Word: kubricks
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...kind of person who's slightly obsessive about my favorite artists. I scan newspapers, magazines and whatever else I can get my hands on for even the most esoteric scraps of information. Stanley Kubrick is tossing around the idea of moving back to the United States? Eddie Vedder got a new cat? Even though I keep my ear to the ground, I have the peculiar habit of going into bookstore and record stores for the sole purpose of scanning the titles of my favorite artists and authors. Even when I know damn well that a new work isn't coming...
DIED. TERRY SOUTHERN, 71, novelist and screenwriter; of respiratory failure; in New York City. More than that of any other artist in any genre, Southern's film work defined the '60s sensibility. His script for 1964's Dr. Strangelove, co-written with director Stanley Kubrick, showed an unerring ear for atomic-age Orwellianisms ("You can't fight here," cries President Muffley. "This is the War Room!"). The script won Southern an Oscar nomination, as did his work on another definitive film, Easy Rider...
...right, then. Imagine a minivan towing a small boat to the beach. The minivan is Odyssey, Apollo 13's command module (named after the Stanley Kubrick film about a man lost and transformed in space); the boat is Aquarius, the lunar module (after the song from Hair, Broadway's hymn to hippie insurrection). Now imagine that, on a nowhere stretch of road, your van just about blows up. How do you get home...
...Kubrick's vigilant camera follows the 843rd squadron into the air, where expatriate Texan "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) and his crew are shocked by their orders to deliver approximately 60 megatons of nuclear devices to sites in Russia within two hours. Over the strains of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," Slim's Texas drawl offers a few inspirational words to the crew: "I reckon you wouldn't even be human beings if you didn't have some pretty strong feelings about nuclear combat." The boys drop their new issue of Playboy, Slim replaces his flight helmet with a Stetson...
...certainly your patriotic duty to revel in Kubrick's extraordinary film. Don't be surprised if you come out of the Brattle more thoughtful about the nuclear arms race. But you won't by thinking about such trivialities in the theater. Kubrick and his cast will fix Dr. Strangelove's own death grip on you--uncontrollable laughter...