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The Shining Customer Reviews (55 - 57 of 131 Reviews)

Nicholson rocks us yet again
Jack Nicholson turned in yet another convincing performance as Jack Torrance, who is hired to be the caretaker of The Overlook Hotel for the off-season. He relishes the opportunity to get his marriage back on track and to jumpstart his writing career. Instead, the isolation causes Jack to lose his mind, see flashbacks of the previous caretaker's family murdered, and to set out for a repeat. His family suffers from the isolation just as much and that causes further strain in Jack's marriage.

I haven't read Stephen King's novel so I can't make a fair comparison but the movie was done quite well and Nicholson, as always, played his part so well that you feel you're losing it along with Torrance.

The late Stanley Kubrick may not have faithfully translated King's tale to the big screen but it's pretty good, nonetheless.

Not Like The Book But Good Anyway! And Stephen King Never Said He Hated It!
The Shining, a good and scary movie directed by Stanley Kubrick is based on a good and scary novel by the same name by Stephen King, except that Kubrick threw a lot of the novel out like the creepy part with the dead wasps coming back to life, etc but it's still a good movie anyways and is recommend to all fans of good scary horror flicks. Btw: There seems to be a misconception among Kubrick fans who think that King totally hated this movie. Well, he didn't hate it at all. I watched a recent interview with him on TV and he said that he thought the movie was visiually stunning and very scary but he was just disappointed that some things were left out but he never once said that he hated the movie!

"Where's the Beef?"
This is going to be a fairly short review. I'm not going to delve into summarizing the story or critiquing Kubrick's direction. Frankly, this film has been so heralded and around so long that if you need to be recapped you haven't been paying enough attention. Long story short, this is one of (if not THE) best haunted house film ever, made by one of the most influential directors in history.

Which leads to the question of why I'm giving it a four star rating instead of five? I'm knocking it a star for the DVD not just EXPLODING with extras. It's, basically, packed with nothing. A short half-hour documentary, a commentary by Kubrick's daughter, and a trailer just isn't enough to do this justice. Where's the commentary by Nicholson or King (who famously didn't enjoy this version)? Where's the retrospective on how this film impacted the industry? Where's the reflection by the cast on their experiences on the set?

This is a film that should have been an education to dive into and an opportunity to pay homage to a brilliant film-maker. Warner Bros, however, seem to have decided this wasn't important to us.

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