The Shining
The Stephen King adaptation that splits its audience down the middle, The Shining adapts the story of Jack Torrance who takes his family to stay in an isolated hotel in the Rockies over the winter as he works as a caretaker and attempts to write his novel. His son Danny is psychically gifted, a gift the hotel caretaker Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers) calls The shining. Danny's gift allows him to connect to the evil spirits that haunt the hotel and he begins seeing visions of creepy looking twins who want Danny to play with them. His father Jack seems to have the gift as well and soon makes contact with Lloyd the bartender and Delbert Grady who begin to influence Jack into killing his family.
The main criticisms of the shining are its deviations from the source material, certain sub-plots are removed and altered. The other criticism is the casting of Jack Nicholson as Torrance, Jack is supposed to be a relatively stable recovering alcoholic. Nicholson's performance gives the impression that he may be nuts already. In fairness Kubrick's film is still excellent and taken as a separate and individual entity it works well. King did his own adaptation in 1997 its nowhere near as good. The long, lingering tracking shots of the Hotel corridors, the strange and bloody images cut into the film and Nicholson's OTT performance, especially in the final act as well as the rumbling, moody score add to a growing sense of unease and dread and the film remains regarded as one of the all time great horror films. It says something that an entire documentary, room 237, was made detailing the numerous readings of the film.
Full Metal Jacket
Coming on the heels of a slew of vietnam films, beginning with Apocalypse Now through to the same years Platoon, Full Metal Jacket holds up as a film that really does something new with the subject. The film spends almost half its running time, and delivers most of its most memorable scenes taking the characters through basic training. Here they are bullied, dehumanised and trained to be killers, leading to Pvt. Leonard 'Gomer Pyle' Lawrence, a husky man-child to go off the deep end leading to murder-suicide.
Its these scenes, with an astonishing central performance from Vincent D'Onofrio as Lawrence and R Lee Ermy as the Drill instructor who destroys him that really stand out. Ermy was a real-life drill instructor and consultant on the film who ended up stealing the role as the drill instructor and launching a career in film, he brings an astonishing level of authenticity to the role and delivers some truly memorable lines with insults I freely admit to nicking from time to time. D'Onofrio's portrayal of his characters descent into madness is genuinely chilling and authentic and its hard to believe this was his first screen role (he was friends with Matthew Modine and working as a bouncer). The second half is a lot better than people give it credit for, it shows the impracticality of training when applied to the reality of combat in vietnam. I think people must have been so stunned by the first half that it feels a little like an anti-climax however its battle scenes (filmed in London!) are brilliantly directed and really hold up.
Eyes wide shut.
After a night on the weed, a couples sexual jelousy comes to the surface culminating in admission from the wife that she had considered abandoning her marriage and child to run off with a total stranger. With a head full of weed the husband, a doctor heads out on a call. His patients daughter, engaged to be married confesses her love to him, in spite of knowing him for a few weeks that confirms that his wife might be telling the truth. He then wanders the streets getting into encounters with various people before ending up at a ritualistic orgy somewhere out in the country. After getting thrown out our protagonist is a little disturbed by what he has witnessed and begins retracing his steps, discovering that in the harsh light of day everything he experienced is different.
Kubricks final film was something of a media sensation, partly because he hadn't made a film for 12 years. Also because of the casting of Tom Cruise and Nicole kidman as the couple. Because at that time they were an actual married couple it was thought that this might add some plausibility to them as a couple though a celebrity couple might present a totally accurate representation of their marriage and it still seem odd. I'm a little surprised they didn't have cruise cartwheeling about screaming about scientology. However, in all fairness they are both pretty good in the film and Cruise does deliver in his own scenes. Re-watching it, it comes across as a terrific midnight movie, a weird trawl through the darker recesses of sexual jealousy.
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