It has been a long time since I've written anything here. Now I can't stop sleeping. I can't wake up before noon. I mean I am up until 4am everynight, so I guess its excusable.
I got home last night just in time to catch the first part of three of "The Shining" on the Sci-Fi Channel. Not the Kubrick version, the TV movie that was on ABC a year or two ago. The one with the guy from Wings. It's really good. I saw something in the opening credits though. Stephen King had EVERYTHING to do with this one, unlike the one with Jack Nicholson which was mainly done by the late Stanley Kubrick. And you know what? I like this one SO much better. And from interviews I've heard, so does King. In fact he washed his hands of the original. But why? I thought Stanley Kubrick was supposed to be some kind of genius.
The only reason I think Kubrick is considered a "genius" is the same reason that people got Flock of Seagulls haircuts in the 1980's. They saw someone they thought was cool get one, and so they did, and so on and so on. Conformity. People say Kubrick was a genius because it's a cool thing to say. It makes you seem intellegent, or cultured, or artsy. But let's be truly honest. Einstein was a genius, and Kubrick couldn't direct a pack of lemmings off a cliff.
You see, Stanley Kubrick is famous for movies like "A Clockwork Orange" (adapted from a book not written by Kubrick), "2001: A Space Oddessy (adapted from a book not written by Kubrick), "The Shining" (adapted from a book not written by Kubrick.) Basically, Kubrick was the Puff Daddy of the film industry. His last film, "Eyes Wide Shut," has quite possibly made liars out of the distributors of "Plan 9 From Outer Space." They'll have to redistribute it with the caption "The SECOND worst movie ever made!" "Eyes Wide Shut" took the gold in that department. The movie lasted for what seemed like days. The audience sits on the edge of their seat as absolutely NOTHING happens for hours. Millions of subplots are never resolved. Touched upon only to be ignored later. Like the stuff with the shop owner, or the guy following Tom Cruise. Kubrick was notorious for showing the middle of a movie. Never the beginning to establish the plot, and never the end to resolve it.
Did anyone see 2001? Did anyone see it without being on acid? Did any of you understand the ending? If I tell you it, it won't ruin anything. You still won't get it if you haven't seen it. Space man flies to Jupiter to find out about this black rectangle thing that (much) earlier in the movie made monkies hit things with bones for about 15 minutes (literally). He gets there, only to have a really big rectangle come at his ship. And then after a 20 minute technicolor show which skips from what looks like a modern day screensaver, to space mans face as he holds a "scared" expression, back and forth, over and over.... and over, space man finds himself in a room. There he sees a slightly older him. Suddenly he is the slightly older him. He knocks over a wine glass. Suddenly he sees an even older him, and predictably yet you don't know why, he's the older guy, and again until hes in bed, looking up at the black rectangle sitting at the front of his bed, which comes along with a "scary" sound of like five guys sitting in a closet making ghost noises at a halloween party for toddlers. And then the guy turns into a baby floating in space. The end. If you haven't seen it you're thinking I left out some kind of important detail that makes all that make the slightest bit of sense. If you have seen it, you know that I haven't. I mean for Pete's sake, this movie had an intermission! Along with displaying a single word on the screen for literally the first 10 minutes.
People eat this crap up, because they figure its SO over their head that the guy has got to be a genius. Look, just because you don't understand it doesn't make it art. People attribute the use of long pauses in the dialogue in "The Shining" to Kubrick's genius, I attribute it to poor editing, or a stupid director, who kept telling his actors, "Wait for it..... WAIT FOR IT!!!" Jesus, the man could've filmed a hamster cage for six hours, and his fans would be upset if he didn't win an oscar.
And honestly I wouldn't have put that past him.
I got home last night just in time to catch the first part of three of "The Shining" on the Sci-Fi Channel. Not the Kubrick version, the TV movie that was on ABC a year or two ago. The one with the guy from Wings. It's really good. I saw something in the opening credits though. Stephen King had EVERYTHING to do with this one, unlike the one with Jack Nicholson which was mainly done by the late Stanley Kubrick. And you know what? I like this one SO much better. And from interviews I've heard, so does King. In fact he washed his hands of the original. But why? I thought Stanley Kubrick was supposed to be some kind of genius.
The only reason I think Kubrick is considered a "genius" is the same reason that people got Flock of Seagulls haircuts in the 1980's. They saw someone they thought was cool get one, and so they did, and so on and so on. Conformity. People say Kubrick was a genius because it's a cool thing to say. It makes you seem intellegent, or cultured, or artsy. But let's be truly honest. Einstein was a genius, and Kubrick couldn't direct a pack of lemmings off a cliff.
You see, Stanley Kubrick is famous for movies like "A Clockwork Orange" (adapted from a book not written by Kubrick), "2001: A Space Oddessy (adapted from a book not written by Kubrick), "The Shining" (adapted from a book not written by Kubrick.) Basically, Kubrick was the Puff Daddy of the film industry. His last film, "Eyes Wide Shut," has quite possibly made liars out of the distributors of "Plan 9 From Outer Space." They'll have to redistribute it with the caption "The SECOND worst movie ever made!" "Eyes Wide Shut" took the gold in that department. The movie lasted for what seemed like days. The audience sits on the edge of their seat as absolutely NOTHING happens for hours. Millions of subplots are never resolved. Touched upon only to be ignored later. Like the stuff with the shop owner, or the guy following Tom Cruise. Kubrick was notorious for showing the middle of a movie. Never the beginning to establish the plot, and never the end to resolve it.
Did anyone see 2001? Did anyone see it without being on acid? Did any of you understand the ending? If I tell you it, it won't ruin anything. You still won't get it if you haven't seen it. Space man flies to Jupiter to find out about this black rectangle thing that (much) earlier in the movie made monkies hit things with bones for about 15 minutes (literally). He gets there, only to have a really big rectangle come at his ship. And then after a 20 minute technicolor show which skips from what looks like a modern day screensaver, to space mans face as he holds a "scared" expression, back and forth, over and over.... and over, space man finds himself in a room. There he sees a slightly older him. Suddenly he is the slightly older him. He knocks over a wine glass. Suddenly he sees an even older him, and predictably yet you don't know why, he's the older guy, and again until hes in bed, looking up at the black rectangle sitting at the front of his bed, which comes along with a "scary" sound of like five guys sitting in a closet making ghost noises at a halloween party for toddlers. And then the guy turns into a baby floating in space. The end. If you haven't seen it you're thinking I left out some kind of important detail that makes all that make the slightest bit of sense. If you have seen it, you know that I haven't. I mean for Pete's sake, this movie had an intermission! Along with displaying a single word on the screen for literally the first 10 minutes.
People eat this crap up, because they figure its SO over their head that the guy has got to be a genius. Look, just because you don't understand it doesn't make it art. People attribute the use of long pauses in the dialogue in "The Shining" to Kubrick's genius, I attribute it to poor editing, or a stupid director, who kept telling his actors, "Wait for it..... WAIT FOR IT!!!" Jesus, the man could've filmed a hamster cage for six hours, and his fans would be upset if he didn't win an oscar.
And honestly I wouldn't have put that past him.
