I'm watching Room 237...ohhh boy.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through and I think I'm dying inside. People are out of their mind.

I always found conspiracy theories and far-fetched analyses funny, but this is getting depressing.

So I guess I'd like to know what your favorite one of those is? By favorite I mean ones you don't actually agree with or believe, which one you find the most fascinatingly insane.

Rob Ager does some very interesting film critiques on youtube. Including most of Kubrick's films. It really makes you take a step back from the screen and think about how and why movie scenes are constructed and what and how you are manipulated subconsciously by artists. If you're a fan of Kubrick you should really watch Ager's analysis of 2001 and the meaning of the monolith.

Kubrick might have also been a bit of a conspiracy nut himself. Eyes Wide Shut is probably his most explicit conspiratorial film.

I haven't seen this, I love Kubrick's films, but I lost all interest in conspiracy theories once I learned in Three Men and a Little Baby wasn't a ghost and was a cut out of Ted Denson.

The Disney Animation ones are interesting, but then I felt like I've seen better stuff now after meeting lots of animators because they are all crude dudes who are all pent up sexually and need to get loose on Stuart Little part 2. Actually best was really how most of the Termite Terrace animators were HEAVY into Jazz, and in that era Jazz was always looked down on, so Bob Clampett made a cartoon for jazz musician friends Cole Black and the Sebben Dwarfs. It's a lot like how you make dirty cartoons with your friends but then everyone thinks your insane sort of thing. Because it's a cartoon he's proud of because he got to cast a lot of jazz musicians he enjoyed and they loved it. So it's not so much about conspiracy but this generally viewed as racist even if it shows Black caricatures pre-world war 2 and how badly they are seen in this generation, like the musicians in Back to the Future part 1 are clearly smoking weed in the back of the prom that was general impression everyone had over musicians. It's an industry with a lot of creative freedom and people push it and sometimes they sneak up with really bizarre things

The Government gave Eazy E aids.

I don't know why I watched it all the way through. The impossible window thing was the only interesting observation made.

@erhard said:

I thought all the Indian Genocide stuff was cool and probably the most plausible. I had heard of that interpretation before but I had never noticed all of the detail that supports it.

I think like most art criticism half of it is crazy theories, about 40% of it is pretentious wangst, and then you have about 10% genuine insight and intriguing ideas.

Eh... i liked it.

Also, don't watch conspiracy stuff when you're sober.

Well, he did help the CIA film the fake moon landing, so that makes sense.

There's some stuff in the movie, like the impossible windows and "tricky" sets and shots, that is really interesting. Sadly I thought most of the rest was just poorly put together in terms of being a watchable film.

Room 237 is great. What i love most is how the film never comes out and say "Look at these nutty people people and their crackpot theories!". They let them speak for themselves, i found that refreshing in this type of documentary.

I like that stuff and if i recall my favorite was the rug in the movie was an actual layout of the place where they faked the moon landing(i think?) Anyway, its just fun.

@dudeglove: I really hope someone who's never seen or heard of the shining saw that and then proceeded to watch the movie.

I mean, I definitely had fun watching it, but not in a "these guys totally got it!" kind of way.

There was this one part where the guy with the fake moon landing theory was talking about the key tag saying ROOM No 237. "What other word can you make with those letters?" he says. (if you forget the lower case o... 'cause). MOON! "So what Kubrick is saying is that this is the moon room."

What?

There are some mildly interesting ones, but I feel they all eventually stretch it too far. When they play the movie both forward and reversed overlapped, it just seems pointless. Like yeah, of course there will be some parts that seem to work together, especially with a long movie, but there's also plenty of completely irrelevant ones.

Oh God, that moon landing conspiracy shit just won't go away.

Yeah, I already don't believe anything that guy has to say, but MOON ROOM put me over the edge.

My favorite part would probably have to be the guy that seemed obsessed with the fact that Jack Nicholson was reading a Playgirl in the lobby.

It's not conspiracy stuff. It's just straight up like novel readings. It reminded me of pretty much every day of being an English major, listening to people come up with a thesis and try to prove it through use of the text. Just different readings of a movie.

The Shining is so great because you can go to that depth and I found it all pretty much legitimate and most of the support was interesting (some funny, oh well, I was entertained regardless). Kubrick has that depth to his work.

But to me that was one of the most interesting bits in the whole movie. I mean what do you make of it, but seriously, that is such a strange choice.

The conspiracy stuff he was referring to would be the supposed "faked moon landing" that people think Kubrick was in on.

Yeah I don't know what to say about that. I still found it entertaining though. And the magazine being there is weird.