IF DISNEY HAD MADE A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

 I think it would have gone a little something like this...

KUBRICK NEWS IN BRIEF ~ FEB 3, 2018

Sometimes you'll find tidbits of Kubrick-related ephemera in the strangest places. For instance, in Daniel Raim's documentary Harold and Lillian, A Hollywood Love Story! This doc "tells the story of husband-and-wife team Harold and Lillian Michelson, who brought their talents as storyboard artist and film researcher, respectively, to numerous Hollywood classics including The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and The Graduate, and working with such master filmmakers as Hitchcock, Spielberg, and Kubrick." How does Kubrick fit into this one? Well, a quick look at the poster, above, provides a pretty good clue!

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I full realize that "unboxing" videos are, in many ways, symptomatic of what's gone wrong with the Internet, social media, and late-Capitalist decline in recent years, but just try and keep from drooling when the lucky so-and-so's in the video below "unbox" Taschen's limited edition (and sold-out) 'Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Film Never Made'...

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Den of Geek has an extended examination of the great Clockwork Orange Ban myth... the real facts of the case, how the myth surrounding it began, and how that myth evolved into a big part of what solidified Clockwork Orange's 'street cred' as a legendary "dangerous movie".

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Criterion's latest version of The Killing gets top marks in this Christopher Aguiar review. I particularly liked this insight into the film:

The Killing often operates as a film about making movies. Johnny Clay is Kubrick in this reading. Both assemble teams, both decide on an end-goal and both craft a plan to get from point A to point B. Much like filmmaking, Clay needs his counterparts to pull their own weight. His wrestler friend has to instigate the bar brawl, Cook Jr. has to ensure that every door remains open. Without their collaboration, Clay cannot carry out his heist. Without the collaboration of his actors and writers, Kubrick cannot assemble his story. As aforementioned, it is the small unconsidered details that can derail a heist. The same can be said about filmmaking. You consider all the variables, but then it may rain on set – at that point, your period of filmmaking for the day is, effectively, over.

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Someone over at the Ultimate Guitar website's forum decided to do the sort of thing I've been doing at Kubrick U for a while now, and assembled a collection of music videos that reference the films of Stanley Kubrick. Their list features such diverse artists as Kanye West and Lady Gaga to Blur and Guns and Roses. One that was new to me was this one for "Time is Running Out" by neo-prog band Muse. Enjoy!

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In this article for the Daily Trojan, British directorial phenomenon Edgar Wright cites "his parents’ favorite filmmakers as vital to his creative upbringing, specifically choreographer Busby Berkeley and directors Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick." It's enough to make this would-be filmmaker feel really, really old and past my due date.

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In a recent article for The Drive, entitled 'Autonomous Cars and the Great Failure to Communicate', Eric Adams explores how "Aviation can help carmakers learn to talk to drivers, but they'd be better off asking Stanley Kubrick." After going over some of the mistakes that current industry leaders are making in this area, Adams explains how his own...

...gold-standard reference has actually become—in all seriousness—Stanley Kubrick. Go watch 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968 and look at the control panels of the separate spacecraft used to reach orbit, fly to the Moon, translate across the lunar surface, and, later in the film, operate the extravehicular activity pods. Those aren’t the whimsical riffs of a 60s set designer; they’re thought-out projections of what human-machine interfaces would be like in a more advanced technological society, envisioned by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay. Some are more complicated than others, but the gist is the same: The system does the thinking and tells the operator what he or she needs to know. Take that left-hand screen (below) with the automatic landing guides and replace it with a big green arrow, and it could be the next semi-autonomous Cadillac.

 

I’m guessing, by the way, that it’s likely that when Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos unveil the control panels for their own spacecraft at SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively, they’ll look more like a Kubrick creation than, say, the overwhelmingly complex Space Shuttle of yore—simple, clean, with necessary data, sure, but not incomprehensible boatloads of it.

It's a thought provoking article that should appeal to techies of every stripe, Kubrick fan or no. 

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As part of his brisk review of the 1972 giallo Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, critic Matthew Lickona goes off on an extended Kubrick-related tangent:

A bit of serendipity: last week, I happened upon Jon Ronson’s short documentary Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes, about the years he spent sifting through the director’s dizzying, even terrifying collection of research material, fan letters, memos, etc. Kubrick was famous for being incredibly exacting, for maintaining a level of precision and care that made every frame matter. But it cost him: Waterloo came out and flopped while he was still in pre-production on his Napoleon epic, and the spooked studios killed the project. (The reams of research material for that one were eventually transformed into a book, subtitled The Greatest Movie Never Made*.) The same thing happened with his planned Holocaust movie — Spielberg made Schindler’s List in the time it took Kubrick to do his research. And Full Metal Jacket famously got beaten to the punch by Platoon. There’s much to admire in The Shining. But there’s also much to enjoy in this brisk, brusque, bloody, bawdy Italian cheapie.

*See above for the unboxing of the book in question.

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Witness 23 minutes of gameplay demo from Lust for Darkness, a videogame that's being called "Eyes Wide Shut meets HP Lovecraft" by some reviewers.

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In the context of an interview about his most recent turn as the Devil in American Satan, Malcolm McDowell continues to use his public appearances as a chance to explore his evolving feelings re: his relationship with Kubrick, particularly about how things went down after they finished working on Clockwork Orange together:

McDowell is aware he still gets recognized for his most iconic character, that of Alex, a sadistic gang leader in 1971’s “A Clockwork Orange”. Still, nearly 50 years later, McDowell is grateful for the chance to take on one of Hollywood’s most recognizable bad boys. 

“… I have to say I’m more than thrilled that I did it all those years ago with a great director who was an amazing co-conspirator if you like,” he explained. “It was great fun working with [director] Stanley [Kubrick], and I really loved him. We produced an incredible piece of work that’s there for all time… It defines my career... which is fine! And listen, I’m very happy to have an iconic movie. It’s a great piece of work. And I’m very proud of it. And it opened many doors for me.” 

While McDowell considered Kubrick to be a wonderful collaborator, their friendship would ultimately dissolve. McDowell wouldn't give specific details on what caused the relationship to crumble, but he admitted they never stayed in touch after an incident tore them apart. Kubrick died in 1999 at age 70. 

“We fell out and I think this is something I regret,” admitted McDowell. “My pride prevented me from picking up the phone and just saying, ‘Hi Stan, how are you doing?’ It was silly, really… I was really pissed with him, I thought what he did to me was really an injustice… I felt very injured by him and I was really annoyed for many, many years. But you know what? I made a mistake… And I had my wife begging me to call him, but I went, ‘Nope, he can call me! Why can’t he call? Why should it always be me?’ But you know, that’s so stupid. That kind of pig-headed… I admit it. I was wrong.” 

When Kubrick died in his home in England, McDowell didn’t know how to cope with the news. 

“The family then reached out,” he said. “And I was very glad to go see them. 

“Christiane, his widow, took me to where he’s buried in the back garden basically. And I burst into tears. And I realized, it all came out. The thing that I buried and stuffed inside me. And I realized what an idiot I’ve been… Unfortunately, I can’t change it now, but at least I realized how stupid I was.”

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AV Club discusses Ridley Scott discussing Bladerunner's debt(s) to Stanley Kubrick, in specific re: the "eye shine" exhibited by Replicants, and in a major casting decision... but it's all in the WiReD video, above, so you don't really need to click through to learn more.

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The winner of the 2017 Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award was... Matt Damon. Now, I've got nothing against Matt Damon. I think he's a pretty good actor and I'm sure he's nice, as far as big time Hollywood actors go. But, well, the award is supposed to be given to individuals “upon whose work is stamped the indelible mark of authorship and commitment, and who has lifted the craft to new heights.” Is Matt Damon really the individual who best represents these qualities in 2017? Oh well... considering the fact that past recipients include Robert Downey Jr., George Clooney, Warren Beatty, Tom Cruise, and Tom Hanks... maybe being a nice, handsome guy with the right political opinions and whose filmic output is occasionally slightly thought-provoking and rarely if ever prurient garbage is all it takes.

This, however, brings up a potential avenue for speculation. If YOU had to nominate someone for a Kubrick-related award, who would it be, and why? Answers in the comments section, please!

'CLOCKWORK ORANGE' AND 'THE SHINING' AS OTTOMAN MINIATURES

From Dangerous Minds:

Artist Murat Palta has created a fantastic series of works in which he juxtaposes a famous scene from a well-known film with the style of an “Ottoman miniature” painting. The results may alter a viewer’s perception of said films as Palta’s subjects wear expressionless faces in his paintings—despite (for the most part) being stuck in the midst of all kinds of fictional chaos and mayhem.

Hailing from Turkey, Palta’s first cinematic/Ottoman mashup from 2011 combined characters and scenes from Star Wars and received so much attention that he decided to take on a few other memorable movie scenes. Such as the bloodbath at the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill, Jack Nicholson’s door-smashing mental breakdown in The Shining and a scene from A Clockwork Orange where the Droogs and Alex DeLarge (played by Malcolm McDowell) put the boot in on a homeless man just for, ahem, kicks. 

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re going to dig Palta’s paintings as much as I did. You can also view them in more detail over at Palta’s “Classic Movies in Minature Style” page on Behance. That said, some might be considered slightly NSFW.

 

CLOCKWORK ORANGE BUBBLEGUM CARDS!

Over at Dangerous Minds, they always manage to dig up the coolest stuff. And they're big Kubrick nuts, too, which is great for us! Because that means when they find mind-bending creations like this incredible collection of hauntologically perfect bubblegum trading cards for Clockwork Orange, they just can't help but share with the rest of us! Here's the story of the cards as told by Bubblegum Fink, the creator of the now defunct art blog from whence they first emerged...

A Clockwork Orange is another set of trading cards, like The Wicker Man, that never could have existed at the time the film was released. But now, I would rush out to buy a box. Wouldn’t you? I’m happy with the card design, but less so with the Clockwork Orange font which I wish had been a little sharper. To do it over again, I’d just get rid of it. Of course, the cards represent a sort of edited-for-television version of the film, and it’s also the shortest set I’ve done at only 33 cards.

Click through to the Dangerous Minds story, linked above, for more information, more cards, and for that Wicker Man set I'm sure you're all dying to check out!

KUBRICK NEWS IN BRIEF JANUARY 18, 2017

Artist Michael Whaite's mashup of The Shining and Pac-Man is nothing short of sheer effing genius.

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OH NO!!! HAIR BY LEONARD IS DEAD!

On September 11 of 2014, I wrote this blog post in appreciation of beloved London hairdresser Leonard Lewis, more fondly remembered by we Kubrick fans as the subject for that most memorable of movie title cards: "Hair by Leonard". Just this week, the legendary stylist who coiffed everyone from Twiggy to the Beatles has passed on. He was 78... and no doubt fabulous to the last.

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Here's a video of some bunnies re-creating Clockwork Orange in under a minute's time. They manage to get a surprising amount in there!

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In Eastern University's The Waltonian, Billy Faulkner has penned an essay on "Mental Illness and the Arts: The Case of Shelley Duvall". Being the work of a student, it is short on substance and packed with factual errors (check out how badly Faulkner messes up the context of the shooting schedule for The Shining), but hey... it's short, so why not read it?

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MovieFone has put together a list of Seventeen Clockwork Orange Facts that YOU Didn't Know! Turns out I knew every single one of them. How many did YOU know? Play along and find out!

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Watch this Hollywood Reporter video to see Manchester by the Sea director Kenneth Lonergan talk about Kubrick's influence on his work. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/as-ways-make-a-film-as-are-films-says-manchester-by-sea-writer-director-kenneth-lonergan-writer

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Looks like the mega-budget science fiction wannabe epic Passengers is more Interstellar than Arrival when it comes to living up to the promise of 2001: A Space Odyssey. At least, that's what the critics seem to be saying. I'm still kind of curious about it.

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And let's finish off this edition of Kubrick News In Brief (the KNIBs!) with yet another gorgeous piece of Shining artwork... and what do you know! Once again, we're bringing you the work of Michael Whaite! This guy is a next level illustrator, an Omega Mutant artistic talent.

NEW CLOCKWORK ORANGE ARTWORK BY RORY KURTZ

Mondo artist Rory Kurtz shares his opinions on Clockwork Orange, as well as other films for which he has created exclusive poster artwork.

KUBRICK NEWS IN BRIEF ~ SEPTEMBER 3, 2016

Playing catch-up here at Kubrick U, here's a London Guardian article from July featuring an interview with artist Philip Castle about his awesome airbrush illustrations that featured so prominently in the Clockwork Orange posters and promotional campaign. Castle also painted the Full Metal Jacket poster, and did a bunch more illustrations for that film, but most of it went unused (see above). Not to worry, though... most of it appears in Taschen's absolutely essential Stanley Kubrick Archives, which was recently re-released in a smaller, ridiculously affordable edition! Buy it from this link if you're in Canada, or this link if you're in the USA, and I'll get a few shekels in my beggin' cup!

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Speaking of ACO, the New York Post reports that a galley proof copy of the book Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange featuring hand-written marginalia by Kubrick himself has come up for auction, and lawyers for Kubrick's estate are warning any potential buyers that publishing such an artifact for mass consumption would probably be a very bad idea, lawsuit-wise. The Belfast Telegraph had a more thorough (and timely) report, but I haven't been able to find any news about the auction results. If anybody out there knows anything, clue me in!

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In the inaugural entry of a recent Washington Post series on "all the ways America could come to an end", writer Sonny Bunch examines all the ways that Dr Strangelove scrambled the brains of audiences and more serious-minded critics, alike. It's a short, punchy piece, and my favorite bits are definitely when Bunch quotes clearly upset entertainment industry (key word there) trade columnists, like Bosley Crowther, who said of the film: "Somehow, to me, it isn’t funny. It is malefic and sick." Somebody ought to come up with a word describing when someone simultaneously gets the point, and yet also thoroughly fails to realize that they have gotten it. Leave suggestions for such a word in the comments section, please!

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I don't watch the show, myself, but according to Slate, the final episode of the most recent season of the "autismsploitation" TV series Mr Robot featured an extended "homage" to Stanley Kubrick's films, including Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining, and Dr. Strangelove. This should come as little surprise to the show's fans, as creator Sam Esmail, who claims he used to hold Kubrick movie marathons at his suburban home when he was a teen, declared in an interview with Vulture that “one of the biggest influences on the show is Stanley Kubrick in general.”

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Last but not least comes word that incredibly ballsy Canadian wunderkind Matt Johnson's circuitous moon landing mockumentary-cum-satire Operation Avalanche - filmed under highly illegal circumstances on location at NASA for fuck's sake - is just about ready to invade the hearts and minds of Kubrickophiles, parapolitical paranoids, prank fans and lovers of good, old fashioned conspiracy thrillers the world over. No Moonwalkers, here, folks! You've got to shake that shambling waste of celluloid right out of your ganglia by, first, taking a look at Operation Avalanche's great new trailer...

...and then, viddy this joint Sundance interview with Johnson, his editor and producer, wherein they detail the ridiculous lengths to which they went in order to achieve absolute versimilitude... and maximum cinematic legend status. Much as I hate to admit it about one so young, but this Johnson kid is the real deal, in yer old pal Jerky's opinion. Check out his Kevin Smith-enabled The Dirties for a taste of his raging early potential.

AWESOME NEW CLOCKWORK ORANGE POSTER

UPDATE!!!

Seeing as the image link below is broken, and seeing as the people who were selling it as both a print and a t-shirt no longer have it up for sale at their site, and seeing as I can't even find a link anywhere online for it, I'm going to go ahead and assume that Warner Bros sent them a cease and desist, and they complied, post-haste. I'm going to leave this broken link up here as a kind of tribute to the fragile impermanence of digital culture. If I ever find out what went down, I'll obviously be filling you guys in. - Yer Old Pal Jerky

The only change I would have made is to have the nipples bleeding milk instead of blood. Otherwise, this is gorgeous. You can purchase this beautiful piece of art (and a variant) at Cult Classic Prints.

PETER SELLERS HATED CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Our fellow Kubrick fans over at the Dangerous Minds website have dug up a 1972 interview with Kubrick veteran Peter Sellers conducted by Kubrick fan Gene Siskel in which the former replies to the latter's query re: Stanley's latest in the bluntest possible terms:

I hated ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ I thought it was the biggest load of crap I’ve ever seen for years. Amoral. I think because of the violence around today it’s lamentable that a director of Stanley Kubrick’s distinction and ability should lend himself to such a subject. I’m not saying that you can’t pick up that book [the Anthony Burgess novel upon which the film is based], read it, and put it down. But to make it as a film, with all the violence we have in the world today – to add to it, to put it on show – I just don’t understand where Stanley is at.

There's more. Read all about it at Dangerous Minds.

KUBRICK, THE BEATLES, AND THE ROLLING STONES

The Beatles almost starred in Lord of The Rings and the Rolling Stones almost made A Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubrick was tapped by both.

Interesting new article covering Stanley Kubrick's almost-but-not-quite partnership(s) with rock's two biggest acts, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (with a brief mention of his almost-but-not-quite partnership with, arguably, rock's third biggest act, Pink Floyd). The circuitous tale of juggled movie rights to two hot literary properties - The Lord of the Rings and A Clockwork Orange - really helps illustrate the huge role that chance plays in cinematic history. It reads, in part:

Like their albums, The Beatles wanted each of their films to be different from the one before. A Hard Day's Night was a mock-documentary. Help! was a James Bond spoof written by Marc Behm and Charles Wood. The Beatles again played versions of The Beatles. Their films’ producer Walter Shenson said the band wanted to play something other than themselves. Before J. R. R. Tolkien sold the film rights for The Lord of the Rings to United Artists, who produced A Hard Day’s Night, in 1969, The Beatles thought it might fulfill their contract nicely. Lennon, one of the best songwriters in music contacted Stanley Kubrick, one of the best directors in the movies, to make it. Lennon reportedly wanted to play Gollum. He cast Paul as Frodo, Ringo as Sam, and George as Gandalf.

J.R.R. Tolkien, who was an English professor at Oxford at the time, was initially in favor of the idea. ... Stanley Kubrick had not yet screwed Pink Floyd out of doing the music for his masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ever the perfectionist filmmaker, Kubrick told Lennon that he suspected the novel Lord of The Rings was too big to be filmed.

And then, coming in second as always, came The Rolling Stones, and their - or more specifically Mick Jagger's - attempts to bring Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange to the silver screen. The article continues:

(Stones associate Andrew) Oldham discovered the novel while he lived with Jagger and Richards in London in 1964. He wanted to make the anti-A Hard Day’s Night. 

“I couldn’t get the rights to make A Clockwork Orange because Anthony Burgess thought that he had cancer and just wrote furiously and took money in from others,” Oldham told contactmusic.com in 2007. 

In 1967, while the Rolling Stones were making Their Satanic Majesties Request, they reportedly started a collaboration with photographer Michael Cooper to produce a film adaptation A Clockwork Orange with Terry Southern. Southern wrote the novel Candy, which would be made into a soft porn movie with Ringo Starr. The Stones wanted Richard Lester to direct and wanted David Hemmings, the star of Blow Up and Barbarella, to play Alex. 

Terry Southern was the man who introduced Stanley Kubrick to A Clockwork Orange. He’d given a copy to the director when Kubrick was adapting his Dr. Strangelove.

More at the link. Not much... but more.

CLOCKWORK ORANGE BABIES?!

Brazil-based graphic designer Butcher Billy has created some visually striking designs for a project that he refers to as A Clockwork Orange Babies. Oh, and in case you're so blown away by his designs that you'd like to cover your carcass with them, BB puts his designs on t-shirts, posters and other such collectibles and tchotchkes, and sells them via his online store. Enjoy!