How'd I miss it?

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2018)

"The Shining" is in fact the most referenced movie I had not seen before. It was great to be able to understand the endless number of homages to it, even though it didn't really show me a lot of new stuff. The movie itself is so good that it doesn't really matter if you know a lot about it as it's still great to watch. I think everyone knows the story. This was a great film for Book Month as I have actually read the book version of "The Shining". It was an awesome book and I don't think this movie was as good as it.
There was a lot of backstory left out, but this is still great. What's notable is that in the book version, Jack Torrance is more sympathetic, doesn't kill anyone, and ultimately redeems himself. This is what caused author Stephen King to dislike the movie mostly because Jack is in fact based on King himself. I admit that Jack is definitely more villainous here and comes off as less caring of his family. Still, there are a lot of great references and a good portion of the plot is the same. I've seen nearly every Stanley Kubrick movie now.
The music is a huge part of what makes this so enjoyable. It creates wonderful tension, especially during the more intense scenes. It's great from the get go, as we see everything set up so nicely. For a movie that's two and a half hours long, it sure didn't seem to go on forever. I guess it's because I'm familiar with the book which was fairly long. While I didn't like it as much as "A Clockwork Orange" or "Dr. Strangelove", it's still wonderful. ****