[spoiler] it'd be 238857 miles, actually.

January 24, 2010 3:53 PM

The Shining: it's an autobiography.

Truly The Shining, as much of Stanley Kubrick's filmography, incredibly rich with layers upon layers of meaning, is a movie that keeps on giving after 30 years.

From the same author: Alchemical Kubrick 2001: The Great Work on Film.

for those who wonder about the above capitalization of The Great Work, in alchemy and hermetism, The Great Work (or, in Latin, Magnum Opus), is the term used for the trasmutation of base matter into gold, and -by extension- for the hermetic spiritual transformation.

posted by _dario (105 comments total)

Truly The Shining, as much of Stanley Kubrick's filmography, incredibly rich with layers upon layers of meaning

The Shining is almost literally transcribed from the book of the same name by Stephen King.
posted by DU at 3:59 PM on January 24, 2010 [9 favorites]

A cold winter storm has now blown over the Hotel. The oncoming storm is a symbol of the Cold War between Russia and the United States. Of course the Cold War is also one of the driving forces for the entire reason for faking the moon landings. It was necessary to hide the advanced U.S. saucer technology from the Soviet Union. We were living in a very dangerous world and it was shrewd to hide our advanced technology from the Russians. This is the reason for the bears that are seen all over The Shining. The Russian Bear, and its competition for the race to the Moon, was a driving force behind having to fake the Apollo Moon landings.

I. Love. The Internet.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:02 PM on January 24, 2010 [14 favorites]

The Shining is almost literally transcribed from the book of the same name by Stephen King.

It's not, really, but that is so far away from being the central criticism one should have of this series of Kubrick articles. Oh. Oh dear.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:03 PM on January 24, 2010 [5 favorites]

I got sidetracked by the Kubrick fake moon landing jive.

Anybody see that fake French documentary about how Kubrick faked the moon landing in exchange for hyper sensitive lens to shoot Barry Lyndon by candlelight? No? it's called Dark Side of the Moon.
posted by Liquidwolf at 4:07 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

OK, I think we can all agree Kubrick faked the moon landings. But is The Shining symbolic of that? I think not, this guy's nuts! I'd be more convinced if the font on the web page was courier new.
posted by marxchivist at 4:10 PM on January 24, 2010 [6 favorites]

I thought I had seen Bullshit before.

I've been to a half dozen county fairs, two World's Fairs, four carnivals and a Baptist Revival, but I ain't never seen such bullshit.

Not even Penn & Teller could come up with this much Bullshit.

The entire Republican Party couldn't out-stink this Bullshit.

I've driven through Nebraska on I-80 in the heat of August with the windows open, and it didn't stink as much as this Bullshit.

I think it's (all together now) ... BULLSHIT!
posted by pjern at 4:10 PM on January 24, 2010 [5 favorites]

Oh, fake moon landing people. I was amused by you until you started smearing your poop all over Stanley Kubrick. Now I'm a little miffed.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:11 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

ALL BEANS AND NO PLAY MAKES JAY A DULL BLOG. ALL BEANS AND NO PLAY MAKES JAY A DULL BLOG. ALL BEANS AND NO PLAY MAKES JAY A DULL BLOG. ALL BEANS AND NO PLAY MAKES JAY A DULL BLOG. ALL BEANS AND NO PLAY MAKES JAY A DULL BLOG. ALL BEANS AND NO PLAY MAKES JAY A DULL BLOG.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 4:11 PM on January 24, 2010 [8 favorites]

Okay. I'm over it.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:12 PM on January 24, 2010

I present this tidbit of an interpretation to show not only that Stanley Kubrick directed the Apollo moon landings but also to ask NASA to release all of Kubrick's Apollo moon landing footage in their original, glorious 70 mm film.

It is time to shed the lies. But also it is time for the world to view, uncensored, Stanley Kubrick's greatest unknown masterpiece. I ask NASA to release all of the footage directed by Kubrick for the faked Apollo landings.

YES! God I loved this.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:17 PM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

The Shining is almost literally transcribed from the book of the same name by Stephen King.

I - and Stephen King, would quibble with that. Obviously, the gist of the story is the same, but there are fundamental differences in the plot and the characterization of Jack Torrance, amongst other things. Despite the supernatural trappings, the novel has a pretty realistic depictions of an abusive alcoholic human being that I've read, whereas the film gives it short shrift, taking Jack from a jerk to a bogeyman very, very quickly.

That said, this is a fun thing to read. Fucking nutty, but fun.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 4:18 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Thank you _dario - this'll make my blog write itself for a week.
posted by jettloe at 4:19 PM on January 24, 2010

What I love best about theories like this is that they're so fun to build. Any creation - be it an album, a movie, or a book - can have any "hidden" meaning you ascribe to it so long as you cherry-pick objects out of the creation which match aspects of said hidden meaning. Bears, the Apollo 11 sweater on Danny, the "All" in "All work and no play" looking a lot like "A11", and so on - string them all together and it looks pretty tidy. It's reverse engineering at its finest.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:24 PM on January 24, 2010 [5 favorites]

"The entire Republican Party couldn't out-stink this Bullshit."

well, I wouldn't go that far.
posted by HuronBob at 4:27 PM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

You have to admit, though, Kubrick was the one director who could have created a fake moon landing that looked as awesome as the real thing.
posted by No-sword at 4:27 PM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

Seconding Alvy Ampersand. The Shining novel is the story of a family tearing itself apart and does not have a single unneeded word. The Shining film is the story of three related-but-actually-damn-near-strangers in a moody hotel over the winter and trips over itself repeatedly showing just how they never could live together in the first place. I wondered why the hell film-Wendy married film-Jack in the first place.

I invariably find that someone who says "King's a hack" has never read The Shining.
posted by infinitewindow at 4:29 PM on January 24, 2010 [9 favorites]

Related. Spoiler: The moon is real.
posted by mullingitover at 4:29 PM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

Weird. I once heard Stephen King talking about his drug/alcohol addiction. Speaking about hitting rock bottom, he said, "this is the guy who wrote 'The Shining' without realizing it was about himself" and I was positive that's what this post would be about. Instead it's... well...
posted by johnnybeggs at 4:33 PM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm half crazy
posted by hal9k at 4:33 PM on January 24, 2010

Fake moon landing people.

I love how people who believe the moon landing was hoaxed conveniently skip over the sheer number of people working at and for NASA in order to achieve it.

They would have all had to have been in on it, and surely there would have been a squealer or two.

The woman my father has been seeing for the last 20 years (not officially married, so step-mother is a bit of a stretch, but she's fantastic nonetheless) worked for NASA as an engineer. Part of her tenure fell during the moon landing. Her team was monitoring live as it was happening.

Her reaction when once asked about the possibility of it being hoaxed was mostly amusement at the notion.
posted by kaseijin at 4:33 PM on January 24, 2010

but i thought the crimson king faked the moon landing?
posted by emilyd22222 at 4:35 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Previously
posted by hortense at 4:35 PM on January 24, 2010

Huh, I thought this would be about the book, and was ready to swing in and snark, "Well, no shit, Sherlock, the introduction to the paperback makes it blindingly obvious that this was writted by an alcoholic horror writer who is scared shitless of what could go wrong with his parenting", but instead it's a different flavour of stupid.
posted by rodgerd at 4:43 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

The moon landing wasn't faked, but what was faked was the inherent superiority of the capitalist system in being able to accomplish significant feats of technology. It was only with a cash firehose of socialized R&D that the moon landing was possible. Even now the basic research is funded on the taxpayer's dime and then transferred to corporations for privatized profit. See Technology Transfer and the Bayh-Dole Act.
posted by mullingitover at 4:47 PM on January 24, 2010 [15 favorites]

This was excellent and I am sold American. Thank you so much for this.
posted by middleclasstool at 4:49 PM on January 24, 2010

The Shining is an autobiography? Next you're going to tell me To Serve Man is a cookbook.

...

ohshit
posted by "Elbows" O'Donoghue at 4:51 PM on January 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

Something I glossed over in the original post: if you watch the documentary "The Dark Side of the Moon" linked by hortense on one tv, The Wizard of Oz on another and The Shining on a third, all the while playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon* in the background, you get Kubrick's Moon landing video.

Or a headache.

*Kubrick actually asked Pink Floyd to use music from Atom Earth Mother for A Clockwork Orange. See? It all adds up.
posted by _dario at 4:58 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

The conspiracy isn't that Kubrick filmed the moon landing, but that he filmed a version that NASA would use in case they couldn't actually get to the moon and film it ( far as I know) . But like I said earlier, even that is a hoax concocted by the French fake Kubrick documentary.
posted by Liquidwolf at 4:59 PM on January 24, 2010

Just looking at the layout and design of that site and I can take it seriously.
posted by GavinR at 5:00 PM on January 24, 2010

Oops...can't take it seriously.
posted by GavinR at 5:00 PM on January 24, 2010

The moon landing wasn't faked. The Shining was faked.

If you think you read it, it never happened.
posted by bwg at 5:01 PM on January 24, 2010

I linked Dark Side of the Moon way back there near the beginning. You didnt even read my post? We're not that deep in here yet.
posted by Liquidwolf at 5:02 PM on January 24, 2010

aww. my bad. My only justification is, the bold "previously" triggered a sort of reflex. Tunnel vision, all that.
posted by _dario at 5:05 PM on January 24, 2010

There is no Dark Side of the Moon.

In fact, it's ALL dark.
posted by KingEdRa at 5:13 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Related. Spoiler: The moon is real.

It looks shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels and having seen many moons in my time.
posted by stavrogin at 5:13 PM on January 24, 2010 [5 favorites]

You have to admit, though, Kubrick was the one director who could have created a fake moon landing that looked as awesome as the real thing.

Yes, but it would have gone on about 40 minutes too long.

(ducks)

But seriously, folks: Why do conspiracy theorists believe that the people involved would want to a) reveal the truth, but b) hide the truth but c) put it out there in a movie where anyone (including the stop-at-nothing evil overlords) could see and figure out, but d) make said process so difficult that only one lone crazy person blogger could put it all together, some 30 years later?

Why not just leave a letter in your safe deposit box, to be opened after your death? Like making a Kubrick movie isn't complex enough without having to worry about cinematic steganography?
posted by PlusDistance at 5:16 PM on January 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

Maybe we just called in on a snooty day, but they seemed awfully officially stiff-necked about The Shining at Oregon's Timberline Lodge (as in the main pic of the post).

There was no mistaking the famous facade (we had chanced upon it driving around as tourists) so we tore in, delighted - and asked in the foyer of they sold Shining -related postcards. A manager-type said, oddly, that "many people enjoy photographing our hotel," & directed us to the large gift shop downstairs, where the 2nd or 3rd assistant we asked finally mumbled that "yes, the film showed the outside of the Lodge for about five minutes." Then he walked away. I guess the place is a bit posh to need the association.

(And I just tried the Timberline Lodge website: the search - with a brilliant typo (seriously!) - says: No pages containted the term "kubrick", please try again. )
posted by Jody Tresidder at 5:25 PM on January 24, 2010

A couple years ago when everyone was tripping all over themselves to create Stuff White People Like rip-offs, someone should have done Stuff Pseudo-Intellectuals Like. As this link proves, the first entry could have been Stanley Kubrick, because he is seriously every phony's favorite director.

Before you break your keyboard responding to me, mind your logical fallacies: I'm not saying that everyone who likes Kubrick is a Pseud, I'm saying that every Pseud has a Kubrick box set displayed prominently somewhere in their entertainment center to let visitors know that they're true Film Enthusiasts with a respect and enthusiasm for The Master.

And I'm not saying that Kubrick was a bad director, either. Obviously he was one of the great directors, though why he utterly ruined Thackeray's greatest novel by casting blank, affectless Ryan O'Neal as the scheming charmer Barry Lyndon is totally beyond me...
posted by Ian A.T. at 5:28 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Spoiler alert:

He goes on like this for four pages.
posted by bpm140 at 5:30 PM on January 24, 2010

OK, I think we can all agree Kubrick faked the moon landings.

Try saying that to Louis Armstrong.
posted by panboi at 5:32 PM on January 24, 2010 [16 favorites]

>>OK, I think we can all agree Kubrick faked the moon landings.

Try saying that to Louis Armstrong.

And when you do, bring a camera, because that stuff is like gold.
posted by Scattercat at 5:52 PM on January 24, 2010

That's no moon.
posted by zoinks at 5:58 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

panboi:Try saying that to Louis Armstrong.

You can also shut down Holocaust deniers by asking them to explain that diary of Helen Keller.
posted by dr_dank at 5:59 PM on January 24, 2010 [9 favorites]

Glad to see Time Cube guy has moved on to a slightly better page layout.
posted by educatedslacker at 6:00 PM on January 24, 2010

If the US has secret saucer technology, how come they have to fake moon landings?
posted by Sparx at 6:15 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

If Martin Luther King Jr. had toned down his 95 theses, he might still be with us today.
posted by b1tr0t at 6:16 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Neil Armstrong. Louis played trumpet.

And it was Buzz Aldrin who punched the dipshit.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:17 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Timberline Lodge is pretty awesome.
And like The Shining worked as it has a drunk guy as its primary engine, I think The Dome works as it involves a) Small town Maine-ishness and b) Ecological anxieties. Where as Dreamcatcher, what the fuck was that about.
posted by angrycat at 6:33 PM on January 24, 2010

Where as Dreamcatcher, what the fuck was that about.

Shitweasels and magic developmentally disabled people. But mostly shitweasels. I mean...duh. (I can't believe nobody has named a band "Shitweasels" yet)
posted by biscotti at 6:44 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

My favorite part is this theory from the last page, regarding six cases of 7-up.

Seven Apollo missions went to the moon, but only six landed. Six crates of 7-up.

Such a well studied moon conspiracist forgot about Apollo 8, which orbited the moon ('went to the moon') and didn't land either, just like Apollo 13. Also, if we faked it, why did we fake the drama of the accident of Apollo 13, I've just never had that one answered for me.

Or maybe these mistakes in Jay Weidner's discussion about Kubrick and the coded messages he put in his films as penance for the faked moon landings are really a more deeply coded message from Jaw Weidner about his guilt working with the moleman while as a gaffer on the set of Army of Darkness.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:48 PM on January 24, 2010

Needs a batshitinsane" tag.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:49 PM on January 24, 2010

Well, you know, if The Shining were really Kubrick's autobiography, that would have given Stephen King time to stalk John Lennon and frame Mark David Chapman.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:50 PM on January 24, 2010

Wait, Rod Blagojevich paid Kubrick to fake the moon landing?
posted by qvantamon at 7:13 PM on January 24, 2010

> Neil Armstrong. Louis played trumpet. And it was Buzz Aldrin who punched the dipshit.

No, you're thinking of Lance Aldrin who decked that guy who kept asking annoying questions about EPO doping.
posted by ardgedee at 7:15 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

No, you're thinking of Lance Aldrin who decked that guy who kept asking annoying questions about EPO doping.

I don't remember that. You must be thinking of the time Björn Borg attacked that reporter after she greeted him in front of his kid.

That's how the Baby Bjorn got its name, actually; it effectively protect kids, much like the headband-clad swede.
posted by defenestration at 7:34 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

No, you're thinking of Lance Aldrin who decked that guy who kept asking annoying questions about EPO doping.

God, you people can't get anything right. Lance Aldrin was the surfer character in Apocalypse Now. If I could self-link, I'd link to my 5,000 word essay on how that movie is really a metaphor for The Ostend Manifesto. Don't even get me started on that whole Gleaming the Cube/Treaty of Westphalia deal.
posted by marxchivist at 7:48 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Neil Armstrong. Louis played trumpet.

And it was Buzz Aldrin who punched the dipshit.

Why would an astronaut be playing the trumpet on a space mission?

Also it was Buzz Lightyear that did the punching.
posted by panboi at 7:57 PM on January 24, 2010 [8 favorites]

You see here where is says numerator? That's like numbereighter, so you put an eight down here....
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:09 PM on January 24, 2010 [3 favorites]

Also, if we faked it, why did we fake the drama of the accident of Apollo 13, I've just never had that one answered for me.

Because it added a huge amount of realism.
posted by b1tr0t at 8:17 PM on January 24, 2010

It was Lady Gaga who faked the moon landing and Sylvia Plath wot did the punching.
posted by fleetmouse at 8:22 PM on January 24, 2010

I invariably find that someone who says "King's a hack" has never read The Shining.

I've read The Shining.

King's a hack.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:23 PM on January 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

The Shining is almost literally transcribed from the book of the same name by Stephen King.

This is sheer foolishness.

Maybe we just called in on a snooty day, but they seemed awfully officially stiff-necked about The Shining at Oregon's Timberline Lodge

For what it's worth, they have a yearly Halloween screening of The Shining up at the lodge. I'd guess how entertained a staffer is by the reference or questions about it or so forth varies a lot from staffer to staffer, in any case.

I invariably find that someone who says "King's a hack" has never read The Shining.

I love King, grew up on him. He's not a hack, but he's not much of a prose stylist either and his plotting can be pretty plodding and hamhanded at times. He telegraphs things kind of painfully in some books, and The Shining is one of them, for whatever other merits it has as a work of horror fiction and an artifact of an alcoholic's working denial.
posted by cortex at 8:53 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

*spits tea all over the screen*

Sarah Palin needs to hire this guy as a speech writer.

I really liked the "secret moon UFO base" riff. It really brought the room together.
posted by warbaby at 8:53 PM on January 24, 2010

MetaFilter: almost literally transcribed from the book of the same name by Stephen King.

MetaFilter: this is a fun thing to read. Fucking nutty, but fun.

MetaFilter: Just looking at the layout and design of that site and I can take it seriously.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:09 PM on January 24, 2010

I've read The Shining.

King's a hack.

Yeah, well that's like, your opinion, man
posted by infinitewindow at 9:39 PM on January 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I get a chuckle out of this school of research: "I ran these photos through a bunch of different filters in a graphics program and look, now there's all these weird lines and shapes in the background!"

Well, yeah.
posted by chaff at 11:15 PM on January 24, 2010

I laughed, I cried, this thread became a part of me.
posted by Michael Roberts at 11:26 PM on January 24, 2010

Next you're going to tell me To Serve Man is a cookbook.

Worse...it's a dance instruction video.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 11:47 PM on January 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

I use the word 'masterpiece' guardedly because I have never really thought that The Shining was a very good film.

Standalone, this pretty much says everything I need to know.

Oh, and I do buy that Kubrick faked the moon landings, but only to cover up the fact that the shit in 2001 actually happened. Yes, as a matter of fact, time travel was involved.
posted by philip-random at 12:09 AM on January 25, 2010

Neil Armstrong. Louis played trumpet. And it was Buzz Aldrin who punched the dipshit.

Get it straight. George Armstrong walked on the moon, Neil played trumpet and Louis was captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs the last time they won the Stanley Cup. And it was Stanley Kubrick who the punched the dipshit. Buzz Aldrin directed Spartacus, and Stephen King is a hack (though Dead Zone was pretty good).
posted by philip-random at 12:16 AM on January 25, 2010

yeah right after faked moon landings...I was outta there
posted by timsteil at 1:30 AM on January 25, 2010

Why would an astronaut be playing the trumpet on a space mission?

It is a secret message, to alert people to the fact that most of the space program was faked. There is no air in space, therefore no sound, and no reason to play the trumpet. QED.
posted by Dr Dracator at 2:51 AM on January 25, 2010

If you played a trumpet in a zero-G environment, would you spin around?
posted by From Bklyn at 3:27 AM on January 25, 2010

And I knew this guys was going to say nutty things as soon as I saw the font at the top of the page. Seriously, combined with that quasi-metallic background effect the look is somehow text-book nutty.
posted by From Bklyn at 3:30 AM on January 25, 2010

Wow, guys, welcome to Wrongville, population: you. Lance Armstrong walked on the moon, Neil played trumpet, and Louis punched him off his bicycle. Buzz Aldrin was a character in the Pixar film The Ant Bully. Apollo 13 was just a fictional movie with Tom Hanks, who plays a historian caught in a web of danger and intrigue over secrets hidden in Stephen King's Maximum Overload.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:53 AM on January 25, 2010 [2 favorites]

Any creation - be it an album, a movie, or a book - can have any "hidden" meaning you ascribe to it so long as you cherry-pick objects out of the creation which match aspects of said hidden meaning.

I look forward to the years of just this with James Cameron Avatar.

The conspiracy isn't that Kubrick filmed the moon landing, but that he filmed a version that NASA would use in case they couldn't actually get to the moon and film it ( far as I know) .

1st believable version I've heard other than the time-motion studies dud who claimed if you looked at the timeline of what happened on the moon VS how long it takes to do these things you'd see it was impossible. ('cept for the part where I don't care enough to actually DO the time motion study so I can't convince myself the author is right)

Other space Conspiracy: Missing Russians
posted by rough ashlar at 5:24 AM on January 25, 2010

There's a lot of conspiracy nuts who dispute significant milestones in the space race, but at the same time there's also events which are misunderstood:

Yul Brynner wasn't the first man in space. The Russians had actually sent up at least two other cosmonauts during the 1950's, but they were lost in space. If you know the frequency, you can tune a radio in to hear them still breathing in space.

Glen Campbell was the first American in space however.

The moon landing was real as stated previously (otherwise, where did Teflon pans come from?).

The Mars landing though was faked. They actually made a film about it featuring OJ Simpson (who was later framed for murder in a bid to discredit him).

Incidentally, none of these things would have happened if Lassie hadn't gone into space in 1957.
posted by panboi at 5:45 AM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

They actually hired Kubrick to fake the moon landing. Kubrick became obsessed and for purposes of making the film as accurate as possible, he created Project Apollo, landed astronauts on the moon and filmed it. He went way over budget . . .
posted by Ironmouth at 6:13 AM on January 25, 2010 [13 favorites]

He went way over budget . . .

The really crazy part is that he cast Louis Armstrong as the lead.
posted by From Bklyn at 6:22 AM on January 25, 2010

Fools! If not for faking the moon landing, how did Kubrick get hold of NASA-grade Zeiss lenses to shoot Barry Lyndon without artificial lighting!
posted by griphus at 6:39 AM on January 25, 2010

Ok, the notion that Kubrick faked the moon landings is clearly lunacy, but is it possible that Kubrick himself thought that the original Apollo 11 landing was faked by NASA, and left these references in there as indicative of his belief?

Kubrick appears to leave nothing in his films to chance. Given this, what is the meaning of Danny's sweater?
posted by Pastabagel at 6:42 AM on January 25, 2010

Possible yes, probable no. Having some grasp of reality and rational thought process is generally a requirement for directing a masterpiece of modern cinema. Also, people who make a major creative work to promote their crazy ideas tend to do it in a more explicit manner.

Sometimes a sweater is just a sweater.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:01 AM on January 25, 2010

For those who are still skeptical, let me point something out:

CRM114.

Reverse it.

411 MRC.

The symbolism is staring you in the face. 4 here is a stand-in for capital A.

411. A11.

A11 MRC. Apollo 11 Mercy. This messages was encoded into Kubrick's films before he ever struck his deal with Overlook (The United States). Pyschic "Danny" Kubrick senses the danger he will one day be in. He wants to save himself from that.

The message, traveling backward through time, is backward.
posted by cortex at 7:07 AM on January 25, 2010

marxchivist: God, you people can't get anything right. Lance Aldrin was the surfer character in Apocalypse Now.

But Lance Bass was the one who went to space, right?
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:29 AM on January 25, 2010

blank, affectless Ryan O'Neal

Man someone needs to see Paper Moon.

OH SHIT CONSPIRACY
posted by shakespeherian at 7:33 AM on January 25, 2010

Dead Zone > Shining anyday, book or movie.
posted by mrgrimm at 7:51 AM on January 25, 2010

King's a hack.

That word, it does not mean what you think it means. A hack is someone who writes professionally and efficiently and delivers to his audience's expectations, but doesn't particularly care to put anything personal into his writing. King, as you may or may not know, can get very personal in his writing, and does so in The Shining in particular. If you don't like his style or simply don't think that he's that good of a writer, fine, but there are surprisingly few examples of outright hackery in his very large body of work.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:29 AM on January 25, 2010 [3 favorites]

The moon landing was real as stated previously (otherwise, where did Teflon pans come from?).

The Mars landing though was faked. They actually made a film about it featuring OJ Simpson (who was later framed for murder in a bid to discredit him).

Incidentally, none of these things would have happened if Lassie hadn't gone into space in 1957.

Man, you Sheeple will buy anything, won't you? Sigh.

Okay, one last time:

1) Telfon is real, but it's actually a technology we reverse-engineered from the deflector shields of the spacecraft that crash-landed at Area 51. Tang, however, has always been fake, the biggest hoax since Truman's secret "Cool Whip" cluster bombing of Bavaria in the last days of the war. (You think there was Bavarian cream pie before WWII? Sheeple, please!) Seriously, Tang? It's made of ground-up tabby cat hair.

2) It was longtime Globe & Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson who starred in the faked Mars landing. (Look closely at the eyes. No iris whatsoever. I have to draw you Sheeple a map to lead you to the Truth?) Jessica Simpson played "Buzz" "Aldrin" in the faked Apollo landing, and OJ Simpson was actually canine Soviet cosmonaut Laika, who obviously didn't die in orbit but actually returned superintelligent and physically gifted, with a preternatural ability to dodge linebackers and a snub-nosed, hairless aspect that, once augmented by plastic surgery, made him look uncannily like Bill Cosby (who incidentally is a Soviet sleeper agent).

3) "Lassie" was actually Toto from The Wizard of Oz, which was a documentary produced by an experimental WWII weaponry program that developed the technology to build portals between dimensions. Bert Lahr is what lions are like in the version of the universe six space-time hops over from ours. The Tin Man, though, is a real robot.

If anyone needs me, I'll be in my hyberbolic timecube simulator.
posted by gompa at 8:47 AM on January 25, 2010

a technology we reverse-engineered from the deflector shields of the spacecraft that crash-landed at Area 51.

This, of course, is the biggest lie of all. Area 51's the ultimate McGuffin, nothing but empty desert and a lot of subversive hype to keep prying eyes away from the truly weird shit that happened (is still happening) at Areas 33, 27 and (in par-fucking-ticular) Area 49.
posted by philip-random at 9:39 AM on January 25, 2010

Damn, now I'm probably going to have change my Username again.
posted by philip-random at 9:40 AM on January 25, 2010

Areas 33, 27 and (in par-fucking-ticular) Area 49.

Psh, you're just another sheeple if you think the important government Areas are given numbers that the rest of us have heard about. I'm looking at Area (√zebra, myself.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:52 AM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

_dario, it's Atom Heart Mother.
posted by oneironaut at 10:40 AM on January 25, 2010

I'm not saying that everyone who likes Kubrick is a Pseud, I'm saying that every Pseud has a Kubrick box set displayed prominently somewhere in their entertainment center to let visitors know that they're true Film Enthusiasts with a respect and enthusiasm for The Master.

Holy sweet Jesus a thousand times this.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:53 PM on January 25, 2010

I'm saying that every Pseud has a Kubrick box set displayed prominently somewhere in their entertainment center to let visitors know that they're true Film Enthusiasts with a respect and enthusiasm for The Master.

Well, that let's me off the hook. My copy of The Killing's stuck in a file box somewhere.
posted by philip-random at 12:56 PM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

He might well be on to something with Kubrick's interpretation of the "Overlook" Hotel and all of the patriotic American imagery. I found the analysis of The Shining as a a metaphor for the genocide of Native Americans to be more compelling. Similar themes were explored in Rob Ager's analysis of the film, although he tends a little more towards the batshit crazy end of things.

Sorry if the second link was already posted. I skimmed all the 4chan memes, etc in the comments here to see if the first one was posted but only thought of tacking on the Rob Ager bit halfway through my comment and don't have time to go through again.
posted by viborg at 3:27 PM on January 25, 2010

Actually, the Shining is one of my favourite movies - not because I worship Kubrick or even study film at all but because every frame creates the same sense of disturbance in me as an adult that I used to get looking at the covers of my dad's SF books when I was 8 - as if madness is not a genre-typical vision of after-images and things leering in and out of focus, but instead a realm of terrifying precision and clarity.

Chronenberg (as in The Dead Zone mentioned above) never really goes much beyond his literary genre roots, though he remains there consistently and well and is braver in subject matter than most who attempt such portrayals. They are different approaches, of course, and some days one will appeal more than the other, but between the two, in cinematic artistry, I can't go past Kubrick.
posted by Sparx at 3:32 PM on January 25, 2010

What I could never understand about The Shining is why this four star resort hotel didn't exploit the natural resources for winter sports enthusiasts.

Like, say, the Timberline Lodge.
posted by IndigoJones at 3:55 PM on January 25, 2010

What I could never understand about The Shining is why this four star resort hotel didn't exploit the natural resources for winter sports enthusiasts.

I'm pretty sure Jack asks this in his interview at the beginning of the movie and is told that they get entirely too much snow to keep the roads open, especially given that it's several miles from the nearest town.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:12 PM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Another interesting slice of trivia is that originally Kubrick wanted a particular song to sound out the end of The Shining with. What was the song? What A Wonderful World by world-famous band leader and musician (you guessed it) Neil Amstrong.
posted by panboi at 6:26 PM on January 25, 2010

What A Wonderful World by world-famous band leader and musician (you guessed it) Neil Amstrong

You mean Lance Armstrong, don't you?
posted by philip-random at 6:34 PM on January 25, 2010

FACT: (and please correct me if this is wrong)

Every single space mission before and after the Apollo missions traveled no further than 400 miles from the surface of the earth.

The Apollo missions however made it ~237,000 miles to the moon.

Just sayin' :)
posted by GrooveJedi at 1:44 PM on January 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

correction: ~237,000 miles to the moon AND BACK. ;)
posted by GrooveJedi at 1:53 PM on January 26, 2010

How about saying it rather than just sayin' it, so we actually know what you mean?
posted by defenestration at 2:54 PM on January 26, 2010

And the distance from the Earth to the Moon is one 400th the distance to the Sun.
posted by hortense at 5:28 PM on January 26, 2010

FACT: (and please correct me if this is wrong)

Every single space mission before and after the Apollo missions traveled no further than 400 miles from the surface of the earth.

The Apollo missions however made it ~237,000 miles to the moon.

Just sayin' :)

uh, but those other missions are orbiting the earth the entire time, thousands of miles at a pop, usually for much longer time than the apollo astronauts took to go those 237,000 miles.

Just sayin'
posted by Ironmouth at 11:02 PM on January 27, 2010