People are voting emotionally.

Memorable, crazy movie

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Of course Kubrick is the best director of all time; this should be obvious even to the most deluded Bunuel-sniffing film student. But I'm not going to sit here and write a sniveling, awe-filled adoration piece, making a god out of a mere mortal. There is quite enough over-the-top idolatry as it is in Paris Hilton's Age Of The Idiot...SKB has a very unusual approach to tackling a dead human subject: by digging through his numerous boxes clues are found as to how insanely perfectionist Kubrick had become post-"Strangelove" (fittingly enough, the weakest movie after "Spartacus" - not counting those early 50s films, naturally).Evidently, Kubrick was a collector, not a thrower, which I can perfectly understand. But unlike the kind of garbage I keep lying around my flat, Kubrick's is rather fascinating and worthwhile.As the documentary gradually drew to a close there was a sense of disappointment because there's enough material in those boxes to make a 10-hour documentary, as opposed to the pitiful 45 minutes we're given here; mere breadcrumbs. Ronson just scratches the surface. There should be a docu series on these boxes, with each episode tackling a specific subject: an entire episode could be easily dedicated to the crank letters, for example. A two-part episode should be about the footage his daughter shot of Kubrick filming "FM Jacket". Another episode could be about his meticulous search for props, yet another could be about the hunt for ideally suitable locations, etc. Unfortunately, Kubrick destroyed all his out-takes (a fact that made me grin a bit), but there's easily a whole episode somewhere in those boxes about screen tests. I even sense that an episode could be made about his numerous pets, and if you think there are no viewers interested in a subject as narrowed-down as that, think again... Kubrick was one of the last true eccentrics of the movie world, and as such he's interesting to non-fans as well. The pet episode could be aired as an Animal Planet special.We're all peeping toms, and what could be more fun than to have such relatively intimate sneaks into the private life of a semi-loon as interesting as Kubrick... So open all of those damn boxes and make more documentaries, frcrissakes! I'm sure the Kubrick estate headed by his widow wouldn't mind.

Documentary from Sundance and Channel 4 about Stanley Kubrick's boxes. The boxes contain all of the research for all of his films from 2001 to Eyes Wide Shut. It's the story of a man who was obsessed with the films he made and all of the tiny little details involved in making them. Its a tribute to the depths that Kubrick would go to to make a film. It also shows why in the later years so few films were made as his planned film on the Holocaust was sidelined when Steven Spielberg planned and shot Schindler's List while Kubrick was still wading through the research. We see the Fan letters, the crank letters, reports on books and scripts as possible subjects (including a pass on the Killing Fields), film of Kubrick shooting films, the odd memos, the stationery, and everything else that Kubrick collected when he made (and tried to make) films. It'a an intriguing portrait of a man, or at least a man's obsessions through his detritus. It's more a side bar portrait to the man rather than a full portrait and actually would make a nice companion piece to the short documentary thats on the Eyes Wide Shut DVD The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut. Worth a look if you've ever wondered about the man and his obsessions which were always oddly reported in the media.

http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/The day Stanley Kubrick died I was terribly saddened. My grief was for a very selfish reason, simply that I would see only one new Kubrick film for the rest of my life. That film was Eyes Wide Shut and it proved to become one of my favorite Kubrick films. But losing Kubrick too early was a tragedy, not just because it would push A.I. onto Spielberg's desk, but because Kubrick still had a few films left in him and those films, would undoubtedly be masterpieces. Masterpieces are fewer and further between now more than ever and if the current state of film-making is any indication, there will never be another Kubrick.The other day I was sent a link to a fascinating Channel 4 documentary directed by Jon Ronson titled: Stanley Kubrick's Boxes. When Ronson is invited to Kubrick's estate after the reclusive director's untimely death, Ronson becomes captivated by the thousands of boxes stacked and stored throughout Kubrick's stately home. The boxes (and their contents) become the subject of his documentary. What you learn about Kubrick though the contents in these boxes is that he is obsessed with detail oriented work, the methodology behind the perfection of his films. This isn't so much of a revelation as it is impressive with how much research and pre-production Kubrick would put into his films. He left no stone unturned, concrete proof that every single frame of a Kubrick film is deliberately and painstakingly crafted. This is the price of perfection.Searching through all of these boxes as a way to glimpse into the mind of Kubrick has a Rosebud quality to it and Ronson addresses this in the doc's conclusion. He concludes that he found his Rosebud within a few lines spoken by Kubrick on a videotape acceptance speech for his DGA Lifetime Achievement Award. Kubrick states: "Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that although it can be like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling." Ronson adds that this quote makes it apparent Kubrick realized in order to make films of genius -- in a world full of bad films -- there has to be a method: precision and detail. In my opinion, there is no question Kubrick is the most important director since Orson Welles. Watching Boxes I now feel I have a better understanding why.

Stanley Kubrick's Boxes (2008) **** (out of 4) I've often wondered what type of genius or madman someone like Kubrick would have to be in order to create the masterpieces that he did and this documentary tries to uncover some of that. Director Ronson was invited to the Kubrick Estate to go through thousands of boxes that Kubrick had saved up throughout the years and what we see are some rather amazing items, which show why it took the director so long to make movies. In his final 19-years Kubrick only made three films and the reasons why are discussed here. If you're a fan of Kubrick then I don't see how it would be possible not to love this documentary even though, sadly, it only runs for just under an hour. Some of the things we see and learn are rather shocking and mysterious. The mysterious figure that Kubrick was is certainly going to be even more mysterious after this film but it does give us a close look at how the genius worked. The most amazing section were notes from fans that the director collected. Apparently he read them all and would mark them as being positive, negative or crank meaning threatening. He would then take the letters and put them together by the movie and then break them down into the cities where they came from. Even more astounding is how much pre-production he would do when making movies. He had his nephew, a photographer, spend a year taking pictures of stuff that would eventually go into Eyes Wide Shut and that includes thousands of photographs for gates, which would end up only being seen for a matter of seconds in the movie. Fans of Full Metal Jacket will also get a kick out of learning that Vivian Kubrick's documentary is still safe and at the estate in the form of 18-hours worth of footage. We get to see a few clips here including one with Kubrick debating when tea breaks should happen. There's a lot of wonderful footage in this documentary and it's great to know that the Estate has turned all of this stuff over to the London University of Arts where anyone can go and look through them. The bad news is that it's apparently true that Kubrick destroyed all the outtakes from his films, which is strange since this documentary shows that he saved everything. There's also some great talk about his Holocaust movie, which he worked on for nearly three years before giving up on it after the Spielberg movie started production.