Cinema etc.

We are now only a few weeks away from the release of Star Wars episode XI, so I thought it was time I sat down and rewatched the saga so far. There’s always the debate of whether to watch in release order or chronological order, personally I would always go with release order but I thought to switch up this years marathon a bit I’d start at the prequels. That meant starting at The Phantom Menace…

Released in 1999 to pretty mixed critic reviews and a lukewarm fan response, it has since become the target of countless jokes and memes. The hate for it just feels like it’s grown over the years.  Much of which was aimed at the over use of newly developed CGI technology, some dodgy acting, and George Lucas’ filmmaking ability. While I do largely agree with the criticisms with the film, I also think it’s important to remember these are just films. They can’t ruin your childhood and you really shouldn’t get upset over them.

I think this might have been the first Star Wars film I saw in what must have been around 2005/2006, obviously as a kid I had no idea what film criticism was and I just loved it. The droid army, the lightsaber fights, even Jar Jar! I went on to be obsessed with the whole saga for most of my childhood, and I still follow the Star Wars films (currently really enjoying The Mandalorian). This film means a lot to me and even watching it now I can’t find THAT much wrong with it. The film was made for children, and children will love it.

 A more recent example of a film being hated this much in recent memory was the immense amount of discourse among fans created after the release of Rian Johnson’s subversive installment in the Star Wars sage, The Last Jedi. There were a lot of “you ruined my childhood has been ruined”s  thrown around, and a lot of online abuse was targeted towards certain people involved in the production. It felt like history came full circle. Things got really horrible and it just made me feel like giving up on the franchise as a whole. There’s a small portion of the die hard Star Wars fans who just feel like it belongs to them and them alone, which is of course ridiculous. They got the original trilogy, please just let the current younger generation have their own version. 

So with The Rise of Skywalker just around the corner please remember; it’s just a film, and it’s for children. I really can’t wait to see it having loved the sequel trilogy so far. I’m just dreading the inevitable debates I’m going to be having about it for the next few months.

In the past couple of weeks I feel like I’ve seen The Shining at least 15 times. On Halloween day I watched it (the original version) with my flatmates, then the week after we watched it again, and then the documentary Room 237, and then immediately after we thought it would be cool to watch The Shining once more, only this time watching it played forwards and backwards at the same time, then we all went to the cinema to watch this years sequel Doctor Sleep. I topped it off that night with a rewatch of the Simpson’s parody The Shinning. I’m all Shining-ed out after this. But I thought as soon as it feels like only thing I’ve watched recently I might aswell write about it for my viewing blog.

My first exposure to the film was The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V, which featured a segment aptly named The Shinning. I loved the Simpson’s and must have watched this episode countless times as a kid. Watching it now it still really really holds up, Matt Groening and co. always manage to parody films in the best way. But I was watching this episode years before I ever watched the Kubrick original. When I finally did I must have been about thirteen or fourteen and I liked it a lot. The horror aspects of it were some of the best I’d ever seen, and Jack Nicholson’s performance stuck with me to this very day. After this (honestly life-changing) experience I didn’t watch the film again until earlier this year, inspired by the Kubrick exhibition I visited at The Design Museum in London. It definitely held up on rewatch, viewing it on the 2011 blu-ray release for the first time it’s never looked better. And it was really great to watch it with some of my flatmates who had never seen it before. 

I watched Room 237 with my friend and fellow Stanley Kubrick fan boy, Kyle, over summer. I wasn’t fully sold on it at first but it was undeniably interesting. While I think some of the theories go a bit far, I’m nonetheless intrigued by them and some I even think have real grounding. On rewatch I was believing far more of it than I had first time round (although it’s definitely a skier and they are just clouds). It’s a really interesting documentary and is probably worth watching for the HD Kubrick clips alone. One of the most intriguing points it raises is the idea of watching the film forwards and backwards at the same time, as it’s supposed to create some interesting imagery and raise some more ideas about it’s plot. So we gave it a watch straight after.

The Shining Forwards and Backwards is interesting to say the least. An independent cinema in the US were brainstorming experimental ways of watching The Shining and this is the one they settled on. It’s a fun watch for sure, seeing Jack smiling at his interview for the caretaker position while being juxtaposed with him chasing Danny around the Overlook maze with an axe is nothing short of brilliant. The image created when the corpses of the twins is matched with a smiling Jack in the dinner hall bathroom is incredible. It was a really fun and interesting way of watching a film I already felt I knew inside and out, forwards and backwards.

And then we watched Mike Flanagan’s newly released sequel, Doctor Sleep. I haven’t read the original King novel but from what I’ve heard this is more a sequel and adaptation of that than it is a sequel and homage to the Kubrick film. I went in with next to no expectations, and even then it  honestly did nothing for me at all. I was woken up at the mention of The Overlook, and treated for approximately a minute to some sweet sweet nostalgia, which eventually turned bitter at some of the laughably bad references to the original film. It’s sure to go down as one of them forgotten sequels on the same level as Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows, American Psycho 2, and 2010: The Year We Make Contact. 

After the last month I think I’m going to take a break from The Shining, but I’m sure at some point in the next couple of years I’ll return to the Overlook for a while.