Day Two Hundred and Seventy - Room 237, "Genocide, Minotaurs, and... Faked Moon Landings?"

There's just something about The Shining that is systematically and overwhelmingly frightening. Acting, Cinematography, Sound, Mood... it truly is a masterpiece of psychological horror... and it's due purely to the efforts of Stanley Kubrick.

Room 237 is a testament to the film's lasting value, taking interviews from obsessive scholars who have analyzed the crap out of the movie, finding references and making leaps of logic and imagination that can be both believable and utterly ridiculous depending on your particular perspective.

If nothing else, these folks and their fanatical devotion to the tricks and references that Kubrick may or may not have inserted into the film has made for a fascinating documentary.

From that opening moments where scenes from other Kubrick films are used to dramatize the narrative of the interviewees, to the first time that opening helicopter shot swoops over the Colorado landscape and the title crawls, the feeling of empathy for the speakers coupled with remembered terror creates an instant connection between subject and audience.

It's actually rather amazing the level of detail that Kubrick put into the film and interesting how many of those details that people have picked up on, even if some of the theories seem a bit out there (faked moon landings, anyone?). I was particularly impressed by the map animations that demonstrated the architecture tricks that showed how unreliable and tricksy the hotel (or the force haunting it) was.

I also want to call attention to the other films that are used for footage that I mentioned earlier. A lot of Kubrick films are used, particularly Eyes Wide Shut, but there's also footage from films like Dario Argento's Demons, which adds a delicious bit of metahumor due to the fact that the cinema goers featured in those scenes eventually fell pray to their own film's ghosts. Both funny and referential, those dramatization moments for the voice over also lend a natural air to the anecdotes.

Things get a little freaky when one of the subjects talks about their experimental project of showing the film both forwards and backwards at the same time and all the little Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz coincidences that crop up in in terms of convenient framing mash-ups. While it's hard to imagine that it was intentional (like the wacky conspiracy theories), it's still an interesting way to watch.

From a filmmaker's perspective, Room 237 is a must see for students and film lovers. As a basic documentary, I think it would easily be compelling for a general audience, it's just that high quality in terms of pacing and editing. I would certainly recommend it to all viewers who have reached the age of reason.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Eighty-six - After Porn Ends, "Can the degraded find normalcy... and learn to love themselves again."

Netflix has a habit of throwing every documentary under the sun into its suggestion queue because I've watched things like Jiro Dreams of Sushi and People Are Strange. One such title was the somewhat depressing look at former porn stars called, you guessed it, After Porn Ends.

Interviewing a few recognizable names from porn over several generations (including Asia Carrera, Richard Pacheco, Raylene, and Tiffany Million), After Porn Ends is a sort of confessional-style documentary that takes down first hand accounts from these folks who often enough have suffered quite a bit due to the lifestyle they traversed filming sex for money.

It's a side of the story you were never going to see without a documentary being done.

Even when former porn stars make the leap to the mainstream and non-sexual niche markets, they're often still playing a character and that character doesn't often speak of their real selves.

Here there are quite a few very non-flattering testimonials of just how harsh the porn life is, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Several of the interviewees turned to religion to pull themselves back up while others used drugs to dampen their pain.

I was particularly taken with Asia Carrera's story as she was hit with the tragedy of losing her husband and has to raise her children alone. To hear a longitudinal view of her life going from geeky girl to centerfold to retirement and beyond really hits you in the emotions, especially since her story isn't ending all that well.

Quite a few of the people the doc follows struggle with their lives after their stars have faded and you can see it on their faces and in their tears (some obvious, some hidden... wicked away quickly in an attempt to shield them from the camera).

That's not to say that all of the stories are harsh.

In a few there are stories of hope, redemption, and a well-lived life, despite the stigma that porn leaves on one's record.

Seka, in particular, seemed to have ridden the wave quite well and Nina Hartley is frank and seems quite centered and at peace with both her porn career and her life in general... but then there's Raylene, who you think is finally back on track, but is shown in the denouement as being back in the life... and Mary Carey, who ran for California's governorship and just seems... off.

Maybe that's just her character as she still has an image to maintain, doing her best to sell that image for as much as she can as long as she can, but nothing gives me hope for her future. And this feeling carries over to the majority of the doc's subjects.

Overall, the doc makes several salient points concerning what we as a society do to these folks in exchange for using them for our masturbatory fantasies... and you can't help but agree with said points, but you also can't help but shake your head and feel ashamed as well.

I can't say I recommend the doc, but I don't hate it either.

It's not exactly groundbreaking, but it is interesting to take a peek behind the curtain of the porn industry and see just how much of a toll it can actually take on a person.


Fair warning, the doc doesn't pull a lot of punches when it comes to archived footage. While the majority of the film is the interviews, several segments from the performers' sex scenes are shown with nudity and the like. The doc is definitely not for children unless you're using it to start a frank discussion about the state and history of pornography in our culture... and the price it exacts on its performers.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~