Siobhn Synnot reviews the rest of this week’s cinema releases
Room 237 (15)
* * * *
What was The Shining about? Since Stanley Kubrick threw Stephen King’s novel in the air and made his own version about the disintegration of a novelist (Jack Nicholson) in an isolated hotel, it’s been the fuel for some fevered fan speculation. Rodney Ascher interviews five of the most ardent theorists, and gives a sympathetic illustrated hearing to their beliefs that it’s actually about the mistreatment of the American Indian, or a commentary on the Holocaust or an apology by Kubrick for faking the moon landing.
It probably helps if you’ve already seen The Shining, but Ascher’s documentary is also a love letter to those movie discussions that continue long after getting home from the cinema.
Some of it is genuinely thought provoking too, especially a section that asserts that the Overlook Hotel makes no sense architecturally, with rooms and corridors that shouldn’t exist contributing to the movie’s unhinged atmosphere.
Glasgow Film Theatre from Friday
Stitches (18)
* * *
Ross Noble stars in this low budget British horror flick as a children’s entertainer who rises from the dead to take revenge on the kids who accidentally killed him. It’s a silly, spattery slasher flick and standup comic Noble is pretty good. His puns, however, really are to die for.
On general release
I Anna (15)
* *
Barnaby Southcombe directs his mother Charlotte Rampling in a psychological drama about a mysterious woman who intrigues a lonely detective (Gabriel Byrne) while he’s trying to solve a murder. There’s some dignified acting that the film’s clunky script doesn’t really deserve, and some overwrought scenes of sex and violence that carry no conviction – except that Ms Rampling must really love her boy if she’s prepared to totter through this schlock.
Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Monday; Glasgow Film Theatre, Tuesday