The Newman Sinclair

There’s a part in A Clockwork Orange where Alex (Malcolm McDowell) jumps out of a window. The shot is done from his point of view as he falls. I’d heard before that Stanley Kubrick accomplished this by dropping a camera, but not this:

We bought an old Newman Sinclair clockwork mechanism camera (no pun intended) for £50. It’s a beautiful camera and it’s built like a battleship. We made a number of polystyrene boxes which gave about eighteen inches of protection around the camera, and cut out a slice for the lens. We then threw the camera off a roof. In order to get it to land lens first, we had to do this six times and the camera survived all six drops.

—Interviews with Stanley Kubrick

Six takes!

Todd Alcott on The Shining

Screenwriter Todd Alcott’s seven-part series on The Shining: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Lots of great insight into the film, its structure, and who the actual protagonist is. I hadn’t heard this one:

One of my favorite factoids regarding the movie is that Kubrick didn’t just have a ream of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” typed up, no — he had reams and reams typed up, in different languages, one for every major territory the movie would play in — Spanish, Italian, French, German, etc., all with a regional phrase specific to the territory. Production Assistant on a Kubrick movie must have been the worst job available in show business.

(via)

F/X Porn

What’s the difference between a Hollywood special-effects blockbuster like “Terminator 2” and a hard-core porn film? Very little, claims novelist, essayist and footnote fetishist David Foster Wallace.

—F/X Porn

[As a rule I dislike the use of “(blank) Porn” (e.g. “Torture Porn”) but I’ll let it slide here because this was written over a decade ago and by DFW.]

The Suits of James Bond

The Suits of James Bond

127 Hours

And that’s why you always leave a note.

—J. Walter Weatherman

I’ve been a fan of Danny Boyle’s films since Trainspotting, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go see 127 Hours. A movie based on the true story of a hiker who gets trapped under a rock and has to cut off his own arm? Wouldn’t that be unbearable to watch? Turns out, yes and no.

Honestly, if you’re squeamish, you can still watch this movie. The whole thing is tense, but it only gets really bad for about two minutes. If you’re worried you can’t take the arm-cutting, here’s my advice: after about an hour and fifteen minutes, he realizes what he has to do. The scene starts with him breaking his own arm. When that happens, leave the theater for three minutes, then come back. You’ll be fine and he’ll be free.

I stayed, and it was an overwhelming but rewarding experience. When he finally gets free, my heart rate was elevated and I took a bunch of hurried breaths to release the tension. It’s amazing what James Franco pulls off, doing a whole movie stuck in what looks like a tiny chasm. He has to carry the film single handedly, so to speak, and does.

What The Old Timers Used To Call Cabin Fever

From left to right, every costume change Jack makes in The Shining.

I'm Here

I’m Here is a brilliant, stylish short film by Spike Jonze. I highly recommend you take twenty minutes and watch it.

This is the sort of thing the internet makes great. Short films are hard to get in front of people because networks don’t run them and they don’t fill seats in movie theaters, but you can put them online and people can watch them. I question the decision to build the whole site in Flash, though. Wouldn’t it be better to offer a download so people can watch it on their iPod or stream it to their TV?

Thirty-Five Images of Space Helmet Reflections

from 3 Ton Gallery

Kubrick

Tony Frewin and Leon Vitali, who’d been working as Stanley’s assistants for years, said there was a staff joke about the one phrase you would never hear at Childwick Bury, and a week after Stanley’s death someone actually said it to them. It went, “Use your own judgment, and don’t bother me with the details.” His concerns ran from the ethereal-aesthetic through the technical to the crudely logistical, no detail too prosaic, all the way down to stationery and paper clips.

—“Kubrick” from Vanity Fair

George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It's Okay

Fascinating, in-depth piece on where the ideas for Chewie came from and how the character developed through various drafts. I especially like the aside pointing out that Chewie really doesn’t do anything in any of the movies except add needed flair.

Roger Ebert Presents at the Movies

“This is the rebirth of a dream,” said Ebert, who partnered in recent years with Richard Roeper before cancer robbed him of the ability to speak. He said he will act as co-producer and employ a computer voice to appear on every episode with segments titled Roger’s Office devoted to classic, overlooked and new films.

Chicago Sun-Times

Hugo Awards

Moon, starring Sam Rockwell and directed by Duncan Jones, won this year’s Hugo for “Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form”. I recommend it highly. Here’s the Netflix link.

The Doctor Who episode “The Waters of Mars” won for short form, and was very good science fiction. All you need to know is that The Doctor is a time-traveller. Netflix link

I’ve also read China Miéville’s The City & the City. I liked it a lot but I think people expected something from him and were put off when it wasn’t weird enough.

Kier Dullea on 2001

“You’ve just been offered the lead in Stanley Kubrick’s next film.”

Kier Dullea on 2001

Criterion Collection on Netflix

Here is a list of the films from the Criterion Collection that are available for instant streaming on Netflix. Now to find the time.

Lunatic at Large

The Guardian:

Among the discarded projects of the famously fastidious Stanley Kubrick are “lost” movies about Napoleon Bonaparte, the Holocaust and the American civil war. Now, 11 years after his death, a treatment by the legendary film-maker titled Lunatic at Large looks set to make it to the big screen, with Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell attached to star.

3D After Avatar

Avatar was unquestionably a major feat of movie-making. It looked amazing and the 3D effects were stunning. But the trend of 3D movies that had already been mounting and which Avatar cemented means we're going to start getting overcharged for a lot of subpar 3D (not to mention fake IMAX). Essentially, I feel that 3D rarely enhances the movie-going experience, and at worst rips us off, dulls the color and brightness of the picture, and gives people headaches. As Roger Ebert puts it, "3-D is a distracting, annoying, anti-realistic, juvenile abomination to use as an excuse for higher prices." I don't hate 3D, but I think it's becoming a gimmick that takes away from the craft of making a good film.

Some links:

1. Entertainment Weekly's "3-D Movies: What You Need To Know" explains that most 3D movies coming out this year were not filmed in 3D but are instead being converted after the fact. While Avatar was conceived as a 3D picture from the start, these movies, like Clash of the Titans, were not. It'll be a few years before new releases come out that were shot in 3D from the start. Movies coming out this year will have had the third dimension added manually by effects companies.

2. Writing for Nikke Finke's Deadline, Mike Fleming's article includes quotes from Michael Bay about how bad the experiments he's done in 3D conversions look:

   "I am trying to be sold, and some companies are still working on the shots I gave them," Bay said. "Right now, it looks like fake 3D, with layers that are very apparent. You go to the screening room, you are hoping to be thrilled, and you’re thinking, huh, this kind of sucks. People can say whatever they want about my movies, but they are technically precise, and if this isn’t going to be excellent, I don’t want to do it."

3. Hollywood Reporter's "How 'Avatar' changed the rules of deliverables" explains that James Cameron's team wound up making 100 different versions of the film to make sure that it looked great on different combinations of screen and projector type:

   To optimize the experience for different screens sizes, Cameron made the decision to complete the movie in three aspect ratios: Scope (2:39:1), flat (1:85:1) and Imax (1:43:1). "You are not going to see many directors releasing in different aspect ratios, as most pick their canvas and that is their format," Fox vp postproduction Steve Barnett says.

   Adds [Fox Postproduction President Ted] Gagliano: "Jim wanted the biggest image possible. If you had a theater (where the biggest image possible meant using) movable masking that went up for flat, he preferred the theater run flat. If there was a theater that increased the size of the image by opening it side-to-side to accommodate scope, he wanted to run scope."

   In some cases, a single multiplex required different versions for different auditorium configurations.

   Creative decisions involving light levels also led to additional versions. 3D projection and glasses cut down the light the viewer sees, so "Avatar" also had separate color grades at different light levels, which are measured in foot lamberts.

   "If we had just sent out one version of the movie, it would have been very dark (in the larger theaters)," Barnett says. "We had a very big flow chart with all of the different steps, so we could send the right media to the right theater."

That Kubrick level of care about the entire work, from pre-production to distribution, is what separates Avatar from the rest of the herd. Many filmmakers are putting that level of effort into their movies and, from what I've read, it's a shame that the 3D trend may be dulling some of that work.

More on Grant Morrison's 18 Days

Perspective Studios has published a set of notes by Grant Morrison on his upcoming animated series, 18 Days, which will retell the Mahbharata as a crazy sci-fi anime. Also, Bleeding Cool reports that Dynamite Entertainment will produce a hardcover this spring containing artwork and behind-the-scenes stuff. Comic Book Resources has a few quotes from Morrison about the Dynamite book.

Peter and the Wolf

Recommended companion to Fantastic Mr. Fox: Suzie Templeton’s 2008 Academy Award-nominated, stop motion-animated Peter and the Wolf short. If you have Netflix, you can stream it.

Pixar Intro Parody

Did not see that coming. “Pixar Intro Parody”. Poor Luxo, Jr.

Flatware From 2001

Alice Rawsthorn writes about the Arne Jacobsen flatware Stanley Kubrick used for his astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s available from the MoMA store.