BARRY LYNDON is not the type of movie people recommend to me all the time, but it is the kind of movie that most people who have spent as long as me trying to be up on the good movies have, like, bothered to see at some point. Because it is widely known that that Stanley Kubrick usually did a pretty good job of the movies. Yet I managed to go several decades not seeing it. I guess there’s no way to be suspenseful about this – you’ve probly done the math and figured out that since this is a review of BARRY LYNDON by me that means I’ve finally seen BARRY LYNDON. An exciting day. I get to go over to the Homicide: Life On the Street dry-erase board and change the letters from red to black.
Ryan O’Neal (THE DRIVER) stars as Redmond Barry, horny Irish ne’er-do-well who has to leave home and have adventures because he thinks he killed an English officer in a duel. I’m not clear how old he’s supposed to be in the early scenes, but it’s funny that they keep referring to mid-‘30s, manlier-than-everyone-around-him O’Neal as a “boy.” Maybe they should’ve made him sit in oversized furniture like Martin Short in CLIFFORD.
released June 29th, 2001
Hey folks, Harry here with Vern… he’s our magical little friend from up in Seattle and he doesn’t like KRULL! What sort of soulless mutherfucker doesn’t dig on KRULL! KRULL is the film that introduced the GLAVE and THE GLAVE is the fucking weapon of choice in my D&D household! And the Spider sequence… the sand in the hand… Ancient bitter love… FIRESTEEDS! Oh absolutely it’s got levels of funk 4 feet deep all about, but I love all sorts of crazy shit in that movie, and would love to see it in 70mm. ENVY! Ok, here’s Vern, who I still like, even if he’s too backwoods to get KRULL!
Lately I’ve only been reviewing current movies, but as you know, the Hollywood Reporter had a story the other day that MGM has hired a first time director to do a “re-imagining” of 2001 with “modern pacing and music” that will “take full advantage of state-of-the-art digital effects.” The director is not someone I’m familiar with, but they say he is perfect for the job because he’s done alot of music videos and won a couple of Miss Clio awards for his commercials. So before they ruin it I thought I would revisit Kubrick’s masterpiece of space ballet and shit.
OUTLAW CRITIC IS FIRST TO ADMIT, “I ACTUALLY THOUGHT A.I. WAS PRETTY FUCKIN GOOD”
