Room 237

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🎙️ EPISODE 404: 02.18.22 The following is a part of the RODNEY ASCHER director focus series As I close out the first week of rebooted shows here in 2022, let me just say Thank You to all the readers and listeners. I'm giving it the old college try in this new year to try and get some traction with this gig, the newly crowned MovieJeff.com Review Show and friendly neighborhood film website. I'll keep doing this until the day I die, most likely, because it's a hobby more or less. Hopefully it feels like that (still?) without sounding too unprofessional (still???). Now let's talk about the best YouTube video essay that is actually a feature-length documentary.d of it?

I am this movie's target audience: 100%, full stop. If there were a Venn Diagram, and why can't there be a Venn diagram? screw it, let me make one...


Yup that's me :)

So it's with that in mind, that I present this critique. I realize this might be an acquired taste, at best, and — at worst — completely niche fare for maniacs like myself. But if you go into this cold and without first checking off those specific interest boxes above, maybe you'll take away the fact that, deep down, this is a movie about passion. The talking heads (minus their heads) are living and breathing and eating this shit, and in their fervor and complete submission to the art, yeah sure, maybe they cut some corners, invent some connections that aren't really there. The concept of "artist intention" is brought up towards the end of this and I think that really cuts to the core of Room 237 on a thematic level. We fill up our time. We have to. The days will come and go whether we fill them up or not. We'll watch movies or play games or make our own art or [insert other things people do here, like create little known movie review websites]. When we do this (anything), what we've filled up our time with becomes our own. We own it completely. If you want The Shining to be about the Holocaust, or minotaurs, or faking the moon landing, then it is. It's definitely as much about that as it is an adaptation of a Stephen King novel... so long as you believe it is. What Room 237 really is about is the magic of art, all the endless possibilities. To be inspired, to be made to feel things, to think about things differently, all of it. And that's both a lot (everything ever always) and a little (102 minutes), simultaneously. A genius feat and it happens all the time. This documentary is a tremendous example of that.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 403 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 405 ⫸

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Room 237 is a 2012 American documentary film directed by Rodney Ascher about interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining (1980) which was adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by Stephen King. It was released on March 29, 2013.