The Shining (1980)

[Rzzzz]

Originally Posted by Cherokee Jack

Whoa, is it that much of a train wreck? Might have to give it a look...

You will forget about the movie the day after you watch it. GOOD bad movies stay with you forever.....

[drush9999]

2010 is pretty decent movie in it's own right, not even comparable to the awful Exorcist 2.

[P-Rock]

Originally Posted by Cherokee Jack

Whoa, is it that much of a train wreck? Might have to give it a look...

No, people are clearly overreacting. It's a pretty good movie actually, just not that philosophical (or long) as Kubrick's take. 2010 is more a straigtht-forward sci-fi movie with a bit of cold war mentality thrown in.

[English Patient]

Originally Posted by bo130

I think that's very arguable. Whenever I think of 2010, I think of a movie attempting to explain everything about 2001 away. To me, that cuts hard into a big part of what makes 2001 a great movie and a great experience. It's rare for me to experience what I can only describe as frustration when watching a movie, but 2010 is a good example. Plus, it just wasn't a very good film.

Clarke's novel of 2001 pretty much explained all the mysteries of the movie, so does his book ruin the movie? I don't think so. I think people still love the movie whether they know its meaning or not. I doubt that people ended up changing their love for 2001 because they didn't care for 2010. I hated the Star Wars prequels, but it didn't change my love for the 1977 Star Wars.

[English Patient]

Originally Posted by drush9999

2010 is pretty decent movie in it's own right, not even comparable to the awful Exorcist 2.

I agree - I really like 2010. It's a solid sci-fi movie, it just has the misfortune of being a sequel to a Kubrick movie. Any kind of sequel, no matter how well-made, is going to be a bit of letdown compared to 2001.

[Arawn]

2010 is great. I love the aerobraking sequence.

[thatguamguy]

In the new Stephen King book "The Outsider", one of the characters has a funny aside. I didn't mark the page down, so I am paraphrasing, but basically one protag says "Sorry to ruin your plans for the night," and the other protag says "It's okay, I've seen Paths of Glory ten times at least. It's a brilliant film, one of Kubrick's best, way better than Barry Lyndon or The Shining."

It felt (to me) like him acknowledging "Yes I knock him because of The Shining, but for the record Kubrick is great."

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

In the new Stephen King book "The Outsider", one of the characters has a funny aside. I didn't mark the page down, so I am paraphrasing, but basically one protag says "Sorry to ruin your plans for the night," and the other protag says "It's okay, I've seen Paths of Glory ten times at least. It's a brilliant film, one of Kubrick's best, way better than Barry Lyndon or The Shining."

It felt (to me) like him acknowledging "Yes I knock him because of The Shining, but for the record Kubrick is great."

Wait, King doesn't like Barry Lyndon? There goes my respect for him.

[thatguamguy]

You have to factor in the assumption that King would likely have been somewhere in the middle of his cocaine period when he saw it.

[P-Rock]

King never said he hated Kubrick though. Just his version of The Shining.

[Martoto]

2010 feels like a movie about people who didn't like the movie 2001 being sent into space to act out the kind of movie that people who won't like or get 2001 would prefer to see. (minus a laser gun shootout between Roy and one of the soviets, or something).

And in that sense it's a fair movie. Helped by the fact that it constantly nudges you to reminisce about 2001. It's like being in the company of people struggling to comprehend a trip that you've already taken. You've seen where this is going, through your third eye.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

That's very true, 1980 was still very much 70's in style, but I would argue it was only years later - not even by 1982 - that what we now think of as the "80's aesthetic" truly came to be. Until then there were still plenty of 70's relics floating around. After all, I doubt a lot of people were in a rush to update their entire interior decor as soon as earthtones went out of style.

It was still right at the beginning of 8-bit home computers tho.

Not quite. Incorrect from a visual standpoint.

The "80's aesthetic" you're talking about was - in SOME ways - a further and extreme development of the "Disco era" (1978-1980). There were just tiny shades of similarity; apart than that, the 1980's aesthetic was already removed from the 70s.
In 1980, that Eighties aesthetic we all love was still ready and set to take over the world as fast as it could. And it did.
By 1982, the transition was 100% complete.
I was there.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

I just finished reading The Shining for the first time a few weeks ago and while it was a great book I ultimately like Kubrick's version better.

[English Patient]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

I just finished reading The Shining for the first time a few weeks ago and while it was a great book I ultimately like Kubrick's version better.

That's a fair reaction. I like them both, for different reasons. The book is very "emotional" and full of fairly conventional character melodrama - all the stuff that Kubrick apparently felt was unnecessary (in interviews, he said all the stuff about Jack's past history was irrelevant).

To me, it just feels like the movie and the book are trying to do two different things.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Originally Posted by English Patient

That's a fair reaction. I like them both, for different reasons. The book is very "emotional" and full of fairly conventional character melodrama - all the stuff that Kubrick apparently felt was unnecessary (in interviews, he said all the stuff about Jack's past history was irrelevant).

To me, it just feels like the movie and the book are trying to do two different things.

Yeah that was my reaction too. I really enjoyed reading all the backstory with the book and felt that it actually benefited reading it after seeing the film though I'll never know what it was like reading it before seeing the film.

The book has some incredibly creepy moments in it but I was not a fan of the animal hedges at all.

[English Patient]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

Yeah that was my reaction too. I really enjoyed reading all the backstory with the book and felt that it actually benefited reading it after seeing the film though I'll never know what it was like reading it before seeing the film.

The book has some incredibly creepy moments in it but I was not a fan of the animal hedges at all.

I think the hedge maze that Kubrick used was much better than the hedge animals - the maze is just such a great, sinister symbol, with echoes of the Greek labyrinth and minotaur myths.

I think maybe people's preference for the movie or the book depends on which one you were exposed to first. I read the novel before I really saw the movie all the way through.

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by P-Rock

King never said he hated Kubrick though. Just his version of The Shining.

It really depends on the individual moment when he makes the comments and his mood, and to some extent the way the comments are edited. He tends to start off criticizing "The Shining", but sometimes drifts into criticizing Kubrick instead, or at least not limiting his comments to "The Shining". Sometimes he clarifies how much he loves other Kubrick films, sometimes he doesn't (and when the comments are presented in interview form, there is always the chance he did and they cut it).

I saw something where indiewire pulled a slight piece of the quote from the novel and presented it as "Stephen King slams Kubrick's The Shining again!" and I definitely think it's misleading; it really feels like a positive tip of the hat to Kubrick overall.

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by English Patient

I agree - I really like 2010. It's a solid sci-fi movie, it just has the misfortune of being a sequel to a Kubrick movie. Any kind of sequel, no matter how well-made, is going to be a bit of letdown compared to 2001.

I ignored it for years because it was a Kubrick sequel, but I was on a kick of villain-based franchises, seeing the different creative decisions that they use to make sequels to movies where the villain become culturally iconic (the slasher films are one thing, but then there's the "Psycho" or "Hannibal" method presaging "Dexter"), and I liked '2010' on those terms. Sure, the "former villain is now the hero" thing has been done better in "Terminator 2", but '2010' gets unique tension from the audience's mistrust of HAL, and the fact that we can never be certain whether he will stay heroic or not makes the ending play much stronger than it has any right to.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

In the new Stephen King book "The Outsider", one of the characters has a funny aside. I didn't mark the page down, so I am paraphrasing, but basically one protag says "Sorry to ruin your plans for the night," and the other protag says "It's okay, I've seen Paths of Glory ten times at least. It's a brilliant film, one of Kubrick's best, way better than Barry Lyndon or The Shining."

It felt (to me) like him acknowledging "Yes I knock him because of The Shining, but for the record Kubrick is great."

Interesting...is his new book (The Outsider) set in King's greater Dark Tower universe like most of his other works? If so, very fascinating that The Shining also exists as a fictional film in the same universe that Jack Torrance actually "lived."

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

You have to factor in the assumption that King would likely have been somewhere in the middle of his cocaine period when he saw it.

That’s a cheap shot to discredit whatever King says which, is becoming a little tired here. Barry Lyndon came out in 1975, when King was still at the beginning of his career. He didn’t go off the deep end till a few years later. King would not have been the only one who was left cold by Barry Lyndon. The movie divided critics and audiences and it didn’t come to be recognized as a masterpiece till years later.