As an admitted Admirer-And-Not-Much-More of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror classic, The Shining (I know, I know, blasphemy and such), I still got a genuine kick out of this Channel 4 promo for their upcoming month-long Kubrick retrospective.

Hosted on UK newspaper The Guardian's website, the ad consists of a single minute-long tracking shot and takes the view of the Academy Award-winning filmmaker as he dashes about the quite meticulously recreated set. The twins, the axe, the maze, each and every last iconic touch -- it's almost like they Overlook-ed nothing... (No? Too much? Apologies all around then.)

I'm having trouble ascertaining whether or not Channel 4 was also responsible for this live-action opening to 'The Simpsons' that popped up a few years back. Even if it's not, the fact still remains that precious few American commercials can claim to be their equal in both fondness and dedication. Alas, until Spike someday hosts a Joe Eszterhas tribute marathon...

[by way of AICN]

NASA's Phoenix lander has its rendezvous with Mars, and that, as well as the upcoming Puerto Rican primary, gives a torn-from-today's-weblogs quality to this purported horror film, aka'd both as Mars Attacks Puerto Rico and Mars Invades Puerto Rico. But Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster is a film for all seasons anyway. Lou Cutell's alienating Doctor Nadir (above) in bald wig, goblin ears, and loads of clown white makeup, isn't even the most uncanny part of this particularly inexpensive sci-fi epic, which pits a disfigured robot Frankenstein against the gorilla-suited, skull-headed Mull: a sort of an alien attack dog.

Made by Robert Gaffney, a long-time second-unit director for Kubrick (this piece from dvdtalk.com considers Gaffney's career), FMTSM is a good-looking li'l crapburger. It's remembered fondly for Mull, and the hoity-toity aliens who keep him on a leash. Recently at the Super-Con in San Jose, I saw two separate TV horror hosts on a panel endorsing FMTSM as their favorite bad film. Could it give Plan Nine From Outer Space a run for its money? Hard to say, but it shares four essential qualities of Plan Nine; four things that may be completely necessary to the making of a memorable turkey. You've heard it said that it's as hard to make a bad movie as it is to make a good one. Fair enough: there are plenty of filmmakers out there who want to work hard making a bad movie.

No, no, there's not going to be a remake of A Clockwork Orange starring Mick Jagger. At least I don't think so. This is just a fun bit of what-could-have-been. We like to play around with alternate-universe casting here once in a while, and this one's a doozy. Someone found a letter from producer Si Litvinoff to legendary director John Schlesinger, urging him to consider directing an adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel. And part of the pitch was that Mick Jagger wanted the role of the psychopathic Alex, and that the Beatles "love[d] the project" and wanted to provide the musical score. Fortunately (?) Schlesinger wasn't interested and the project eventually wound up falling to good old Stanley Kubrick.

The Clockwork Orange we got was -- like all of Kubrick's work -- too singular a film to even try to imagine how someone else's version would have been different. But I admit I'm amused (and intrigued) by the notion of Jagger taking on the Malcolm McDowell role. Hell, after watching the manic two-hour stage show he put on in Shine a Light at age 63, I'm kind of convinced that he's actually omnipotent. As for the Beatles? That's just creepy. I'll stick with Kubrick's classical selections.

[hat tip: Movie City News]

The great futurist now belongs to history; AP reports that Arthur C. Clarke was found dead in his home in Sri Lanka. Others can write about Clarke's contributions to technology ... for example his 1945 scientific paper "Extra-Terrestrial Relays" describing the possibilities of the communication satellite, which was as essential to modern living as electricity was to earlier generations. Let's talk about movies. 2001: A Space Odyssey is in some ways a collaboration between Clarke and Kubrick ... or as the author said, "the film should be credited to Kubrick and Clarke and the novel should be credited to Clarke and Kubrick."

This account from wikipedia notes the genesis of one of the ultimate science fiction films was a 1950 short story by Clarke, titled "The Sentinel." The classic spawned a 1984 sequel, 2010. Various short stories were adapted for television (unfortunately not enough of them from Tales From the White Hart, still waiting for its time on screen.) It's been announced that David Fincher will film Rendezvous With Rama, with Morgan Freeman in the lead; here's Jessica Barnes' item on it from 2007. The film concerns a close encounter of the third kind with an alien spacecraft. And John Hurt is definitely playing a Clarke figure in this Jodie Foster outer-space movie.

Clarke was born in England, and was a radar expert with the RAF during World War 2. Years of astronomical research gave way to a later-life interest in the ocean; hence his life in Sri Lanka, where he could scuba dive. He is remembered, among numerous accomplishments, for the fostering of Clarke's Three Laws: 1."When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." 2."The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." 3."Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

John Orloff got his break writing two episodes of the Emmy-winning HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. His latest script is another true-life tale -- Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart, just out on DVD. Heart focuses on Mariane Pearl (Angelina Jolie), a reporter whose husband Daniel, an American journalist, was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan. The script just earned Orloff an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay. The awards will be held on February 23rd.

Cinematical: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

John Orloff: I still don't know whether I want to be a writer! I went to UCLA Film School, and I had a great writing teacher who thought I had a particular skill in that department. So I kept taking that teacher for the whole time I was at UCLA, kept on writing. At the end of it I was 22, it was the late 80s, and people weren't really hiring young writers, so I started to work in advertising. Spent about ten years miserably working in commercials, until I met a woman -- who is now my wife -- who was working in the business as a development exec at HBO. And she was bringing home all these screenplays, and they were horrible! Just awful! And these people had agents, and they were working. So I pitched my wife a non-fiction movie that I had been thinking about writing for ten years, with the incredibly commercial idea of a sixteenth century English melodrama. It was actually about the Shakespeare authorship issue -- who wrote the plays? I wrote the script and had the misfortune of writing it two months before Shakespeare in Love came out. But I sent out this script, trying to get an agent, and did finally get "hip-pocketed" by an agency.

Cinematical: And that script eventually got you your big break with Tom Hanks -- pretty decent guy to start out with, no?

JO: Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, yes! The most important thing that happened out of the Shakespeare script was that Tom's company was among the readers. They liked it, and I met with Tom about another project, but every time I sat down with him I would ask if he had hired writers on Band of Brothers. I'm a huge World War II buff, and I think I eventually just wore him down. He finally asked me to write a script, and I wrote one episode. He was very happy with it and asked me to write another. So, that was my first paying gig.

'Tis the season to get away from your family, bundle up with a gallon of moonshine (preferably one with "XXX" written on the label), and watch endless hours of movies! What follows is not a comprehensive or "Best Of" list. These are simply seven DVD box sets that any film buff would be thrilled to find in his or her stocking this Christmas. Most of them were released in the past few months, and a couple have been out a while but just got amazingly cheap. Have a few gifts left to buy? Consider picking one of these up. You don't even have to get off your fat ass, if you click on the titles you'll be taken to the links on Amazon. I've included items to suit every budget, and they've been arranged in order of price. Naturally, the more expensive the set you purchase, the more you love the person you're buying it for. That's just the way it works.

The Alien Quadrilogy ($33.99)

Pretty much the gold standard for DVD box sets. This collection's price recently took an incredible drop. It was worth every penny of the $80 bucks I paid for mine years ago, so you can better believe it's worth $34. The set gives you several versions of each film in the beloved Alien series -- Alien (one of the best suspense movies ever made), Aliens (one of the best action movies ever made), Alien 3 (David Fincher's misunderstood take is a stronger movie with each viewing), and Alien: Resurrection (Nobody's perfect). An unprecedented amount of extra goodies that includes the amazing Director's Cut of Aliens, extremely cool fold-out packaging, and the absence of Alien Vs. Predator make this set a must-own. I've owned it for four years, and still haven't seen everything in there. Plus, don't you just love the word "Quadrilogy?"

Wowwy wow wow. I knew there were some new Stanley Kubrick special editions on the way, but I had no idea that Warner was going all out with new features! I don't even know where to begin! (OK, breathe.) According to DVDActive.com, five of the master's films will be hitting the shelves as part of a massive box set. Those films are The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut. All of 'em 2-disc widescreen treat-laden Special Editions! (And yes the DVDs will also be available outside of the box set.)

Each of the 2-disc sets come with documentaries / featurettes both old and new, but what I find most exciting are the all-new audio commentaries. (Yes, I'm a commentary nerd. No apologies.) The new chat-tracks break down like so: On 2001 we get actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood; on Clockwork it's the awesome Malcolm McDowell and film historian Nick Redman; on Eyes Wide Shut we'll hear from actor/director Sydney Pollack and professor Peter J. Loewenberg; The Shining delivers Steadicam creator Garrett Brown and Kubrick biographer John Baxter; and (this should be great) on Full Metal Jacket the participants will be actors Adam Baldwin, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio and film critic-turned-screenwriter Jay Cocks. (What, Matthew Modine was too busy?)

And again I'll reiterate an important factor: All of these DVDs (which have been approved by Mr. Kubrick's estate) will come in digitally remastered widescreen. (The old-school Kubrickians know what I'm talking about.)

The discs will hit the stores on October 23, and if you're not satisfied by these five offerings, you can also pick up the new-but-movie-only releases of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Lolita. And just to quell any confusion, I'll remind you that Dr. Strangelove and Paths of Glory are Sony properties, whereas Spartacus is a Universal title. That's why they're not included here. But hats off to Warner Bros. for this inevitably awesome box set!

Note: Summer is coming to a close, and I don't have the budget to do much traveling. So I decided to take some Vacation time with the Griswolds instead. All this week and next, I'll be reviewing the Vacation movies, one of the most loved (and uneven) comedy franchises in modern film.

I think you're all f**ked in the head. We're ten hours from the f**king fun park and you want to bail out? Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much f**king fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles! You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of you're a**holes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy S**t!

-- Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase)

Clark Griswold is my father circa 1988. The glasses. The Izod shirt. The too-short shorts. The unrelenting and misguided enthusiasm for all things family. The barely concealed rage. It's all there. What makes National Lampoon's Vacation work so well, all these years later, is that everyone thinks Clark is based on his or her father. Some of the funniest comedy comes from recognition, and this movie is almost like watching home movies from my youth. Except for the dead aunt on the roof of the car, but we'll get to that in a moment.

They assembled a real dream team for this movie, three giants of comedy at their primes. Behind the camera, you've got Harold Ramis, fresh off his directorial debut (Caddyshack -- not a bad start!). He clearly came to play here, and I'd imagine he had something to do with keeping Chevy Chase's tendency to overact in check. The script was written and based on a short story (click here to read it!) by John Hughes, unquestionably the finest film comedy writer of the 1980s. Disagree with me? Take a look at this list of Hughes scripts produced from 1983 to 1990: Mr. Mom, Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful, Planes Trains and Automobiles, She's Having A Baby, Uncle Buck, Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone. The man was a god.

If you're a fan of the late Stanley Kubrick, you'll probably want to start saving your pennies for a new box set that is coming out. Now, there's already been the Stanley Kubrick Collection, which held everything from Lolita through Eyes Wide Shut. (Where's the Spartacus love? I know he didn't write it, but still!) It has a documentary with assistant Jan Harlan and an (at the time) new anamorphic edition of 2001. Now while another assistant, Leon Vitali, talked with The Reeler about some screenings of Kubrick's oft-forgotten Barry Lyndon, some info came up about an upcoming HD box set that is in the works, although no release date has been announced.

Using the previous set as a guide, the films have gone through the HD process and Vitali says: "they did a really good job... They looked really, really fine. It also means that in HD you are getting the 1.85 you saw theatrically." Now, what confuses me, as well as Vitali, is why the list of films is not including Barry Lyndon, like the original set. He says they're doing all but that film, which means that Lolita and Dr. Strangelove will be added to flist he mentioned -- 2001 (a transfer he says is "stunning! It is so stunning!"), A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. If you're using the previous set as a guide, what would inspire you to cut out a film that might not be remembered as much, but is held in high regard? The people who go out and spend a ton on this set will be the big fans of Kubrick's work, so why leave them partially hanging? Nevertheless, I'm sure many will purchase the box set, since any visual filmmaker is going to look even better in HD, but don't hand out a skeleton without the femur!

[via JoBlo]

I'm a sucker for creative, non-fancy fandom. In January, I shared a clip to Star Wars' Battle of Yavin done entirely with hands. Now I've got something of the non-motion variety. There is an art exhibit making the rounds that recreates scenes from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The kicker -- it's done with household objects. Now, I'm not talking about taking them and making mini replicas by morphing them. Instead, this is a collection of images very similar to actual scenes, but within the constraints of the materials used. It's kind of like the hands -- they can't be perfect replicas, but the idea and mood are down pat.

The exhibition comes from Kristan Horton, a visual artist hailing from Canada. For two and a half years, the only video he had in his studio was Dr. Strangelove, and he watched it over 700 times. Why he didn't go and pick up any other video is beyond me. Heck, I love Heathers and have probably seen it 100 times, but that's over 15 years! The collection of images starts with the classic Columbia logo with the torch-bearing woman, which is shown with its recreation -- one that uses a bottle and what appears to be an old trophy bottom, some tape and some plastic or tissue. Beyond that, a plane is recreated with silverware, a remote control becomes a computer panel and an old dictionary becomes a bed. You can see some of the images here, and the exhibit is currently housed in Toronto, at York University, before it moves to Vancouver's Contemporary Art Gallery this July.