What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[Jericho]

I only watched it because i heard a joke about it, Twilight.
A love story about a young girl torn between necrophilia and bestiality!

I really don't think I'm its target audience!

[trish]

I only watched it because i heard a joke about it, Twilight.
A love story about a young girl torn between necrophilia and bestiality!

I really don't think I'm its target audience!

Never thought of it that way .... hmmm .... so it just got me to thinking .... do werewolf penises have a knot (e.g. bulbus glandis) as do other canines? Not that I'm interested ... you know ....sexually ...

signed
Perplexed

[Jericho]

Bulbus Glandis, is that what its called?...One lives and learns!
I am happy...That's going to be my "insult of the day" tomorrow!

Never thought of it that way .... hmmm .... so it just got me to thinking .... do werewolf penises have a knot (e.g. bulbus glandis) as do other canines? Not that I'm interested ... you know ....sexually ...

signed
Perplexed

[Stavros]

To paraphrase Nietzsche, 2001 was a film for everyone and no one. I agree, that Dr. Strangelove is a pessimistic film and that Barry Lyndon is not an exemplar of what is best in humankind. Each of Kubrick’s films explores distinct themes and issues. I think 2001 undeniably holds out the promise of an open, infinite future of possibility for the human animal. I found the film exuberant. It celebrates our capacity to learn, to grow and to overcome our preconceptions of the universe and ourselves. I wouldn’t want to go all Nietzchean and say it was an uber-film, or that it was superior or inferior to say, Sunshine. Just exuberant.
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If you look again at Kubrick's films you often find that he makes a cinematic statement of futility using the same technique : in Paths of Glory there is a tracking shot taken from behind the head of Dax (Kirk Douglas) as he moves through a trench so that he appears to be walking ahead but not advancing; in 2001: A Space Odyssey Dave Bowman to keep fit runs around the inside of the residential quarter which is a constantly rotating sphere so that he appears to be running on the spot; in The Shining, young Danny drives his toy car on corridors that look identical and even the rhythm of the car is repeated as it crosses the edge of carpet so that his entire ride seems to take him nowhere. The narrative of futility can be found in Full Metal Jacket, where in the first half of the film a foul-mouthed drill-sergeant creates a killing machine which ends his life, but which in the second half of the film is all but wiped out as it struggles to kill a lone sniper who when found appears to be a teenage girl. The cure that is supposed to re-habilitate Alex into society in A Clockwork Orange fails because society itself has not changed, and inflicts on Alex the violence he inflicted on it in the first part of the film.
At the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in 'the Dawn of Man' sequence, an 'early human' is seen learning how to kill, but is not shown learning how to create, is not shown sharing goods and services, above all, has no religion and is not shown loving anyone, co-operating, or being compassionate -the weapon that is flung into the air becomes the spaceship having leaped over the intervening period of human history to begin a narrative which leads back to the origin of man as a cycle of futility without meaning or purpose. The science that has created space travel has led man back to Earth, not Jupiter; the portal through which the ages pass, the Ka'ba of time, does not change, it is there as a painful, ear-splitting reminder that nothing changes, that we are doomed no matter how far we think we have advanced. In the Odyssey of Homer, Odysseus participates in a war that destroys his fleet, is waylaid for seven years on the way home, and when he returns home to find his wife besieged by suitors thinking him long dead, he slaughters them -a cycle of slaughter that only ends when the gods intervene -but as Kubrick has no god, there is no mercy for man. There is only complete futility.
George Steiner, either in one of his books or in a lecture I recall, began by saying 'Absolute tragedy is very rare', and went on to point out the humour in Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear and that there is also a fool in Othello though the part is usually excised by producers. Completely bleak and hopeless texts Steiner argues, run against the need humans have for at least a chink of light, some element of hope -thus at the end of The Trial, K on the verge of his execution sees a light in the distance and imagines his death being witnessed for the crime that it is. In the bleak films of Bresson there is, nevertheless, the Catholic sensibility that implies death is a release from earthly life into a beautiful eternity. Kubrick is the ultimate pessimist, a man whose films piss on life and offer nothing but dejection.

[trish]

If you look again at Kubrick's films you often find that he makes a cinematic statement of futility using the same technique : in Paths of Glory there is a tracking shot taken from behind the head of Dax (Kirk Douglas) as he moves through a trench so that he appears to be walking ahead but not advancing; in 2001: A Space Odyssey Dave Bowman to keep fit runs around the inside of the residential quarter which is a constantly rotating sphere so that he appears to be running on the spot; in The Shining, young Danny drives his toy car on corridors that look identical and even the rhythm of the car is repeated as it crosses the edge of carpet so that his entire ride seems to take him nowhere. The narrative of futility can be found in Full Metal Jacket, where in the first half of the film a foul-mouthed drill-sergeant creates a killing machine which ends his life, but which in the second half of the film is all but wiped out as it struggles to kill a lone sniper who when found appears to be a teenage girl. The cure that is supposed to re-habilitate Alex into society in A Clockwork Orange fails because society itself has not changed, and inflicts on Alex the violence he inflicted on it in the first part of the film.
At the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in 'the Dawn of Man' sequence, an 'early human' is seen learning how to kill, but is not shown learning how to create, is not shown sharing goods and services, above all, has no religion and is not shown loving anyone, co-operating, or being compassionate -the weapon that is flung into the air becomes the spaceship having leaped over the intervening period of human history to begin a narrative which leads back to the origin of man as a cycle of futility without meaning or purpose. The science that has created space travel has led man back to Earth, not Jupiter; the portal through which the ages pass, the Ka'ba of time, does not change, it is there as a painful, ear-splitting reminder that nothing changes, that we are doomed no matter how far we think we have advanced. In the Odyssey of Homer, Odysseus participates in a war that destroys his fleet, is waylaid for seven years on the way home, and when he returns home to find his wife besieged by suitors thinking him long dead, he slaughters them -a cycle of slaughter that only ends when the gods intervene -but as Kubrick has no god, there is no mercy for man. There is only complete futility.
George Steiner, either in one of his books or in a lecture I recall, began by saying 'Absolute tragedy is very rare', and went on to point out the humour in Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear and that there is also a fool in Othello though the part is usually excised by producers. Completely bleak and hopeless texts Steiner argues, run against the need humans have for at least a chink of light, some element of hope -thus at the end of The Trial, K on the verge of his execution sees a light in the distance and imagines his death being witnessed for the crime that it is. In the bleak films of Bresson there is, nevertheless, the Catholic sensibility that implies death is a release from earthly life into a beautiful eternity. Kubrick is the ultimate pessimist, a man whose films piss on life and offer nothing but dejection.

I’d rather not forward an umbrella view on the entirety of Kubrick’s filmography. Instead I'll take the movies you mentioned singly, or in groups.

Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket are anti-war films. Of course they are going to feature the horrors and idiocy of war and warn us of what the future could be if we continue the practice.

The Shining is Kubrick’s treatment of the classic haunted-house story. The outdoor labyrinth mirrors the house’s soul-trapping interior to dark effect. So with this cinematographic mood setting technique is Kubrick telling us that all human endeavor is pointless and leads nowhere? Why is Jack (presumably from whom Danny inherited his shine) possessed and unable to escape the haunting maze that leads nowhere, while Danny and his mother get to play the modern day Theseus and Ariadne? Instead of saying life leads nowhere, suppose Kubrick is saying, “Life is a Labyrinth.” That interpretation holds out the hope that those who shine, those who examine their lives and seek the life worth living, might indeed find a path through the maze.

I pretty much agree, at the moment, with your synopsis of the Clockwork Orange. The film can be mapped almost one-to-one onto the book by Anthony Burgess. In the few years over which the story takes place, society hasn’t changed. Is Burgess saying society will never change...can never change; or is Burgess advising that our society should beware of utilizing the sort of techniques this dystopian society tried to use on Alex?

Where Clockwork is filled with humans violating humans, there is none of that in 2001. Who are the “bad guys” in the year 2001? There aren’t any. The most violent scene in the film 2001 is proto-man learning to use tools to commit murder and mayhem. After a prehistoric battle for a watering hole, a bone bludgeon is tossed victoriously into the sky. The camera follows it. As it rotates millennia pass by and it morphs into a space craft. The complexity of human thought, science, philosophy, art and technology are traced in this scene to the first time some “one” got the idea that an object (a bone) can be lifted from its context (source of marrow) and used to serve another function (bludgeon). That bone tool was used to kill tapirs (in the film) for food and to murder other tribes to hoard resources. Certainly nobody is unaware of the double-edged power of tools to do good and ill. Even the written word double edged. Yet in the year 2001 the film depicts a human species that had apparently subdued (for a time) its warlike tendency. We see scientists from different nation-states in friendly (though guarded) conversation. We see corporate types and military types and we sit in on one of their banal meetings to learn that the governments of the day have decided to keep secret the a possible discovery of extraterrestrial contact for fear of the panic that may ensue. So the world Kubrick depicts is not a perfect one. But what Kubrick holds out for us is the possibility of other transformative discoveries. He doesn’t know what those discoveries will be, or even how to point in their direction. How could he? But he does seem to indicate that those discoveries won’t be technological; they won’t be an extension of the tool idea that we’ve been tweaking and playing with ever since the first ape discovered the bone bludgeon. The technological singularity will not be the next big step in the evolution of thought. David Bowman is Kubrick’s Odysseus. This Odysseus doesn't go to war. He does embark on a transformative voyage and he returns to his world transformed. The Earth is his Penelope. This time Odysseus will not be slaughtering his wife’s suitors. But his story promises to transform our understanding of ourselves. Kubrick’s story is the story of that story, which is yet to be lived and told.

[broncofan]

I don't like most of the movies by Kubrick that most people like (Clockwork, the Shining, and Full Metal Jacket). But I did enjoy Paths of Glory, which was a pessimistic piece but the pessimism fit well with the overall theme which was that in warfare people prove themselves to be contemptible cowards even while prosecuting cowardice. The more of that martial ethic a general pretends to possess the more hypocritical and self-serving he will tend to be.

I also think that the longer Kubrick's movies got the more dead space they contained in order to compensate for a lack of character development. I found certain moments in quite a few Kubrick movies to be fun to watch and memorable, but most of his movies failed to captivate for their entire duration; they were made in the service of a grand idea but lacked the support of a good narrative. I hate to admit but I watch movies for the story, for the interactions among characters and I found most of his movies to be sterile and slow...The Shining is an exception in that it didn't have much of a message but I thought it was boring as hell and not suspenseful. Very memorable scenes, but dead space and without the elaborate creepiness, not much happening except a man going crazy in a place where others have before him...

I also did like Dr. Strangelove. I realize that it does fall prey to the critique that it is cynical just for the sake of cynicism. But there was a real story there, and I thought humorously outlandish characters. I bought the satire and even think it might have been somewhat prescient (though nothing like that came to pass, it did capture the increasing and accelerated stupidity of the cold war in the years that followed).

[broncofan]

The Shining is Kubrick’s treatment of the classic haunted-house story. The outdoor labyrinth mirrors the house’s soul-trapping interior to dark effect. So with this cinematographic mood setting technique is Kubrick telling us that all human endeavor is pointless and leads nowhere? Why is Jack (presumably from whom Danny inherited his shine) possessed and unable to escape the haunting maze that leads nowhere, while Danny and his mother get to play the modern day Theseus and Ariadne? Instead of saying life leads nowhere, suppose Kubrick is saying, “Life is a Labyrinth.” That interpretation holds out the hope that those who shine, those who examine their lives and seek the life worth living, might indeed find a path through the maze.

I like and follow your analysis. But sometimes an allegory is so subtle or attenuated that it might as well not even exist. The boy escapes, the possessed father isn't able to. Why? Maybe because if he catches Danny he will kill his own child which is even too unpalatable for Kubrick. I find the analysis of the Shining to be more compelling than the movie was. Ebert said that the significance of Nicholson's picture on the wall at the end was to show the evil spirit had been there all along. When I saw the picture on the wall, I said, "what the fuck is this"? I'm sure you're both right in your analyses but for me that kind of processing does not take place while I'm watching a film (other senses are being engaged at the same time and there's a continuing stream of information I have to account for)..in film I think symbolism works well when the symbolism is visual and only one or two clicks away...or in a novel where the idea can be expounded upon.

[fred41]

I like and follow your analysis. But sometimes an allegory is so subtle or attenuated that it might as well not even exist. The boy escapes, the possessed father isn't able to. Why? Maybe because if he catches Danny he will kill his own child which is even too unpalatable for Kubrick. I find the analysis of the Shining to be more compelling than the movie was. Ebert said that the significance of Nicholson's picture on the wall at the end was to show the evil spirit had been there all along. When I saw the picture on the wall, I said, "what the fuck is this"? I'm sure you're both right in your analyses but for me that kind of processing does not take place while I'm watching a film (other senses are being engaged at the same time and there's a continuing stream of information I have to account for)..in film I think symbolism works well when the symbolism is visual and only one or two clicks away...or in a novel where the idea can be expounded upon.

Since you're using "The Shining"as an example, it's worth noting that Stephen King absolutely hated the Kubrick version.
The book was flawed, but like most of King's works...worked on the reader's empathy using King's ability to make a reader invest in a character and emotionally connect. Kubrick doesn't seem to have this ability...or doesn't care to use it. The movie was cold and the characters overacting too comical to take seriously...as a matter of fact, there wasn't a likable character in the movie.
I didn't like the film...but I did like the book...to an extent.

[broncofan]

Since you're using "The Shining"as an example, it's worth noting that Stephen King absolutely hated the Kubrick version.
The book was flawed, but like most of King's works...worked on the reader's empathy using King's ability to make a reader invest in a character and emotionally connect. Kubrick doesn't seem to have this ability...or doesn't care to use it. The movie was cold and the characters overacting too comical to take seriously...as a matter of fact, there wasn't a likable character in the movie.
I didn't like the film...but I did like the book...to an extent.

I can't read a book after seeing a movie, but I do look forward to movies of books I've liked. I can understand King's complaint as the characters didn't have much emotional range other than the obvious emotions of fear and anger.

One book I did read after seeing the movie was Black Dahlia...the movie was so bad it didn't ruin the book for me, which was quite fun, though dark.

[trish]

Arthur C. Clarke also hated Kubrick's version of 2001. Clarke would've preferred a more literal reading.

I agree that usually the film will ruin the experience of reading a book, and vice versa. The Tolkien books ruined the movies for me and the movie Catch 22 ruined the book (though I believe people when they tell me the book was better). I read Clockwork after I saw the movie and was amazed how close the two experiences were to each other.