Seems a bit unfair to compare a director in his prime with one who is near the end of his life. Hitchcock had at least a half dozen masterpieces (arguably many more) under his belt before Kubrick had made a single film. (And I think MARNIE is excellent.)

Anyway, let me reiterate the call for a good scan of the SHINING artwork that was supposed to be included in the boxed set. I wish WB would put it up on their website to make up for their error, but it sounds like they're having a hard enough time just getting the DVDs into stores.

Enough of the arguing over Hitch and Kub.
The question was: Will the price go up on Kubrick set or no? Is it still on 55, cuz it hasnt really been released or it will stay there and that real price 80$ was just a lie on amazon.com.

Actually I do, and for being a member here for so long, you should too. Thanks for the love, though.

I believe the BL dvd's actually closer to 1:59 than 1:66, and making that anamorphic without any cropping wouldn't make much of a difference, if at all - it'd be more like making a 4:3 movie anamorphic.

Make no mistake, it has officially been released. Retailers may not have received their shipments, but the box set did come out on the day it was supposed to, even if in extremely limited quantities. Just for clarity this title is not delayed in any way.

If you want the low price I'd order it now and just bite the bullet and wait for it to show up. This is the "first week" price, so it is indeed going to go up afterwards. Best Buy does rainchecks so you can also ask for one of those at customer service.

I won't buy another non-anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer, and I'm a little surprised that the question is even being raised. And more surprised that someone is advancing the notion that this ratio must be cropped to transfer it anamorphically.

The "postage stamp" look of a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer, pillar-boxed on the sides and letterboxed at the top and bottom, is a good deal smaller and loses a not insignificant amount of resolution compared to an anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer with much smaller pillarboxing on the sides and no horizontal letterboxing.

Family Video has them back in stock, Amazon has shortened it's availability from 4-6 weeks to 2-4 weeks, and all the Target's and Best Buy's around me now have them (they didn't earlier in the week) so I'd go ahead and order it.

Barnesandnoble.com has them in stock (mine shipped yesterday), but unless you have a membership and a Mastercard and can use this 50% off coupon (which makes it $27), it's probably not worth the price.

So I'm pissed, I have an order with B&N and it still says shipping Nov. 8 even though the site now says ships in 24 hours. I called and a lady was like "oh we ship 24 hours when we get stock." I know that's not what "ships in 24 hours means." Mine better be leaving soon.

I bit the bullet and ordered this today from Family Video. They're selling the box for $45 and with the $5 new member coupon it was $42 shipped. I was going to hold off and get the HD versions, but for $42 vs. almost $150 the choice was obvious.

This is so madly incorrect that I threw my cat across the room when I read it.

Sorry, kitty.

Just got my box set from family video, and it does have the wrong The Shining. Oh well, it's not a big deal to me.

One huge annoyance with the special features on Eyes Wide Shut. In the featurette about Napoleon and Aryan Papers, the narrator said that Kubrick made a "dozen" features. I assume that the writers/narrator are referring to the period from Killer's Kiss through Eyes Wide Shut.

He made a baker's dozen, though, including Fear and Desire. I know that Kubrick found it amateurish and tried to bury it, but it exists. It would be nice for the film to be acknowledged. To not include it in the count of Kubrick's films assumes the audience's ignorance and stupidity.

cheers,

-the Jesus

If it exists, please tell me where to see it. It's the only Kubrick film I have not seen (you can PM, if you wish).

Kubrick has justifiably made Fear & Desire disappear. It's embarrassingly bad. Ed Wood bad, but without the comedy value.

So, he made a dozen feature films. Just leave it at that for sanity's sake.

How fascist!

For someone like me, whose seen all his films scores of times, this is at least a curiosity, if not an opportunity for insight into his early creative process. Therefore it has value.

I dispise it when artists want to dictate to the audience (hypocritical of Kubrick, if you ask me), but worse are the sheep that follow and lap up all matter of output an artist says or does without question.

An artist should be free to do with his work what he wants. I don't think that's a fascist opinion. It would be fascist for the audience to dictate to the artist.

It's also barely over an hour long, so could be seen as a short rather than a feature.

It's out there if you want to see it. I could take a ten minute walk and rent it right now if I wanted to. One of these days I will. Just look around.

Well, you can watch it on YouTube. I think it should be released on DVD (maybe convince Kubrick's widow to let Mike Nelson do a Rifftrax commentary), but it doesn't change the fact that it's a painfully bad movie. I think Kubrick just wanted to save people some time and emotion by skipping Fear and Desire. Probably because a lot of people will rush to get the DVD, then realize why Kubrick wanted it buried.

The only reason people are interested in it have to do with it being out of circulation and Kubrick's name on it. If it wasn't kept in the vault and it had someone else's name on it, no one would care about the film.

I want to see a release of his short films...

That's pretty much true, BUT...

I'd argue that it's worth seeing once, and isn't painfully bad, just somewhat dull. Short and watchable, at the very least. And like it or not, it is his 13th feature.

I kind of like the multiple narrative threads, but the inner thoughts/voiceovers were ill-conceived. Visually, it ties in very well to The Killing and Killer's Kiss, and despite the horrible condition of the film, the shots are very well-composed - Kubrick took a lot of care blocking his actors, something he'd do in his future films.

Also worth it to see a young and beautiful pre-The Brain That Wouldn't Die Virginia Leith.

cheers,

-the Jesus

Yeah me too. It's annoying, but not a big deal. As long as the discs are all right, then fine. Although in all honesty, I do prefer the other Shining cover.

That's not what I'm saying. The attempt to re-write history and deny it, and -- even worse -- for the public to accept is frightening.

He did the work. Let the audience judge it. Dictating to an artist is just idiotic, allowing the audience to freely judge and interpret the work on their own terms is what Kubrick and truly great artists have always been about (just read his interviews about 2001). I mean it's just plain cowardly to say the man's done only 12 features. At least put an * by that "fact."

George Lucas is a good example.

You take things really seriously, don't you?

It's like saying that Being There was Peter Sellers' last movie (a funny attempt to hide the existence of that Fu Manchu movie). In all senses, it's better to think of Kubrick making a clean dozen features - for the sake of downplaying Fear and Desire.

Why is is better in all senses?

I think that Fear and Desire fits neatly into Kubrick's oeuvre, stylistically and thematically. Just because it is amateurish, and clearly a B picture to be shown as part of a double feature, doesn't mean that it doesn't count as a Kubrick film. Could we also pretend that he didn't make three documentary shorts or worked as a photographer? That early work is all a part of him developing his style. And that early work dovetails nicely into the more storied, post-The Killing part of his career.

cheers,

-the Jesus