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Stanley Kubrick Collection (7pc) (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: With the 1957 release of Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick confirmed his early promise and joined the ranks of world-class filmmakers. The age of the auteur had arrived, and Kubrick was a prime candidate for inclusion in the pantheon of directors later canonized by critic Andrew Sarris in his influential book The American Cinema. Ironically, this was also the period during which Kubrick left his native soil for permanent residence in England, and from that point forward, the Kubrick mystique inflated to legendary proportions. But if Kubrick was no longer bringing himself to the world, he was certainly bringing the world to his films. From the comfort of his rural England estate and locations never far from London, Kubrick would command cinematic odysseys to isolated Colorado (in The Shining), battle-ravaged Vietnam (Full Metal Jacket), upscale New York City (Eyes Wide Shut), and, of course, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite (in 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Released on VHS and DVD just prior to the July 1999 theatrical release of Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, The Stanley Kubrick Collection includes all seven of Kubrick's films from Lolita to Full Metal Jacket--a quarter-century of brilliant, challenging cinema. Authorized by Kubrick prior to his sudden death in March of 1999, the boxed set represents a cooperative effort among the Warner, Columbia, and MGM labels (with Killer's Kiss, The Killing, and Paths of Glory released simultaneously by MGM). All films retain the superior digital mastering of their earlier releases on laserdisc and DVD, and although purists have complained that The Shining and Full Metal Jacket have been released in full-screen format only, this was in compliance with Kubrick's wishes and both films do not suffer unduly from full-screen formatting.

The diversity of Kubrick's work is truly astonishing, even though the director's technical precision and steely perspective on humanity may strike uninitiated viewers as cold and even misanthropic. From the rich, black comedy of Lolita to the bleak heart of darkness explored in Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick's films almost always received mixed (and sometimes scathingly negative) reviews upon their release, only to benefit from glowing reassessment as they grew entrenched in the public consciousness. Here, in all their glory, are the collected films of a genuine master, ripe for study and appreciation for many years to come. --Jeff Shannon

Full Metal Jacket (dvd):

Amazon.com Essentials: Stanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the Vietnam War as Platoon and The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made the film at all: essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam (actually shot on sound stages and locations near London), Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best. Then again, much the same was said about Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a masterwork both enthralled with and satiric about the future's role in the unfinished business of human evolution. In a way, Full Metal Jacket is the wholly grim counterpart of 2001. While the latter is a truly 1960s film, both wide-eyed and wary, about the intertwining of progress and isolation (ending in our redemption, finally, by death), Full Metal Jacket is a cynical, Bush-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence. Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line. In Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point. --Tom Keogh

Stanley Kubrick Collection (dvd):

Amazon.com video review: With the 1957 release of Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick confirmed his early promise and joined the ranks of world-class filmmakers. The age of the auteur had arrived, and Kubrick was a prime candidate for inclusion in the pantheon of directors later canonized by critic Andrew Sarris in his influential book The American Cinema. Ironically, this was also the period during which Kubrick left his native soil for permanent residence in England, and from that point forward, the Kubrick mystique inflated to legendary proportions. But if Kubrick was no longer bringing himself to the world, he was certainly bringing the world to his films. From the comfort of his rural England estate and locations never far from London, Kubrick would command cinematic odysseys to isolated Colorado (in The Shining), battle-ravaged Vietnam (Full Metal Jacket), upscale New York City (Eyes Wide Shut), and, of course, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite (in 2001: A Space Odyssey).

The New Stanley Kubrick Collection includes all eight of Kubrick's films from Lolita on--a quarter-century of brilliant, challenging cinema. This second edition adds Eyes Wide Shut to the previous collection and remastered sound on five of the films plus a new anamorphic edition of 2001. Purists have complained that Kubrick's last three films have been released in full-screen format only; this was in compliance with Kubrick's wishes, and the films do not suffer unduly from full-screen formatting. This set also features a new full-length documentary made by longtime Kubrick assistant Jan Harlan, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. The diversity of Kubrick's work is truly astonishing, even though the director's technical precision and steely perspective on humanity may strike uninitiated viewers as cold and even misanthropic. His films almost always received mixed (and sometimes scathingly negative) reviews upon their release, only to benefit from glowing reassessment as they grew entrenched in the public consciousness. Here, in all their glory, are the collected films of a genuine master, ripe for study and appreciation for many years to come. --Jeff Shannon