Former Milwaukee Brewer pitcher John Axford will be presenting a 35mm screening of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining at the Oriental Theatre Tuesday as part of the Milwaukee Film Festival’s Cinema Hooligante program.
Axford contributes to the festival at the $30,000 Leading Sponsor level. He supports the Cream City Cinema program for local films and filmmakers and the filmmaker in residence cash prize.
Axford, who had a 4.20 ERA in 2015 with the Colorado Rockies has a BA in film and TV from the University of Notre Dame. He also has a thing for Kubrick.
He showed Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 2014 and 2001: A Space Odyssey in 2013. He introduced the latter by videotape while playing in the post season for the St. Louis Cardinals.
He is expected to do something special when he introduces The Shining.
Shelly Duvall does use a baseball bat in to protect herself from Jack Nicholson on the stairs of the Overlook Hotel in the film. Author Stephen King disliked the film for deviating from the book but it has grown into a horror classic.
The Cinema Hooligante program, sponsored by the Milwaukee Record, is ostensibly a midnight movie program, but The Shining is screening at 9:45 p.m..
Axford is expected to attend the festival through closing night Thursday. Although there is no long term agreement with him festival artistic and executive director Jonathan Jackson said he “would love” for Axford to be involved with the festival “forever.”
You can get tickets here. Jackson the screening “and will be packed to the gills.”
Get tickets here.
