43) Room 237 (2012) Dir: Rodney Ascher Not Yet Released Date Seen: January 28, 2012 Rating: 4/5
I admit that I might have been extra-receptive to this documentary about the many conspiracy theories surrounding Stanley Kubrick's The Shining because I just finished reading Stephen King's The Shining. But if nothing else, that just helped me to appreciate just how desperate and crazy some of the talking heads in this documentary really are. Because while some of what these guys say doesn't make sense in any context, knowing that some of the hidden truths that these guys are claiming are unique to Kubrick's film are actually also in King's novel just shows to go ya how CRAZY these people are. Real nutty in the brain pan stuff.
And they're that much more crazy because there's always a grain of truth to what they're saying. Or at least, so it seems. Their deep-seated conviction is so startling that you can't help but want to believe them and some of what they posit about the film's supposedly subliminal images is actually pretty fascinating. Too bad much of it doesn't hold up to scrutiny for a minute, especially not once you start to hear about how the patterns in the carpet are all about fucking or that continuity errors are secret code for...uh...something deep, I'm sure. Crazy, crazy people. Great fun, though, mostly because it shows you how deep you can go into a deep reading of a film.
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