I think we need a dedicated new movie release thread here. Every new movie topic sort of gets lost in the Whatever forum very quickly. So anyhow anyone else curious about this?: http://www.room237movie.com/ Kubrick's 'The Shining' over analyzed basically by conspiracy theorists and critics alike. Thankfully it's available in iTunes because screenings seem limited. I love Kubrick so my curiosity has peaked.
Hmmm, hadn't heard of this. I've loved The Shining since I was a kid, so I'll be sure to check it out. Most the themes of TS seem pretty obvious to me though... will be curious to see if it touches on stuff I hadn't noticed or thought of that isn't ridiculous or far reaching.
It was pretty slow and some of theories are way out there. Meh Its available on demand, is where i rented it.
Yeah some of the theories were waaaaay out there (luggage = holocaust victims?). But enjoyable to watch if you're a Shining fan, just don't take it too seriously.
I've read about this and am pretty fascinated by it. I don't necessarily agree or disagree but I found it pretty entertaining especially since the argument is plausible to some degree. On the new movie front....I want to see Only God Forgives . I know Drive was a hit or miss for some folks but I personally loved it. http://movies.yahoo.com/video/only-god- ... 41045.html
I'd been anticipating the movie for a looooong time before it finally showed up on iTunes last week. I wouldn't recommend against seeing it, but I was very disappointed. It basically presents all ideas about The Shining as being equal. Perhaps the most fair way to do it, but the problem is that some of the better and more legitimate ideas (e.g. cues referencing the Native American slaughter) are given the same amount of time as utterly preposterous and indefensible ideas (the movie was Kubrick's way of admitting to his participating in faking the moon landings ... dumb!) Perhaps the most interesting common thread in the theories is that there are numerous intentional "continuity errors" in the film. So subtle that you might not ever notice them unless they're pointed out. This could have been the basis for an entire documentary itself. Why do chairs move around? Why does Grady have two different first names? Why does Jack sometimes seem crazy, sometimes seem to have supernatural powers, and other times seem to be nothing more than a dry drunk? This stuff is real. Kubrick was far too meticulous to have allowed so many "errors" in a film. They're planted there ... the reasons why he might have done that are worth exploring. In my opinion he was intentionally injecting volumes of ambiguity and multiple potential meanings into the film. That was seen as a flaw by many reviewers at first ... people couldn't quite get a handle on what it all meant. Some thirty-odd years later I think most would agree that the WTF factor is inherent to the film as a strength. So, definitely check Room 237 out if you're interested, but otherwise, the ideas in the film, both the dumb ones and the smart ones are explored in far greater detail at various fan sites on the Web.
I didn't like how uneven some of the footage was though particularly when they strayed away from the source material. Anytime the focus wasn't on the Shining..the footage was hit or miss for me.
I just watched BENDA BILILI. It is an amazing documentary. Polio left these guys crippled and on the streets in the Congo. So they formed a band, built their own bikes and instruments and eventually toured the world. Truely uplifting and a joy to watch.
This is kind of what I was afraid of. Some of the conspiracy theories are so bad (and been around for so long) we all know them.
I've read a few articles online that go into depth about the moon landings and I was actually entertained. I felt the movie brushed over that one and didn't go into that much depth. There was one really annoying narrator towards the end that kept laughing or chuckling and I don't know why they didn't try to rerecord that.
@Lixx Since stumbling upon 237 I have also been fascinated also. Then I cam across: http://www.collativelearning.com/the%20shining.html @toothaction linked in the "bansheebot" thread. I seriously lost a lot of sleep over it (was worth it) I am slo interested in the other movies on there as well. Definitely interested in the starship troopers one.
My sister and I geeked out on it so hard that we sacraficed sleep to read and re-watch scenes. My sister even has a whole notebook filled with notes
^ I did much the same, but I hardly scribbled down anything. Shoulda. You should totally scan her conspiracy diary for us!
When i get a chance ill get some snapshots, i remember the last thing she was working on (when we were freshly obsessed) was the "overlook hotel july 4th ball" photo at the end of the movie. And she had found closer detailed shots of the sign that was placed in front of the bar entrance that we see jack drink at.
Haven't seen this movie yet but probably will if I stumble upon it. I don't really like conspiracy theories in general. Most of the times I think they don't have good enough arguments to be true. Just a way for people to try to explain something they don't like, understand or doesn't go along with what they believe. There's actually a term for this 'apophenia'. Anyway, I was thinking about what Chris said about the Moon, the last manned lunar landing was actually in 72, which is still quite a long time ago. I believe that with the end of the cold war and the budget for NASA shifting towards defense, the interest in studying a barren land by foot is probably gone. Other (many) unmanned landings have occurred during these 43 years. Other than that, I will take a look to see that tin foil you mention, I don't remember it just now.
BTW these were released a few months ago (all sold out I think). Would have loved that mat in my house. http://www.slashfilm.com/mondo-237-clot ... o-237-mat/
I have this fantasy project in mind which I'll probably never get around to ... count and notate every single American popular culture and corporate reference in "The Shining." Every verbal and visual reference to a TV show or commercial, every instance of a Disney or Warner Brothers character appearing, all of it. That collectivelearning site only scratches the surface. You could also do the same with "Full Metal Jacket." I suspect the lists would be very long.
Finally found some time to watch Room 237. Like many others, I thought some of the theories were absolute twaddle. I mean, the Skiing poster looks like a Minotaur? No. No it doesn't. I agree with Dean that some of the more interesting stuff was about the 'continuity errors'. I've seen the film many times and never spotted them. Like the typewriter changing colour for example. What i enjoyed the most was the film running backwards super-imposed onto the film running forwards. That produced some cool imagery. Its all coincidental of course, but some of the juxtapositions were quite eerily beautiful.
I agree that the poster did not look like a minotaur at all, but regarding the film running backwards: Since Kubrick supposedly did 178 or something takes of one of the actors walking across a hall and printed them all, I wouldn't want to rule out the possibility that he actually experimented with super-imposing the film on itself. I guess that from all the film that was shot and printed, he probably could have made at least three or four cuts of the very same film. Maybe he did..? We'll most likely never know, but it's still fun speculating!
Some of the continuity errors were interesting - the typewriter, the carpet w/rolling ball, etc - but I think people were reading way too much into some of them. The "impossible window", Danny's big wheel journey that starts on the ground floor and ends on an upper floor, etc - I felt those were just normal things that happen when shooting a movie. I thought the most interesting part was the Apollo/moon landing conspiracy. And by "interesting" I don't mean believable...just interesting.
Maybe there were actual continuity errors in the film, but I for one strongly doubt it. Even the helicopter shadow seen in some cuts of the film's beginning is said to have been intentionally left there at the director's instruction (by the cinematographer who called it to his attention.) To reiterate a point made by numerous people who knew SK and worked with him both on films and in managing his estate, he was obsessively meticulous, and just didn't let things slide ... not anything, perhaps to a fault. If you can find the Jon Ronson documentery called "Kubrick's Boxes," there's quite a bit of material about just how perfectly organized, demanding, and precise the man was in all aspects of his creative (and often personal) life. I'm with the interpretation that the moving chairs, etc. in "The Shining" were intentional plants to suggest an overall atmosphere of uncertainty and supernaturality. As for any further interpretation, e.g. "nothing depicted in the film actually happened," or "Wendy is the actual psychic" and all that stuff ... oh well, to each their own. Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here, but the horse keeps moving! Beat beat beat
