Sitting in the packed Boulder theater, on cramped hard chairs, watching classics projected from the scratchiest of scratchy film stock, the soundtrack played over shrill, crackling speakers. It's a cultural tradition!

On tonight's menu: Stanley Kubrick, giving us one of his most bizarre visions of an alter-reality, a world very much like our own, except for the absolutely out-of-this-world, jarring set backgrounds, color choices, the take-no-prisoners way in which they are shown, and the almost-could-be-real storyline.

MINOR SPOILERS BELOW, for those who still haven't seen it. (What are you waiting for?)

One comment I read on k5 the other day was right: After seeing this movie, you can never hear the song "Singin in the Rain" the same way again. Come to think of it, perhaps that was part of the subversive intent: Drive home the point about Alex's impaired ability to appreciate "Ludwig Van" by making everyone who sees the film walk out with a similarly inverted psychological association in regard to "Singin in the Rain". When the song plays up during the end credits, it's hard not to to shiver inside. Just a bit.