Saturday, March 15, 2008
HASH
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Stanley Kubrick's
This is a compendium of horror clichés, dead ends and histrionics. A mess.
I suppose one could look at it as an exercise in studying realities but I prefer to see it as a film gone completely off the tracks.
It is way too long.
It has the hamminess of Nicholson who, I guess, had become NICHOLSON by this time.
It has the weepiness and strange appearance of Shelley Duval (she needs her teeth worked on).
Only Scatman Crothers holds it in and he is the one actor who should be allowed to let it out.
I figure that Kubrick's films were only about half good ones and that the good ones were so good (Strangelove) that he could coast with the others or got a free ride.
I kept worrying about their messing up the nice hotel.
Why did they let Jack bounce a fucking ball on the mural over the fireplace. Did they put a fake one over the real one so that he wouldn't hurt it?
What about the winter scenes. Did the actors have to stay there all year long?
Did the kid do his own 'possessed' voice?
We should not be thinking of this kind of shit in a horror/suspense film.
Who cleaned up the mess that Jack made in the kitchen with the silver service?
Why did they keep the lights on—all the goddam lights—all the time?
Look closely. Does Jack have a serious underbite?
I will give this a 1 out of Netflix5.
Is the maze really at the real hotel or is it something they built for the movie? It looks totally fake.
How did they keep the camera from going bump over the carpets in the numerous (too many) hallway tracking shots?
Why did they make this thing so inscrutable?
Why am I going on about this?
Am I hallucinating too? Did I really see the film?
Labels: best films
