Kubrick news

[Johann]

Incredible news for fans of Stanley Kubrick:
Criterion is releasing The Killing in August.
Added will be new interview with James B. Harris, clips w/ Sterling Hayden from archives and Kubrick's 1955 film Killer's Kiss.
Worth the money I'd say.

And in case you've been living under a rock lately, A limited edition box set of 9 Kubrick features has just been released on Blu-Ray.
($99 here in Canada). There's also a regular DVD box (not limited) for $69.99. The Blu-Ray set has a small hardcover book included.

Leon Vitali, Kubrick's trusted estate manager/Red Cloak/Bullingdon, spent years working on the Blu-Ray transfers.
Stanley would be proud, Leon!
Bless you Sir!
I laminated the 2-page spread of the news of the Blu-Ray release from the Ottawa Sun. Malcolm McDowell says:
There was nobody better than Kubrick. No one has a list of Masterpieces like him.
I agree 1000%.

There are scores of great directors, and film buffs can debate until the end of time which one was the best or the greatest.
For me Stanley Kubrick is unmatched.
The bottom line is that Kubrick's talent was simply impeccable. He knew what he was doing at every turn.
He was so far ahead of everybody else it's astonishing.
the Coens, P.T. Anderson and Christopher Nolan are the only current directors who seem to be aiming for immortality like Kubrick did.
You'd think Kubrick would have inspired more people!
No students?
Only admirers?
Shame.
Steven Spielberg should dust off Kubrick's 1968 script for Napoleon.
Shoot it as is. No changes.
Just get the locations, costumes, cast and sets underway.
Build that movie!
What a gift it would be to the world and to cinema history!

[Chris Knipp]

What about Werner Herzog? Oh I forgot, he's just the greatest living. Kubrick's dead!

[Johann]

When you take into account what makes a director great or "better" than others, you have to look at his work.
The style, the craft, the intent, the daring, the boldness, the originality, and a command of the medium are all required in order to be considered "better" than other directors or filmmakers.

And I think PASSION must be dripping from your film. If not in the content, then most definitely in the craft.
Kubrick always came from a place of awesome style and awesome content. He said it himself: when you marry content and style then you have the best of all possible films.
Most great directors know and understand this.

Scorsese.
Herzog.
Greenaway.
Lynch.
Brakhage.
Kurosawa.
Fassbinder.
Tarantino.

The list is endless for directors whose passion for filmmaking is beyond obvious.
Those are the ones who are to be admired and followed and re-visited time and time again.
Stanley Kubrick has even more going for him then the others: he was a photographer since he was a teen and he had the intelligence to make his films so potent they reveal more and more depth to the subject matter and even larger themes dealing with Man with each viewing.
How many directors have the foresight and intellect to have meaning behind meaning?
And how hard is that to accomplish in the noisy, uncomfortable arena of a movie set?
Juggling a giant production?
Kubrick made MAXIMUM use of his time on earth.
It's all there, like a quixotic map.
Stand back in Awe.

Herzog's still alive (as of this writing) and who can say that he's not using every second of his life to give us and the cinematic medium great gifts?
No one.

[Johann]

If you like Stanley Kubrick then you should also like:

Nietzsche
Arthur C. Clarke
Kafka
The Golden Bough
Reitz' Heimat series
Fritz Lang
Chaplin
Eisenstein
The Godfather/Apocalypse Now
Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night
Fellini
Pulp Fiction
Boogie Nights
Scorsese
Woody Allen
Carlos Saura
Kieslowski's Dekalog
Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest
ERASERHEAD
PLATOON
van Gogh
Klimt
Beethoven
The Beatles
short wave radios
chess
Citizen Kane
Nabokov
David Lean
Max Ophuls


because The Grand Master himself liked all of those things and Many Many Many More. The man had an EXPANSIVE intelligence.

[Johann]

I bought the Blu-Ray Limited Edition Kubrick 10-disc box.
It's got a hardcover book with it but there isn't tons of writing in it. (small book).
There's a big problem with this set: you have to be very careful when removing the DVD's.
They are in cardboard sleeves, and they are wedged so damn tight in there that you run a very high risk of scratching or damaging the disc you are trying to remove. I don't know whose idea it was to go with hard cardboard sleeves over trays but it annoys me.
The sleeves make the set more like a book/brick, but hey, I already got a scratch on my Spartacus disc just from pulling it out of the sleeve!
That's not cool.
And watch your fingerprints...I use latex gloves to remove these DVD's. They're that valuable to me.

I'll post reviews of each movie when I can. Some titles have amazing special features too.
Damn happy to have the limited edition set.

[Chris Knipp]

Congratulations on your set. Kubrick is a director whose work is well worth such an investment. I have trouble a lot with DVD's. When they are scratched they may not play through. Isn't it true that there were fewer problems with videotapes? At least they didn't stop, unless they were broken, which was very rare. Of course laser disks disintegrated, so it was said (mine haven't), as tapes do, so they say (mine haven't). They all do eventually. Our words are writ in water.

The newest technologies are the most fragile. Vinyl records. Now there's a good format. And books on good paper. Any book from the 18th century or before. I remember a librarian from a rare book room lecturing and saying that he was happy to report that most of the books of the last hundred years would not survive.

I could see his point.

What is the advantage of Blu-Ray, if you know, other than introducing another format they can charge more money for?