PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

MissSimonetta Stanley Kubrick is a cinematic god, up there with Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa as one of the greatest directors to have ever walked the planet. Made by his brother-in-law shortly after his sudden death at age 70, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001) could have been quite sugary and light, with nothing but praise for the late filmmaker.While there is a lot of praise on display, the documentary does portray a more even-handed view of Kubrick. The man could be difficult to work with, a trait most acutely displayed in his appalling treatment of Shelley Duvall during the making of The Shining (1980). However, he could also be warm and generous. He was, in short, perfectly human. I did wish some of his other collaborators could have been interviewed, but I'm perfectly happy with who did appear. Kubrick's career is covered in great detail, with the film itself clocking in at almost two and a half hours. Kubrick fans will definitely be interested.

virek213 Hollywood has often had a difficult time dealing with ambiguity and enigmas. And there have been very few directors who define those terms much better than the late Stanley Kubrick. That aspect, and many others, are the focus of the incredible intriguing 2001 documentary STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES, directed by Kubrick's brother-in-law (and frequent co-producer) Jan Harlan.In its 142-minute running time, the film, narrated by Tom Cruise, charts Kubrick's progress from his early days as a photographer in the Bronx to his earliest efforts at film-making (1953's FEAR AND DESIRE; 1955's KILLER'S KISS), and how each new film helped to revolutionize Hollywood at a time when the old studio system was now starting to crumble. But as even a successful big-budget effort like SPARTACUS shows, Kubrick was never one who could simply kowtow to the whims of studio executives. He needed complete creative control over every film he made from that point on, and he didn't feel that he could do that in Hollywood. In a radical move, he moved himself, his family, his life, and his work to England in 1960 and never set foot on American soil again, apart from a few scattered occasions. But he always considered himself an American filmmaker first and foremost.Beginning with LOLITA in 1962, and continuing right up to the last film, EYES WIDE SHUT, in 1999, Kubrick chose material and subject matter that most other directors would never have thought of touching with a barge pole. His way of doing films, a process that often took years on end (hence the relatively small number of films to his credit), was often seen as cold, clinical, and detached, which tended to rub critics the wrong way. On other occasions, however, his films were often controversial. LOLITA was considered quite scandalous because of its depiction of forbidden love. The reviews for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY were initially extremely bad because of that film's revolutionary approach to science fiction. DOCTOR STRANGELOVE was frequently slammed for its savagely satirical approach to nuclear war and Cold War-era politics. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE spawned a firestorm because of its explicit and whimsical approach to sex, violence, and governmental brainwashing. And even THE SHINING, regarded as one of the great horror films of all times in most quarters now, still remains a bone of contention for others because of its ambiguities and the fact that it strayed so far from its Stephen King source material.But Kubrick remained largely above it all by being deeply committed to his family and friends, as this documentary also shows, utilizing film footage that the outside world had never seen up to that point. Kubrick rarely gave interviews; he was an intensely private man (though not at the Howard Hughes level like so many pundits might claim); and he could be extremely exacting with the actors he worked with (witness Shelley Duvall's own trauma on THE SHINING). Directors like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Alex Cox, and Woody Allen all share their impressions of Kubrick's cinematic mastery; while actors like Malcolm McDowell, Sir Peter Ustinov, Jack Nicholson, and Matthew Modine share their impressions of working so closely with the man.All of this adds up to a great film, one that can never answer all the questions about its subject simply because those questions may not have answers that will satisfy everyone, if anyone at all. But no matter how he was regarded by critics or audiences while he was alive, Stanley Kubrick remains one of the most important directors in cinematic history; and this documentary sets the case for that claim in solid stone.

radpix I find the fact Tom Cruise being chosen to do the narration was a terrible idea. Tom Cruise definitely did not help Kubrick's health with his awful acting in Eyes Wide Shut. Malcolm MCDowell would have been the best choice by far.... I mean come on. I found the documentary decent but anything on Kubrick I will watch with an open heart. I will miss his movies. Not many directors make a movie exclusively for sake of art, and the love of directing in general. A lot of people who I know have never seen Paths of Glory, which is a must see. The topic of war was really something that must of weighed strongly with Kubrick, given he made 4 movies about it. Sparticus would be another except for the fact Kubrick did it to save Kirk Douglas's production.

julius-s This is and will most likely, for the foreseeable future remain the only, qualified and official life account of the late Stanley Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick was one of the few scholars of the art of film. He did not explain his work much the same way a painter seldom explains his painting, as he expressed it "I will not comment on your interpretation of it, nor will I offer any other" (not an exact quote) concerning 2001: A Space Odyssey. He was, as it has been expressed in this documentary "a man that remained silent, wheter he was applauded or damned" (not an exact quote). This documentary gives an insight into his highly private life, a privilege that has been up to now granted only to a very narrow group of people. Some do not approve of this film since it was not detailed enough, I believe that are missing the point. For example I can not see the reason for knowing what his directorial style was, it would be as seeing some mythical key to Dalis paintings in the way he hold the brush. I believe this film as such is a skilled documentary, and I must confess that I enjoyed it, and still do enjoy when from time to time I watch it again. The film only states facts and presents people who knew him with their personal and subjective opinions and experiences of him. Kubrick himself gave extremely few interviews, and thus remains and will remain as an unknown. This film is more about the shadow of the man, his legacy and his works. The title states clearly, A Life In Picures. He let his films fend for them self, he let the pictures be what they are, it is and will always be the perogative of an artist to create art. Once art is being explained it is then no longer valid. As such, his life collected so fittingly for a filmmaker in pictures is his final work, as we all leave our legacy in the trace that remains once we are gone, as our creations and the memory of us among those left behind he left his. This film is only a collection of this legacy, it is but the frame of the Stanley Kubrick project, his LIFE.