the psychopathology of everyday life - Adrian McKinty's blog: Stanley Kubrick's Boxes

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Stanley Kubrick's Boxes

Ok, I appreciate that not everyone's as obssessed by Stanley Kubrick as I am, but I'm posting this just in case you are. It's a documentary from Channel 4 in the UK about Kubrick's boxes. That's right, the boxes he kept his stuff in. It was based on this great original article in The Guardian. The YouTube link breaks it into five parts, but you can also watch the whole video uninterrupted on Google Vid here.

10 comments:

steve said...: you are not alone thanks for this; September 22, 2008 at 7:48 AM
adrian mckinty said...: thanks steve; September 22, 2008 at 10:42 AM
Conduit said...: I have always found myself at odds with Kubrick, and for similar reasons Michael Mann. If you just asked me flat out what I thought of them, I's say they were clinical, lacked feeling, all surface sheen, no heart, mechanical, place visuals over story ... and so on.

BUT ... I still have several movies form each director in my collection. PATHS OF GLORY is heartbreaking. CLOCKWORK ORANGE is terrifying. 2001 is breathtaking, and the special edition Blu-Ray is a beautiful thing. Oh, and I love Dr Strangelove. But still, if you were to ask me, I'd say I don't like Kubrick. Strange, innit?; September 24, 2008 at 3:39 AM
adrian mckinty said...: Stuart

Where do you come down on the Manhunter v Silence of the Lambs debate? Personally I always thought Brian Cox made a more effective and less campy Dr Lecter in the Michael Mann flick.

I can see what you're saying about Kubrick but cinema is such a visual medium that style can go along way. Millers Crossing is a good example, basically a rip off of Red Harvest and The Glass Key but rip offed with such loving style and pinache that for me at least it works beautifully. Sometims Kubrick's style gets in the way of the story (Barry L. Eyes Wide Shut) but other times he transcends the material 2001, Strangelove, Paths and especially the earlier noirs The Killing and the expressionist Killers Kiss.

I see what you're saying but give me Kubricks chilliness over Spielberg's sentiment any day of the week.

cheers mate

a...; September 24, 2008 at 8:20 AM
Conduit said...: On Manhunter vs SOTL...

I know the general film buff consensus is to favour Manhunter, but I've always preferred SOTL. I saw Manhunter first, I think maybe six months before SOTL. While I agree Cox's performance was faultless, I do think Hopkins rather muddied his own waters with Hannibal and Red Dragon. He did milk the character, becoming more pantomime villain with each, so it can be hard to set that aside when watching SOTL.

But the bigger factor for me is the tone of the two films. I always felt Mann's touch was too clinical, all that modern architecture and open space. It worked wonderfully for Heat, but I feel SOTL did a better job of capturing the gothic claustrophobia of Thomas Harris's best work (as opposed to his lazy Hannibal-by-numbers effort that we last saw).

BTW, I'll be posting a little something about James Ellroy's new book some time this evening...; September 27, 2008 at 5:16 AM
adrian mckinty said...: Stuart

I see what you mean, but I still fav Manhunter.

I'll be jumping over now to see the Ellroy.

A...; September 27, 2008 at 8:25 AM
Dan Wagner said...: Thanks for the post on this. I consider myself a Kubrick completist, so this is one less thing I have to watch about the man before I die. Cheers!; October 7, 2008 at 1:43 PM
Dan Wagner said...: Shoot! I almost forgot.

Manhunter. The production design will forever date this film to the mid-80's. However, I see this as its most attractive quality. Mann is never afraid to embrace the time period as an essential character of the film; October 7, 2008 at 1:48 PM
adrian mckinty said...: Dan

You may have seen it already but Stanley Kubrick A Life in Pictures is also available free on google video. You have to dig a little for it though.

Cheers

adrian...; October 7, 2008 at 1:49 PM
adrian mckinty said...: and the music too, if I recall correctly, lots of heavy synth; October 7, 2008 at 1:51 PM

Post a Comment

More about me

I was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. After studying philosophy at Oxford University I emigrated to New York City where I lived in Harlem for seven years working in bars, bookstores, building sites and finally the basement stacks of the Columbia University Medical School Library in Washington Heights.

In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year. The sequel to that book The Dead Yard was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 12 best novels of 2006 and won the Audie Award for best mystery or thriller.

In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book Falling Glass was Audible's Best Mystery or Thriller for 2011. I've just published a new novel for Serpents Tail called The Cold Cold Ground.

All Hail McKinty!

"If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland he would have written The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Times

"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."

---The Guardian

"A literary thriller that is as concerned with exploring the poisonously claustrophobic demi-monde of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the self-sabotaging contradictions of its place and time, as it is with providing the genre’s conventional thrills and spills. The result is a masterpiece of Troubles crime fiction: had David Peace, Eoin McNamee and Brian Moore sat down to brew up the great Troubles novel, they would have been very pleased indeed to have written The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Irish Times

"McKinty is a big new talent."

---The Daily Telegraph

"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."

---The Sunday Independent

"Adrian McKinty is fast gaining a reputation as the finest of the new generation of Irish crime writers, and it's easy to see why on the evidence of The Cold Cold Ground."

---The Glasgow Herald

"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."

---Kirkus Reviews

"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."

---Publishers Weekly

"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."

---The San Francisco Chronicle

"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."

---The Rocky Mountain News

"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."

---The Washington Post

"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."

---The Miami Herald

"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."

---The Philadelphia Inquirer

"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."

---The Chicago Sun-Times

"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."

---The Barcelona Review

"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."

---The Observer

"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."

---The Morning Star

"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."

---Booklist

"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."

---The Big Issue

"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."

---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."

---The Irish Examiner

"A virtual carnival of slaughter."

---The Wall Street Journal

"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."

---The Irish Post

"A pacey, violent caper in which McKinty vividly portrays [Belfast's] sleazy, still-menacing underbelly."

---The Sunday Times

"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."

---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger

"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."

---The New York Times

"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."

---CrimeSpree

"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."

---The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."

---The Sacramento Bee

"Le Fleuve caché d'Adrian McKinty impressionne par la richesse et la diversité de son ton et de son écriture, passant avec aisance du lyrisme ample de la nostalgie de l'amour perdu au rythme saccadé du narrateur sous l'emprise de l'héroïne. Ce livre rare et maîtrisé est une réussite bien digne de la Série noire."

---Le Figaro

Eine eigentlich simple Story, die natürlich bereits als Grundlage für Hunderte Bücher und Filme diente, macht Adrian McKinty zu der mitreißenden Odyssee eines jungen Mannes, der in der Lage ist, sich seiner Umwelt anzupassen wie jene Kakerlaken, die er in seinem Harlemer Appartement jagt, studiert und sowohl angewidert awie anerkennend entkommen lässt. Nicht umsonst 1992 angesiedelt, ist Der sichere Tod der kongeniale Kommentar zum Wesen der Neunziger.

- Jochen König, krimi-couch.de

"McKinty - that guy is a friggin genius."

---Ken Bruen

"McKinty is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyan, the toughest, the best."

---Frank McCourt

"McKinty is an exciting new talent."

---Ed McBain

"Daddy's book is really boring."

---Sophie McKinty (aged 2 1/2)