in which i do the film review thing.
HAY GUYS. today i will share with you my reaction to and/or thoughts on that classic piece of science fiction film, 2001: a space odyssey. for, as i'm sure you are all well aware, i like to make use of the university library to watch "old" movies and find out just what the big fuss is all about.
2001 was... not what i expected, in several ways.
1. all that strauss? oh man. oh MAN. i don't know, but somehow sticking a WHOLE WALTZ into the background of your movie will make me very very very happy. and what a piece to choose, for all those twirling space stations/ ships/ THINGS. so, yay, awesome use of music, A++ would listen again, etc.
2. i have no idea what the hell was up with that LSD trip for the last TEN MINUTES of the movie (fifteen, if you count the stuff that happens after all the whacky epilepsy-lights-of-the-apocalypse). i'm all for some trippiness, but it was terrifying and confusing. which is probably why i will never do anything harder than tylenol. ...i even did some research, so i could better understand what was going ON in retrospect... still kind of baffled. and oh, what joy, to be sucked into a black hole and come out the other end as a gigantic floating fetus. maybe i'm just not cut out for deep abstract filmmaking.
3. HAL 9000, i love you. i think he was the best part of the whole thing (apart from the rabid men in gorilla suits throwing rocks at one another). the movie was over as soon as HAL got disconnected, really; right after he's kaputski we get the epilepsy-lightshow-of-I-CAN-SEE-FOREVER and then MAGICAL FETUS. ...but anyway, HAL. after doing some MORE research i learned that HAL's malfunction was caused by a major discrepancy between his two tasks: to make the trip to jupiter a successful one, but to keep the true purpose of the trip to jupiter a Total Secret from the crew until they reached the place. apparently HAL started to develop paranoia because he couldn't keep the two tasks perfectly straight (and apparently he's restarted in the sequel, which i'm debating on checking out, but... HAL IS IN IT). this, along with his confessing his feelings and begging not to be shut down, makes HAL the computer program more human than his costars, who are all monotone and no-nonsense-no-emotion and argh. ...i was half-rooting for the computer by that point.
4. very few films now will even try to draw out a simple scene of 'i'm going out there to grab something, i'll be right back' into a ten-minute sequence of extremely careful movement and extremely loud breathing noises. i don't know whether i'm painfully impatient or whether this could have been 'done better', but seriously, you do not need to take that long in a scene that isn't meant to build up suspense. if this hadn't happened after every scene with minor dialogue, the movie would have been one hour long.
5. which brings me to my one major complaint: nothing really happened in the movie. the storyline with HAL in the middle was probably the most complex and, er, interactive? let me see if i can summarize: the movie has maybe six major scenes in it. the dawn of man (read: gorilla suits!); SUDDENLY, OUTER SPACE (aka watch the pretty space stations twirl); STRANGE MONOLITH HELLO; politicians and astronauts have brunch together; trip to jupiter, OMG OUR SHIP IS HOMICIDALLY PARANOID; and lightshow-of-epileptic-doom-and-fetuses.
so... thumbs up for HAL and johann strauss (and the gorilla suits), but thumbs down for most of the rest of the movie.
next time, the shining, if i ever feel like trying to sound smart and obnoxiously opinionated again.
(i'm almost inclined to finding the book 2001 was based on, since i've heard it made more sense. i like it when my sci-fi is vaguely coherent.)
PS- you know what would make me super super happy? if i could find a dvd copy of 'the brothers quay collection' ANYWHERE. i would be super super happy. oh god, my school has it. street of crocodiles in PERFECTLY CRISP UN-YOUTUBED FOCUS, you have no idea how amazing that was. :C i... i kind of need that dvd now. and it is nowhere.
2001 was... not what i expected, in several ways.
1. all that strauss? oh man. oh MAN. i don't know, but somehow sticking a WHOLE WALTZ into the background of your movie will make me very very very happy. and what a piece to choose, for all those twirling space stations/ ships/ THINGS. so, yay, awesome use of music, A++ would listen again, etc.
2. i have no idea what the hell was up with that LSD trip for the last TEN MINUTES of the movie (fifteen, if you count the stuff that happens after all the whacky epilepsy-lights-of-the-apocalypse). i'm all for some trippiness, but it was terrifying and confusing. which is probably why i will never do anything harder than tylenol. ...i even did some research, so i could better understand what was going ON in retrospect... still kind of baffled. and oh, what joy, to be sucked into a black hole and come out the other end as a gigantic floating fetus. maybe i'm just not cut out for deep abstract filmmaking.
3. HAL 9000, i love you. i think he was the best part of the whole thing (apart from the rabid men in gorilla suits throwing rocks at one another). the movie was over as soon as HAL got disconnected, really; right after he's kaputski we get the epilepsy-lightshow-of-I-CAN-SEE-FOREVER and then MAGICAL FETUS. ...but anyway, HAL. after doing some MORE research i learned that HAL's malfunction was caused by a major discrepancy between his two tasks: to make the trip to jupiter a successful one, but to keep the true purpose of the trip to jupiter a Total Secret from the crew until they reached the place. apparently HAL started to develop paranoia because he couldn't keep the two tasks perfectly straight (and apparently he's restarted in the sequel, which i'm debating on checking out, but... HAL IS IN IT). this, along with his confessing his feelings and begging not to be shut down, makes HAL the computer program more human than his costars, who are all monotone and no-nonsense-no-emotion and argh. ...i was half-rooting for the computer by that point.
4. very few films now will even try to draw out a simple scene of 'i'm going out there to grab something, i'll be right back' into a ten-minute sequence of extremely careful movement and extremely loud breathing noises. i don't know whether i'm painfully impatient or whether this could have been 'done better', but seriously, you do not need to take that long in a scene that isn't meant to build up suspense. if this hadn't happened after every scene with minor dialogue, the movie would have been one hour long.
5. which brings me to my one major complaint: nothing really happened in the movie. the storyline with HAL in the middle was probably the most complex and, er, interactive? let me see if i can summarize: the movie has maybe six major scenes in it. the dawn of man (read: gorilla suits!); SUDDENLY, OUTER SPACE (aka watch the pretty space stations twirl); STRANGE MONOLITH HELLO; politicians and astronauts have brunch together; trip to jupiter, OMG OUR SHIP IS HOMICIDALLY PARANOID; and lightshow-of-epileptic-doom-and-fetuses.
so... thumbs up for HAL and johann strauss (and the gorilla suits), but thumbs down for most of the rest of the movie.
next time, the shining, if i ever feel like trying to sound smart and obnoxiously opinionated again.
(i'm almost inclined to finding the book 2001 was based on, since i've heard it made more sense. i like it when my sci-fi is vaguely coherent.)
PS- you know what would make me super super happy? if i could find a dvd copy of 'the brothers quay collection' ANYWHERE. i would be super super happy. oh god, my school has it. street of crocodiles in PERFECTLY CRISP UN-YOUTUBED FOCUS, you have no idea how amazing that was. :C i... i kind of need that dvd now. and it is nowhere.