Mud Songs

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, is with little doubt the work of a masterful director, but that doesn’t make it everyone’s cup of tea. Jack Nicholson is hired to take care of a giant hotel in the mountains during the winter off-season with his wife and young son. Cabin fever kicks in and everyone starts going a little coo-coo until Jack goes after his family with an ax. That’s what happens, but don’t ask me what it means. From DVD Talk: “The film is really all about atmosphere. Some of the scenes are rather confusing and out-there, but the film remains terrifying for how tense Kubrick is able to make things with his use of visuals and music.” I’m not sure I’d call it terrifying either, but Kubrick is so damn good with his camera, even with something that seems entirely nihilistic as this, it’s hard to look away.

Check out the re-worked trailer that makes it seem like different kind of movie altogether.

I couldn’t watch more than 30 minutes of Stephen King’s The Mist. Judging only from what I saw, it’s a horror film in the sense that the writing is horrible, the acting is horrible and the special effects are horrible. Everything is so bad, I thought I might enjoy it as a B-movie. And maybe I can. But not today… Okay, I managed to come back and watch the rest of it. The special effects get a little better and the acting gets worse (the script certainly doesn’t make it easy for them). I can see how the story of a bunch of people stuck in a grocery store while a mist outside full of tentacles and creepy crawlies kills anyone who walks out the door could be a scary movie, but by trying too hard to be dramatic, it’s just stupid. The person I saw the movie with said this: “Man, that movie sucked. Were we ever afraid of anything? Did we ever feel any emotion the director wanted us to feel when he wanted us to feel it? I can’t believe it gets a better rating on Rotten Tomatoes than The Science of Sleep. That’s messed up.”