stanley kubrick

Barry Lyndon

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Barry aims a pistol

Barry Lyndon tends to get summed up in one of two ways. It’s either Stanley Kubrick’s visually sensational magnum opus and a triumph of film-making at every level, or it’s a bit of a bore, a “one thing after another” drama with not much actual drama in it. Both are true. Adapting William Makepeace Thackeray’s story about a young Irish chancer’s escapades, it follows young Barry, original name Raymond Barry, from his first shy encounter with his sexy, cock-teasting cousin Nora (Gay Hamilton), through a series of adventures criss-crossing wartorn 18th-century Europe. To survive in the world Barry signs up for whichever army will have him – no scruples – and plugs away … Read more

The Killing

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Johnny lays out the plan to the gang

Stanley Kubrick really gets going with 1956’s The Killing, the first of his grand march through the genres. Paths of Glory, Lolita, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut would follow but here Kubrick’s attempt to do genre movies in a distinctively different way focuses on film noir, and in particular the noirish heist. Yes, there had been earlier movies, Killer’s Kiss and Fear and Desire, but Kubrick considered those the training warm-ups of the ambitious amateur rather than considered finished products. Here, thanks to a partnership with producer James Harris, he had enough money and enough technical talent behind and in … Read more

2001: A Space Odyssey

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Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 5 October Steve Jobs dies, 2011 On this day in 2011, Steven Paul Jobs died in Palo Alto, California, aged 56, of metastatic cancer of the pancreas. Famously fired in 1985 from Apple, the company he had started along with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, he went on to co-found Pixar, before being dramatically taken back by Apple in 1996, taking the company from near-bankruptcy back into profitability in two years. Jobs is often described as a visionary and regardless of whether you believe this was hype he had two insights which set him apart from his rivals. First, … Read more