Kubrick didn't deserve his only oscar

[Johnny Textface]

So Doug Trumbull reckons anyway. It's really quite bizarre and incredibly embarrassing for the Oscars that he never won one for directing.  Doug does have a point I suppose.

Interesting interview here http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/2001a/page3.html

At the very least he should have won for Eyes Wide Shut in a Scorsese style. What utter cunts.  Ok wasn't his best film by any means but was sumptuously shot and directed.

Guardian article.. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/04/stanley-kubrick-did-not-deserve-oscar-2001-special-effects-douglas-trumbull

What was his best directed film I wonder? Probably Strangelove?

[Sam]

Eyes Wide Shut.

Great film, haters gonna hate tho.

[Noodle Lizard]

I think 'Eyes Wide Shut' is well good.

For directing he should have won as early as '2001', I reckon.  Maybe even 'Paths Of Glory'.  Fuck it, 'Spartacus' was well-directed even if it was, by his own admission, a cash-grab.  'The Killing'.  There really aren't many films he didn't deserve to win for.

I get Doug Trumbull's point, but his issue lies more with the Academy.  I'd say that Kubrick was far more hands-on with VFX than most directors, though, and oversaw everything.  I'd say they should have accepted it as a team.

[Johnny Textface]

I would argue with it being 'great'. It's a decent film, beautifully shot (xmas trees and lighting) and an amazing, if slightly restrained, orgy section. But bad casting choices, lack of independence with regards editing, and overly minimal soundtrack let it down for me. It's just good, but I absolutely love the final line, a fitting epitaph for a genius.

A Clockwork Orange, 2001, The Shining and Barry Lyndon are great. Strangelove is simply fantastic.

[Puce Moment]

Kubrick should have received ten academy awards for Best Director for his final ten films. Although if you look at the films that beat Kubrick's, you get an idea of how the academy awards functions.

[Noodle Lizard]

bad casting choices

Really?  Maybe in the sense that casting Hollywood's hot couple gave off the wrong impression to the critics/audiences, but I thought everyone in it was good.  The only bit I kind of wince at is when Nicole Kidman gets high.  That was some 'Reefer Madness' acting right there.

I fucking love that movie actually, gonna watch it again tonight.

[Johnny Textface]

Thought Cruise was all wrong and didn't buy him. He's always Tom Cruise. Kidman was ok I suppose at a push. I found the fact the were a real couple quite distracting. They obviously pushed for it. He's just not a gp, not old enough.

[newbridge]

Strangelove is my favorite thing Kubrick did, but a monkey could direct Peter Sellers and George C. Scott and end up with something fantastic. I think 2001 is the Kubrick film where I'm most cognizant of it being great "directing."

[Steven]

I didn't get the Tom Cruise casting either, but I suppose the film is about brainwashing cults and Cruise has his whole scientology thing, I don't know if Kubrick was using that in a duplicitous fashion but the film was a sort of attack of the Hollywood set or High Society so I'm not sure. The footage the studio edited out is another mystifying part, I don't know if it was inconsequential but doing it after his death was a bit of a dishonourable thing to do.

[biggytitbo]

His best work was the moon landing imho.

[Johnny Textface]

What did they edit?

[Ignatius_S]

So Doug Trumbull reckons anyway. It's really quite bizarre and incredibly embarrassing for the Oscars that he never won one for directing....

I'm not sure how much it is - how much do people really think that Oscars, like so many awards, are always distributed in a fair way?

Lots of people and films who deserved recognition, haven't been nominated, let alone been awarded such honours.

There's a lot of lobbying when it comes to voting and people get caught up in hype - there are films that seem wonderful at the time, but very quickly lose their reputation.

Did Carol Reed deserve an Oscar for Oliver! more than Kubrick for 2001? No, but there's a good argument that he should have received one for The Third Man, but a delay in the release - it opened a month before the awards - kiboshed that according to David Selznick. Korda realising how massive it was going to be, reneged on his deal and withheld the negative until Selznick agreed to give him a percentage of the American box office?

Has it hurt Kubrick's reputation? If anything, it demonstrates what a nonsense the Oscars are.

Kubrick should have received ten academy awards for Best Director for his final ten films. Although if you look at the films that beat Kubrick's, you get an idea of how the academy awards functions.

Not sure I would be so sweeping! Although I would say the first half of Full Metal Jacket is very good, it begins to peter out after the training and I can't honestly say that Kubrick deserved an Oscar over all other directors - for example, I would be more inclined towards Louis Malle (someone who never won a Oscar, incidentally) for Au Revoir Les Enfants.

[Steven]

What did they edit?

I have no idea, I think it's been reported that the studio took a few minutes out after Kubrick died, after seeing his final edit in a special screening. The conspiracy theory is the film was an expose on what High Society or Hollywood get up to and the satanic cults and orgies are an aspect of that, and therefore he was murdered and the film changed, and Kubrick died 666 days before 2001 etc etc. Not sure how much of that is bollocks but the film definitely seems to be about brainwashing and cult members hiding in the upper echelons of society, isn't it?

[biggytitbo]

I have no idea, I think it's been reported that the studio took a few minutes out after Kubrick died, after seeing his final edit in a special screening. The conspiracy theory is the film was an expose on what High Society or Hollywood get up to and the satanic cults and orgies are an aspect of that, and therefore he was murdered and the film changed, and Kubrick died 666 days before 2001 etc etc. Not sure how much of that is bollocks but the film definitely seems to be about brainwashing and cult members hiding in the upper echelons of society, isn't it?

Eyes wide shut was released 30 years to the day of the Moon Landings, ahhh...

[daf]

I didn't get the Tom Cruise casting either,

I wish he'd done this in the 70's with Ralph Bates and Jenny Agutter - I think that'd be my favourite film ever then!

[Steven]

Eyes wide shut was released 30 years to the day of the Moon Landings, ahhh...

At the risk of copious scoffing, Kubrick was working with NASA while in the long development for 2001. A very large portion of the Moon Landing footage and photography is provably fake, you have to wonder why they were putting out fake video and photos. Whether NASA were that desperate they had to assist the talents of a Hollywood director I have no idea, it's a salacious theory but not one I've bothered to do any research on. Where was Kubrick in `69, anywhere near Walt Disney studios? They had a giant moonscape in a studio armed by guards that was curiously never used in any movies.

[Old Nehamkin]

At the risk of copious scoffing, Kubrick was working with NASA while in the long development for 2001. A very large portion of the Moon Landing footage and photography is provably fake, you have to wonder why they were putting out fake video and photos. Whether NASA were that desperate they had to assist the talents of a Hollywood director I have no idea, it's a salacious theory but not one I've bothered to do any research on. Where was Kubrick in `69, anywhere near Walt Disney studios? They had a giant moonscape in a studio armed by guards that was curiously never used in any movies.

SCOFF SCOFF SCOFF

[Puce Moment]

*cough*bollocks*

[newbridge]

I would have liked Eyes Wide Shut a lot better if Kubrick had made Tom Cruise wear this sweater for the entire movie.

[biggytitbo]

Kubrick definitely inserts lots of references to Apollo in the Shining, and lots of references to the illuminati and masons in Clockwork Orange and Wide Shut.


I have a suspicion he was doing it for his own amusement however.

[Funcrusher]

Eyes Wide Shit, more like. Pretty much everything else he did is great though. Oscars don't really mean much anyway.

[Steven]

SCOFF SCOFF SCOFF

Fat bastard.

I have a suspicion he was doing it for his own amusement however.

2001 is full of occult illuminated philsophy and symbols. But I haven't given the Kubrick Moon Landing theory much thought, though you have to wonder about whether the French documentary lampooning the notion and that dreadful Room 237 film were attempts to make the idea look so stupid that nobody would bother to investigate the matter. That Room 237 was saying that's how many miles it was to the moon, and changing the room number to this was a clue or some shite, but I found a Kubrick memo where he got a letter from the hotel he was using to film the exteriors for The Overlook and they were hoping that the room number featuring didn't drive away guests, so Kubrick changed it to a room number that didn't exist at the hotel.

[biggytitbo]

Fat bastard.

2001 is full of occult illuminated philsophy and symbols. But I haven't given the Kubrick Moon Landing theory much thought, though you have to wonder about whether the French documentary lampooning the notion and that dreadful Room 237 film were attempts to make the idea look so stupid that nobody would bother to investigate the matter. That Room 237 was saying that's how many miles it was to the moon, and changing the room number to this was a clue or some shite, but I found a Kubrick memo where he got a letter from the hotel he was using to film the exteriors for The Overlook and they were hoping that the room number featuring didn't drive away guests, so Kubrick changed it to a room number that didn't exist at the hotel.

Not true though. I've seen the photos of the hotel and it has a room 237. So the excuse that they changed it to avoid driving away superstitious guests makes no sense as they'd choose a room number that doesn't exist in the hotel at all.

Beside, people would fucking love to stay in it obviously, so it never made any sense anyway.

237k is the distance quoted in old textbooks for the distance from earth to moon, so its a mighty coincidence that it's the destination in the film of a metaphorical Apollo launch.

[Johnny Textface]

The idea that Kubrick helped the americans fake the moon landing is surely form the brain of a 15 year old with a silly face and a stupid face.

[Steven]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3555933/The-letters-of-Stanley-Kubrick.html

Halfway down the page. I'm not saying I believe any of this, it's just I know for a fact NASA put out a lot of faked moon landing photos and video, why they did that I can't say, or whether Kubrick had sod all to do with it!

[biggytitbo]

The idea that Kubrick helped the americans fake the moon landing is surely form the brain of a 15 year old with a silly face and a stupid face.

I advocate the theory that Kubrick put references to Apollo in the Shining for some unknown reason, not that he faked the moon landing. I said that bit in jest.


I actually think Douglas Trumbull faked them, to give him his due credit.

[Steven]

But.. DID WE LAND ON THE MOON?

[biggytitbo]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3555933/The-letters-of-Stanley-Kubrick.html

Halfway down the page. I'm not saying I believe any of this, it's just I know for a fact NASA put out a lot of faked moon landing photos and video, why they did that I can't say, or whether Kubrick had sod all to do with it!

'Fact' is a dangerously strong word there isn't it? I have my suspicions with a few of them but I wouldn't dare say they were facts.

[biggytitbo]

But.. DID WE LAND ON THE MOON?

We didn't mate. I wasn't even born.

[Johnny Textface]

Wish they would do it again, just for THE CRAIC