Room 237 is a film in which a bunch of obsessives rattle off various theories about the sub-textual meanings in The Shining. These range from the genocide of the Indians, to hints about Kubrick faking the moon landings, Nazis! and more. When one enthusiast starts weaving a theory about Indian genocide based largely around the Calumet baking soda cans in the storage room, I was cynically wondering why the large cans of Tang didn't have equal hidden meanings. And then later another nutter launches into how Kubrick helped fake the moon landing footage and is hinting at that throughout the film, as the presence of large jars of Tang makes abundantly clear. Conspiracy theories are always amusing/interesting but a lot of the ideas here have an I Buried Paul quality to them.

Some of the observations, and especially the minor details taken up, are interesting. However, a number of them just seemed like parodies of over-analyzing a text and finding whatever meanings you are looking for. The Nazi/Holocaust theories fell into the later category: #42 on the kid's sweater + a German brand typewriter = 1942 and Nazi genocide. Uh, sure. Seemed just as easy to say 42 was Jackie Robinson's number plus Scatman Crothers taking an axe to the midsection referred to segregation or black oppression or wherever you wanted to go with such loose theorizing.

I was also less impressed with those who thought Kubrick was a super-genius who tossed in symbols and allusions to all of human culture in his horror movie. But I guess that would account for the draggy pace. Not necessary, but probably a good idea to re-watch The Shining before and/or possibly after viewing the Room 237 documentary. Room 237 is probably a good thing to catch some fragments of on cable -- but overall just adds up to a misuse of interpretation and obsession.

This is good:
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly:
"Room 237 makes perfect sense of The Shining because, even more than The Shining itself, it places you right inside the logic of how an insane person thinks."
A lot of the problem is that these folks are sure they've decoded some important hidden meaning intrinsic to the film, whereas if they just took a more low key approach their ideas and connections would be more interesting and believable. That the silhouette of the skier in a poster on the wall happens to (sort of) look like a minotaur is interesting, but doesn't mean that it was intended to convey that meaning, deftly hinting at the labyrinth, etc

What's fascinating is that, like JFK assassination conspiracies, the logic works within its own framework, just not outside of it.

Peter J. Swales (born 1948) is a Welsh "guerilla historian of psychoanalysis", and former assistant to the Rolling Stones, who has written essays and letters about Sigmund Freud. A 1998 article in The New Republic magazine noted his "...remarkable detective work over the last 25 years, revealing the true identities of several early patients of Freud's who had been known only by their pseudonyms." He is one of three men (the others are Freud Archives director Kurt Eissler and psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson) whose machinations are described in the 1984 book In The Freud Archives, which originated as two articles in The New Yorker magazine that provoked Masson to file an unsuccessful $10 million libel suit against the magazine and its writer Janet Malcolm.

that theory is ingenious and very persuasive, but the only flaw with it is that it just isn't true.

Most folks hereabouts know how much I detest overlong movies. Well, I just saw one I wish had been a bit longer. Lovelace is just good enough to have made me wish it went deeper into the saga of Linda Lovelace, the star of Deep Throat, whose story has two thrusts (no pun intended)--the one detailing her glorious career as a genuine porn "star" and the other one, about her rape, forced career as a prostitute, and marriage from hell to Chuck Traynor.

What suffers from the shortness of the film (about 90 minutes) is the excellent performance by Amanda Seyfried as Linda. Seyfried has never impressed me all that much as a goody-two-shoes (Les Miserables, Mamma Mia!, etc.) but here she is terrific. Peter Sarsgaard is also good as Traynor, and the supporting cast is littered with cameos by biggies like Hank Azaria, Chloe Sevigny, and Chris Noth. It's definitely worth catching, but I wish I was more devastated than I am.

Well, I just saw one I wish had been a bit longer.