Saturday, November 28, 2009

Watching "The Shining"

Bestest Boy and I are watching one of his birthday gifts right now -- Stanley Kubrick's classic "The Shining" on Blu-ray. I haven't watched this movie in ages, probably in almost 20 years, and never before as an uncut version. Anybody remember the creepy twins the son Danny keeps on envisioning while wandering throughout the Overlook Hotel? I was immediately reminded of the cover of Jenny Lewis' solo debut, Rabbit Fur Coat, and the eerily similarly staged Watson Twins. (I'm sure I'm not the first one to notice.)

Had to have been deliberate, right? So does that make Jenny Lewis the Danny character? Or is she in her red dress the deluge of blood rushing through the hotel that we see in the movie? Quite the opposite from the tenderly precious sentiment conveyed by the songs on the album.

Anyway, here is a clip of Bestest Boy's favorite scene in the movie, in which Wendy Torrance, played by Shelley Duvall, realizes that all this time her husband has not been working on the Great American Novel, but rather, has descended into a repetitive madness of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Quite a reveal, Bestest Boy termed it, and quite a delicious example of the terrifying score.

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