Reviews

The Cube was shown on NBC as part of a series called Experiments in Television. To my knowledge it was only shown twice, but it was a wonderfully surreal program unlike anything I had ever seen before.

The series showed other unusual things like a series of cartoons that were written by British playwright Harold Pinter.

I certainly wish NBC would find these shows and re-air them, because in the year 2003, they would still look incredibly modern!

Watching this movie was like slogging through a vat of syrup. That's why it seemed like one of those slow-moving Japanese films, where the pacing is excruciating but the rewards are great. Make sure that you see this movie in a theater. That alone will insure that you will be enveloped by this strange world. Remember all those movies where we've seen dysfunctional folks??? This is the end-of-the-line for these movies. Everyone has strange and severe psychological quirks (even Mel Gibson). The visual effects are quite subtle; the music enhances that mood of loneliness. Julian Sands is a hoot! Hats off to Wenders, for showing us another way of seeing ourselves!

Berlin Alexanderplatz is by far the most ambitious film of all time. It has a very unusual feel to it as it slips between the real world and the mental state of Franz Biberkopf (particularly when he relives again and again the crime which landed him in prison). Of special interest to film addicts who have not seen the movie is the final 90 minutes which evidently was Fassbinder's own filmed fantasy of the entire plot, done with a background picture of Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights." A fabulous richly-detailed film, but some may not be able to get past the politics.

These comments will reveal a few plot points that are essential to the film, but believe you me, a potential viewer might be interested in these before seeing the film. The screening I attended lost about 200 of its audience during the course of the movie. If you would rather be surprised, please read no further. The movie, to a fault, is extremely faithful to the action of the novel. During the course of the movie, of course, the psychological walls begin to close in on Pascual Duarte, and he becomes more and more demented until he finally cracks. In the course of this downward spiral, be warned...he blows away his dog on camera with a shotgun (no special effect here, it's real), and later on savagely stabs his horse to death (this is also a real event). This realism was enough to completely turn off many of the people in the theatre. Still, it is an extremely fascinating film.

It's a fascinating film that slowly evolves like one of those Kurosawa epics. Basically, it's an examination of the differences between the way women and men view the world (women see fantasy as reality; men see reality as fantasy) Don't go see this movie if you are interested in seeing a salacious "no holds barred" movie. It's not like that at all. It's subtle and unlike anything else that Kubrick made. A fine ending point for a career!