What are you watching now? - (This is my brain on TV!)

[Store Hadji]

TCM is showing The Shop Around the Corner, starring Jimmy Stewart and Frank Morgan. It also stars Margaret Sullavan, who guest-starred on many episodes of The Campbell Playhouse. Very nice to finally match a face and body to the voice...and in fim is much better than a photo. She was cute!

[Tashman]

the killing is a copy of the asphalt jungle...

Or maybe a "copy" of Treasure of the Sierra Madre, for that matter? The ending of Kubrick and Thompson's adaption differs from caper-meister Lionel White's original ("Clean Break") so as to have the same visual metaphor as TREASURE. Meanwhile, White's story ends much more like Burnett and Huston's JUNGLE, written a few years earlier. The idea of a meticulous account of a crime comes straight from the pulps. The fatalism linking these two caper stories is literary before it comes to the movies, and was shared by the directors in question. Huston's progenitors, save one, were all writers. The other, however superficially, was Welles. That may have been OW's beef about Huston as director of ASPHALT JUNGLE. He might have thought Huston the bigger copycat.

I haven't seen The Killing in a long time, so I could be way off-base. By the way, didn't Kubrick like to say that he was just picking paperbacks blindly off the shelf to buy as properties at this point? Anything remotely commercial. Maybe he was just massaging his own resume, though.

[Glenn Anders]

Are we not forgetting THE KILLERS (Siodmak, 1946), credited to Anthony Veiller but written to a considerable extent by his friend John Huston (still under contract to Warners, not quite out of the Army) and Huston's future writing partner, Richard Brooks? It has most of the elements of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and THE KILLING: The Noble Dummy (Lancaster, Hayden, Hayden), the femme fatale (Gardner, Monroe, Windsor), the wise man (Barnett, Jaffe, Kwariani) the double-crossing mastermind (Dekker, Calhern, Flippen), etc.; the planning, the big heist, the miscalculation, fate, and retribution. THE KILLERS has all the chops and connections which led in an ancillary way to THE KILLING that, in addition to its spare brilliance, is an homage to both the earlier pictures.

Not to mention THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.

Glenn

[Kevin Loy]

kubrik's THE KILLING is fabulous. welles was right when he said the killing is a copy of the asphalt jungle, and kubrik is a better director than huston, which i don't agree with, and it's a shitty thing to say about a pal. i wonder if there was a rift between them at the time.

Speaking of Kubrick...I happened to catch a late-night cable (uncut, as far as I can tell, and in 1.66:1) showing of "A Clockwork Orange" about a week ago, and...I can't really say that I was completely blown away by it. I would definitely love to see it again, especially for the Droogs' dialogue (since I've always had a problem with the excessive usage of dialogue in the Kubrick films that I have seen, especially the voice-overs that explain every miniscule detail of the action so that you don't have to think for yourself, it was refreshing to at least hear it delivered in a unique manner), but...for some reason, parts of the film just didn't resonate with me as I had expected. Does anybody else have any thoughts on this movie?

(On a side note, I do hope to see The Killing and Paths Of Glory someday, if for no other reason than to see Timothy Carey, who was a uniquely talented actor, even if he was in a lot of crap)

[Store Hadji]

Then there's 2001, which in no way tried to explain any of the details...

I haven't seen Clockwork Orange in eons. I loved it when I was an angry angst-filled teen. Malcolm McDowell excells at portraying wickedness.

[Roger Ryan]

I'm not so sure about the Kubrick/narration thing. I'll agree that the "just the facts, ma'am" voice-over in "The Killing" is superfluous, although it is very much part of the formula Kubrick was reveling in (and I admire how coldly detached it is). And, while adding a little color, "Full Metal Jacket" could have done without Joker's voice-over. Otherwise, Kubrick's use of narration is unerring in my opinion. The two best examples are "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon" where the narration often adds ironic and humorous counterpoint to what is actually being shown on the screen.

As for "excessive useage of dialogue": are Kubrick films any more talky than the average drama? A lot of his films have a number of scenes notable for very spare use of dialogue ("2001" is almost a silent film). When his characters do speak, their lines are usually direct and memorable.

[jaime marzol]

i saw a part of paths of glory in letterbox, and it was radical looking. very, very nice framing.

v.o. in the killing didn't bug me. i'm a film noir fan and v.o. is a part of many noir films. in the killing, what was very cool is that kubrik follows the path of one of the hold up guys till he gets to the hold up site, then jumps back to another guy till he gets there, and so on. he does this 2 times. the hold up guys getting to a meeting, and then getting to the holdup, using the horses at the starting gate as the link to jump back.

also, his first film, killer's kiss is good.

clockwork orange i have not seen in years but i used to love it. the first half of the film is up, the second half is down. very cool. it reminded me of what i remembered about doing cocaine. you do the line and you are up, 10 minutes later you are down and it's a bummer.

didn't like 2001, not sure if i liked the shinning, didn't think much of eyes wide shut.

saw jess franco's female vampires. it was a piece of crap. how did he get panavision to make a film with no plot, lousy camera work, and lots of crotch shots? tons of slow zooms to right in between the naked vampire's legs.

saw macabe and mrs miller. very, very impressive. the bad guys at the end were really menacing. dvd has altman commentary that i have not listened to yet. macabe was very authentic.

nicholas and alexandria was real good. however, it could have used more rasputin debauchery

the good the bad and the ugly now has a bonus disc, it's worth getting

french connection film and bonus disc are great. commentary track, lots of info

easy riders raging bulls disc and bonus materials, excellent

unknown chaplin doc and short documentary, excellent

olivier's richard the III is excellent, excellent commentary

looking for an echo. i like armand asante, but this movie sucked.

it's a gift, wc fields, super, laughed all through it.

strangers on a train film and bonus disc, very good.

i have the 2 dvds wilson suggested, fanny and alexander, film and bonus disc on order.

[mteal]

also, his first film, killer's kiss is good.

Actually Kubrick's first film was not KILLER'S KISS, but FEAR AND DESIRE (although he pretty much disowned it).
I think 2001 is one of the greatest films ever made- when you see it on the big screen in 70mm, that is. On video it's a joke.

saw macabe and mrs miller. very, very impressive. the bad guys at the end were really menacing. dvd has altman commentary that i have not listened to yet. macabe was very authentic.

Also one of the greatest films ever made, IMO.

[jaime marzol]

i didn't know about fear and desire. is it any good?

most of the people i know feel about 2001 the way you do. i saw it on a big screen at a revival. it escaped me, but i was probably 25 years old?

[Tashman]

Are we not forgetting THE KILLERS (Siodmak, 1946)...all the chops and connections?

The point is that all these things were in the air. Huston was obviously on the vanguard of people in the movies who tapped this vein, and shaped the fashion for it in the movies, but it was nonetheless an existing fashion. The word "homage" seems strained then, except in regard to SIERRA MADRE. Unlike today, filmmakers and filmgoers ingested other things besides movies. Are there visual or dramatic ties between Kubrick and Huston other than Sterling Hayden? There are philosophic ties, in this instance at least. But is that something that's handed down or arrived at independently?

I like Jean Renoir's suggestion. One year have everyone make movies using the same story. Then you really see who's who. Everyone make "Badge of Evil", for instance. And see how many TOUCH OF EVILs you end up with. Or everyone do "Make Way for Tomorrow." How many filmmakers will give you TOKYO STORY?

[jaime marzol]

yeap, that is always interesting to see several movies made from the same book

the killers, 2 discs, the one by siodmak, and the one with lee marvin, both excellent. lots of extras.

i saw no ties between asphalt jungle and the killing except hayden, a heist flick, and a group of men that plan to get something but fail in the end, which is very huston.

in every aspect i liked the killing better than asphalt jungle, but i also like the asphalt jungle.

[Tashman]

i saw no ties between asphalt jungle and the killing except hayden, a heist flick, and a group of men that plan to get something but fail in the end, which is very huston.

Right. Thanks. Saves me watching it again.

From the Joseph Gelmis interview with Kubrick: "FEAR AND DESIRE played the art house circuits and some of the reviews were amazingly good, but it's not a film I remember with any pride, except for the fact it was finished."

It was done post-synch, and he says his crew was three Mexican laborers to carry the equipment.

[Glenn Anders]

I like Tashman's observation that "all these things were in the air" in the late 1940's. World War II was over, and a lot of artists hoped that the kind of mistakes made in noir films would not, on a larger scale, be committed again. Welles, Huston, Mark Hellinger and others fell into that group. Without belaboring the point, however, it does seem to me that Kubrick, five to fifteen years after THE MALTESE FALCON, BRUTE FORCE, THE KILLERS, NAKED CITY, LADY FROM SHANGHAI, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, etc., may be fairly said to have paid homage to these directors and films which formed his early style.

And I, too, would like the Renoir/Tashman suggestion of making many films on the same story line, in the same year. One has only to look at Curtis Hanson's L.A. CONFIDENTIAL to see what could be done.

"Badge of Honor," anyone?

Glenn

[Roger Ryan]

i didn't know about fear and desire. is it any good?

most of the people i know feel about 2001 the way you do. i saw it on a big screen at a revival. it escaped me, but i was probably 25 years old?

Unfortunately, "Fear & Desire" has been repressed for years by Kubrick (and now his estate). Apparently it has been bootlegged, but reports are that Kubrick burned the original negative. If it was considerably weaker than "Killer's Kiss", it might only be interesting as a curio.

I don't know Jaime, I was 7 years old when I first saw "2001" (on a big screen) and I loved it!

[jaime marzol]

stuff like simbad, and 20,000 leagues under the sea thrilled me at 7. i don't think i could have sat through 2001 at 7.

because something is great doesn't mean it's for every one. i can't sit through gone with the wind, seven brides for seven brothers, south pacific, oklhoma, sound of music, west side story and lots of other films that are considered good.