The Shining: Wrapping It Up

Ok, I have now finished both movie versions of The Shining, and have some comments to make on both, but first I just wanted to make a few comments about my current state of mind. Hopefully what comes out here today will not be incoherent or random, but I am on some pretty strong pain medication right now, so who knows. This past weekend I got quite a scare, and not just from the works of SK. I started to get a pretty annoying pain in my abdomen on Saturday, that escalated to a stabbing constant pain by Sunday night. I thought it best to go to the ER just to make sure that one of my organs had not exploded. After a CAT scan, they saw quite clearly that it was something called diverticulitis, which quite simply is an inflammation of the colon due to "junk" getting caught in there. Anyway, what it boils down to is 3-4 days of bed rest, heavy antibiotics, and all the pain meds I want. Needless to say, any trip to the ER can be scary, and this was no exception. I was glad to find out that it was easily fixable, but lying in the hospital for 6 or seven hours waiting for tests to come back really gives you time to contemplate your worst fears, and confront your own mortality. It seems a bit melodramatic thinking about it after the fact, but most of us know that during is a whole different story. At any rate, all is well, and life ticks on.

But not for some of the people at The Overlook hotel...

My mother has told me that the first movie I ever went to see in the theatre was The Shining. This is sort of a half truth, as I was just a newborn baby, and my Mom really was the one watching the movie, while I slept most of the time in a baby chair. But in some fun way, I like to think of it as my first real exposure to the work of SK, and possibly the beginning of something great. Realistically, I hope I was a quiet baby, because I just hate those people who bring their screaming kids into movies that they shouldn't be brought into in the first place. So, I'll give my mother the benefit of the doubt, and say that she knew that I'd be wrapped in attention, and on my best behavior (snicker snicker). Ramon and I always joke about the movies that came out in "our year", meaning our respective years of birth. "Well, it came out on MY year, so it must be a good movie." is usually the phrase that is used. Well, this one is no exception. I think that most of us know how creepy, and stylistically genius this movie is. It is on the AFI's top ten for scariest movies, and I will agree. It still can scare the shit out of me, even though I know exactly what is going to happen at every turn. Now, I know that true SK fans have some major problems with this movie adaptation, and I can understand that. This movie is really more the child of Stanley Kubrick, and less of SK. The bare storyline is still present, but most of the nuances of the book have been either changed or eliminated entirely. Most of the characterization has been dramatically altered as well. At the time that this movie came out, SK was quite vocal about his dislike for what Kubrick did to his story. SK actually wrote a screenplay for Kubrick to use, but Kubrick decided not to take it because he did not think that SK was really that great of a screenplay writer (and with little exception, I kind of agree with him). SK's greatness is in his ability to create a world, weave a story, and bring it to life in his writing. Dialogue...well, sometimes his people sound a bit retarded. It works so much better in the confines of a book, but hearing some of his dialogue out loud can be kind of laughable, and not in a good way. Which leads me into talking about the 1997 TV miniseries version...

In 1997 SK wrote the teleplay for "his version" of The Shining. I remember watching it when it came out, and really liked seeing some of the things that I had always wanted to see from the book (i.e. the topiary, the wasps nest, the boiler room explosion, the Presidential "Sweet"...etc.). It also was nice to see some of the characterization followed more closely to the book. Most notably is Rebecca De Mornay's performance as Wendy. It was nice to see Wendy as I pictured her: a self reliant, but sometimes emotionally abusive woman who loves her family. No offense to Shelley Duvall, but her shitty acting (while providing moments of fun for us to laugh at) will always go down in history as one of the worst performances ever, and as an actor myself, that's not really the legacy I would want to leave behind. But I digress, all this being said about this remake, the dialogue is absolutely horrible. If I have to hear Steven Weber scream, "Take your medicine, you damn PUP!" one more time, I might kill myself. I mean seriously, who talks like that? On paper you can forgive it, but to hear it over and over again in a movie, it makes you seriously cringe.

Anyway, my head is starting to swim from the meds, so I need to lie down. I actually am almost done with reading Rage (the first of the Bachman books), and boy do I have some things to say. So, chances are, you will be hearing from me sooner than later.

More to come...