think you’re onto something about each viewing revealing something new and this may be the first time I appreciated just how funny the movie is. It’s primarily a journey from the unsettling to the terrifying, but change the angle a bit and it’s an almost Strangelove-like string of scenes from a terrible marriage, with Jack serving as a kind of Jack D. Ripper figure and Wendy in the Lionel Mandrake role, trying to avert destruction by keeping him calm and pretending he’s rational no matter how bizarre his behavior. (OK, any comedy here is pretty dark, admittedly.)

From the first shot of Jack driving his family up to the Overlook, it’s clear that he hates them. Or, if not hates them, at least resents them. In his mind, they’ve become the obstacle standing in the way of his brilliant literary career. It’s also pretty obvious that he’s an alcoholic who’s trying to will himself out of his addiction without anyone else’s help. In the Overlook, he sees a solution to both problems: time and space to write in a place with no booze while his family does whatever it is they’re going to do as long as they don’t bother him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSH7PZduYw

Anyway it's 2001

I haven't seen the first two but Kubrick goes 11 for 11 on the backend fuiud

Pretty great that ol' Kubey is partially responsible for one of the most consequential songs in rap history

Yes-tier

2001: A Space Odyssey - perfect movie in every way
The Killing - amazing genre movie

No-tier

Dr. Strangelove - I don’t appreciate Sellers in this
A Clockwork Orange - not transgressive enough
The Shining - don’t like the King story
Barry Lyndon - don’t like Ryan O’Neal
Lolita - missed opportunity
Full Metal Jacket - first half outshines the second
Eyes Wide Shut - I like Tom Cruise but he’s miscast

Haven't seen

Fear and Desire
Killer's Kiss
The Spy Who Loved Me
Paths of Glory
Spartacus

It is strange to me that A Clockwork Orange is considered a classic while Myra Breckinridge is considered a dud. I watched both under circumstances of “not knowing their reputation” (that Orange was a classic, that Myra was considered “the worst”) and was ambivalent to the former and adored the latter

Myra Breckenridge is very clearly a better movie than A Clockwork Orange, yes

Glad we agree!

"don’t like Ryan O’Neal"

I'm not fond of him either, he's the worst in this movie in the young naive period of the character and loads of the other actors in this totally eclipse him, although his performance get's better towards the end when he's in the hollowed out, morally bankrupt period death period of the character.

The point of casting O’Neal is that he is a complete simp who falls backwards into a position of wealth and influence despite a total lack of merit or character. He then fails to use the opportunity for anything other than self gratification and pisses it away. The film clearly regards him as a chimp in a stately home, surrounded by the highest culture and oblivious to any of it.
“The failure of culture to civilise” is close to the top of the thematic list for any Kubrick film.

i. e. you are supposed to hate O’Neal in the same way that the film sneers at him.

I guess it’s weird how often K’s films actively loathe their protagonists, presumably another source of the “cold” reputation since we’re not used to that mode.

O'Neal is perfectly cast wtf

^^You have to actually see the movie to realize that.

Why would you want to do that?

you are supposed to hate O’Neal in the same way that the film sneers at him

Fair, that’s the same defense I use re Anna Paquin in Margaret

the film does not sneer at O'Neal. Kubrick did not consider Barry Lyndon a comedy.

Nonetheless my friend, it is, however unintentionally, very funny.

Just speculation, but I'm guessing O'Neal was intimidated working with Kubrick, a bit unsure of himself as an actor (his big success to that point was still Love Story), and that that added to his performance. Barry knows he's essentially a fraud.

didn't think of that, but it seems right to me

xxp thanks for sharing your wisdom, but I didn’t say it was a comedy, the film is a vicious satire. Which sneers at its protagonist in the process; Hordern’s voiceover is positively mocking at times. It’s very pretty though, in a way which also mocks the artforms of the time.

you are supposed to hate O’Neal in the same way that the film sneers at him

Fair, that’s the same defense I use re Anna Paquin in Margaret

interesting comparison. idk the narrator dunks on barry a few times and he is repeatedly shown to be a fool & in over his head but imho both films clearly have deep sympathy for their main characters? its weird to me that movies like Lyndon or Margaret show their main characters as flawed humans making poor choices, being shortsighted, selfish, sometimes cowardly, etc, and people take that as evidence that the filmmaker is inviting us to loathe & laugh at them.

Ditto Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls

Barry Lyndon is classified as a "classic adventure movie" on Kanopy--reminding me that Kubrick's original choice for the Chevalier was Charles Bronson.

https://t.co/O6jCB0HORZ pic.twitter.com/AMMNOtuQFo

— Jacob Oller (@JacobOller) September 5, 2023

Hmm.

Right, so parsed that wrong at first, thinking it was saying Mambo No.5 was a big culture war issue. Which, my first reaction was surprise that I hadn't heard about that, but not really surprise at the idea.

Which says a lot abaot society imo

That was my thought too. And, yeah, that is a totally plausible scenario circa 2023

Need to hear King’s thoughts on “It Wasn’t Me” post haste

Also, I suspect Orange is getting harshed on this thread a bit cos ppl are embarrassed at being into it as edgy youths. I do understand the implulse but imo it stands up better than most things I was into at 16

enjoyers of mambo no.5 welcoming ilxors eric h. and bananaman begins into the only fandom that counts:

https://the-take.com/images/uploads/screenprism/_constrain-1080w/178763.jpg

Ha!

We all mambo down here

Apparently the question prior to that one in the tweet was about "Rich Men North of Richmond," about which King only said: "I haven’t heard the song yet, but I’ve seen pictures of him. He’s got a beard and he’s got a cool guitar."

there's a definitive "my life before and after seeing 2001" - so that.

orange is p good, mid-pack, prison section fairly dull, non-mcdowell performances certainly a choice (one choice, by one guy), when i was an edgy teen i thought it was an act of criminal irresponsibility (the worst kind of edgy teen)

i don't know why i said mid-pack; it's still down there actually.

I finally watched The Killing and loved how tight and ugly it was. I've already mentally paired it with Pick-Up on South Street and I'm not entirely sure why as yet.

Also, there is a guy who goes in my local who is so clearly Timothy Carey's doppelganger I'm going to have to ask him if he has seen this film.

Michael Fassbinder was a pretty good robot David, but I feel like he would have been better as David Bowman, mostly because he has a good laconic teeth-grinding expression to wear for most of the movie. Frank Poole: for some reason I'm thinking John C. Reilly.

God, the scene where Timothy Carey tells off the parking lot attendant in THE KILLING is so brutal and heartbreaking

Wait the culture war part wasn’t about “Mambo No. 5”?

Re A Clockwork Orange, the book not the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-yk2el2b8k

rewatched The Killing and as much as I enjoyed the film it's hamstrung by one of my pet hates - the voiceover

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Suspicions more or less confirmed, held against the prior poll. Also, good job ILX

not sure what you mean about suspicions confirmed, or "held against the prior poll", but there were a lot of votes

my eyes wide shut-heads are once again the most correct

Glad Clockwork got nothing. The Killing and Paths of Glory are, I think, on the short-list of greatest American films of the '50s, but that's just the nature of click-polls that they'd sink to the bottom.

agreed, i grew up in a TCM household and rarely anything caught my attention - it wasn't until seeing films like those that i wanted to go back and revist the era.

I don’t think Paths or Glory or The Killing’s positions would necessarily be that much higher in a ballot-style poll, fwiw. The only sig change would probably be Strangelove moving up a spot or two

Agree on Paths of Glory; it seems to have fallen away over the years. But I think The Killing would finish ahead of Full Metal Jacket, and possibly even ahead of Strangelove in a weighted poll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8_tJ6rVPyM