#line delivery that immediately made me look up the actor on wikipedia to see if hes gay

[peppermintbutch]

The dwarf breathes so loud we could've shot him in the dark 😏🤭🤨🙄

[beaverla-blog1]

“The Shining” (1980) Review

Welcome back! This is going to be the first full movie review. Hopefully you have already listened to Season 1 – Episode 2 of “Here’s Johnny” and heard what both Justin and I had to say on this film. I am so very happy that this was the first movie we reviewed, not only because it is a personal favorite, but Kubrick is such a brilliant filmmaker and there is so much to dissect with this film. So before we start the review, let’s discuss some of the more important notes about the development and production of this horror classic.

This movie is based off of the novel of the same name, written by Stephen King. After the commercial failure of his last film, Kubrick needed to make a film that would be more financially successful but that would also allow him to flex his artistic ability. He decided to do a horror film, and for inspiration he locked himself in his office with a stack of horror novels and started his way through them. According to his secretary, there were constant slams against the wall as Kubrick discarded whatever book he was reading because it was not what he was looking for. However, the slams stopped and Kubrick emerged hours later with “The Shining” in his hand. According to Kubrick himself, the reason he chose the text was that “there’s something inherently wrong with human personality. There’s an evil side to it. One of the things that horror stories can do is to show us the archetypes of the unconscious, we can see the dark without having to confront it directly” (from Stanley Kubrick: The Complete Films by Paul Duncan). Kubrick did take a lot of artistic variance from the book, and although this allowed him to leave a great deal more to interpretation it also upset some people, including King himself.

A fun note in regards to casting; Kubrick’s top choice was the man who eventually took the role, Jack Nicholson. Others who auditioned for the role included Robert DeNiro, Harrison Ford, and Robin Williams. It blows my mind to try and imagine this movie with Robin Williams playing Jack Torrance. Stephen King is on record saying that he would not have picked any of these actors (B105FM in 2007).

Principal photography took place over a year, and each day is said to have been extremely long. Kubrick is known for his meticulousness and getting the exact shot he sees in his head. This is where some of the stories about the tensions between the actors and Kubrick arise. Kubrick apparently made changes to the script almost daily, and for anyone who has ever acted before it is obvious how frustrating that can be. Nicholson stopped even reading the new scripts and would just memorize lines or improvise right before shooting a scene. Shelly Duvall had an even more difficult time. She and Kubrick constantly argued, over the script, over the delivery of her lines, and her overall acting skills. Allegedly this fighting became so severe that she became physically ill and even started seeing her hair fall out. The scene where Wendy finds Jack’s manuscript was shot many, many times. This was not only due to Kubrick looking for a specific acting performance from Duvall, but also because he had different manuscripts each in a different language and with that language’s version of “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” (from Chris Hooton at the Independent, January 2017).

“The Shining” was also one of the very first films to use ‘Steadicam’. Steadicam allows a camera operator to maintain a steady shot regardless of his movements or any rough terrain. Garret Brown, the inventor of the Steadicam, was very intrigued by what Kubrick was using his new technology for with this film. So much so, that Brown became heavily involved with the filming and still proclaims the master vision of what Kubrick sought to place on film (from the audio commentary on the 2007 DVD release). The final budget was $19 million and the film made $44.4 million in the box office.

Plot:

I am not going to go into an in-depth discussion of the plot of the film. If you want that, listen to the podcast, go to Wikipedia, or WATCH THE DAMN MOVIE! Needless to say, it’s a great film with a whole lot to discuss. First, I am going to highlight some pros for the film, and then I am going to look at some cons. The film is great. There is a reason why it’s not only considered one of the best horror films, but also one of the best overall films of all time. The script is tight, the acting is brilliant and the tension throughout is palpable. I have also found that the older I get, the more I start to understand what happens to Jack Torrance. When you watch this as a kid, his craziness is scary but hard to relate to. However, as you mature and life starts showing you its hand, it becomes apparent that it would not take too much to take a normal man and turn him crazy. This film is also my favorite kind of horror film, because of how easy it is to see a situation like this taking place in real life.

It is important to note that the plot is not perfect, and those imperfections are far more apparent when watching the film critically. The injury timeline is a little screwy. Wendy tells the doctor at the beginning of the film that Jack hurt Danny five months prior to the start of the movie. However, when Jack is telling the ghostly bartender Lloyd about why his wife hates him, he says the injury took place three years prior to the events in the film. Although it can be explained away that Jack is starting to lose his grip on reality and his view on time is screwed up. And Kubrick is not one to let an error like that fly. But it is never addressed as such and I truly believe it was an oversight. I also feel that Dick Halloran was wasted as a character. I truly don’t see the reason why they brought him all the way from Miami just to kill him. He doesn’t even get to interact with any of the characters and his arc never develops. The film would have been better off having some random forest ranger come up and see what was going on at The Overlook. The furry scene is another that I find out of place. There isn’t a lot of setup for it, and it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the ghostly sights Wendy is seeing as she flees the hotel. It is iconic, I just don’t think it is necessary. Next, I feel the use of the N word is unnecessary. It might be that living in 2018, the word is so far from normal context that when I heard it used in the film I was immediately taken out of the scene. I also don’t think they can even use the excuse “it was a different time” because the film was released in 1980 and it was already established that it was taboo. Finally, my biggest problem is how fast Jack devolved mentally. The film had five months to play with, and for some reason they decided to use less than two for Jack to completely lose his mind. I think that the film would have been better suited to allow more time to pass to make Jack’s devolution make more sense.

With all this in mind, I gave plot 8.5 out of 10.

Cinematography:

I believe that this is one of the best films to use when justifying Kubrick’s genius as a filmmaker. There are three scenes in particular that I find illustrate this best. The first is the opening scene, with Jack driving up to The Overlook. It is shot from a helicopter, and shows Jack’s car driving on the mountain roads, surrounded by nothing but wilderness. It lets the audience know right away, without any need to speak words, that the family is isolated and that there is NO ONE around. The second scene takes place after Wendy finds Jack’s manuscript and his craziness is brought to light. Jack has his back to the large windows in the room and since this scene takes place midday, his face is hidden in the shadow. Wendy however is facing the windows and the light is illuminating her. And it’s as simple as that. Jack is shadowy because he is no longer the man we first met, and Wendy is in the light because she is finally seeing what the hotel has done to her husband. It’s a brilliant piece of directorship. Finally, the last scene that I really feel show why this film is a work of cinematic genius is when Jack is cutting down the bathroom door. The film is shot with Steadicam, so throughout the rest of the movie there are no shaky shots. But when Jack’s axe hits the door, the camera shakes. Each time. This is used to make the audience FEEL how hard Jack is hitting the door through camera work. It is so flawless, that the audience may not even notice.

This is why I give cinematography a 10 out of 10.

Audio:

I also strongly feel that the overall audio of this film is exquisite. One scene that illustrates this is Danny riding his tricycle throughout the hotel. When he is riding on the carpet, it is quiet. But the moment he hits the hard wood, the sound changes. It is abrupt but it is what it would sound like in real life. And again, when Danny goes from the hard wood onto the carpet it is silent again. It would have been so easy to ignore this, but Kubrick knows how important it is to hit the small details. Another audio aspect that I love is the main score. It is brilliant. If for some reason you don’t know it, go listen to it on YouTube. It will speak for itself. I also really enjoyed the “buzzing” that takes place periodically throughout the film. The buzzing will build throughout the scene, and sometimes it will lead to a scare and other times it will lead to nothing. It keeps the audience constantly guessing about what is actually going to happen. The last thing that I think is very important when discussing the audio quality of this film is Jack Nicholson’s delivery. At the start of the film he is articulate and charming. As the film goes on and Jack loses his mind, his speech devolves as well. Ultimately, he is reduced to grunts and screams.

Not surprisingly I gave audio a 10 out of 10.

How Scary is it?

When discussing how scary this film is to me, I feel I have to talk about how scary I found it when I was a kid and then as an adult. The first time I watched this movie, the horror came from the things that were scary to Danny. It is very easy to see how the events that take place in the movie could scare a kid. A rotting corpse attacking you in an abandoned room, two little girls that want you to play with them forever and ever and sometimes appear chopped into bits. Blood rushing down an elevator shaft and filling the hallway. And probably most terrifying of all, your father wanting to murder you. I think every son has a very basic fear that they are not good enough for their dad, and to have it realized in such a malevolent way is brutal for a young kid watching this movie.

As an adult, the fear comes from seeing what happens to Jack. It would be terrifying to be isolated in such a manner as the family is in this film. And to not only be isolated, but to feel yourself losing your grip on reality. To start questioning what is going on around you. To have your wife blame you for something you (think) you could never do again. And probably most basic of all, not being able to trust the one you love while dealing with all of this. This may not be the same kind of fear one experiences when watching a movie like “The Conjuring”, but the fear is one you feel deep in within yourself.

But even with all of that this movie is not all that scary, and modern technology prevents a modern audience from relating as well. Internet and cell phones make the idea of isolation seem so foreign, even when stuck on a snowy mountain.

This is why I rated this section the lowest. 7 out of 10.

Final Grade:

Out of 40, I scored “The Shining” 35.5. This gives the film an 89%, or a B+ which I feel it richly deserves. Even though the film may not be all that scary, the cinematography and acting make it more than worth the dollar it takes to rent on Amazon.

[attract-mode-collective]

Review: A Day with Sid, Ed, & CD-i

Longtime readers may be less than surprised to learn that I have a deep fondness for infomercials designed to sell game hardware, be they arcade machines or computers and consoles. Why? Well, they’re the perfect combination of the two things I loved most growing up, that being video games and late night television, both of which were at their absolute apex around the early 90s (IMHO).

The one I watched and loved the most was a 30 minute long piece of paid programming dedicated to the Phillips CD-i, which attempted to usher CD-ROM based entertainment into living rooms during the 16-bit era of gaming and ultimately failed, with much of its infamy due to the rather poor utilization of Nintendo IP that Phillips had access to (due to them being there to pick up the pieces of the SNES CD project, when Nintendo and Sony had a falling out).

Alas, I have yet to find an acceptable, let alone complete copy on YouTube. I should know; I regularly check and see if one has been finally uploaded. The bits and pieces that are currently present is the infomercial split into three parts (it was shared at a time in which uploads could not be longer than ten minutes), and even then, a sizable chunk of the beginning portion is missing. Though during a regular check, I came across the existence of a second informercial that I had no idea existed!

Despite the beginning being cut off here as well, enough of the set-up is present for the following half-hour to make sense. Basically, we have a pair of twin brothers in the same line of business, more or less: assisting those with technical difficulties.

Ed is a repair person who specializes in VCRs, game systems, and personal computers. Consumer tech that the informercial portrays as being less than consumer friendly, to the point that they’re practically consumer hostile. As such, Ed’s characterization reflects this stance; he’s slow, lazy, and aloof. Which is pretty much all the justification that Sid needs to swoop in and hijack Ed’s clientele, to then perform his role of CD-i salesperson.

Sid believes that he’s not so much stealing them but is instead “steering them in the right direction” and even describes himself as a “Robin Hood for the information age”. The dude loves his job, cuz he loves the CD-i! All of which is illustrated via three vignettes that the informercial presents. The first is Little Timmy and the Wrong Button and it depicts an early 90s mom and her young early 90s son, at the computer… dad’s computer to be exact. The scene opens with mom trying to get a game running by inserting a long string of DOS commands. When she has to step away from the computer, to refer to some manual that’s high atop the book shelf, her child disobeys the commandment of not touching the keyboard, which results in him completely erasing the hard drive.

Believe it or not, for the younger folks reading this, such a scene was somewhat common in television and film at the time: kids were portrayed as being dumb, unable to grasp technology. Crazy, I know! Anyhow, the point of this scene is to demonstrate that computers are super fragile and needlessly complicated, so mom makes a call to Ed, though Sid shows up instead (mom actually calls an office, where Ed’s boss is, who relays jobs to his repairman in the field via CB radio, which Sid snoops in on… kinda messed up, I know). As he barges inside the house, Sid states “So, you hit a pot hole in the information super highway, huh?”

Mom points towards the computer but Sid makes his way straight towards the TV and hooks up a later model of the CD-i, the one that resembles a game console, so I know it came after the other informercial, cuz that one featured the version of the hardware that looks like a VCR. Anyhow, Sid immediately starts doing his pitch, which is how the CD-i does everything a computer can, but instead of a tiny monitor on a desk, you can enjoy everything on your big ass living room TV and on the comfort of your couch.

And what’s the first piece of software to demonstrate the power of CD-i, to not only impress the young man in the skit but everyone watching at home? Why, an edutainment title called Crayon Factory. Seriously. Sid (presumably) gets the idea after noticing the young scribbling all over the walls of the house with crayons, though he’s a bit too old for such behavior. And thus we have my fave little touch of the informercial; when the kid inserts the disc, Sid adjusts it so its properly resting on the spool. Not sure why I like that so much…

But yeah, it’s hardly the first taste for the viewing audience at home that I would have chosen. Yet Crayon Factory is exciting enough for Sid to steal the controller (and a rather cheap looking one at that; on the long list of problems with the CD-i is the rather chintzy input devices) from the boy and play the game himself. While playing, Sid continues on with the hard sell, by noting “CD-i has everything you get with a CD-ROM… except the problems!” Which means zero loading time (not according to footage I’ve seen on YouTube) and no complicated equipment (speaking as a Mac guy, I will agree that PCs are hard to figure out, sorry). He also runs down all the other things that the machine can play, like music CDs (this is the early 90s and compact discs were still relatively new) and movies (with Four Weddings And A Funeral mentioned, the first instance of several) plus actual video games!

The first legit gameplay we see is of Chaos Control, a rather subpar on-rails shooter that heavily relies upon full motion video. But instead of the enemies being sprites that are super imposed on top, which is usually the case, here they’re part of the pre-rendered backdrop. So when you shoot something, it becomes obscured by a puff of smoke, and a really crappy looking one at that. It’s also worth noting that Chaos Control was released on other platforms, and I see the Japanese Sega Saturn version a lot when looking for imports on eBay. There are TONS of copies out there for sale and no one’s buying.

Mom is less than impressed, cuz she’s a woman, and women don’t play video games, according to the informercial. Though she’s also worried about how her husband will react to the loss of the computer (which is referred to as to simply “the CD-ROM”; I think it has less to do with a female being unfamiliar with tech yet again, and more with how no one on staff was fluent period). Which is why Sid bring up Palm Springs Golf, cuz all dads love golf, right? Though CD-is are for mothers as well, which is why Sid introduces her to Kathy Smith Personal Trainer, a work out video disc that has an aerobics instructor with an eye patch. Just figured I’d mention that.

After Four Weddings And A Funeral’s name is dropped for the second time (btw, not once does the informercial ever show a clip, we never even see what the packaging looks like), several other games are mentioned. Nothing manages to pique mom’s interest, until she finds out that there’s a CD-i version of Jeopardy, which is what allows mother and child to bond over technology, and in a way that simply is impossible via CD-ROM or any other old-fashioned piece of tech! As Sid exits the house, after successfully extolling the virtues of the CD-i yet again, he comes across Ed who is only now arriving (his tardiness is largely due to the nap he took on the way). Sid notes “not to make excuses for him, but Ed was born twenty minutes after me and has been late ever since.” Sick burn Sid, sick burn.

Afterwards is the first commercial break within the commercial programming, which is consistent with the format of the medium. This is the first opportunity for the viewing audience to purchase their own machine, for just 8 payments of $62.50? That’s $500. Plus $19.95 for shipping and handling (also, please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery). The selection of software and entertainment available is detailed, including yet another mention of Four Weddings And A Funeral (we are told there are plenty of movies for the platform, but we only ever hear about one specifically, with the key word here being “hear”). I seem to recall the Turbo Duo’s hefty price tag being justified with a slew of quality pack in titles, and the CD-i is no slouch in comparison… of the six discs included there’s Chaos Control (yawn), Space Ace (okay, that’s slightly better), Compton’s Encyclopedia (okay, before there was Wikipedia there were encyclopedias, so I can see Compton’s actually being a legit enticing piece of software at the time), and a Beatles cover record.

Next is our second tale of truth and discovery, entitled Game Machine. The scene opens up in a living room inhabited by three totally radical teens. The kid any gamer could at home could totally relate to! One’s playing an unspecified game console, another’s just rocking on to some killer tunes via headphones. Unfortunately he gets a bit into the music and ends up knocking over the console, which breaks (which upon freezing of the frame reveals an answering machine instead of a SNES or Genesis). This pisses of the third kid, who had been chillin’ on the couch, eating pizza while on his back (I used to that a lot as a kid… okay, not really). It’s his house and the console is technically his father’s, so a call for help is made.

As before, Sid intercepts Ed’s communiqué from his boss. And as one might expect, video games take center stage in this segment; first up is a full motion driven adventure game called Burn:Cycle that’s about cyber espionage though the mid 90s lens (the best kind, of course). Which is where my other fave shot from the infomercial shows up, right after one of them bites it. I love it when actors are supposed to do something that should be natural, yet either due to poor acting skills or a clueless director (I want to believe in this case it’s the latter), it comes off as anything but... 

We then check in on Ed real quick, who is being proactive this time but unfortunately got the address wrong, so he instead shows up at some biker gang’s hideout. Back to Sid, who details the second game for the segment… and it’s Chaos Control for the second time?! Footage from Space Ace is shown after, which is odd, given the type of game that the CD-i was practically made for. Otherwise… we’re constantly told that there are 200 titles available, but the same ones that were showcased with the mom and the small boy are mentioned yet again, even the workout video.

This second segment is not as interesting as the first one, plus it’s not as long either. When the gamer dorks assume that dad has come home, they start panicking because the place is a mess, due to abundance of half eaten pizza slices all over the place (cuz, you know, teenagers). But it’s Ed, who got lost on the way; instead of the boys’ house, he encountered a biker gang. Though we get zero explanation as to what, if anything, had happened.

The ending is also fairly anticlimactic, and the whole thing’s a disappointment to be honest. After a repeat of the commercial break from before, we arrive at the third and final vignette, A VCR’s Last Meal. So you all know already what this one is going to be. As before, the scene opens up in a living room with a man and a woman, a couple sitting on the couch, watching a movie. Sid tells us that they’re movie buffs, though he also explains how their VCR has also developed “quite the appetite” for film as well, hence why they’re regular customers of Ed.

Not surprisingly, their tape (which we are told is Forest Gump, and not Four Weddings And A Funeral; talk about a missed opportunity to flex the CD-i version being superior over the VHS edition) is eaten up by their machine. A call is immediately made the guy has a slightly argumentative exchange on the phone, who states that because of their extended warranty, he wants Ed to give it another shot at fixing it. Ed gets the dispatch, but his hands are full, eating what appears to be two maybe even three slices of pizza at once... 

At this point, the infomercial’s negative characterization of Ed and all that he represents officially went over the line. Sid, whose very healthy lunch is an assortment of fruit and vegetable slices and is an additional dig at his brother, decides to steal yet another client from Ed. What a jerk.

The moment Sid arrives, he barges himself into the couple’s abode, replaces the VCR with a CD-i and considers the job done. The dude wonders what the f and our pitchman explains that he’s offering a new way to consume movies. Sid identifies just one title… any guesses which… and then goes onto to tout the CD-quality sound. The girlfriend or wife (not sure what the nature of their relationship really is) seems immediately sold, but the boyfriend or husband is not. So Sid fires up a movie, and just when we see a “Feature Presentation” graphic, he suggests play a video game instead? Great, so Four Weddings And A Funeral is seriously the ONLY movie for the platform, which they either don’t have the rights to show footage from or maybe it’s not even ready.

The game we see is Caesars World of Boxing. Sid initially hands the controller over to the man but then gives it to the woman instead. Cuz it’s funny you see. Because women don’t play video games you see. We briefly cut to Ed who is having engine troubles, and then it’s back to the woman playing the boxing game. And only her. Not sure if it’s a one player game only or if Sid simply doesn’t have a second controller. Can you plug more than one controller into the machine? I honestly don’t know! The woman is way into the game, mostly the violence, so Sid cuts her bloodlust off by popping in the CD-i version of Clue. It’s a video board game that has clips of all the characters, and because it’s not footage from the famous movie, I didn’t care and you probably won’t either.

The third video game used to convince a movie buff couple as to why they should dump their VCR for a CD-i is Burn:Cycle of all things. Afterwards, while Sid is applying the icing on the cake by pointing out how machine also plays games in addition to video games and nonexistent movies, Ed shows up looking pretty pissed. And for good reason; this bother has been stealing his customers for the past 24 minutes, or should I say stealing Ed of his livelihood. What we get is a shot in which Sid and Ed are facing each other, and since it’s the same actor playing both roles once again, it’s a bit of trick photography, but because their eye lines are not meeting the special effect is less than convincing. Anyhow, as Ed rambles on about how the couple is like family, the woman slips in a copy of Mad Dog McCree. Given how it’s an interactive movie, front and center, why wasn’t it brought up front and center to the film fanatics? Then again, playing a light gun with a standard controller is always lame, so maybe that’s why it barely gets any screen time.

In the middle of this, Sid notes that it’s quitting time for both him and his brother, so cut to them sitting on the couch, alongside the couple, with Ed enjoying some Mad Dog McCree himself! Am shocked it’s not all of them watching a movie, Four Weddings And A Funeral of course (we don’t see what they’re seeing, so it could have been possible). Sid’s voice over states “A minute of CD-i and years of rivalry just disappeared!” The last shot we see, before the infomercial ends with the third and final showing of the commercial, is of the van driving off. Before it said Sid’s CD-i Sales but there’s been some alterations, and now it states Sid & Ed’s CD-i Sales. Isn’t that cute. Am assuming this would last for maybe 4 more months, until Sid was forced to adopt Ed’s line of work. Or who knows, maybe the two would go onto drive around town and pitching Atari Jaguars?