Along with his skittish wife (Shelley Duvall) and clairvoyant son, an out of work alcoholic writer (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, a position which has inspired madness and murder in its not too recent history. Stanley Kubrick's ice cold adaptation of Stephen King's novel is one of the most chilling  ever and it is doubtful, especially in this day and age, that there will ever be a more exacting horror movie ever made. Jack is way way over the top but Duvall is highly effective and Scatman Crothers is excellent in support.

**** out of ****

The rise and fall of Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal), an Irishman born to modest means in the late 18th Century who finds himself exiled from his village following a duel over a flame, robbed blind of all possessions, serving and deserting in two armies, before acquainting with a disreputable cardsharp and weasling his way into high society but finding himself unable to keep his footing there. Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, from a Thackeray novel, is among the coldest, most calculated, and painstaking of all his features which also bears some of the most striking and pristine cinematography ever put to film, courtesy of John Alcott. O'Neal's performance is underplayed and excellent while given great support by a company of virtual unknowns. The film is long and slow-burning, but extremely involving and endlessly fascinating.

**** out of ****

Humbert Humbert, a British gentleman and emigree haunted by a lost childhood sweetheart, falls in love with his landlady's precocious pre-adolescent daughter and dreams of a future with the two of them together. When Vladimir Nabokov's not only highly controversial but literate, layered, and thought to be unfilmable novel was billed to the public as a film adaptation in 1962, it came with the tagline "How did they ever make a movie out of Lolita?" And yet it was remade again 35 years later, though under much more relaxed censoring conditions. Stanley Kubrick's initial version (with a script credited solely to Nabokov) is pristinely filmed in black and white, with James Mason as Humbert and Peter Sellers (whose role in the book as the chameleon like, and equally lecherous Quigley got an upgrade in the movie) both extraordinary. However, the film's ending is soapy and offers too many explanations. Adrian Lyne's 1997 remake is probably (after hesitating to say and again given the times) the superior film version. Although, in contrast, the film is too explicit, it cuts closer to the essence of Nabokov's novel, contains pristine cinematography, and features an ideal Humbert in Jeremy Irons.

1962 version: *** 1/2 out of ****

1997 version: *** 1/2 out of ****

An Air Force general (Sterling Hayden) has just flown off the handle and issues an aerial attack order on Russia, one which will surely result in global annihilation. When he takes his own life as the only person with knowledge of the deactivation code, it is up to his upright British assistant (Peter Sellers) to hurriedly collaborate with the President (Sellers again) and his team of advisors headed by another manic general (George C. Scott), who place their final hopes on a shifty, spasmodic former Nazi scientist (Sellers once more). Stanley Kubrick's classic satire, which he scripted with Terry Southern and Peter George from the latter's book Red Alert, is farcical black comedy pitched at the highest level with frightening implications which are still relevant to this day. Sellers disappears into three disparate roles, generating laughs from all angles and receives uproarious support from Scott, Hayden, and Slim Pickens, who plays the commander of Hayden's bomber, all portraying incompetent zealots.

A group of primates happen upon a large, metallic pillar and soon discover the ability to make simple tools and weapons. Fast forward several thousand millennia to the title year where a similar structure has been discovered dispatching messages to Jupiter, where a two man crew and an eerie, self-thinking supercomputer have been sent to investigate. From an Arthur C. Clarke novel, Stanley Kubrick's visionary masterwork can be seen as a challenging piece of science fiction and as a mesmerizing visual wonder. It unfolds at a deliberate pace and features excellent photography and state of the art special effects (which still haven't been equalled) meshed perfectly with classical music. It also contains one of the finest villainous "performances" from the HAL 9000.

In the trenches of WWI, a vain and callous general (George Macready) orders of suicidal open field which ends with the expected, disastrous results. To save face, he orders his lieutenants to offer up three soldiers to be tried for their lives in a military tribunal, where they are to be defended by one of their commanding officers (Kirk Douglas), who is sickened by the way his military is conducting itself. Paths of Glory is harrowing and impeccably made antiwar classic from Stanley Kubrick, who adapted Humphrey Cobb's novel. It features extraordinary visuals, most notably in the charge sequence, and a range of great performances from a powerful Douglas to the despicable generals Macready and Adolphe Menjou to the trio of prisoners played by Ralph Meeker, Joe Turkel, and the very affecting Timothy Carey. It's denouement comes as a swift kick to the teeth and is followed by a brilliant, anomalous sequence that still offers a glimmer of hope. With Paths of Glory, one of the first films where he had both creative control and a budget, not only is Kubrick's technical prowess evident, he made a powerful and lasting statement on courage and cowardice.

"Room 237" proudly bills itself as a subjective, amateur analysis of "The Shining" and gathers a handful of obsessive fans (aka crackpots) who expostulate their different conspiratorial theories of Stanley Kubrick's film. These range from plausible to engrossingly ludicrous while other interpretations are poorly conveyed, inane, or simply boring. As a fan of the film and Stephen King's book, I found myself engaged, but I think the only truth the film really uncovers are the pitfalls of widespread home viewing and the pathetic idolatry it has inspired.