2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Let the Awe and Mystery of a Journey Unlike Any Other Begin

Plot: Mankind finds a mysterious, obviously artificial, artifact buried on the moon and, with the intelligent computer HAL, sets off on a quest.

My rating: 9/10

Will I watch it again? YES!!!



Until about 1998 every attempt I made to watch this resulted in sleep. It bored the piss out of me and I could only watch it in pieces before getting to the end. Then something happened in '98 that changed my life forever. I attended a one-time showing of this film on the largest movie screen in New England. It was huge, gargantuan. If I told you that I didn't blink for the more than two hours it was on I'd be exaggerating but not by much. I was captivated. It was like watching a moving work of art at play. It's pure eye candy. I had a similar experience when I saw THE SHINING (1980) on the big screen. Suddenly I saw this movie for what it was and how it was mean to be seen. This is the first time I've seen it since then and it was on my big ass TV. The Blu-ray is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I've used is many times over the past couple of years to show off how good an old movie in hi-def can look.


This movie's been dissected all over the place so I can't add anything to it except you must see this on the big screen. If you struggled with watching it on the small screen you will see what I mean. Having had that theater experience I can watch this flick with a different set of eyes, eyes that allow me to soak up the visuals in a new light. What keeps me from giving this a perfect score is the music. I dislike half of Kubrick's classical music choices. The dissonant ones can stay but things like The Blue Danube Waltz and other more popular tunes are distracting. Alex North (one of my favorite film composers) wrote a score for the film that was never used. There are some examples to follow but I think in some ways it works better. We'll probably never know for certain since it's highly unlikely that anyone will re-do the film with the new score to include the dialogue and sound effects but the following videos come closer than we'll probably get.

ALEX NORTH'S 2001: WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN PART 1 ALEX NORTH'S 2001: WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN PART 2

The special effects are stunning even by today's standards. It's remarkable how well this 44 year old movie holds up. I haven't met a Kubrick film I didn't thoroughly enjoy and I've seen them all. The way he lights a scene is unlike anyone else. He definitely had a signature style and you can easily see it in this film and each of the ones that followed. I cannot recommend this Blu-ray enough. It will straighten your short & curlies...that is if you still have them.

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Director: Richard Lester

Starring: John, Paul, George, Ringo, Wilfrid Brambell, Norman Rossington, John Junkin, Victor Spinetti, Anna Quayle

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The Beatles starring in their first full-length, hilarious action-packed film!

Plot: The Beatles--the world's most famous rock and roll band--travel from their home town of Liverpool to London to perform in a television broadcast. Along the way they must rescue Paul's unconventional grandfather from various misadventures and drummer Ringo goes missing just before the crucial concert.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

After watching HEAD (1968) the other night, it made me Jones for the real deal with one of the pictures The Beatles made. Since I fell asleep watching YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968) (I'll have to catch that one later), I'll talk a little about this picture. I've seen it a couple of times already and it never gets old. It's a lot of fun and you get the sense that these four fellas were having a laugh and enjoying their unfathomable fame very much. Their music in the picture is fantastic and there are some genuinely funny bits but there's an overall sense of fun and mischief that really makes the picture something different and enduring. For as big of a Beatles fan as I am it's a crime that this is the only one of their 4 movies I've seen (but I've seen it 4 times now if that counts for anything) and I'm terribly keen to see their follow up picture, HELP (1965), which looks like it was the true inspiration for THE MONKEES TV show, aka Beatles-lite (but I am a fan of The Monkees and their show).

The Magus (1968)

Director: Guy Green

Starring: Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, Candice Bergen, Anna Karina, Paul Stassino, Julian Glover

More info: IMDb

Tagline: THE MAGUS plays a vicious game. The game is love. The game is lust. The game is life itself. Or is it death?

Plot: An English teacher arrives on a sleepy Greek island to take up a vacant teaching post. The last man to hold the post committed suicide under mysterious circumstances. Slowly but surely, he is drawn into a bizarre game engineered by a reclusive local magician. The deeper into the game he is drawn, the more he senses danger... yet cannot seem to untangle himself from the fascinating and compelling influence that the game is having on his mind.

My rating: 3/10

Will I watch it again? NOOOOO!

This is about as much fun as the pretentiously lame tagline suggests. Maybe this plays better in the novel but I'll never know since I don't want to go anywhere near it after seeing this flick. It's slow, dull and pointless until you get to the surprise ending. By then you've invested nearly 2 hours of "I don't care" and are ready to go. The performances are OK I guess but the movie feels so full of itself in playing us with its mind games that it loses any sense of importance or investment on the viewer's behalf. I didn't care about the characters and they didn't seem to care much either. I'm sorry I watched it. To date this is the worst Michael Caine picture I've seen. It's so bad that I'm willing to bet JAWS 4: THE REVENGE (1987) is better. Woof.

Head (1968)

Director: Bob Rafelson

Starring: The Monkeys, Annette Funicello, Timothy Carey, Sonny Liston, Frank Zappa, Teri Garr, Victor Mature, Toni Basil

More info: IMDb

Tagline: What is HEAD all about? Only John Brockman's shrink knows for sure!

Plot: A plot-less collection of various musical encounters and adventures by the famous rock band "The Monkees" which follows Davy, Peter, Mike and Mickey as they travel through an assortment of places in search of meaning.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

#319 on Drive-In Delirium Volume 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

It's been over 20 years since I saw anything of their TV show from the 60s but this feels like a longer big screen version of that but a little more adult. It's always nice seeing the scrummy Teri Garr and there are a few celebrities to spot if you don't blink (Jack Nicholson (who co-wrote this with the director) and Dennis Hopper for starters). I liked a lot of the songs but all they did was make me want to watch any of the movies The Beatles made (that's going to happen tonight). There's not much of a plot and that's OK because as long as what's there is entertaining, that's what counts. I'm glad I finally got around to seeing it but I'll never need to go there again.

The Eagle (2011)

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Starring: Channing Tatum, Istvan Goz, Bence Gero, Denis O'Hare, Paul Ritter, Zsolt Laszlo, Donald Sutherland, Jamie Bell

More info: IMDb

Plot: In 120 A.D., Flavius Aquila led 5,000 elite Roman soldiers on a mission beyond the edge of the known world. They and their treasured Eagle standard were never seen again … 20 years later, the commander’s son set out to solve the mystery of their disappearance.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

First of all, I'll watch any film about ancient Rome. I find Roman history fascinating and while this picture isn't as good as it should have been, I still enjoyed the two hours I spent hundreds of years in the past. THE EAGLE is a good looking picture and it's especially surprising that it only had a $25 million budget (I say only because I'm loaded with dough and that's chump change). There's enough to like about it except for one glaring thing and that's the lead, Channing Tatum. He's bland and he brought nothing to the performance that interested me in the least. It reminded me of how Orlando Bloom brought down KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005). Add to that Tatum's co-star, Jamie Bell, who brings out a more interesting character and performance. That doesn't bode well. Bell didn't blow me away or anything but he was more compelling than the lead. It's a case of getting the pretty boy instead of someone who is older and better.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Director: Roger Corman

Starring: Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, David Weston, Nigel Green, Patrick Magee

More info: IMDb

Tagline: LOOK INTO THIS FACE - SHUDDER... at the blood-stained dance of the Red Death! TREMBLE... to the hideous tortures of the catacombs of Kali! GASP... at the sacrifice of the innocent virgin to the vengeance of Baal!

Plot: Satan-worshiper Prince Prospero invites several dozen of the local nobility to his castle for protection against an oncoming plague, the Red Death. Prospero orders his guests to attend a masked ball and, amidst a general atmosphere of debauchery and depravity, notices the entry of a mysterious hooded stranger dressed all in red. Believing the figure to be his master, Satan, Prospero is horrified at the revelation of his true identity.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? YES!!!

I've seen a few of the Roger Corman Edgar Allen Poe pictures and it's been a mixed bag. I liked the overall dark feeling of THE PREMATURE BURIAL (1962) and and I found the humor and shabbiness of THE RAVEN (1963) insulting but this picture blew me away. WOW! From all of the Vincent Price pictures I've seen so far, this one has him at his most wicked and sinister. He's fantastic. The sets look richer like a Hammer horror movie of this time (as opposed to the cheapness Corman brought to THE RAVEN a year earlier), the music is good, the pacing, story, casting...you name it. It's a superior picture to his previous Poe efforts. If only they all had these elements working so well. I see on the IMDb trivia that this was filmed in England with a British crew. I'm sure that made a huge difference. Corman has said this and X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES (1963) are his two favorites of the films he made. I can see why. There's more care and love of the material in this one than most of the others I've seen. Great job all the way around!

I Stand Alone (1998)

Director: Gaspar Noe

Starring: Philippe Nahon, Blandine Lenoir, Frankie Pain, Martine Audrain, Jean-Francois Rauger

More info: IMDb

Tagline: In the bowels of France

Plot: France, 1980. A retired butcher fights to survive. After abandoning his teenage daughter, and hoping to rebuild a new life, he moves to Lille with his pregnant lover. He doesn't love her. He likes even less living at his mother-in-law's apartment. Quickly his hopes turn into bitterness, and this bitterness into obsessions. Violence explodes. The man returns to Paris and tries to restart his life again. He counts on his luck to find work and new friends. But both are hard to find. In this city, like elsewhere, living is a selfish act. Alone against everyone the ex-butcher stays in the hotel room where many years ago his daughter was conceived. Without a penny and with the sole company of a gun charged with three bullets, he doesn't see clearly what the purpose of his life is. His stomach cries for food. His brain orders him to take revenge. And his heart...

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? I could but with so many movies to watch it's not likely.

SPOILERS AND DELIVER...

Stacey recently left a comment suggesting this, Noe's first film, along with his second, IRREVERSIBLE (2002) and a couple of others, all of which have been on my radar just waiting to give them a spin. In short, I liked it. In the first few minutes you get an idea of exactly what you're going to get for the next 93 in this darkly funny (it's got some REALLY black humor) and disturbing picture.

What you can't know are the dark places you'll suddenly find yourself in. Nahon (The Butcher) is fantastic. He plays miserable really, really well. He's pretty much the picture. There are other characters but this guy is in every scene and has a lot of dialogue, most of it being his narrated thoughts. I can't recall another movie with more subtitles being cranked out as fast as these. After seeing the film I do my usual look online to see what other people have to say and I was surprised to see so much nasty chatter about the pregger punching bag scene and the incest angle but then maybe I'm not so surprised.


When The Butcher is pushed hard one night by his pregnant wife, he snaps and starts wailing on her baby bump. It's pretty harsh although I am somewhat desensitized a bit by the thousands of movies I've seen. Regardless, I can recognize the impact a scene like this must have on the unsuspecting public and the balls that it takes to do something no one else has. I appreciate that. But it's the implied incest at the end that surprised me. It's creepy but not run-out-of-the-room-screaming-in-horror-shocking. I don't want to play that game of comparing movies but I've seen it applied in a more distasteful manner in several other films. What struck me, though, was the dream he has just prior to the end when we don't know it's a dream. THAT had some impact. Seeing his daughter lying on the floor dying was horrifying and I felt relieved when he shot her a second and final time to put her out of her (and my) misery. After that scene played out, the implied incest that was about to happen seemed OK (not acceptable, of course, but tame in comparison.)


It's a great first feature film for Noe and I'm keen to watch the other two films he's directed since (a fourth is due out this year). Don't watch it for the shock value because you have probably seen flicks that put out more of that than this one but watch it for the great performance by Nahon and his character's gradual descent into his dark, mentally disturbed world. You're definitely taking a trip to a place you haven't been before. Whether or not you mail a postcard afterward is up to you.