This week’s MSN DVD column delves deep into Rodney Ascher’s Room 237, which — to coin a phrase — is madness all the way down. But that’s sort of the point, as you’ll see if you read the piece.
Also in home-screen-related coverage, I talk to Clark Duke, who provides the voice of Thunk in The Croods and is a pretty interesting guy. Read that too, why not!
I’ve gotten the impression from what I’ve read that King’s problem with the movie is more character-centered, precisely the Kubrikian lack of affect you mentioned, that by casting Jack Nicholson as Jack essentially primed the audience to see him as crazy waiting to come out (“All work and no play…”) rather than a slow disintegration (the progressively changing plot of the novel Jack’s writing), with Shelley Duvall’s Wendy completely lacking in agency, existing only to be terrified.
My two cents is that the book is one of the few that seriously creeped me out (topiary animals, anyone?) but the movie left me cold (and not in a freeze to death in a labyrinth kind of way), but I seem to be in the minority on that one. That said, the documentary sounds interesting in a conspiracy theory kind of way and I’ll be sure to check it out.
Also…YAY!, Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing is out…missed it in the theaters. He doesn’t Whedonize it and kill off Beatrice, leaving Benedick a broken husk of a man or play out another “Would you like me to lie to you now?” heartbreaker with Denisof and Acker? It’s still a comedy, right? Please?