Selections from my Stanley Kubrick scrapbook

"Scrapbook" sounds fancy and organized - these are just picks from separate piles of vaguely related ephemera that haven't had much use in the past 20-30 years. Until now - sorta. I'm sure there's more lying around here but this was all I could find in a pinch, which is fine because I had to scan them and I hate fucking scanning. But now they're on the internet so they're your problem. 

I drew this in 1996 when I was 13. I bravely copied it from the cover of my VHS - "bravely" because I had/have no talent for drawing human faces, regardless of whether or not I'm mimicking something that's already an illustration. But trying to copy the soft aesthetic of Philip Castle's original artwork with nothing but a no.2 pencil was a dangerous approach anyway. Really I was just fascinated with the logo and wanted it in tangible form to maybe hang on my wall. Ultimately it became part of an "All About Me" poster board collage for 8th grade English class and for about 5 minutes all the alt girls thought I was cool. 

In an era when it was still standard practice to check your local listings for theaters and showtimes, newspapers were always within my reach and they were an acceptable resource for additional movie news, critiques, ads, and yes, showtimes. Though whether it was a respected metropolitan periodical or the local hayseed rag, the Arts & Entertainment section was not always, shall we say, satisfactory. 

I can't imagine constructing several subjective paragraphs immediately following my first and only viewing of a Kubrick movie. (That's daunting enough with any movie.) But alas that's the job and movies are then forever shackled to how well or poorly they were received in those first few moments of their birth. We call them "hot takes" nowadays and for the most part they're pretty valid: "If you can't Wow me in one interaction then clearly it's deficient somehow." I read all the middling reviews of Eyes Wide Shut upon its release and they all focused on stuff like plot and dialogue and characters and behind-the-scenes gossip - in other words, mostly its weaknesses. And again, that's sorta valid, all of these things can be distracting - even I was consumed with trying to "figure it out." So I keep things like this as relics of my own naiveté and a reminder that professional critics have as much experience with opinions as you or I. 

- Paul