Sunday, December 27, 2015

MUST WATCH! KUBRICK'S SECRET MOVIE REVEALED!


From the video description:
Here is some undeniable proof that Stanley Kubrick ghost-directed the 1979 feature film "Being There" using his power among the Hollywood elite. 5 months of investigation were necessary to unveil this mystery and its darker meaning. PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO, HELP ME EXPOSE THE TRUTH!
This particular creation surpasses the so-called "Kubrick Confession video" examined in an earlier post on this very page by leaps and freaking bounds. One really needs to watch this video in its entirety -- to its final, compelling seconds -- to be able to grasp the full meaning of the information and hard-won wisdom its creator now so selflessly seeks to share with the world.

KUBRICK MOVIE BOX OFFICE RANKINGS (ADJUSTED)


Movie (Year)Adjusted Domestic Box Office (Millions)Box Office Rank By YearOscar Nom / Win
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)$348.303rd of 196804 / 01
A Clockwork Orange (1971)$184.307th of 197204 / 00
Spartacus (1960)$287.403rd of 196006 / 04
Barry Lyndon (1975)$80.4018th of 197507 / 04
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)$95.0014th of 196404 / 00
The Shining (1980)$137.2010th of 198000 / 00
Lolita (1962)$107.2016th of 196201 / 00
Full Metal Jacket (1987)$96.6023rd of 198701 / 00
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)$89.3026th of 199900 / 00
Paths of Glory (1957)$38.2068th in 195800 / 00
The Killings (1956)$10.60Not in Top 10900 / 00
Killer's Kiss (1955)$.80Not in Top10000 / 00
Fear and Desire (1953)$.80Not in Top 15000 / 00

Saturday, December 26, 2015

OBNOXIOUS KUBRICK INTERVIEW VIDEO HOAX


Considering the subject matter that I enjoy writing about in my blogs, the Daily Dirt Diaspora and the Useless Eater -- and taking into account the occasionally outrĂ© nature of some of my own speculations regarding elements of Stanley Kubrick's oeuvre -- I suppose it would be hypocritical of me to simply ignore the recent release of a video allegedly shot by "filmmaker T. Patrick Murray" in 1999 and kept hidden from the public until 15 years after Kubrick's death, which purports to contain the legendary auteur's confession to having faked the moon landing(s) at the behest of the United States government.

I do, however, refuse to waste too much of my dwindling time on this most lazy, easily refutable, and contemptible of hoax videos. For, despite the fact that it represents both a symptom and an end result of a certain virulent strain of the affliction known as Kubrick Obsession, and therefore falls under the purview of this blog's rubric, it is a weak effort, lacking in subtlety, and insufficiently innovative, subversive, or formally intriguing to merit much scrutiny.

Beyond the central performer's physical resemblance to Kubrick, this video is, in fact, offensively amateurish, particularly in its first incarnation, with its incredibly annoying habit of constantly cutting away from the interview to present us with random clips from Kubrick films. No wonder its creators have subsequently released numerous "new and improved" edits, in an effort to make their product more palatable to its intended audience: the easily distracted, the lowest common denominators, the vigilant citizens and Alex Jones fanboys of the "conspiritard" crowd. 

And so, if you are more intrigued than I, and as such wish to delve more deeply into this video's creation, its release, the public reaction to it and any other such topics, I suggest you make use of Google and search elsewhere for insights. If you find anything particularly interesting that I might have overlooked, kindly point it out in the comments section of this post.

In the meantime, here is a Youtube version of the interview minus all those annoying clips and interruptions. It gets particularly amusing towards the end, when "T. Patrick Murray" gets so annoyed at his "Stanley" for failing to recall why Apollo 12 was a worse failure than Apollo 13 (because nobody watched it!) that he starts yelling in frustration, at which point a clearly flustered Kubrick grovels a shame-faced apology. And if you need any further evidence than this that the video in question is a hoax... well then you don't know much about Stanley Kubrick.


STANLEY AND THE BROTHERS SCOTT

[EDITED TO REMOVE THE
INCREDIBLY ANNOYING SELF-LAUNCHING VIDEO, 
WHICH YOU CAN STILL FIND AT 
THE LINKED-TO ARTICLE BELOW, REGARDLESS]

During the course of a Hollywood Reporter Director's Roundtable consisting of David O. Russell, Tom Hooper, Quentin Tarantino, Danny Boyle, Alejandro G. Inarritu and Ridley Scott, the ALIEN director offered a small degree of elaboration on a film industry legend of long standing involving Blade Runner, The Shining, and Stanley Kubrick's uncredited addition to what would go on to become arguably the second most influential science fiction film in cinematic history after his own 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In the article accompanying the above video, Scott explains:
I had finished Blade Runner, and it was a disaster. My investors were giving me a really hard time, saying "You can't end the film with picking up a piece of origami, looking at the girl, walk in the elevator, nod, and bingo that's it." I said, "It's called a film noir." And they said, "What's a film noir?" That was a big problem. And he said, "We have to test this with an uplifting ending, where they will go off into the wilderness together." I said, "Well if they go off into a beautiful wilderness, why do they live in this dystopian environment?"
By then I had talked to Stanley a few times. I said, "I know you shot the hell out of The Shining, can I have some of the stuff?" So at the end of the film in Blade Runner, that's Stanley Kubrick's footage.
The full Director Roundtable will air on "Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter" on Sunday, Jan 3, at 11 a.m. ET on Sundance TV, and it's allegedly "rich with discussions about the work of Stanley Kubrick", so be sure to check it out when it airs, or later on, via various online video platforms where it will surely be widely available, considering the caliber of the assembled talent.

***

Ridley isn't the only Scott brother to be tight with Stanley Kubrick. Current KubrickU favorite Guillermo del Toro recently tweeted that he'd "heard that 1 shot in Barry Lyndon was done (following very specific instructions) by none other than a very young Tony Scott!" To which Cinephilia & Beyond helpfully replied with an excerpt from an October, 2012 conversation between Tom Cruise and Terry Semel in Interview Magazine:
CRUISE: He did not want to be a celebrity. You know, [the late director] Tony Scott worked on Barry Lyndon. He was in art school at the time. Tony told me that he wrote down the exact longitude and latitude of where Stanley wanted the camera, the exact height of the camera, and the time, to get the shot that Stanley wanted. Tony said he sat there for a couple of weeks trying to get the right light. Stanley really loved the Scott brothers. I've had long conversations about this with both Tony and Ridley. Stanley was a director who did not let people borrow or rent his lens. He never gave his Apollo lens to anyone. But when Ridley was having a really difficult time with the end of Blade Runner [1982], Stanley gave Ridley footage that he had shot but didn't use for the opening of The Shining. He was offering to let him use it for Blade Runner. That's how highly Stanley thought of them.
The rest of that short interview is very much worth reading, by the way. And, finally, here, dear reader, is a shot of the shot that Tony Scott worked so hard to help shoot:

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

BEN WHEATLEY'S HIGH-RISE IS COMING... AND IT FEELS LIKE KUBRICK

At least a little bit, don't you think? Here, watch and decide for yourself. I get a distinct Clockwork Orange meets Eyes Wide Shut vibe.


Tuesday, December 1, 2015

THAT ONE TIME GEORGE "MAD MAX" MILLER ALMOST MET KUBRICK

The HitFix interview series Motion [Captured] features a couple of interview video segments with George Miller talking about everything from Fury Road to Babe the Pig, and at one time, the talk turns Kubrickean. Here is that part of the exchange...


The rest of the page is also worth checking out for Kubrick fans, as author Drew McWeeny describes some off-the-record chatting the two did about their favorite Kubrick films (Clockwork, Barry Lyndon) and why James Cameron now actually LIKES Eyes Wide Shut (the answer isn't too terribly shocking). 

MILLION DOLLAR EXTREME RIFFS ON 2001

I may be working with the Million Dollar Extreme guys (a terrifyingly subversive comedy collective from Providence, I think) as an illustrator in the near future, so I've been checking out all their videos on Youtube (as should you be, too). I'd been skipping this one for some reason, but today, I went back and checked it out... and LOOK what I found.