"No horsing around on the airplane!" (Simon reviews DR STRANGELOVE)

As a very recent post on both the Classic Columb of Man I Love Films and, additionally, on my own blog this is the last Kubrick review before the scoreboard comes out...

I have recently gone through a James Bond phase and, I think, Stanley Kubrick clearly knew Ken Adams expansive sets and grand ideas suited his satirical comedy Dr Strangelove exceptionally well by choosing him to design, amongst other things, the board room. Which - if you watch X-Men: First Class very closely, you will see the same room again as the US military base... it seems Dr Strangelove and Dr No clearly represent the sixties exceptionally well...

"One thing which is brilliant about this film is the iconic image of the sixties it portrays. The film is shot entirely in black and white (except for A-bomb videos) giving the film a classical pseudo-importance. The comedy of the time is exemplified in casting Peter Sellers - an actor who, additionally in '63, had starred in iconic 60's film The Pink Panther opposite David Niven and Robert Wagner. Peter Sellers also manages to play multiple roles in the guise of Mandrake (the employee of General Ripper) the President of the United States and playing Dr Strangelove himself. These three roles - the creator (Strangelove), the decider (POTUS) and the everyday man (Mandrake) - present completely differeing opinions and feelings, with positions that are completely opposite to each other."

If you want to read more - click here!

"Sir, main level please." (Simon reviews 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

I know that this film divides people and I believe that the attitudes towards Tree of Life at the moment may be a good comparison. Both are primarily Art - 2001  is definately not the Transformers 3 of the time. Mister Hatter managed to watch a cinema screening and, alongside the British Film Critic Barry Norman, this is generally seen as the way to watch the film.


I managed to watch it for the first time a while back and, keeping it contemporary, I managed to link the film with ... Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...


"Strangely enough, having watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull only recently, it is a similar theme: we can search and crave for all the knowledge in the world; we could know everything. But it is the journey in finding, bit by bit, this knowledge that is the beauty of being human. This constant question-asking is important - the answers not-so-much."


If you think this is crazy talk, then you need to read the rest so - if you want to finish the review - click here

"Hey Joe, what do you know?" (HATTER reviews A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE)

For 12 years, Stanley Kubrick worked on this project. Originally intended to be released much earlier, originally it was Joseph Mazello (the lad in Jurassic Park who has only recently starred in The Social Network and The Pacific HBO TV-Series) who was due to play 'David'.

As part of the 1001 Film To See Before You Die, Hatter reviewed the title noting the following:

"Sadly this team effort is not without questions, as Kubrick unfortunately passed away before the project went ahead. Thus understanding exactly where Kubrick's ideas end and Spielberg's begin is foggy at best, and might even contribute to what doesn't work with this film (more on that later). That said, it is amazing to see touchstones of two geniuses in the same film. Only in A.I. can we get silhouettes against the moon and the chin-down-eyes-up glares"

He expanded further on Kubrick's trademarks that feature - and what Spielberg may have interpretted badly in his full review, which you can see by clicking here 

"... the first and the last word out of your filthy sewers will be "Sir" Simon reviews FULL METAL JACKET)

The one genre Kubrick has dabbled in a couple of times is the 'war' genre - with both Full Metal Jacket and Paths of Glory. You could argue that Spartacus has a war-like element to it. The thing is with Full Metal Jacket is how it also delves into the psychology of war too.

Many moons ago, I wrote a little review about the film writing:

"On his head is a symbol or peace and, next to it, the words "born to kill". This complete conflict, two polar-opposite attitudes to war, is what roots itself in the themes of this film  - these two stances are what makes men so conflicting in their stance towards war and violence. They can make a man go mad."


Its an incredible film, and the full write-up goes into much more depth - so if you want to read more - click here

The Film Locker #5: Stanley Kubrick

After a week spent discussing the new school, we go back to the classics with a man some of you love, and some of you love to hate: Stanley Kubrick. Feature discussion this week centres on what we believe is "Kubrick 101" - his 1980 horror classic THE SHINING.




As usual, it is already up on itunes and can be found easily on podomatic - so, please do try and write reviews and support us if you can! We have the ol' RSS feed and 2.0 RSS and, if you link in different ways, we also have it on Google and Yahoo