First things first, let's all watch Eureka! Entertainment's gorgeous new trailer for their Blu-Ray release of Kubrick's unmitigated masterpiece, Paths of Glory, as part of their Masters of Cinema collection. This new release also includes an audio commentary from film scholar Adrian Martin and video interviews with Kubrick scholar Peter Kramer and filmmaker/comic actor Richard Ayoade for some reason (I mean, I love the guy's work, but what the Hell does he have to do with Paths of Glory?). This edition will be available in stores on September 19... a great excuse to see it again, of for the first time ever.
There's been some pretty intense buzz and hype surrounding the upcoming release of the intellectually ambitious science fiction film Arrival recently, including a lot of insinuation that our man Stanley would definitely have approved of its relatively low-key tone (explosions, if they occur, will not be the film's raison d'etre) and apparent university-level exploration of the potential outer limits of xenolinguistic possibilities. The trailer certainly seems promising, and this article on FilmSchoolRejects.com definitely makes me want to see it. I just hope this doesn't turn out to be another Interstellar or Midnight Special, which were also touted as heirs to the Kubrickean mantle of "serious sci-fi", because if it does... aw, who am I kidding. I'll just wait around for the next pile of cinematic disappointment, I suppose. Good luck, folks!
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Here's a Salt Lake City public radio documentary about Anthony Burgess, his novella A Clockwork Orange, and what Burgess really thought about Kubrick's film version of his work. If you've got 50 minutes to spare, you could definitely do a lot worse. And if you're a high-school student looking for something to rip off for your next English class essay, look no further! Lots of great, stealable insights for you here. Caveat Emptor! Don't do this if you're a first year University student, because you might get expelled for academic fraud! This, friends, is pretty much the only substantive difference between your senior year of high-school and your freshman year in college: accountability.
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In keeping with the "academic" and "Clockwork" themes set up by our previous entry, here's an essay from BirthDeathMovies.com that explores the thorny issue of "maternal unconcern" in Kubrick's Clockwork Orange. Author Mustafa Yasar II's entry in the website's week-long series of essays about Bad Moms is short, punchy, and is a pretty darn convincing take on a largely unexplored aspect of the Kubrick/Burgess classic. Recommended!
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Did you ever here the story about that one time Stanley Kubrick liked Albert Brooks' painfully funny dramedy Modern Romance so much that he called him up out of the blue in order to offer up his compliments? Actually, come to think of it, my description pretty much sums up the entirety of the ridiculous little article linked above. So why not instead read this Esquire interview with Brooks, in which he explains how Stanley Kubrick, in his words, saved his life?
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A band called Biffy Clyro have released a music video for their new song, called "Howl". This DIY Mag article claims that it aims to be "Stanley Kubrick meets David Lynch", and while there are obvious echoes of The Shining, I personally find the music mediocre and feel that the references are more Kubrick-via-American Horror Story than anything, but why not judge for yourself? Here it is.
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Winning this edition of KNIB's "Worst Kubrick Article EVER" Award is this Metro.co.UK listicle which lays out "Nine Things That Wouldn't Exist Without Stanley Kubrick", and ends up including heart-shaped sunglasses (huh?), Heath Ledger's Joker (wha?!), Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (groan...), and a goddamn fucking 30 SECONDS TO MARS video (?!?!?!?). I shit you not, my friends; the fine folks at Metro.co.UK shiver at the possibility of living in a world bereft of Jared Leto's band's Shining-inspired video for their song "The Kill (Bury Me)", even bringing up the possibility that "Jared’s pretty cut up he’ll never be able to work with cinema’s big daddy Kubrick himself." God help us all.
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For the first time ever, this edition of KNIB's "Most Inconsequential Kubrick Article EVER" Award has ended in a tie between this Independent IE article about how "celebrity gardener" Diarmuid Gavin has been selected to design a northern English "Royal Gardens" site in "a Stanley Kubrick Theme", and this Vogue article urging readers to "Revamp Your Summer Look With 15 Sunglasses Inspired By Iconic Kubrick Films"! Eyeglasses Wide Shut, anyone?
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