The Shining

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Scatman!

is there a blog devoted to scatman's record collection in this scene? i bet there is.

There is a brief interview of the woman who posed for the pairings on the web somewhere. Probably theoverlookhotel.com

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is that someone famous?

whoever he is I hope someone stopped to ask him where he got his tshirt

Set design in those Scatman photos reminds me of Royal Tenanbaums. I think the Shining was super influential on that movie. 70s carpet and all.

Crazy old lady in the bathtub still freaks me the fuck out.

In his entry on The Shining in his book 'Have You Seen...?', David Thomson writes:

"There is a magnificent opening where the hotel manager (Barry Nelson} tells Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) how the place needs a caretaker in winter. It's a case of one bullshitter shitting another, and it's so cozy it gives you the creeps. And there you are listening to this guff about the magnificent, comprehensively appointed hotel which is useless, alas, in winter. Why? Because it snows! DID NO ONE EVER TELL THEM ABOUT SKIING?"

Thomson didn't listen to the guff hard enough, because in fact the manager does offer an explanation about the lack of winter sports - something to do with the location of the hotel, and the impossibility of clearing the snow from the approach road (although, as we see in the film, a number of people are able to reach the hotel in the depths of winter.)

But - in the same scene, the manager says that the Grady murders happened in 1970. Now assuming that this meeting is happening 'now' (eg round about 1978 or so), what happened in the intervening years - were there other caretakers, and why did they not go mad, too?

Also - the manager tells Torrance that his main duties will be heating different parts of the hotel and carrying out minor repairs (we never see Jack doing any of the latter, in the film.} So - why hire a former teacher to do this - surely there are more suitable handymen/caretakers out there? The manager makes vague reference to a prior meeting between Torrance and "our people in Denver" - are they recruiters, the corporate owners? And would they not check up on Jack at some point, see how he's performing, holding up?

Or - is this whole meeting a dream, a hallucination? A rationalisation of Jack's disordered mind after the fact?

although, as we see in the film, a number of people are able to reach the hotel in the depths of winter.)

One person, and he has to abandon the roads and get a Sno-Cat to get there.

were there other caretakers, and why did they not go mad, too?

Because neither they nor their family members Shined.

So - why hire a former teacher to do this - surely there are more suitable handymen/caretakers out there?

Because they aren't paying them much at all and they don't need anyone to actually do much other than make sure the place doesn't fall over?

did thomson ever write anything longer on this movie?

were there other caretakers, and why did they not go mad, too?

maybe they did, who knows? the film, wisely, doesn't give us much information about the larger context in which jack's employment occurs.

tbh, i get annoyed by readings that attribute seemingly actual narrative events, on thin evidence, to the perceptions (or rationalizations) of a disordered mind. like there always has to be a secret story behind what we see on the surface. the shining certainly invites those sorts of questions, but it doesn't seem to reward them.

J.D. afaik the 'Have You Seen...' entry is his longest pass on it - it's the one Kubrick he seems to like (and he LIKES IT A LOT). I've been dipping into the book recently, and really enjoying it - I think a former ilxor with a marked antipathy towards Thomson put me off in the past, but many of the entries are entertaining and provocative (i like the one on Close Up, where he suggests that the film has been made by a Kiarostami imposter, or the Stalker entry, where he writes "It may be that the Room - if you ever get there - is an infinte, if dank, enclosure in which an uncertain number of strangers are watching the works of Andrei Tarkovsky.")

Thanks for the correction, Phil - I thought possibly the cops got there in the end, too, and discover Jack's frozen body, but obviously not.

i've gone back and forth a lot on DT. i love his style but find his critical reasoning flawed a lot of the time -- the biographical dictionary in particular includes several entries (chaplin, capra, satyajit ray) that are as appallingly badly argued as any film writing i've ever read. but he's never boring and, as far as i can tell, almost never repeats himself -- which is astonishing considering how much he writes.

linked to from a klosterman article about 'Room 237' doc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMEq6IjgR04&feature=player_embedded

holy shit i believe

going to see this doc on saturday!

i think i really want to see it now plz tell me how it is

Aww...faked Apollo moon landing? GTFO. Wish I'd read the actual description before I wasted several minutes on that.

But the real doc sounds intersting! I just finished reading the book for the first time and I was struck by how vastly different it was from the film.

no way faked apollo moon landing makes it so much better. the scene w/ danny + the sweater is amazing

speaking srsly, whatever it really "means," the scene where danny stands up with the rocket on his sweater is really tremendous and the narrator is clearly a very clever reader + watcher of films (even if he also lol believes the moon landing was faked)

i dont really know why, but The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut really seem closely linked to me. perhaps the claustrophobia, "all the best people" (such an amazing and evocative phrase used to such chilling effect), the hallways and doors and people just saying banal things loaded with such import--"this is totally meaningful and important and you need to pay attention but nah it's just what it's pretending to be..."

Two of my favorite movies.

totally cosign re "all the best people"

Room 237 showing in Brooklyn Friday night.

http://www.bam.org/film/2012/room-237

Oh! Did I forget to say that I saw this? I saw this. It was entertaining. Footage was fun, interviews were enlightening, will never look at baking soda the same way.

Oh man I really want to see this but I'm not going to travel up to NY for a showing. Maybe they'll bring it to Philly?

IFC Films is releasing (next year?), I'm sure it will play all the big cities.

So, not Cleveland.

Here's hoping for a future Netflix availability, unless one of y'all wants to cameraphone it for me.

I expect this to win plurality of crix awards' doc citations this year.

i still can't understand why they don't rush broad release of small films like this. i get something like Avatar, which benefits from being scene in 3D in an IMAX screen and is expected to make a fortune on screens, you don't want to rush to release on DVD/online. but a tiny doc w/ very limited niche appeal like this they should just sell on their website ASAP. not 2 years later.

Usually 'social significance' trumps cinemania, so I have my doubts. And the IFC page sez 2013. xp

Guessing they're avoiding the awards-bait crush and you'll see this around March.

Maybe not a good idea to sell what is basically a re-edited version of The Shining with narration on top of it. I imagine web critics get lots of copyright notices for things like 1-second long Back to the Future clips, let alone 30-45 full minutes of movie footage.

The superimposed image part was probably my favorite now that I think about it.

Usually 'social significance' trumps cinemania, so I have my doubts. And the IFC page sez 2013. xp

Don't NY crix use NYFF showings for eligibility? A lot of other groups just follow in lockstep after that.

Nope. Has to have a run of a week, I think. The NY Times doesn't even run actual reviews of NYFF films anymore til they open commercially.

R237 opens in the UK this Friday, apparently.

(That last Jafar Panahi 'smuggled' film played NYFF 2011, but opened at Film Forum last spring, so it counts for all the local prizes this year.)

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Yep, am seeing it on Sunday

Think the docu that's going to get all the plaudits here in the UK is The Imposter, which again, may not have opened in the US yet?

I actually haven't been on the pulse of docs at all this year. Whatever emerges from the pack has to be better than The Bully Project.

well, there's The Central Park Five.... and so the doc/essay conundrum again.

Which ACT UP doc is better?

I haven't seen any of them (aside from a partial rough cut last year), but How to Survive a Plague is getting the best distribution/ reviews. There's also Kirby Dick's feature about rape in the military.

shit, just tried to get tickets online for Room 237 at BAM...unsuccessful,guess it's sold out

r237 rules

There must be alot of people that never went to alt.movies.kubrick.

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Doesn't seem like social relevance matters much these days for docs -- The Interrupters was basically ignored at awards time iirc? This poor movie doesn't have a chance ;_;

well of the last 6 Oscar-winning docs, 4 were "issue" films: climate change, CIA torture, dolphin hunting, Inside Job. The other two were about high-school football and Philippe Petit.

anyhow, this film isn't really a doc?