The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980).
Archive for the ‘The Shining’ Category
Movie Millisecond: The Shining, “Zing.” edition
July 5, 2011Flashback Friday: Bookfoolery: If I never sleep again until the end of my days, at least I will die well-read
June 3, 2011This post originally appeared on June 24, 2010 at 6:26 p.m.
Maybe “well” is subjective …
If anyone but my Asia Argento plays Lisbeth Salander in an English-speaking adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I will put my hand through a blender. I pictured her the entire time I was reading.
Finished Girl With the Dragon Tattoo over a sleepless night that lead to one uneasy stretch of light snooze cut short by sudden bouts of vomiting. I found it very absorbing — the book, not the violent gut spasms from who-knows-what combination of stress and inattentively poor personal care — but it caromed briefly in to a few areas for which I was not wild. Still it all hung together in the end and I recommend it without reservation. Then I ended up reading a particularly pulpy and breezy Ross Macdonald mystery from the 70’s whose title I have already forgotten even though it kept me company for several hours.
See? Lots of people have insomnia and go on to have perfectly normal Summers! The Shining (Kubrick, 1980).
I only remember that I’d picked it up a few months back along with a couple 70’s editions of Zane Grey at my preferred comic store, which, besides selling comics and related games and accessories, also carries a small inventory of used, cheapo books and spotty collections of memorabilia depending on what luckless local nerds have either died or lost enough money to place their treasures in hock. I snatched up the Greys and this Macdonald book a few months ago because I dug the kind of blocky-schlocky look to the lines of the cover art.
The Underground Man — that’s right. Decent enough title, I guess.
The phrase “blew my mind” was used repeatedly in the book to refer to literally taking too much acid and suffering brain damage and prolonged schizophrenic episodes triggered by hallucinations, which usage I thought was a handy demonstration of the evolution of slang — in the book it was suggestive of overdose and possible fatality, but you can see how it developed over time the more benign definition it has now in the sense of changing one’s worldview in a feller-than-the-usual-pace-of-educational swoop, while still somewhat referencing the phrase’s original intent.
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968). He swar to gar for all his life that whole sequences of this film were not planned to look like an acid trip, to which anyone who has ever done acid says, “Sure.”
The Macdonald book wasn’t the worst thing ever and some of the slangy shenanigans and quaintly dated rough talk in it wet my palate for some Hammett. I never re-read Red Harvest until October (red HARVEST, get it?) but I also brought down with me from Portland The Dain Curse and the Op’s short-story collection and could give one of those a spin. Think that’s what I’ll do tonight.
Actually maybe Hammett is only the appetizer. Know what? I think I will try to squeeze in L.A. Confidential before I have to pick up Tommyknockers. I usually, though not maniacally, like to read that closer to Christmastime because of the whole Bloody Christmas scandal that sparks so much of the action, but I’ve been self-auditing through all these long sick waking nights, and by setting this bookfoolery in to print I have come to see that I’ve got some really fucked-up and compulsive reading habits which are even perhaps the least of my worries and so I feel like rebelling against myself in this small thing to test the waters of making Change happen. I’m going to do this because I can.
Synchronicity — just dug out Red Harvest and the quote on the front cover is from Ross Macdonald, the author whose pulp I read this morning. Wild way that the universe is telling me I’m on the right track? or subconscious self-affirmation from whatever part of my brain has been looking at that (quite kickass) Red Harvest cover for the last four years?
I can’t say for sure. Either way, tell that girl from Canada that it ain’t ironic.
Bookfoolery: If I never sleep again until the end of my days, at least I will die well-read
June 24, 2010Maybe “well” is subjective …
If anyone but my Asia Argento plays Lisbeth Salander in an English-speaking adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I will put my hand through a blender. I pictured her the entire time I was reading.
Finished Girl With the Dragon Tattoo over a sleepless night that lead to one uneasy stretch of light snooze cut short by sudden bouts of vomiting. I found it very absorbing — the book, not the violent gut spasms from who-knows-what combination of stress and inattentively poor personal care — but it caromed briefly in to a few areas for which I was not wild. Still it all hung together in the end and I recommend it without reservation. Then I ended up reading a particularly pulpy and breezy Ross Macdonald mystery from the 70’s whose title I have already forgotten even though it kept me company for several hours.
See? Lots of people have insomnia and go on to have perfectly normal Summers! The Shining (Kubrick, 1980).
I only remember that I’d picked it up a few months back along with a couple 70’s editions of Zane Grey at my preferred comic store, which, besides selling comics and related games and accessories, also carries a small inventory of used, cheapo books and spotty collections of memorabilia depending on what luckless local nerds have either died or lost enough money to place their treasures in hock. I snatched up the Greys and this Macdonald book a few months ago because I dug the kind of blocky-schlocky look to the lines of the cover art.
The Underground Man — that’s right. Decent enough title, I guess.
The phrase “blew my mind” was used repeatedly in the book to refer to literally taking too much acid and suffering brain damage and prolonged schizophrenic episodes triggered by hallucinations, which usage I thought was a handy demonstration of the evolution of slang — in the book it was suggestive of overdose and possible fatality, but you can see how it developed over time the more benign definition it has now in the sense of changing one’s worldview in a feller-than-the-usual-pace-of-educational swoop, while still somewhat referencing the phrase’s original intent.
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968). He swar to gar for all his life that whole sequences of this film were not planned to look like an acid trip, to which anyone who has ever done acid says, “Sure.”
The Macdonald book wasn’t the worst thing ever and some of the slangy shenanigans and quaintly dated rough talk in it wet my palate for some Hammett. I never re-read Red Harvest until October (red HARVEST, get it?) but I also brought down with me from Portland The Dain Curse and the Op’s short-story collection and could give one of those a spin. Think that’s what I’ll do tonight.
Actually maybe Hammett is only the appetizer. Know what? I think I will try to squeeze in L.A. Confidential before I have to pick up Tommyknockers. I usually, though not maniacally, like to read that closer to Christmastime because of the whole Bloody Christmas scandal that sparks so much of the action, but I’ve been self-auditing through all these long sick waking nights, and by setting this bookfoolery in to print I have come to see that I’ve got some really fucked-up and compulsive reading habits which are even perhaps the least of my worries and so I feel like rebelling against myself in this small thing to test the waters of making Change happen. I’m going to do this because I can.
Synchronicity — just dug out Red Harvest and the quote on the front cover is from Ross Macdonald, the author whose pulp I read this morning. Wild way that the universe is telling me I’m on the right track? or subconscious self-affirmation from whatever part of my brain has been looking at that (quite kickass) Red Harvest cover for the last four years?
I can’t say for sure. Either way, tell that girl from Canada that it ain’t ironic.
Movie Moment: The Shining, an introduction to the Overlook edition
November 28, 2009“Now, Mr. Torrance, one thing you must know is that the hotel is haunted. Horribly, horribly haunted. That’s cool, right?”
Uh-oh, he’s not going for it. Sell it, sell it!
“But the good news is, the ghosts keep a full bar, and your tab is on the house!”
Jack is sold.
The actual lines go like this:ULLMAN: My predecessor in this job hired a man named Charles Grady as the winter caretaker. He came up with his wife and little girls. And from what l’ve been told, he seemed ike a completely normal individual. But at some point during the winter he must have suffered some kind of a complete mental breakdown. He ran amuck and killed his family with an ax. Stacked them neatly in a room in the west wing, and then … he put both barrels of his shotgun in his mouth.
JACK: That is … quite a story.
ULLMAN: Yeah, it is. l think you can appreciate why l wanted to tell you about it.
JACK: l certainly can. l also understand why your people in Denver left it for you to tell me.
ULLMAN: Obviously, some people can be put off from staying in a place where something like that happened.
JACK: You can rest assured that’s not going to happen with me. And as far as my wife is concerned l’m sure she’ll be absolutely fascinated when l tell her.
Oh, of course. Yes, ol’ Wendy just loves a good scare. It is the most overriding facet of her personality, in my opinion: her ability to handle a frightening situation with a steady mind and plucky aplomb, and not descend into horror or panic and despair.
Oh, wait … I guess her most overriding characteristic is that she comes completely fucking unglued at the drop of a hat.