“God, I'd give anything for a drink. I'd give my goddamned soul for just a glass of beer.”

Ever hear of this movie? It’s a bit of a, uh… mastapiece. You heard it here first! From me!

“And as far as my wife is concerned, I'm sure she'll be absolutely fascinated when l tell her. She's a confirmed ghost story and horror film addict.”

Jack Nicholson is Grade-A Insane in this one. That Method is a bitch, ain’t it? Shelley Duvall gets all my praises, though, for just the egregious emotional duress she endured while working on this film. She’s brilliant, and totally committed. That she had to drink more water and hydrate herself because she ran out of tears to cry because of Kubrick’s own version of madness that is his filmmaking style… god bless.

“Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Not by the hair of your chiny-chin-chin? Well then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.”

The craft truly is through the roof. One of the first half-dozen films to use Steadicam, and how it’s used in this movie is sublime. Makes it feel ahead of its time for many reasons. Steadicam inventor & operator Garrett Brown worked on this film, and the sheer sense of freedom and (horrifying) liberation from the masterful precision of the Steadicam was just marvelous. Following Danny around the hotel, and learning that how this was done was Brown sat in a wheelchair and was pushed around while holding the Steadicam — you just love to hear that shit.

There’s much to be said of this movie, obviously. The Eraserhead-like jumps and cuts are unnerving. The musical score so unsettling, and honestly, does so much heavy-lifting. I wanted to wait to see this on the big-screen (I tried to last October at IFC Center but I guess I couldn’t make it), but it’s better I didn’t, because a few times I would’ve been like the AMC popcorn kid — shit flying everywhere.