Rating: 
Summary: Here's Johnny!!!
Review: What he did for science fiction in 1968 with 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, the late, great Stanley Kubrick did for horror in 1980 with THE SHINING--he made a film that people keep talking about and debating. This very lengthy 144 minute-long horror film, though it does diverge wildly from the Stephen King source material, maintains an aura of mystery and suspense throughout in its story of a family of three taking care of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado during the winter off-season and succumbing to its power. In this respect, the basic structure of King's novel is still very much in place.Jack Nicholson's performance as the father figure of the piece has caused wildly divergent opinions; he's either maniacally right or too far over-the-top. All I can say is that it worked for me, especially with his "Here's Johnny!!" line. I can't think of too many horror movies whose camera work and production design are anywhere in the class of this particular film; these elements are almost every bit as chilling as the movie itself. Kubrick also uses very dissonant classical works by such composers as Bartok, Ligeti, and Penderecki to underlie the film's atmosphere. The film also achieves one of the horror genre's greatest moments by showing a huge tidal wave of blood spilling out in slow-motion from the hotel's elevators. Like anything Kubrick made in his life (and like the more recent Kubrick/Spielberg collaboration A.I.), THE SHINING must be seen with an open mind. Just for myself, this film is one of the best horror films ever made because Kubrick's images linger in the mind long after the film itself has ended.
Rating:
Summary: The KING of KUBRICK
Review: You can read Stephen King's masterpiece or watch the late Stanley Kubrick's swan song, but either way you are in for a dark, twisted, foreboding and haunting jaunt. The idea that King was irate over Kubrick's vision so much that he oversaw a made-for-television venture that all but tanked, had to have been a rumor. For how could the master spellbinder have issues about one the greatest horror films ever to come out of tinseltown? Ok, so the hedge animals were deleted over a hedge maze. It doesn't really matter. If you watch any other horror movie adapted from King's work it is clearly apparent that King was given complete authority, because every last one is horribly constructed(except maybe, Misery). King is a writer, not a filmmaker. I think perhaps King was jealous of a man(Kubrick) who brought his idea to life so well, that people thought of the movie as more significant in the years to come than his novel. As always Kubrick gives us a horrific painting with a pulse. His colors and lighting techniques are second to none. If this were a silent film, it would still chill the spine because of these two elements alone. Enter the music and sound effects and you have a Kubrickian nightmare that you will not be able to escape until the last shocking scene and then some. As far as the actors are concerned the casting is flawless. Nicholson is a bit over the top, but this is a horror film we're talking about. Shelley Duvall is spectacular, but I got the sense that Kubrick hired her to get the audience to root for the Nicholson's devilish persona. In a morbid sense, it's almost like you want Duvall's character to die. The woman she plays is so weak and feeble-minded that its true wonder that she stays alive at all. Again, this is in-your-face Kubrick. He is a man who has known no boundaries in his filmmaking as he has pushed the corners of creativity and the intensity of the imagination to expand into a cold, unrelenting study in what will disturb us indefinately. In that respect, I refuse to believe that King was completely disappointed with this film. Insofar as this review is concerned, this is a must see movie. If you like King, if you like Kubrick and if you like horror films you owe it to yourself to swing your hatchet into this one. Watch it more than once and take in one of King's finest stories and one Kubrick's most haunting interpretations. This may also be one of the only times you will be able to say in confidence that the movie is just as good if not better than the novel that inspired it.
Rating:
Summary: All Work & No Play Makes Jack.......
Review: ...crazy as a loon! When Shelly Duvall started reading page after page, neatly typed and spaced and formed in different paragraphs and indentations, the same sentence over and over it gave me chills, as she and we realize just how crazy her husband has become. This is pure Kubrick, not Stephen King. Frankly, the whole movie is pure Kubrick and very little Stephen King. Thank God. If you want King, see the sorry mini-series. Only Stanley Kubrick would make a ghost cum haunted house (in this case haunted hotel) movie brightly lit without deep shadows and no one jumping out of the dark shouting "Boo!". Even when Jack kills Halloran it is under the brightest light in the room. And the bright lighting of the movie is just the first departure from the usual scarey movie formula. Nicholson's performance is a point of contention for many. I loved it. His Jack Torrance isn't some nice guy being possessed. He is a deeply disturbed man sliding into total madness. His scene where the months without alcohol has put him to the edge of fury until Lloyd serves him his first drink and the drunk's bravado & expansive b.s. emerges is classic. And when he turns to Wendy who approaches him sitting alone at an empty bar, his just-off-the-mark and a seconds-slow focus and cutting reply to her shows us he's really drunk even if she doesn't see it.As he slides into the abyss, we see Nicholson become abusive and crazy and capable of murdering his own family. The movie is full of great Kubrick touches: the tracking shot following Danny on his bike with the great sound of the wheels on carpet then floor then carpet then floor; Room 237; REDRUM; "Here's Johnny!";the wall of blood; and so on. It also has typically odd points of humor in the performances and direction. Like all of Kubrick's later movies, I initially felt a sense of disappointment upon first seeing them. Only because I had such anticipation and he had raised his own standard so high it was inevitable it wouldn't match hopeful expectations. But I came to revere every effort on later viewings. Each film is so unique and goes where others haven't. This was true for The Shining as well. The movie should probably be 4 to 4-1/2 stars. But I miss Kubrick so much, I can't rate it any less than 5. He was a daring and challenging artist, and we will not be able to travel with him to new places any more. PLEASE NOTE: I am rating the movie, not the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: ....
Review: True horror is subtle and realistic. Too often, Hollywood is satisfied giving us blood and guts, slasher flicks with supernatural overtones but with little or no substance. In The Shining, Kubrick offers us a ride into madness and hysteria, scaring us with both the real and surreal. Frightening images from this film stand out long after viewing and the horror concepts it introduced have been often imitated. Although it is not true to the King novel, which places the story's focus elsewhere, Kubrick's reinterpretation stands as its own tale of terror.
Rating: 
Summary: The remastered Shining DVD is a keeper
Review: Among the titles in the new Kubrick DVD Collection (released on June 12, 2001), THE SHINING has the most improved video quality compared to the one from the old Kubrick collection from 1999. The old SHINING DVD version looked grainy, dirty, and dull. But the new transfer is clean, sharp, and colors look more vibrant and realistic. The old mono track has been replaced by a Dolby 5.1 surround track, and the haunting music sounds much better as a result. The included "making-of" documentary also has an improved picture, plus a new audio commentary track by its director Vivian Kubrick (the little girl in 2001). Much of the 30-minute featurette was shot on the set of THE SHINING, thus it provides a rare, fascinating look at the director at work. Some memorable moments include Danny Lloyd speculating on how much money he will earn, Scatman Crothers in tears (of joy), Shelley Duvall exchanging some arguments with the director. Leon Vitali, who supervised the making of the new Kubrick DVD Collection, is also seen as one of Kubrick's assistants. (The multi-talented Vitali also played the adult Lord Bullingdon in Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON.) On the commentary track, Vivian Kubrick provides further information about the making of the film and some trivias such as who typed those zillion pages of "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy." One wishes that she had provided a full-length commentary for the movie itself. The fact that the DVD presents the film in full-screen and, as a result, unmasks a lot of empty, "dead" spaces near the top and bottom of the screen that were not seen in theaters, bothers some people, even though it is what Kubrick had intended. It does not bother me, however. In a film in which vast, open spaces have a great deal to do with the theme of the story, it seems fitting to add spaciousness to the composition. Kubrick did make an error in allowing the shadow of a helicopter to be visible in an aerial shot; it would not be visible if the film were letterboxed in its theatrical 1.85:1 ratio. By the way, THE SHINING and EYES WIDE SHUT are the only titles in the new Kubrick DVD Collection that are labeled as "presented in the aspect ratio as Stanley Kubrick intended." (Does that mean that the other DVDs in the collection are NOT presented as Kubrick intended?? Hmmm...) The packaging of the new THE SHINING DVD looks very similar to the old one, except the new DVD case has "Digitally Restored and Remastered" printed near the top. The artwork on the new disc is the same as before, but the running time is misprinted as 142 minutes; the film still runs 144 minutes.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST HORROR FILM IN HISTORY GETS A MUCH NEEDED FACE LIFT
Review: The newly restored and remastered DVD of The Shining is INCREDIBLE!!!!! As a longtime fan of this film and all of Kubrick's work, I bought the original Kubrick DVD set last year and accepted the transfers for what they were. Then it was announced that the NEW Kubrick set was coming out. I rolled my eyes and said to myself that I was finished. That I had had it with all of these "remastered special editions" that the studio releases well after the original release just to soak up more profits, blah blah blah, etc, etc. Anyway, that I would NOT buy these new editions because really, how good could they be? Well, recently my local video store bought the new set and had all of the films available for rental. So I thought I'd take a look at The Shining. YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS CLEANUP JOB!!!! Part of what gave The Shining it's charm was it's washed-out look (in my opinion)....MAN, I HAD NO IDEA WHAT THIS MOVIE HAD THE POTENTIAL TO LOOK LIKE!!!!! Seriously, this movie looks like it was shot YESTERDAY (with the exception of Danny's haircut and some seriously 70s carpet designs) the colors are amazing and rich AND THE SOUND IS SO CRISP AND CLEAR!!! I can seriously hear the strings being plucked during the opening theme (Dies Irae, by the way). This is what remastering is all about!!! PRESERVING!!! Not screwing up like with the remastering job on the Jaws DVD (such a hack job, they re-did practically all the sound effects, making the shark sound like it was belching at Brody during the climactic fight.....shiver), Warner Brothers made The Shining brand-new all over again. Plus there's now a running commentary by Vivian Kubrick (Stanley's daughter) during her documentary "Making of The Shining" which is very insightful and funny due to her dry wit and English accent (funny in itself since her accent is thick and when we see clips of Kubrick directing he has such a heavy Bronx accent) Needless to say I ended up buying this DVD, I gave in. How could I not? I don't know if I'll cave in to buying the other ones but if you're a fan of this movie, I'm telling you, BUY THIS DVD. YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED....
Rating:
Summary: marla trumph
Review: Hmmm, I don't know where to start. It was nothing that i expected, which was . . . horror in the traditional sense. The movie horror. This is taking horror, and tossing it, making it realilistic, something to relate to, believe in, instead of something to mock. Horror's in the movie world have all been alike, until i saw this. It's that, it's not overdone. Such a small amount of oddness to not push you away. So many elements working to create this . . world. And, nothing was overdone. Everything seemed to have just the amount needed to work. Just the right place. That, that in itself was odd. That i was thinking about what it took to make this movie, while watching the movie. Because you don't catch it often. 'happiness'-- The character marla trumph plays. How smooth and crisp and unreal she is. How perfect she comes across. In such an unreal way. That is like the feeling i had with parts of this movie. Where something is just . . too right. So that, in itself, it's eerie. The whole movie was strange. It's almost taking a dark comedy, and making it a horror. And i hate horror movies, in their traditional sense i had to revise this. add capitalizations, more commas, and periods. if it sounds cruddy, well, i expect it. i'm sending it anyway
Rating: 
Summary: Decent, but...
Review: Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" is a rather disappointing movie. He took a very good novel by Stephen King, used about ten percent of the actual story, and threw the rest away and made it into a Kubrick movie. Sure, the novel was weird, but it wsa supernaturally weird, like any other Stephen King book. But the movie was weird because it was a Kubrick film. He made it very dark, and twisted, took out all of the greatness of the novel, and gave Nicholson an excuse to run around acting as crazy as he possibly could with an axe in his hands. Sure, Nicholson was good in it, but I think he's really the only actor in the movie that deserves any credit. Shelley Duvall just [made me mad]. Why was she in that movie again? Oh yeah, that's right. THERE'S NO EXCUSE. I think she did a horrible job in this movie. Wendy, Nicholson's wife in the movie, was an excellent character in the book, but in the film, she was just a whimpering, crying idiot. And Danny Lloyd, what happened to him? Where did he go? Currently residing in the "Where are they now" files or something? Wow. Another thing that Kubrick didn't do a very good job on was the character development. A movie needs good characters, especially a horror movie, and this didn't really get into the characters like the book did. One thing it almost totally lacks is the relationship between Danny and his father Jack. In the story, the two are very close, with an undying love for each other, but in the movie, they're just a guy and his son. Also, the end of the movie and the end of the book are literally different. The movie had a completely different ending. In the book, the hotel explodes because Jack forgets to empty the boiler in the basement, another key element of the book that Kubrick for some reason left out. In the movie, Jack chases his son around in the hedge maze (which isn't even mentioned in the book), lagging as far behind as you can get, which doesn't exactly make the chase at the end exciting. I wasn't "on the edge of my seat" the whole time. Kubrick also left out the characters' feelings of total isolation in that icy hell of a hotel in the winter, which added some serious tension to the book, and maybe could've made the film a little better. But hey, this is just my opinion. The movie is okay, but I don't really recommend buying it that much. The first time watching it is good, but for me, after that, it went downhill from there.
Rating:
Summary: My Review's Quick And Fast.
Review: OK, here goes. I have NOT yet seen this DVD, but as for the movie, weird, interseting, but Stephen King's mini-series is a whole lot better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Horror Masterpiece!
Review: The first time this DVD came out I was VERY disappointed, as were many others. Not only was it in Mono, but it just did not do the movie justice. The studio realized it's mistake, thank God!!! This new version, with 5.1 audio, is awesome! I watched it 3 times already! The music is so atmospheric, and moody that it could be a concert in itself. I wished there was a soundtrack only option on this DVD. Excellent direction, masterful acting, and scary script. What more can you ask for? I would have enjoyed a full length commentary by Nicholson, or Duvall even, but as it is now, I'll take it! I would have given 5 stars, but lack of any worthwhile special features stopped me. Enjoy this horror classic, and buy it for generations to come to enjoy as well.
|
