Legendary mysterious controversial Kubrick film is superb

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2019)

One of mastermind director stanley Kubrick's most controversial, challenging and stylistic and mysterious films- about madness, psychic phenomena and spiritual hauntings (based on the Stephen King book). This 4k restoration is masterfully tweaked and transferred with great bright colorful hdr signal with a perfect film grain structure. (Transfer was supervised by Steven Spielberg and Kubrick's longtime personal asisstant, leon vitali). For hardcore fans and perfectionists, they will discover that the frame aspect ratio is very slightly off what it's supposed to be, (its zoomed a pinch) however there's hardly a difference. The visual quality is amazingly superb reference quality....to be expected since its kubrick. (Check out the 2001 space odyssey 4k disc to know what I'm talking about)... the 5.1 surround sound remix is quite good, though staccato in nature (sporadic, popping out of nowhere in between long moments of silence from the rear speakers) due to the fact that it was never designed for surround in the first place. It would have been nice to have a well thought out and designed mono soundtrack since the original is worn out and damaged in terms of its dynamics the remix comes pretty close. The dialog track is more present and deep compared to the previous 1080p blu ray. The story itself is captivating and perhaps a too rushed portrayal of a man descending into madness with his symbolic previous alcohol problem and of course his run in with ghosts. Shelley Duvall who plays his wife put all of herself into her performance and then some . She should have won best oscar performance that year. The film is a bit dated and uneven but kubrick inserts so many cool uses of avant garden music and surreal sequences that it makes up for all the uneven flow and abrupt transitions in the storytelling. This film is a curio of sorts, featuring memorable famous moments by jack Nicholson. My favourite humorous human moment in the film is when we see scatman crother's character back in Florida silently receiving a psychic communication by the psychic child character back in Colorado. Crothers' gives his infamous "kubrick stare" whilst lying in bed watching tv . The camera zooms out to reveal a velvet painting of sorts of a nude African american woman above his bed. Perfect. Amusing. Deep. Says it all in terms of kubrickian peculiarities and attention to detail. (My second favorite wee moment is in the beginning of the fil when jack is being shown around the hotel and the two female employees walk by and then jack walks in the room only to give them s double take! That said... Otherwise, the movie still retains some horror and spookiness to it. The opening titles with deus irae performed by wendy carlos and Rachel Elkind is among the best (up there with Alien (1979) title sequence and Jaws' as well as blade runner series.) The existential and symbolism and "puzzle" element is among the best films to ever include such things, and despite countless viewings I still see new things I it with each subsequent screening. Not for everyone- either you'll love it and consider it a masterpiece of horror, ghosts and art (with dynamite editing), or you'll find it too esoteric perhaps. Nonetheless it's a masterpiece technically as it's one if the first Steadicam films out there (smooth following motion....predominates most of the camera shots stylistically and previously never used as much) , and it features imaginative scenes and legendary bits of dialogue from jack Nicholson. ("Heeeere's Johnny!"). I rate the film a four out of five, and perhaps my fourth favorite kubrick film. The technical 4k presentation is a 6 out of 5 (!). I look forward to seeing every 4k kubrick restoration and expect nothing but the best sound and visually. (2019 4k restoration blu ray review)