fine whine

Once recently I was at a loss to come up with any of Stanley Kubrick's films other than The shining and A.I.. 2001 had slipped my mind, as well as A clockwork orange, both of which I've watched. I own Spartacus (and A.I. for that matter) and at one time also owned Eyes wide shut but traded that up for a Criterion Robocop. I even forgot the ones I'd liked, Full metal jacket and Dr. Strangelove. Why should I list them when imdb does it so much better? I hadn't known the guy even had his hand in The spy who loved me, one of the better Bond movies I've endured. Anyway, the whole point of this is that I don't appreciate ol' Stan for the work he's done. Take the film I watched tonight: The killing which he directed in 1956. It's a heist movie but it's so well made and unconventional to be elevated over what even then was already becoming a tired genre. Joe and the gang keep everything at a quick pace and the nonlinearity and narrator lend an original edge or two to the proceedings. I know now that the next Kubrick for me to watch won't be Lolita or Barry Lyndon but 1955's Killer's kiss, at least if I can track it down easily. Gradually I'm changing my opinion of the guy, and enjoying the process.

Without hesitation I'd say The Killing is one of the best movies I've seen this year, and without laughing I'd probably back it up for quite a while. Diner too would be on that list, and the more I think about it the more little things make me grin: the whole idea of holding a vengeance against a baseball team but explaining it only when only one is left to hit, throwaway lines about words like "nuance" and the immature guy banter are just the beginning. The rest of the movies this year are going to have an uphill fight to match these two gems, but that won't stop me from watching a whole bunch of them. Eventually I'll make a short list of the best films I watched last year; expect to see it in February, I'd guess.

This is unrelated to anything, but how cool would it be to have a song with the bass and/or guitar lines played backwards? I think such a thing would sound cool, though it may well have been done. This is something worth looking into, methinks.