(6.9) Pack up the milk-plus and korova bars. This week’s entry in the Movies on the Block series is Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 dystopian nightmare, “A Clockwork Orange,” with Malcolm McDowell as top droog, Alex. From the NYT,
“A Clockwork Orange” is so beautiful to look at and to hear that it dazzles the senses and the mind, even as it turns the old real red vino to ice: Alex and his friends having a rumble with a rival gang to the tune of Rossini’s “The Thieving Magpie,” or preparing a gang rape in the home of a definitely upper-class writer as Alex does a lyric soft-shoe (into the stomach and face of the writer), singing “Singin’ in the Rain.” That’s the sort of thing that makes Alex feel all nice and warm in his guttywuts.
The film was originally rated X, but in 1973 Kubrick agreed to replace a few seconds to get an R. This adjustment being for the American audience, only nudity was cut — the violence was left untouched. Don’t know which version is on tap for Thursday, but if you bring a kid to this movie you are a creep and you will be making everyone around you uncomfortable.
Running time 2 hours, 16 minutes.
(Next week “Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.”)
Free, dusk, Thursday, June 9, Grant’s Block, 260 Westminster Street at Union, (directions)