Product: A Clockwork Orange [VHS] (1972)
Rating: 1.0
Ghastly! Simply Ghastly!
I saw this picture on the big screen when it was first released. Just about all the people I knew kept telling me how great the movie was so I went to see it. Well, I disagreed with all the praise then, and still do. I thought it was ... (awful) to sit through, full of double standard cinematography, and chauvinistic attitudes going way beyond what the Burgess novel was about. About two years later I ventured to see it again to see if my attitude toward the picture had changed. It hadn't. I still felt that it was an extremely bad picture. I can't fault the acting or the art direction. What I could not stomach then and still can't stomach is the way Kubrick handled the material. I have enjoyed other Kubrick movies (notably "Dr. Strangelove", "2001", and "Spartacus") but "Clockwork" continues to leave me cold. The violence is sickening, the attitudes of the characters -- as well as Kubrick's attitudes! -- are appalling. No amount of Rossini and Wendy Carlos's music can save this movie from being the most overrated and most depressing movie anybody ever made. Ghastly! Absolutely Ghastly!