Review: Room 237

Evidently the product of one too many dormitory pot parties, Room 237 purports to expose hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining by intercutting audio from interviews with "experts" alongside a few diagrams and (mainly) footage from assorted films by Kubrick and others. (MST fans should be on the lookout for Urbano Barberini, a.k.a. Tarl Cabot, in one occasionally re-used shot.) While I can honestly say I've never seen a movie quite like this, that's far from a compliment.

What I have seen are a few of the wall-of-text, black-background Shining analysis websites that Room 237 mentions, and even these virtual watering holes for crackpots are more persuasive than just about anything presented in this film. Room 237 runs the gamut from the Native American motif (intentional, and therefore not hidden) to Danny imagining literally everything (if so, kid's got some serious psychosexual baggage for his age) to supposed subliminal minotaurs (I guess if you have astigmatism, maybe) to the Holocaust (which everything can be about if you try hard enough) to the Kubrick-faked-the-moon-landing theory (can we PLEASE be done with that now). Moreover, every interview subject seems to think that an observed (or imagined) connection inherently counts as proof. I haven't seen this much reaching since my last trip to Sam's Club.

Review: The Wild Blue Yonder

Though 2005's The Wild Blue Yonder is a Werner Herzog film, don't go into it expecting any of his trademark narration. Though it largely consists of documentary footage, it can't really be called a documentary. And though it has a narrative—described by the opening titles as "a science fiction fantasy"—it is in no way a traditional one.

The story is self-evidently not meant to be taken at face value, as is the case with most science fiction. Let me explain. The Wild Blue Yonder has one actor—the always-adorable Brad Dourif—portraying an alien from the Andromeda galaxy. While standing in front of bleak terrestrial settings (like a seemingly abandoned town and a mobile home apparently hit by a tornado), Dourif explains—to the camera—how his people came to this planet, how the government launched a secret expedition into the far reaches of space in search of an alternative to Earth, and how this expedition discovered Dourif's homeworld. His exposition is overlaid with appropriately otherworldly footage from a space shuttle mission and from an Antarctic diving expedition, along with occasional snippets of interviews with astronomers.

Review: Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue

If you're a horror film buff, you should probably see the documentary Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue, but mainly because it's a fun historical review of American horror cinema, and not for any especially profound genre insights. You'll see clips from a few titles you might not be familiar with, and you'll enjoy the convention-panel-like ruminations of legends like John Carpenter and George Romero, discussing their work in the context of their personal lives and their perceptions of American history.

I've never owned a copy of Fangoria, but I enjoyed this documentary on the above basis. Where it lost me was in some of its attempted connections between American history and the trends in American horror films. When those connections seemed legitimate, it was largely because the films in question were so beat-you-over-the-head-with-something-rusty obvious about it—e.g. the '80s consumerism satire The Stuff, whose creator Larry Cohen is among those interviewed (not to mention the wonderfully endearing They Live). When those connections were more strained, you feel like you're watching the audiovisual version of an undergraduate film studies essay, and a fairly insightless one at that.

Review: The White Diamond

The White Diamond is a continually intriguing and occasionally breathtaking documentary from Werner Herzog. This time Herzog turns his incisive eye on Graham Dorrington, a British aeronautical engineer trying to develop a small, highly maneuverable airship for studying the top of the jungle canopy (here's his website). But it turns out he's done this before, and with tragic consequences.

You can't help but wonder how Herzog finds these people and these situations. In this case I almost suspect his agent has standing orders to report to Herzog any and all eccentric-seeming types who're planning an ambitious project deep in the jungle. That, or Dorrington himself figured, "I'm an eccentric-seeming type who's planning an ambitious project deep in the jungle; maybe I ought to give Werner Herzog a call."

Review: Wheel of Time

As Herzog documentaries go, Wheel of Time is fairly sedate and un-unsettling. I guess that's to be expected, considering the subject matter is Tibetan Buddhism.

The drama comes from Herzog's examination of some intense, and intensely foreign, faithful and their practices. He shows us preparations for a massive Buddhist event (called the Kalachakra initiation) at Mahabodhi in Bodh Gaya; a later, similar event in Graz, Austria; a massive pilgrimage at the holy Mount Kailash; an interview with a Tibetan former political prisoner; and his conversation with the Dalai Lama. Each segment of the film has its own remarkable moments, but to give examples would spoil much of what makes Wheel of Time intriguing.