Kubrickology

Kubrick was quoted as saying, "Chess helps you develop patience and discipline in choosing between alternatives at a time when an impulsive decision seems very attractive." He also said, "Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good and it trains you to think objectively when you're in trouble." Stanley Kubrick was born on July 28, 1928 in the Bronx, USA. His father [Jack or Jaques] taught Stanley how to play chess in 1941, when Stanley was 12. Stanley quickly became a skilled chess player and chess hustler in Central Park. At the age of 17, he was offered a job as an apprentice photographer for Look magazine. During this time, Stanley was playing in chess tournaments at the Marshall and Manhattan Chess Clubs. He as also playing in the parks such as Washington Square in Greenwich and elsewhere for money as a chess hustler. He knew when to get a park chess table in the shade during the day and a ta...

Samsung is claiming that Apple's insistence that Steve Jobs invented the iPad is overturned by science fiction. According to a new filing, Samsung has opposed the preliminary injunction Apple filed for in early July. It claims that Stanley Kubrick's 1968 flick "2001: A Space Odyssey" have designs similar to the iPad. Read more here.

Much has been talked about in the hidden imagery within The Shining. Symbolising everything from the fake moon landings to hidden illuminati symbolism. Personally I don't object to these kinds of readings even if they are a little far fetched. Reading a film's imagery is a matter of speculation because it is open to interpretation and often the most relevant theory is based simply on an educated guess. Kubrick's films are loaded with this kind of symbolic meaning - framing devices, colours, brands, film references and symbols can all be found in abundance in Kubrick films. In terms of The Shining I have seen little analysis of the Apache and Navajo imagery used in the film. Kubrick often doesn't hide the themes in his films as many believe - he often expresses the themes directly within the text. For instance the Apache Navajo imagery is discussed in The Shining quite explicitly by Wendy when she is being given a guided tour of The Overlook hotel: Wendy: Are a...

Similarities between Kubrick's A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Astro Boy: Here is episode 44 of the 1980 Astro Boy cartoon from 1980. Within 'children's land' Uran visits Dr.Zar to ask about the robot God. "Dr.Zar knows everything!". In A.I. David meets Dr.Know. "Dr.Know there is nothing I don't." In the Astro Boy episode 41 called "The robots no one wanted" a group of robots are going to be scrapped despite their claims that they still work. JUNKY MECHA #1 I still work, don't I? I can still work in the dark, but my lamp is broken. My lamplight will not work. I hit my lamp on a girder overhead.

In March 1976, construction began of a new sound stage at Pinewood, the 007 Stage. To complement this stage, Eon also paid for building a water tank capable of storing approximately 1,200,000 gallons (4,500,000 litres). The soundstage was in fact so enormous that celebrated director Stanley Kubrick visited the production of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) in secret, to advise on how to light the stage.

Often the enjoyment of Kubrick's film is the obscure attention to detail that they contain. This at times can become obsessive in the level of detail, such as John Coulthart's post about the record store scene in Clockwork Orange . I recently watched the 1980s series Astro Boy with my daughter and started to notice similarities to the film A.I. which at first I thought were coincidence but as is often the case with Kubrick he left little room for chance in his work. The development of A.I. Artificial Intelligence was undertaken by Kubrick but directed by Steven Spielberg in 2001 after his death in March 1999 and for this reason the film is not really taken very seriously by people writing about Kubrick. Although many of the ideas contained in the film were directly inspired by Kubrick's concepts it is ultimately the pairing of Spielberg and Kubrick that doesn't quite work. The film plot centres around the journey of a boy robot in his quest to become 'real...