Fantastic!

Admirable film.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

After spending time with Jan Harlan at a conference, and hearing from his own mouth what garbage all these theories are, as well as from Leon Vitali, who was on set with Kubrick the whole time during the filming of The Shining, it is very clear to me that none of the people involved in this film have anything to add to Kubrick's legacy except rumors and lies about Kubrick's works. Most of them don't understand the technical aspects of filmmaking, not even perspective or depth of field, nor do they understand allegory, and they seem to think they have uncovered sinister secrets that are simply storytelling vehicles that even a child can put together. A hateful gang of talentless bores with no creative knowledge trying to make money off of a genius, but can't even come up with decent study notes, even when their heads are bashed together by this director, who, as a director should have had some respect for Kubrick and his family. I was incensed and disgusted by the whole thing. A completely useless film, in fact worse than useless in that it makes a ridicule of Kubrick. and no, it's not ironic. If anyone wants insights into The Shining, better watch Making The Shining by Vivian Kubrick instead.

I love The Shining and have seen it many times. I always had the impression that there were probably some hidden mysteries embedded within the film, subliminal if you will, with many little odd things happening so quickly on camera they eye fails to catch them. Unfortunately, this documentary takes that notion a bit too far.A few of the cinematographic tricks are possibly worth learning about, but this is mostly a very far fetched conspiratorial rant. Pulling in multiple historic events, relating them in an oblique way to the film. Much of it is so ridiculous, the viewer may have difficulty sitting through it.If you can remember getting smoked up back in college, and talking about philosophy with your dorm-mates late into the night, that is the overall feel of this documentary. For the true fan only.

I'm real love-hate with Kubrick and THE SHINING falls in the middle of that spectrum. It's creepy, but, absurd. And, Nicholson is so obviously loony from the get go, that there is no descent into madness. He's already there.And, most of the theories in ROOM 237 are also absurd and often factually and provably false. Further, at least half the stuff the 'theorists' toss out there falls in the category of - Yeah, that's how movies are made! It's obvious that none of the theorists have ever been to a big budget movie set, let alone worked on one. Further, if I were the Cameraman, Editor, Co-ScreenWriter (Diane Johnson), Prop Man, Production Designer, Set Decorator etc. who worked on THE SHINING - I'd be even more angry. Not to mention Stephen King who's original tale is often ignored. It's as if Kubrick made this movie in his backyard all by himself to hear the theorists tell it. Now, we all know that Kubrick was a fanatic about detail, but, THE SHINING would STILL be shooting if he did everything alone as these interviewees would have it. The best line in the whole Doc comes near the end when one of the theorists admits that Kubrick may not have consciously intended for all these hidden meanings to be in his film, but that it didn't matter. Clever way of saying that much of this is B.S., I suppose.All that said, it was entertaining. And, I certainly wish Director Rodney Ascher would have exercised a bit more of a skeptical eye towards the claims. But, he seemed more interested in putting together the clip montages than editing the facts. I've said for decades that Kubrick's films are not only the most analyzed in cinema history, but, also the most OVER-analyzed. He made so relatively few films that his cultists spend years and years combing over every minute detail. ROOM 237 only scratches the surface.P.S. Watched the extras on Disc 2 of the DVD. The most interesting is a panel discussion taped at the Overlook Hotel with Director Mick Garris (the TV Shining mini-series), ROOM 237 Director Rodney Ascher, Kubrick's personal assistant Leon Vitali and the Moon Landing conspiracy guy Jay Weidner.Garris sort of played a peacemaker who feels that everybody has the right to interpret a work of art in any way they wish (including his version). But, the real fireworks were between Vitali and Weidner (who were sitting right next to each other!). Vitali started off by debunking the conspiracy theorists using what I called "Yeah, that's how movies are made!" in my original post. He explained in detail how much of this stuff is just reading way way too much into continuity 'mistakes' and innocent coincidences. The moon conspiracy guy tried his best but Vitali openly disdained him going so far as to make a 'Cross' with his fingers as if warding off a vampire!! For his part, Rodney Ascher tried to play devil's advocate trying to defend his conspiracy theorists under Vitali's withering attack. Ascher also showed some detailed knowledge of the production history of THE SHINING. I just wish he had done more contextualization in his own Documentary! Like I wrote before, it seemed as if Ascher was more interested in putting together pretty montages (of other people's footage, I must add), than doing the basic job of a documentarian in putting some sort of skeptical eye towards his interview subjects.The DVD also includes about 45 minutes of deleted material where the conspiracy theorists drone on some more. (I started fast-forwarding). Not sure if you can find the Overlook Hotel panel footage online. Not worth the effort to track down the DVD maybe, but certainly of interest.P.S. Also on the Moon conspiracy guy: Growing up, the number referred to as to the moon's distance was always 238 Thousand miles - not 237.

while this is ostensibly a documentary on the classic film The Shining,it's really just a big conspiracy theory.i won't say on what subject,because I don't want to spoil anything.the the film is very subjective.so not everyone will agree with the filmmakers point of view.i personally thought they were reaching a lot in some of the conclusions they came to.nevertheless,i did find it compelling and engaging.i don't think I would be in too much of a hurry to watch it again,though,unlike the actual movie The Shining.as an aside,i just recently watched the 1997 remake of The Shining in one sitting.all four and a half hours of it,with no commercials.this version starred Rebecca De Mornay and Steven Weber.anyway,back to room 237.i enjoyed it while I was watching it,but my interest in it has waned over time.if you're just looking for some time to kill,you could do worse than this film.for me,Room 237 is a 5/10