92% Room 237

All Critics (91) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (85) | Rotten (7) | DVD (1)

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.

This is sure to amuse you if you get a bang out of the claims that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and Dark Side of the Moon was intended as a soundtrack for The Wizard of Oz.

I found most of what's actually put forth in the film interpretively ridiculous. But I'm just one theorist among millions, and the film worked for me anyway.

Listening to fanatics go on and on about their fixations can be kind of fun. For a while, at least.

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.

"Anything you say, Lloyd. Anything you say."

"Room 237" is movie so chunky and sweet you can eat it with a spoon.

This documentary will entertain everyone from film junkies to conspiracy theorists and those who like to debunk them as Ascher spreads his net to include everything from the most provocative ideas to blatant bunkum.

This geek gossip is made even more captivating by the fact that nobody will likely ever know whether any of it is true.

Hilarious, bizarre and provocative. You'll never look at The Shining the same way again

The beauty of Room 237, however, doesn't lie in the validity of any one of the commentators' thoughtful (and occasionally well-informed) speculations, but instead in that mysterious grey zone between an artist's intentions and audience interpretation.

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

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