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March 29, 2024, 09:27:39 AM

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Room 237

Started by vrailaine, May 01, 2013, 11:59:05 PM

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vrailaine

So, watching this now, 20 minutes in and it's already descended into the most nonsensical bullshit. It's really affecting my opinion of the human race, they don't even sound stoned or anything, just a bit laughably proud of their theories.

Baffled by the positive reviews right now, but maybe it gets better.
94% on the tomatormeter, average rating of 7.6/10 from 109 reviews, the fifth most well reviewed film of the year so far.


EDIT: It's possible that it becomes endearing hearing all these obsessive people and all, but it's edited kinda flatley for that I think.

Wet Blanket

I switched it off about two-thirds in.

The Shining is enigmatic enough on its own terms to merit proper analysis, not conspiracy theories based on set design and continuity errors. At first it's vaguely amusing to hear someone claim that if you stop the film at just the right point and squint your eyes a file on a desk looks a bit like a penis, but by the time you've got some joker claiming 'Room no.' Is an anagram of Moon Or and this proves Kubrick faked the moon landings I was bored.

The real story here was the people with these mad theories and their obsession with the film, but they didn't even feature onscreen.

Mini

It's a terribly made documentary too. Who is talking? Why? What's going on?

Noodle Lizard

Wasn't there already a thread for this?

Yeah, I gave it a look, but agree with vrailaine - it's pretty dull.  Half an hour of it would have been just fine.
Another problem is that a lot of people who saw it are taking it quite seriously:  "Well, you know, there IS some weird stuff in there ... I think he probably was trying to tell us something".  Yeah, he was trying to tell you about a man going insane in a fucking huge hotel in the middle of nowhere, is that not good enough for you?

Famous Mortimer

There ought to be a limit on the number of times people can watch certain films.

vrailaine

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on May 02, 2013, 10:27:49 AM
Wasn't there already a thread for this?

Yeah, I gave it a look, but agree with vrailaine - it's pretty dull.  Half an hour of it would have been just fine.
Another problem is that a lot of people who saw it are taking it quite seriously:  "Well, you know, there IS some weird stuff in there ... I think he probably was trying to tell us something".  Yeah, he was trying to tell you about a man going insane in a fucking huge hotel in the middle of nowhere, is that not good enough for you?
I could only find some mentions in the shining prequel thread.

Yeah, to be honest, I've already recommended it to a few people just to see if I'm right to assume that they're the sorts who'd lap up this kind of shite.

Quote from: Wet Blanket on May 02, 2013, 09:40:37 AM
At first it's vaguely amusing to hear someone claim that if you stop the film at just the right point and squint your eyes a file on a desk looks a bit like a penis,
That's the bit that sent me into eyerolling overdrive and compelled me to start a thread. The guy sounds so fucking proud of himself too.

Quote from: Mini on May 02, 2013, 10:27:05 AM
It's a terribly made documentary too. Who is talking? Why? What's going on?
I assumed the reason they didn't show who was talking was so it didn't become a bit of a freak show ...it definitely sounded like some of the voices were providing multiple theories though.


Jerzy Bondov

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on May 02, 2013, 12:34:45 PM
There ought to be a limit on the number of times people can watch certain films.
What? What a ludicrous idea. What about people with amnesia? I don't think you've thought this frankly quite offensive and upsetting concept through. Please sort yourself out. I don't need this, not today.

Goldentony

Fuck me, I am one minute in -

"The wave of terror that swept across America"

Does he mean the book? "Maybe"

The film? "Maybe"

ah no, none of the very scary things that just came out, no he means THE GENOCIDAL BASTARDS WHO SWEPT ACROSS AMERICA

vrailaine

I thought the first guy was by far the most reasonable.

Wait til you get to the minotaurs

Goldentony

#9
7 minutes in, there's that familiar voice. The moonlanding guy.

Goldentony

I should expand - I don't know if it's covered eventually, but on Youtube there was a half hour documentary made by that guy where he grasped at moon shaped straws to try and tie in the Moon Landing being a load of shit to this film by saying an anagram, SORT OF, of one of the tags on the room keys which read ROOM NO. was MOON ROOM

Goldentony

"If you put the number 42 and a German typewriter together, you get the holocaust"

Goldentony

He hasn't even got to the moon landing shite yet, but fucking hell -

Barry Nelson standing in front of a paper tray - MASSIVE HARD ON

Also, Kubrick's face airbrushed into the clouds "I'll have to photoshop this to show people"

vrailaine

Quote from: Goldentony on May 02, 2013, 07:27:49 PM
He hasn't even got to the moon landing shite yet, but fucking hell -

Barry Nelson standing in front of a paper tray - MASSIVE HARD ON

Also, Kubrick's face airbrushed into the clouds "I'll have to photoshop this to show people"
It was definitely the hard on guy that was going on about the moon landings too? Have you got his name, I want to see what he looks like, him and the minotaur lady were the worst

Sony Walkman Prophecies

I came away thinking that Jay Weidner ("hard on" guy) must have some form of mental illness, and that's from someone who doesn't even believe in mental illness. I also checked out his essay on Kubrick faking the moon landings on Reality Sandwich, and that was full of spurious bollocks as well. He claims to have been making films for "decades" but, for some reason, believes that it's physically impossible to get everything in focus on 70mm film. I almost gave up on the essay when I came across that, but I persevered, only to wish I'd had the mental confidence to give up on it at the start.

I think the only interesting idea in Room 237 was of escaping history by relegating it to the status of a phantom. The rest was just the usual the freudian symbolism you'd find on virtually any media studies course - useful only as an important reminder that, for a certain type of person, any type of media will present itself a rorschach blot with which to explore their own hangups and perversions.

Quote from: Sony Walkman Prophecies on May 03, 2013, 07:38:58 PM
I came away thinking that Jay Weidner ("hard on" guy) must have some form of mental illness, and that's from someone who doesn't even believe in mental illness.

What do you call it then?

biggytitbo

Weidners apparent belief in the moon landings thing is one thing, but he nailed the references to Apollo 11 in the Shining. I think you'd have to have your head up your arse to deny Kubrick was trying to say something, even if it was just a joke, about Apollo 11 in that film.

Artemis

Native Americans and Apollo 11. The makers of this masturbatory bore-fest should have just explained those two theories. Could have done it in 15 minutes for each theory and made an entertaining little half hour feature. As it is, they drone on and on about literally any theory they can, regardless of its absurdity, for a very long time indeed. I guess the aim was to make some kind of 'definitive' Shining theory reference documentary, but the result is actually incredible tedious.

Artemis

The Overlook Hotel implies height, or 'being high'!
Danny's jumper was actually the handle of a novelty tennis racket!
Kids like to play tennis and it takes two - the twins!
When you play tennis sometimes you sweat and if you're bald your head.... shines!
'The Shining' is an anagram for 'High Tennis!'
To someone new to tennis, the rules can be tricky, like finding your way out of a maze!
Sometimes tennis rallies go on forever... and ever... and ever!
Jack was bouncing.... a tennis ball!

Therefore Kubrick was making a commentary on the US Open, which he helped to fake while on drugs.


That kind of shit.

olliebean

Sounds like pretty standard conspiracy theory stuff, when they get into how film makers who are somehow in the know are hiding clues to the conspiracies in their movies.

Sony Walkman Prophecies


Sony Walkman Prophecies

#21
I had a theory that the hotel was actually a spaceship at one point -  they can only communicate to the outside via radio, it has a sort of storage/cargo deck, the bathroom behind the ballroom definitely looks like some sort of futuristic control room, and the Danny 'voice' is a bit like Hal the robot.

A theory with plenty of holes in it for sure, but recount it to anyone on drugs and you'll be worshiped as a polymath genius.

Johnny Townmouse

Does this film talk about the Mountain being like Mount Sinai and having a similar Moses function to the mountain in Close Encounters? Does it tie Judaism to the film via allusions to the Holocaust?

Sorry, I'm just trying to work out whether I can stomach watching what increasingly appears to be total horse-shit. And I love The Shining and spent most of my time in the Kubrick archive digging out stuff relating to the film.

If this film was a dog, it would be one of those overbred things that can't stop scratching its head and just needs putting out of its misery.

Cerys

'ROOM NO' is also an anagram of 'NO ROOM'!  As in 'AT THE INN'!  Danny is the messiah!

Mind: blown.

Oh, wait - it's also an anagram of 'O MORON'.  As you were.

Steven

Quote from: biggytitbo on May 03, 2013, 09:18:50 PM
Weidners apparent belief in the moon landings thing is one thing, but he nailed the references to Apollo 11 in the Shining. I think you'd have to have your head up your arse to deny Kubrick was trying to say something, even if it was just a joke, about Apollo 11 in that film.

But the only direct reference to it is Danny's jumper, everything else is a tangential reference of such verve that you might as well be staring at a magic eye painting. The only other thing that gets close is maybe Ullman looking like Kennedy at his desk, and Kennedy sanctioning the NASA project - though I do believe LBJ actually put the idea forward in a memo. The `A11 work and no play' reference put forward as well - the phrase was different in each language variant dubbing of The Shining, so Kubrick didn't care enough to keep that reference in all the other cuts.

I'm one of those people who does believe they maybe faked the moon landings, because a lot of the photographs and films are demonstrably fake which puts everything else into question, but as far as Kubrick being involved I have no idea. But with him being at the top of his game re:special effects wise and filming 2001 at the time with NASA involvement, it's not such a crazy idea. I'm more interested in getting to know what if anything was cut from Eyes Wide shut after his death, which coincidentally occurred 666 days before January 1st 2001. Kidman's character makes allusions she is an altered personality and was at the orgy with Cruise but doesn't remember, possibly referencing the whole Monarch programming thing, but the film seems a bit disjointed so I'm unsure if some of Kubrick's material was removed, as a lot of his stuff IS disjointed.

Pissant

Quote from: Steven on May 04, 2013, 09:06:36 PMKidman's character makes allusions she is an altered personality and was at the orgy with Cruise but doesn't remember, possibly referencing the whole Monarch programming thing, but the film seems a bit disjointed so I'm unsure if some of Kubrick's material was removed, as a lot of his stuff IS disjointed.
Recently read Frederic Raphael's 'Eyes Wide Open', the co-screenwriter's memoir of working with Kubrick on the film, and the working process he describes is essentially collaborative, adversarial and (fairly) explorative.  Kubrick comes across consistently as a man who isn't sure why he's drawn to Arthur Shniztler's novella 'Dream Story' (on which the film is based), and appears motivated by his intrigue rather than a desire to deliver a particular message.   

I don't buy into this idea that Kubrick was ever in the business of smuggling distinct and explosive conspiracy theories into his films, it just seems at odds with his self-stated intention of making cinema that would be artistically realised in the eye of the beholder.  To partly concur with the jist of this thread, I got bored watching 'Room 237', but I still got a kick out of it: marvelling at the Kubrickian obelisk.  And the various, occasionally wacky, obsessions it creates in its wake.

Steven

Interesting, I read about his memoir a while back and was intrigued about an account of what it was like writing with Kubrick, but I think a lot of detractors pilloried his account of Stanley. Also, it seems he wrote the majority of the screenplay alone and sent drafts to Kubrick who would then edit them. Is the book worth a read, are there any insights into the machinations of his film making process? And how much of the story/script did he actually write?

I do think Kubrick was using the novella to get across a particular message, seemingly about Hollywood or how dangerous people in power are, he has a clear track record of using material simply as a base to get his own agenda across. But I think since the screenplay itself is more of a collaboration, that Kubrick's main narrative device is with the imagery itself. I'd imagine subliminal and Freudian touches would definitely come in to play when he was conceiving certain scenes and backdrops. Though I'd agree the notion he was exposing some kind of major conspiracy to be a bit far fetched, but Eyes Wide Shut definitely does hint at programming altered states, and directly confronts secret satanic cabals and murderous sex orgies indulged in by the power-set.

Hank Venture

Quote from: Wet Blanket on May 02, 2013, 09:40:37 AM
The real story here was the people with these mad theories and their obsession with the film, but they didn't even feature onscreen.

I thought that was the whole point? Not convincing people that any of this is true, but convincing people that any of this is people watching a movie a few more times that they should and finding more and more evidence to support their initial kneejerk crackpot theory. That's what I took from it almost immediately, because it was so ridiculous from the get-go. Which made for a very enjoyable watch, I think.

The minotaur lady was the worst. I almost couldn't believe my ears when she went on about the magical window, as if it was anything but a normal window with daylight shining in.

Steven

I finally watched Barry Lyndon the other day, it sort of vanquishes the theory to me that Kubrick was so amazing at adapting material for the screen. From what I've read Kubrick wanted to do a film on Napoleon but had to scrap the idea so wanted something set at a similar time to make use of his extensive research of the period. He settled for Makepeace Thackeray's book The Luck Of Barry Lyndon, but as usual made extensive changes to the plot. Except the book is meant to be a satirical diary of a braggard, and the humour is derived from the obvious bombastic details of the tale in relation to what you imagine the real tale to be.

Except Kubrick couldn't display the supposed ficitionalised account of Barry's undertakings in comparison to what may have really happened, having to display one fixed visual narrative. The conceit of the satire requires a narrator, omnipresent or otherwise to demonstrate the differences between the realities discussed. The final film being incredibly dry and lacking humour, with an underwhelming end; it's strange to think that Kubrick chose this piece to film considering the way the humour is meant to work in it. There may have been a way to do this but I don't think Kubrick was successful, there is a divergence of realities in the Shining displayed in one fixed narrative that seemed to work quite well, so I think the satire could have been done maybe in another way. Redmond Barry just comes across as a moping zombie throughout the film, certainly not the kind of character you'd base an entire adventure on - probably the conceit of the written satire. The film is obviously shot well, receiving 4 Oscars, and I even like the poster, but I think Kubrick failed on this one from a conceptual standpoint completely.