Robert Ryang's Shining: Tragedy + time + Final Cut Pro = Comedy

Sure, you have probably seen it, and sure, it will not count for any of those cool city and state economic incentives. Nevertheless, the white-hot, super-funny Shining trailer that has spent the last couple of days bounding around the Web was indeed another masterpiece made in New York.

Today's Times has a "Web exclusive" about Robert Ryang, an editor's assistant at the Fifth Ave. post-house P.S. 260 who--as part of a contest--quite famously re-cut scenes from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining into a trailer for the feel-good story of the year:

Mr. Ryang won the contest, and about 10 days ago, he said, he sent three friends a link to a ?secret site? on his company?s Web site where they could watch his entry.

One of them, Mr. Ryang said, posted it on his little-watched blog. And that was that. Until this week, when he was hit by a tsunami of Internet interest.

On Wednesday, Mr. Ryang said, his secret site got 12,000 hits. By Thursday the numbers were even higher, his film was being downloaded and linked to on countless other sites, it had cracked the top 10 most popular spoofs on www.ifilm.com, and a vice president at a major Hollywood studio had called up his office, scouting for new talent.

So congrats to Robert Ryang, although I am sure the Kubrick estate's attorney is licking a stamp as I write this. Next up: Some genius in Brooklyn reimagines Apocalypse Now as musical, with interpretive dance sequences by Martin Sheen, Laurence Fishburne and Dennis Hopper. I mean, you know the challenge is there.