FSU's on a Kubrick kick

Tallahassee.com | 3.21.10
by Mark Hinson

You don't have to be a serious movie buff to recognize the iconic stamps director Stanley Kubrick's left on cinema and popular culture.

Who can forget the bleakly hilarious finale of "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) with cowboy actor Slim Pickens riding an atomic bomb like a bucking bronco on his way down to Doomsday?Even if you've never made it through the entirety of the trippy, slow-paced "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), nearly everyone knows who the computer HAL was and that he will not open the pod bay doors, no matter how many times he's asked. "The Simpsons" should pay Kubrick for all the HAL and "2001" references.

Heck, even the latest television ad for Bing.com features a greatest-hits spoof of "The Shining" (1980) — complete with the creepy twins, the "Redrum" kid on a trike and the crazy husband bashing down a door. Here's Johnny, indeed. Kubrick, who died in March 1999, is still everywhere you turn.
And he's certainly all over the place this week during The Stanley Kubrick Film Festival at Florida State University.

"If there's any filmmaker who deserves to be called a genius, it's Stanley Kubrick," said Bob Howard, director of Florida State's Askew Student Life Center, which is home to the Student Life Cinema. "This is a rare opportunity to see his films on the big screen and talk with (director-producer) Jan Harlan, the man who was most intimately involved with the production of his films, and Vincent D'Onofrio, the 'actor's actor' who played one of Kubrick's most unforgettable characters.

.....D'Onofrio and Harlan will hold a Q&A session following a screening of "Full Metal Jacket" (1987) during the festival finale Friday night. The actor is also sticking around for an extra day after the festival officially ends to show two short films that he produced and directed — "Five Minutes, Mr. Welles" (2005) and "Don't Go Into the Woods" (2008). For more on D'Onofrio, be sure to pick up Friday's Limelight entertainment magazine.

I adore his (D'Onofrio's) work," said film distributor Paul Cohen, who also founded the FSU film school's Torchlight Program. "He's an interesting actor. The level he reaches to, he succeeds."
Since Kubrick was legendary for making actors do take after take on movie sets, "D'Onoforio has got to have some crazy stories to tell," Howard said. Full article

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