I can see that, but I don't agree. I put Kubrick with the filmmakers who gaze into the abyss but find some meaning in the abyss gazing back. I mean, I think his movies are predicated on the notion that people are fallible and will almost always fuck things up, but there's a point to all this striving. He's the yang to Altman's humanist yin.

I enjoyed Fight Club, but never had any interest in Trainspotting. Looked like nastiness for the sake of nastiness. I tried to watch A Clockwork Orange, but it totally disgusted me and I had turned it off and headed back to the video store with it within about 15-20 minutes (this was in like 89 or so). I realize it's supposed to be disgusting, but it was too much for me. Ick.

I have such a great love for A Clockwork Orange that my lukewarm response to everything else Kubrick has done still doesn't chill me on Kubrick as a whole. I'm not entirely sure why it didn't turn me off, but it was one of those movies that I went to see every time they showed it at University. And that was about once a semester. Which puts it in my top ten most viewed list, now that I own the DVD.

I love what they did to the main character.

Trainspotting I'm kinda meh on. And I did close my eyes for the toilet scene, because who needs that, really?

I love both A Clockwork Orange and Fight Club. Apparently I'm into macho nihlism.

I've never seen all of A Clockwork Orange somehow, but I adore Fight Club. It loses a little something on rewatch once you've seen the end, but the performances are great.

Apparently I'm into macho nihlism.

You're butch but you have no ethos. It's sad really.

I mean, I certainly appreciate Kubrick's technical ability. He certainly has made some of the best-looking, best photographed films ever. It's just that I keep looking for some sort of deep meaning to his films, and I can't see past the nihilism.

I may be the only person in the world who watched Fight Club because Helena Bonham Carter was in it. (Early exposure to Lady Jane made me watch every movie HBC was in ever)

I do remember liking it, but I think I was annoyed by the "twist". I tend to hate "twists"

I also had trouble watching Memento and Mulholland Drive, and kept falling asleep, which is not good for those movies.

Kubrick also fucked up The Shining, imo. It looked good, and it was chilling, but it was not so much with the sense-making at the end, especially when the book's ending was nice and tight. He completely sacrificed story and character development for mood and cheap shocks.

Helena Bonham Carter is one of my favorite parts of Fight Club, Sophia. Her Marla was just perfect.

Whoa, look at me with the runaway italics. Oops.

I have had HBC issues since before day 1, but I never gave her a fair shake. Fight Club is where she bothered me the least, although I seem to be part of a fairly rare middle ground on that movie.