93% Room 237

All Critics (98) | Top Critics (25) | Fresh (92) | Rotten (7) | DVD (1)

The results can range from enlightening - Kubrick did like to mess with things - to embarrassing. But it's never dull. "Room 237" shines.

You don't have to buy any of the nutty theories in Room 237 to appreciate what director Rodney Ascher has accomplished.

It's nuts, in the best possible way.

Their imaginings are not far removed from the deconstuctionist gobbledygook that has hammerlocked academic film and literary scholarship. But here at least the gobbledygook is entertaining.

[It] may be the surpassingly eccentric-and enormously entertaining-film that Kubrick deserves.

"Room 237" is an act of uncommon devotion to cinema, embracing the notion that movies are best defined by what happens to us as we watch them - how our own beliefs and experiences dictate our interpretation of what we've seen and heard.

Powered by a deep and abiding affection for both The Shining and Kubrick in general, Room 237 is an amuse-bouche of remix culture.

Room 237 is an extended riff of the "Paul is dead" variety. But, you know what? Sometimes a guy moving a table in the background is just a guy moving a table in the background.

A diverting excursion for lovers of Kubrick's films...even if, at over a hundred minutes, it does go on a bit long.

A fascinating doc that will get both film geeks and conspiracy theorists alike drooling, it all but guarantees you'll never watch The Shining quite the same way again.

Confounding, eye-opening, and often hilarious.

I suspect that Ascher's intention was to dynamize an academic exercise, but these constant, sundry inserts render the tone as corny and glib as a VH1 special.

The thrill's in the thinking about little pieces of cinematic language as words contributing to a two-hour essay.

Would it be hypocritical to say that I loved "Room 237," even thought I felt like 75 percent of what was said in it was completely hooey?

a journey down a rabbit hole worth taking, as the film immerses us in alternately fascinating, compelling, absurd, and frightening theories about what, exactly, The Shining is (or might be) about

Room 237 is both an ode to the subversive nature of the movies and a fascinating insight into clashing obsessions in its most lurid form, even when its stylistic choices seek to destroy the experience.

I can't buy into the notion of Stanley Kubrick faking Apollo 11's moon landing but he definitely helped Shelley Duvall fake a movie career.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/room_237_2012/

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