Physical Media Ultraviolence

By now I'm sure you've heard that Criterion just dropped a bomb on us that only Slim Pickens could ride -- a massive box-set of every Stanley Kubrick movie on 4K, plus some shorts, plus all of those special features they're known for, will be landing on our heads come October 20th. You can pre-order it here if you're a person for whom money is no object (in which case hey there why don't you scooch a lil' closer, new best friend) although obviously I recommend you wait for one of the big 50% off sales that land in the fall at Criterion's own site or at Barnes & Noble. Because the price right now is four hundred and eighty bucks and goodness me that's a lot of money. Especially if you're a collector like me who already owns most of these movies in some format or another. (I suppose y'all who don't need or want 4K should be keeping your eyes on my eBay though because I will be buying this set so I will be selling off those discs at some point in the next few months.) But even if you're waiting to buy the set check the long long long list of specifics at the link -- this is really a staggering set; Criterion proving they're the gold standard yet again. And here's their trailer:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

3 Women (1977)

Millie: Pinky? What's the matter?

Pinky: I'm scared.

Millie: What of?

Pinky: I had a bad dream.

Millie: Dreams can't hurt ya.

Pinky: Can I sleep with you?

Millie: Sure.

RIP to one of MNPP's favorites, the legendary and singular Shelley Duvall, who just turned 75 a couple of days ago. I'm quite genuinely crying over this news -- there was nobody like her and there never will be anybody like her again. 

And I hope the love we tried collectively sending her way over the past few years made its way to her ear -- in 2021 there was that big interview with her in THR that got a lot of notice (I recommend going back and reading it again) and it seemed to right some of the tabloid wrongs that'd been directed her way over the decades before. Proving wrong all the stories about her having become a deranged hermit in the desert, or whatever. Losing her and Donald Sutherland in such a short span of time, this is too much! Probably my two favorite actors from the 1970s. Go watch one of her many masterpieces this weekend -- I recommend 3 Women the most, it's always been my favorite. I also have the box-set of her Faerie Tale Theatre series, so maybe I'll just soak myself in those for a day...

Quote of the Day

I feel ridiculous but I am literally a blubbering mess after reading The Hollywood Reporter's new interview with the legend Shelley Duvall this morning -- if you've been keeping track Duvall, one of the greatest actresses ever put on the movie screen, disappeared off the face of the earth for awhile, until [he who shall not be named] put her on his Fake Doctor Program and exploited her mental state for ratings. All I've wanted is for her to be happy, and so seeing the photos attached to the article, and listening to her talk with fondness towards her career (with none of the exploitative factor from that earlier interview), well it's totally overwhelmed me. For all of the yammering on that I do about celebrities every day there are only a handful that I hold close and dear to my heart and Shelley's always been one, since I watched her Faerie Tale Theater and Popeye as a little kid, and then graduated on up to her world-class performances in Altman's films and The Shining. 

I profoundly recommend reading the piece -- it's wonderful -- but it's on the latter film that I quote her today in particular, because a narrative has formed (one I've participated in, far and wide) that it was Stanley Kubrick's insane, demanding and cruel treatment of her on the set of The Shining that drove her over the edge, mentally-speaking, but Duvall, in this piece only has nice things to say about him. Let's let her speak:

Duvall says, "[Kubrick] doesn't print anything until at least the 35th take. Thirty-five takes, running and crying and carrying a little boy, it gets hard. And full performance from the first rehearsal. That's difficult." Before a scene, she would put on a Sony Walkman and "listen to sad songs. Or you just think about something very sad in your life or how much you miss your family or friends. But after a while, your body rebels. It says: 'Stop doing this to me. I don't want to cry every day.' And sometimes just that thought alone would make me cry. To wake up on a Monday morning, so early, and realize that you had to cry all day because it was scheduled — I would just start crying. I'd be like, 'Oh no, I can't, I can't.' And yet I did it. I don't know how I did it. Jack said that to me, too. He said, 'I don't know how you do it.' " 

Asked whether she felt Kubrick had been unusually cruel or abusive to her in order to elicit her performance, as has been written, Duvall replies: "He's got that streak in him. He definitely has that. But I think mostly because people have been that way to him at some time in the past. His first two films were Killer's Kiss and The Killing." I pressed her on what she meant by that: Was Kubrick more Jack Torrance than Dick Hallorann, the kindly chef played by Scatman Crothers? "No. He was very warm and friendly to me," she says. "He spent a lot of time with Jack and me. He just wanted to sit down and talk for hours while the crew waited. And the crew would say, 'Stanley, we have about 60 people waiting.' But it was very important work."

Today's Mood

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Shining (1980)

Wendy: Hey. Wasn't it around here that 

the Donner Party got snowbound?

Jack: I think that was farther west in the Sierras.

Wendy: Oh.

Danny: What was the Donner Party?

Jack: They were a party of settlers in covered-wagon times. 

They got snowbound one winter in the mountains. 

They had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.

Danny: You mean they ate each other up?

Jack: They had to, in order to survive.

Wendy: Jack...

Danny: Don't worry, Mom. I know all 

about cannibalism. I saw it on TV.

Jack: See, it's okay. He saw it on the television. 

The Shining turns 40 tomorrow! And since I won't be posting tomorrow, in a brave accordance with my wish to continue observing the former entity known as "weekends," I post this news today, on a Friday. Yes, it is a Friday. Apparently. Anyway I'm pretty sure I'm going to watch The Shining tonight in order to celebrate, maybe you should too. But just for Shelley Duvall. Because she's the real reason for the season. Read my previous piece on her perfect performance over at TFE. Shelley forever.

Her Name Is Shelley Duvall

.

I don't intentionally keep writing up movies about isolation for my "Great Performances in Horror Actressing" series over at The Film Experience week after week (see also: Repulsion last week) but it keeps happening and, uhh, it makes some sense. This week I wrote a lil' ode to Shelley Duvall's top notch work in The Shining, which is by my estimation one of the single greatest feats of acting in any movie, period. I do think that the opinion on her work here has, over the past few years, greatly swung around to my side... but I'm gonna keep on yelling it just in case.

.

I've Seen the Future, Brother, It Is Redrum

.

"That's odd. The blood usually gets off on the second floor." 

Try as hard as I might that line from The Simpsons' Shining parody was always skittering around the edges of my brain while watching the 40-year-delayed sequel Doctor Sleep, until eventually, like that indefatigable blood itself, I couldn't hold it back any longer -- it came pouring out everywhere all over everything. So heavy is the weight of iconography attached to the Overlook and its dark descendants -- they cannot, they will not, be contained. 

At times that spooky weight worked in Sleep's favor -- when we do finally make it back to the Hotel, as we must, you do feel the same passage of time that Adult Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) seems to -- we too now have creaks in our musty bones and crevasses around our exhausted eyes; the  radiators are quaking and the little boys in chunky astronaut sweaters are no more on either side of the screen. It goosed its old riffs good. But more often than not I felt Doctor Sleep crumbled under the weight of its impossible expectations and the blood, loosed, drowned the poor dear. 

It's not a bad film. (Rebecca Ferguson, that queen, certainly does her best.) But it actually doesn't even entirely feel like a "film" to me -- it feels more like a miniseries, something director Mike Flanagan has proven himself a sturdy captain of with his Haunting of Hill House series for Netflix, about to disclose its own second anthology. On Netflix Doctor Sleep could have been another hour or two longer and I would've gobbled it up with absent-minded and perfectly mild satisfaction on my face -- dull-eyed and entertained.

On the big screen though, as those familiar strings descend and the REDRUMS pile up and multiple actors are forced to do their best Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall impersonations, I don't know, I just kept being forced into the corner of thinking upon other people's really strange and daring creations. Flanagan is a good, solid filmmaker who in 2019 can't possibly live up to the shit Stanley Kubrick pulled with that 1980 film. It's a task for a crazy person; Mike Flanagan isn't that.

The film's better than it has any right being -- Flanagan's made a career out of that exact sentiment time and time again. There are scenes of genuine fucked-up-ness in Doctor Sleep that a totally by-the-numbers person wouldn't have accomplished. But there's nothing truly scarifying, and there's not much that I think will stand as its own legacy, un-borrowed from betters. Even the film's grossest practical effect is a thing Flanagan himself pulled with his last King adaptation Gerald's Game (which remains  at this point the best thing he's done).

Doctor Sleep is an entertaining tribute to a monumental thing. It's a bowl of colorful fruits laid out in front of a forever monolith, one that reaches black to the stars and blots out so much that came after --the gods will not be angry for this sacrifice. But I'd rather we build our own gods, defiled and deranged and pink with present tense, to suit our modern purposes. The blood came and went awhile back; I long for some new flesh. 

5 Off My Head: Uncle Stevie's 70

.

It is the 70th birthday of Stephen King and old age be damned he's this year's hot "It Boy" and in more ways than one, the movie It being the year's biggest surprise hit - I think we all expected the movie to do well, but not this well. It's raking in cash over claw. (Here is my review in case you missed it.) Anyway I'm in too much of a rush just now to go back through our archives and check to see if I've done this before (it's entirely possible) but here on his 70th let's name our five favorite movie adaptations of his stories.

My 5 Favorite Stephen King Movies

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

-- dir. Taylor Hackford --

Carrie (1976)

-- dir. Brian DePalma --

The Mist (2007)

-- dir. Frank Darabont --

The Shining (1980)

-- dir. Stanley Kubrick --

Misery (1990)

-- dir. Rob Reiner --

And if I did a Top Ten: The Shawshank Redemption, 

The Running Man, Creepshow, Cujo, and Apt Pupil.

----------------------------------------------

What are your favorite Stephen King movies?

(And would you already put It on your list?
I'm not quite there yet, but it's good.)

.

9 Off My Head: Kubrick Ranked

.

Stanley Kubrick was born 89 years ago today. His name's been sullied with a lot of Christopher Nolan comparisons over the past couple of weeks, but Nolan wishes - for all his purported chilliness there's more heart and horror in a single shot of Wendy Torrance standing over a typewriter than there is in the whole of Nolan's filmography. So let's remember what a wizard he was and rank his movies! 

Kubrick only made thirteen feature-length films in his 48 year career, and of those thirteen I have seen nine. I have never seen (I keep saving them for a rainy day) the first four - specifically Killer's Kiss, Fear and Desire, The Killing, and Paths of Glory. But of the nine I have seen, here's how I rank them (and please do keep in mind these are all, each and every single one of them, fantastic movies):

Stanley Kubrick's Movies Ranked!

9. Spartacus

8. Barry Lyndon

7. Full Metal Jacket

6. Lolita

5. Eyes Wide Shut

4. Dr. Strangelove

3. A Clockwork Orange

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey

1. The Shining

---------------

And how would you rank them?

.

Three Desperate Living Women

.

When I saw that today was the 40th anniversary of Star Wars I remembered that we'd celebrated The Movies of 1977 already in our "Siri Series" and I went to see what other movies would be turning 40 this year and lo behold whaddya know Robert Altman's magnificently strange and unsettling film 3 Women was also released in theaters on this very day, May 25th, in the year 1977. I realize that Star Wars changed the movies, period, and as such should be honored... but I'm more excited to celebrate  3 Women. Let's all watch it tonight!

In other anniversary news John Waters' film Desperate Living was released on May 27th 1977, meaning it turns 40 this weekend. DL's a mixed bag but its opening scenes of Mink Stole having an epic suburban meltdown -- "Tell your mother I hate her! Tell your mother I hate you!" -- are among the director's greatest, and there's lots of rancid lesbionic fun to be had off in Mortville.

.

.
In order to celebrate Desperate Living we can do better than just re-watching the movie, though -- opening today at the La Mama Galleria gallery here in New York is a show called "Lost Merchandise of the Dreamlanders," which is filled with artist renditions of what movie merch for John Waters' movies would've (should've) looked like - there are apparently action figures and and sheet sets and all kinds of goodies! Hip hip hooray for our collective cheap climaxes!!

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #95

.

I suppose it's not terribly weird that there's no library in The Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining - most hotels, even ones of its immense magnitude, don't usually bother with a library. But the absence of books in frustrated author Jack Torrance's life still seemed purposeful to me as I thought about it, and then as I started looking at pictures I realized that we actually see Shelley Duvall's Wendy framed by books a few times in the film.

Especially in the early scenes in their apartment, before they go to the Hotel. Wendy is the reader in that family - Jack's just the writer. It's her job to experience the terrible stories of terror that Jack creates. (Terrible. Terrible.) And it's her job...

... to figure out how to work the radio inside of the Hotel, thanks to its shelves of complicated looking manuals. It's Jack's job to...

... skip the reading.

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Time Bandits (1981)

Vincent: Pansy, look at me. 

Pansy: Yes, Vincent. 

Vincent: Do you... do you... love me? 

Pansy: Of course I love you. 

Vincent: You don't mind the thing... on my nose... 

Pansy: Oh you mean your... 

Vincent: Yes, my... 

Pansy: No, darling... of course I don't mind... 

Vincent: You could get used to have a chap around 

the house with a... with a damn thing on his nose?

Pansy: Of course, my love. Everyone has something 

odd about them. Why I've got an enormous... 

Vincent: Pansy! 

 A very happy birthday to Shelley Duvall, 

where ever she may be! We miss you!

.

5 Off My Head - Siri Says 1977

.

Did you guys know that if you ask Siri (that's the little lady who lives inside your iPhone) to pick a number between one and one hundred... she will! It's like magic, only borne upon the back of child labor. What a delight! So I just asked Siri to do this and the number she said was 77, which terrifyingly is also the year I was born, so I think Siri's onto me, but whatever, let's name My Five Favorite Movies of 1977 just because bored now. (These were chosen via Wiki's list of films for the year, which seems pretty complete to me.)

3 Women (dir. Robert Altman)

- released May 25th, 1977 -

Annie Hall (dir. Woody Allen)

- released April 20th, 1977 -

Eraserhead (dir. David Lynch)

- released September 28th, 1977 -

Looking For Mr. Goodbar (dir. Richard Brooks)

- released October 19th, 1977 -

Suspiria (dir. Dario Argento)

- released August 12th, 1977 -

-------------

What are your favorites of 1977?

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Caden: I know how to do it now. There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due. 

I just noticed that Charlie Kaufman's masterpiece is on sale on blu-ray on Amazon for less than seven bucks. Less than seven bucks!!! That's more existential bang for your seven bucks than should maybe be legal. It's a super sad steal!

PS A bunch of Kubrick films are really cheap on blu-ray right now too -- get The Shining for ten bucks, or get A Clockwork Orange for seven bucks, or you can get Eyes Wide Shut for ten bucks, so on...

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Annie Hall (1977)

Alvy: I think, I think there's too much burden placed on 

the orgasm, you know, to make up for empty areas in life. 

Pam: Who said that? 

Alvy: It may have been Leopold and Loeb. 

Happy 66th birthday to my beloved Shelley Duvall!

.

I'm Gonna Huff & Puff & Blow Your Hotel Down

.

While I'm well aware there are people out there that can't stand Shelley Duvall's performance in The Shining, it's a stance I find to the very core of my being unfathomable. Which is why I'm watching this week's round of "Beauty vs Beast" pitting the Torrances against each other over at The Film Experience with great interest - I am genuinely unsure of where the votes will fall. Jack's work is crazy iconic of course, and the older I get the more I do feel for his character's collapse under the weight of his own demons, but Shelley, Shelley, Shelley, she remains my next to everything. Her palpable embodiment of terror is very nearly unrivaled.

.

Which Is Hotter?

.

.

poll by twiigs.com

.

Those two color choices are references to an exchange of dialogue between Shelley and Sissy Spacek's characters in 3 Women - they're the names of wines that Millie brings home. But color is hardly just color in Altman's brilliant film - I mean, Spacek's character is named "Pinky Rose" for goodness sake. Anyway we're here cuz we're wishing our beloved Shelley a happy 65th birthday today. I hope where ever she is she's having a glorious time and knows what a gigantic hole her absence has left in movies for the twelve years she's been gone.

I Am Link

.

--- Star Lord Lover - Well I wan't expecting to ever have a robotic metal-helmet fetish introduced into my life, but then they went and put Chris Pratt in one in his Guardians of the Galaxy shape and now, I just don't know. I guess that's where we are.

--- And Speaking of sexy rough-n-tumble superhero types, Captain America isn't pussyfooting around those DC dudes a bit - Disney says the third Marvel movie in the saga of Chris Evans' bouncing arse will not back down from its release date even though Batman Vs. Superman or whatever they're calling it also plans to be belly-flopping onto the exact same date. Well I have enough room for at least Chris and Henry Cavill in my... heart. Yeah, heart, that's it.

--- Cannibal Feast - Today's lunchtime read - a wonderfully thorough interview (beware spoilers for what we've seen so far) with Bryan Fuller about what we've seen on the second season of Hannibal, and where we're headed. Season Three talk, ho! I finally caught up with Friday's episode last night (I knew there was sexy stuff and I didn't want to watch it with my mother while she was here, sue me) and goddamn it grossed me out. (thanks Mac)
.

--- Tyrannosaurus Rowr - I never watched The Office but Andy Buckley's been around in enough random things that he's at least a familiar (cute) face to me - he's just signed on for a role in the new Jurassic Park movie - hopefully he's playing Chris Pratt's man lover. A lover, who is a man.

--- Peggy Prowled - We've been waiting for something from Bryan Bertino, the director of The Strangers, for ages - now there's word he's making There Are Monsters, a movie about a woman and her daughter trapped in their house by, you guessed it, monsters -- and it will star Elisabeth Moss! I am so down with this. bertino actually has another horror something called Mockingbird already finished, but no word on when we're seeing that.

--- Queen Blood - It's been a very long time since I've read Clive Barker's Books of Blood in full so my memory of the story "Jacqueline Ess" is extremely foggy, but Lena Headey's just signed on to star in a movie version of it so I guess I'll have my memory jogged. (How good was she on this week's Game of Thrones, by the way?)

--- Man Or Muse - Since he's the king of Cannes this year, with two big movies in competition, we're hearing a lot of Robert Pattinson things right now - here's some new pictures and clips from David Michod's The Rover and Cronenberg's Map to the Stars, and here's some quotes from the boy-man-vampire on how rough the Twilight critics were on him and how he might team up with Harmony Korine next.

---  Surf's Nope - Gerard Butler apparently decided that one shitty surfing movie on his resume was plenty, and has dropped out of the remake of Point Break. We should expect a replacement announcement soon I guess, cuz the studio is all over making this thing happen. Some exec wants a paid beach vacation, I guess.

--- Women on the Verge - Last night The Film Experience's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series took on Robert Altman's great great great film 3 Women, with Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall - hit up this link here for links outwards to all the posts across the web.

--- Jock Rock - Every time I read the name Finn Wittrock I am immediately transported to an episode of The Flintstones, so thankfully I don't read the name Finn Wittrock all that often, I have more important things to have on my mind than Barney Rubble. Like movies where Aaron Eckhart's playing a football coach! But now the two shall meet - Finn Wittrock (he was in Noah and he's in Angelina Jolie's upcoming movie) is set to play a University of Texas player, apparently well-known and regarded or something, and Eckhart's his coach, and hopefully the entire thing is set in the lockerroom.

--- Off Agent - Wolf Creek director Greg McLean's next movie, the "micro-budgeted" horror flick 6 Miranda Drive with Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell, has gotten a new cast-mate - Ming-Na, who can currently be seen rocking a lot of bodysuit-type outfits while scowling on Agents of SHIELD, will be playing something-or-other. I am gonna make a guess: the movie's about a family that "unwittingly" brings a supernatural force home with them from the Grand Canyon (who would "wittingly" do such a thing?) - I've seen enough horror movies to know the ethnic person in the cast will probably have some tie to the supernatural world. That's how these things work.
.

--- Snow In New York - Here in New York BAM has announced the movies that will be playing their CinemaFest at the end of this month, and their centerpiece film is none other than Bong Joon-ho's long delayed here in the US Snowpiercer, with Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton. I have already seen and reviewed the movie thanks to this here wonderful internet, but it might be worth it to see it on a big screen, it's a gorgeously shot thing. They're also showing David Wain's rom-com snarkfest They Came Together with Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd. (thanks Mac)

--- And finally, speaking of New York film festivals, here's the campaign page and down below is the fundraising video for the NYC Indie Film Fest, which is celebrating its fifth year and is trying to raise some cash to expand.Go give them some money, I want all the film festivals I can get please.

.

.

I Am Link

.

--- Snow Good - Once again I yell a hearty fuck you in Harvey Weinstein's general direction - despite glowing reviews as it was released in its home country, Weinstein is ordering South Korean director Bong Joon-ho to cut 20 minutes from Snowpiercer before he'll release it here in the US. And thus he guarantees I will download it off of the internet instead of paying to see it in the theater. Good work, douchebag!
.

--- White Death - It's less than a week until Breaking Bad is back for its final eight episodes and I don't know whether to be excited or sad - I wish I'd started watching the show earlier than this year, in one big mad marathon, so I could have drawn the enjoyment out over a longer period. To commemorate the beginning of Walter White's end, head over to Rolling Stone where our pal Sean is listing the ten most memorable murders from the series. Spoilers, obviously.

--- Prison Break - I can't remember which came first, me knowing that it was the 50th anniversary of The Great Escape this week - which Alexa is paying tribute to over at The Film Experience today - or me moving the movie to the top of my Netflix queue to watch, but whichever it was I have the film coming to me tomorrow, so I can finally watch it. I have a serious Steve McQueen deficiency in my seen movie pile.

--- Bad Eagle - The second new Muppets movie, now called Muppets Most Wanted, isn't out until March, but they've just gone ahead and released a teaser trailer and some pictures - it's shocking, shocking I say, how electric and giddy that picture of Sam the Eagle got me. I love the Muppets so much.

--- Dakota Man - I guess I knew that FX was making a Coen-approved limited-run series out of Fargo, but I guess I'd blocked it because what's Fargo without Frances McDormand waddling around? Nothing, if you ask me. Anyway Billy Bob Thornton has just taken the lead role, which... well, he's no Frances McDormand waddling around.
.

--- Joon No - The only reason I'm linking to this trailer for the new rom-com from the director of Benny & Joon - who the fuck has thought of that movie in twenty years? - is because it has Ryan Kwanten in it looking absolutely fucking adorable. Oh it has Catherine O'Hara too, and that matters.

--- Post Ha - Noah Baumbach's next next movie (he already has a Gerwig-starring follow-up to the perfect movie Frances Ha in the can, apparently) is about one middle-aged couple (played by Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) and one twenty-something couple (played by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) and the frission betwixt them. Charles Grodin has just joined the cast as Naomi's father; this is his first acting gig in years.

--- Ghost Dad - It was two weeks ago that we heard Rosemarie Dewitt was taking over the role of Suburban-Mom-Nearly-Raped-By-An-Evil-Spirit from JoBeth Williams in the Poltergiest remake; now comes word that Sam Rockwell is in talks to play Sexy-Dad-Who-Keeps-Saying- "Didntcha???"-At-The-End from Craig T. Nelson. I hope Sam wears sweatpants, is all I'm saying.

--- Muse On This - Right here I am reminding myself personally that I need to read this article over at Sound On Sight about the greatest pairing of Director and Actress in film history - I keep meaning to but haven't done so yet, and any list that starts with Shelley Duvall and ends with Tilda Swinton demands my most enraptured attention.

--- Gangster Squat - Similarly I've been meaning to read this article blaming The Godfather for all of the woes in all of the world or whatever, but haven't done that either. Hey gimme a break, I had to spend hours looking at pictures of shirtless Bollywood celebrities, alright? Speaking of, shirtless people of foreign stock that is, hey look it's our favorite recent Almodovar acquisition Miguel Angel Silverstre with his top off, hooray! (via; thanks Christian)