herbiehancock

No 26 - Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Director - Stanley Kubrick Kubrick is a very impressive fellow. I'm sure this is something I've mentioned before, but just look at his back catalogue . He very rarely tackled the same genre twice. But whatever film he makes be it sci- fi , horror , epic or Comedy , he makes a pivotal film of the genre. Of course, when doing a comedy, it doesn't hurt to have the very excellent (though somewhat temperamental ) Peter Sellers . What I love about this film is the initial subtlety of the comedy and how that subtlety is gradually blasted into tiny pieces over the course of the film. The opening credits set the tone of the film as scenes of ships refuelling in the air are shown with sensual music playing over the top. The end effect is almost pornographic and begins to illustrate one of the key points of the film. Lust and war and sex and violence are all mingled together and this becomes increasingly ...

No 16 - 2001: A Space Odyssey Director - Stanley Kubrick Oh my, I have a lot of notes on this one. I have only tried to watch 2001 once before but never got past the monkeys. This time I persevered and gosh. It is a bit of a mind-fuck isn't it! As the film is broken up into 3 parts, and as I feel I can just about understand the first 2 parts, I want to tackle each section one at a time... So we shall begin with the monkeys and the first (of many) long speechless moments where not much happens. We are solely watching some gloriously 60s apes live out their daily lives of running around with tapirs and being scared of lions. I don't know what prehistoric region this is supposed to be but it is populated by zebras, tapirs and twinkly eyed lions. And people in monkey suits. It is like Planet of the Apes. Not literally, just in the cool costumes department. I do like those 60's men in ape suits . So, after a while the magical, mysterious black monolith appears and the apes go cr...