All work and no play makes Jack Nicholson far from a dull boy in THE SHINING
THE SHINING (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, October 29, free with museum admission, 7:00
Series runs October 28-30
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
The classic horror story The Shining has been back in the news of late, first with a wrongly rumored special screening that was said to include the two-minute finale that Stanley Kubrick cut out immediately after the film opened in 1980 — one that we thought we had imagined seeing for many years until we discovered the truth, which also involved the iconoclastic director riding his bicycle to various theaters, armed with a pair of scissors — and then with Stephen King’s “announcement” that he was writing a sequel to the original 1977 book, this time focusing on a grown-up Danny Torrance. Anyway, Kubrick’s film is one of the all-time-great frightfests, a truly scary movie about a writer named Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson at his overacting best) who has agreed to become the caretaker of the old Overlook Hotel in Colorado during the snowy winter when the enormous mountain resort closes down for the season. He is joined by his perpetually nervous wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their young son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), who seems to have brought along his invisible friend, Tony, who speaks through Danny’s finger. Between taking care of the Overlook and working on his novel, Jack finds a whole bunch of other folks to hang out with, people who have populated the place during the ritzy establishment’s golden age, including a strange woman in room 237. Kubrick plays with horror conventions as he seeks to scare the crap out of the audience, something he accomplishes time and time again as Jack grows more disturbed, Wendy’s shrieks become more and more ear piercing and annoying, and Danny’s visions get more and more bloody. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, it still gets you, even when you know exactly what’s lurking around that corner. The Shining is screening on Saturday night at 7:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s Halloween Weekend programming and the “See It Big!” series, which also includes Ridley Scott’s Alien on Friday night at 7:00 and Sunday afternoon at 4:00. (You might not want to see that one on a full stomach.) On Saturday at 1:00 & 4:00 and Sunday at 1:00, Frank Oz’s Little Shop of Horrors will be shown, in conjunction with the “Henson Screenings and Programs” series, and on Sunday afternoon at 2:30, “Movie Monsters and More: A Master Class with Special Effects Makeup Artist Mike Marino” will be held. The weekend concludes Sunday night at 7:30 with an eightieth anniversary screening of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931) with Sara Karloff, Boris’s daughter, who will discuss her father’s life and career and show home movies.