Curio: Crafty Kubrick

Alexa here. Today would have been Stanley Kubrick's 83rd birthday.  Of course the myth of the man is alive and well; stories of David Fincher's filming 99 takes of Rooney Mara still seem to pale in comparison to the master of meticulous craftsmanship. (I wonder if Fincher will leave behind boxes as painstakingly catalogued as Kubrick's.) So in the spirit of craft, here are a few handiworks you can buy in celebration of Kubrick's wonderful madness.

First, for play: an Alex DeLarge as a sock monkey, available here.

And though I've blogged them before, I still can't resist Sébastien Lepitre's Grady sister dolls.

Click for wearables, including party masks and necklaces...

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Mix Tape: "We'll Meet Again" in Dr. Strangelove

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, to talk about one of the most infamously ironic song choices out there. And spoiler alert -- if you care about such things for 47 year old movies -- it's all about the ending.

As Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb reaches its bleakly absurd denouement, everyone is plotting for an imagined future. The Soviet ambassador is snapping photos of the "Big Board," the hawkish General Turgidson is predicting a post-apocalyptic "mineshaft gap," and even the title character, an eccentric ex-Nazi, is rising from his wheelchair and crying out, "Sir! I have a plan!" before adding, "Mein Führer! I can walk!" All of their paranoid schemes are self-evidently ridiculous, and ultimately futile, because that's right when the world ends.

But it doesn't end with a whimper, or with a bang: it ends with British songstress Vera Lynn singing her WWII-era hit "We'll Meet Again" over a minute-and-a-half-long montage of mushroom clouds. In a single blow, Kubrick and editor Anthony Harvey (reputedly working from a suggestion by British comedy legend Spike Milligan) render all of the film's frantic negotiations pointless and greet Armageddon with a smile. It's about the most superficially cheery response to annihilation this side of Life of Brian's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," and like that song, it hides bitterness in its whimsy.

The power of this satirical finale lies in the song's historical roots...

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