Thanks for the link. I'm a NewYorker subscriber myself but missed the second review due to the first.If there were more than 24 hrs in a day I might be able to read a NYer from cover....what with the rest of life going on, I'm forced to be selective.

I'm going to try and find that second movie. Lawrence of Arabia (the movie) is historical fiction, but it tends to get the big historical picture mostly right. It's still a crackin' good film. Love those authentic Rolls Royce armored cars! The Turkish biplanes look to be repainted Tiger Moths. A camel is a camel. Hut-hut!

[taking off my sci-fi movie critic hat for the moment...]

I read an interesting movie review recently that might interest you...

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/05/baywatch-and-letters-from-baghdad

Ignore the Baywatch review idiocy, skip to the second movie. Never heard this story before, but it sounds interesting. Especially that bit about "in essence, defining the borders of modern Iraq" (this was circa 1917).

Sounds like a movie worth watching...

-CW

Not even Blazing Saddles -- one of the funniest movies ever made?

[fingers pistols, and checks clock for when dawn will arrive...]

Heh.

-CW

I like the concept of "viewing it as a museum piece" -- with the label:

First big-budget movie that tried to be scientifically accurate -- which defined the entire science-fiction genre for a century afterwards

Taken in that light, you can appreciate it on a minute level.

My comments might have been overly harsh, but it just seemed to me that the director was trying too hard to be futuristic.. How many times do we have to see the food packets and freeze dried food?? Interior SpaceShip, Exterior SpaceShip, Interior SpaceShip, Exterior SpaceShip, Cockpit, Interior SpaceShip, Cockpit, Exterior SpaceShip, Cockpit, Exterior Spaceship...

If Kubrick wouldn't have spent so much time "setting the mood" he could have lost an hour off the length of the movie...

Once again -- this was the FIRST time we had seen freeze-dried food packets. The FIRST realistic (and well-designed) spaceship interiors EVER. The FIRST realistically-thought-out spaceship exteriors EVER. And back then, movies' plots ALL moved at a much slower pace -- even action movies, believe it or not.

Do you criticize Neil Armstrong for spending too much time on the radio with Houston before getting out of the Eagle? I mean, really...

Sheesh.

[37] -

But I did enjoy 2010... A LOT... :D

Aha! All is forgiven! Cancel the pistols at dawn!!!

Heh.

Seriously, get a copy of the short story "The Sentinel." It's a really short story, and reading it will put a lot of the puzzle together...

-CW

OK, here's two for you. From VERY early afterwards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ymFxkFfIhU

and from much later (an astoundingly well-made spoof, if truth be told):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe6yy3sW6NI

Enjoy!

:-)

-CW

Or Galaxy Quest -- best Star Trek spoof ever!

:-)

-CW

With regards to Kubrick, I gave him his just due.. He really wow'ed the hell out of them in 1968...

That is precisely what I was saying. And it wasn't until 1977 that America was wowed by another sci-fi flick, from George Lucas.

Point made.

-CW

I am glad to be proven wrong, I have to say.

See, michale? Even now, the movie gives rise to strong feelings all around, whether they be praise or ridicule. What other movie from 50 years ago engenders that kind of response from sci-fi fans? Name one! You can't... because they just don't exist...

:-)

-CW

"The stoned" comes closest to why it was such a big 1960s hit, admittedly. See previous comment on "drop some acid"...

Heh.

-CW

Aha! Someone who "gets it"!

I have to admit, this was downright frightening:

Scenario III: Trump is the Starchild

But this, on the other hand, was hilarious!

Scenario IV: Trump is the Movie

Is it genius, or a stunning, but ultimately incomprehensible mess? Nobody agrees. In this scenario, Kushner is the monolith, communicating something, but to whom? And why? We are the poor confused audience.

I'd say the ghost of Roy Cohn was the monolith, personally... heh...

-CW

Not you, too? Et tu, Lizzie?

Heh.

For both you and michale -

The freakin' film itself was made 50 years ago!!! A half-century!!! What do you expect?!? CGI tricks? They didn't exist back then!

OK, admittedly, you really have to read the book to understand the film -- much like Dune, come to think of it. But it's still a pioneering film that all other sci-fi films strive to live up to.

Hmmph.

-CW

OK, now you, Sir, have gone too far. Pistols at dawn!

Heh. To appreciate 2001: A Space Oddessy, you have to do one of two things (well, one of three, but I discounted the other one since it is "drop a hit of LSD before you watch it!"). First, read the book. You'll NEVER understand the storyline unless you do. You can watch the film 100 times and not fully understand the end (or the beginning, or the middle, for that matter) without reading the book. Sorry, but's it's one of "those" kind of movies. If the book's too long for you, look up the short story "The Sentinel," as I'm sure it's posted online somewhere. That's the short story the whole thing was based on, and even reading it will give you a pretty good idea of the movie's plotline (except for the end).

Second, alternatively (if you're too lazy to read the book), just sit back and appreciate the era and historical context in which the film was made. Previous to 2001, space movies were complete drive-in shlock. Thhink: all the "bug-eyed monster" movies of the 1950s, in other words. They were cheesy, they had absolutely NO money behind them, and they looked like complete crap.

But what Star Trek was to television sci-fi, 2001 was to the movies, times ten. Now, you'll be happy to hear that ST:TOS predated 2001, but still, there had just been ZERO movies made that took sci-fi seriously (and gave it a decent budget) previously.

Kubrik worked with A.C. Clarke to create a realistic and scientifically-based space voyage. Complete with one thing that sci-fi movies RARELY show, which is the mind-numbing boredom of them. The technical details are astounding, including the fact of lag time for messages across space.

But you're failing to see the pioneering nature of the film because you are so used to so MANY other films that all stood on 2001's shoulders, as it were. Before 2001, there were only "rockets in space" movies (about on the level of the Muppets' "Pigs In Space," really). Flash Gordon, and whatnot.

2001, on the other hand, has a two-stage trip to the moon in it. It is realistic, and far beyond what was technologically going on at the time it was made. A shuttle ("Pan Am" no less) takes him up to the space station -- which is a spinning double wheel, even with sections still being worked on. The shuttle had to do an incredible dance to dock with a spinning wheel's hub, complete with "The Blue Danube" playing in the background (quite possibly the best sci-fi "docking" scene ever filmed, even today). The computer graphics on the shuttle pilot's screen were the absolute top of the line, for the time it was made, it bears mentioning.

Then a non-areodynamic ship took the guy to the moon. Since it only had to escape 1/6th the gravity on an airless world, it was a far different design than the Pan Am shuttle.

That is downright astounding, when you look at the movies that came before it. Plus, the interiors are downright amazing -- the floating pen in the shuttle, the stewardess walking on velcro, the space station (with the curved floors), and the zero-G toilet, even.

When he gets to the moon, he takes a "moonbus" out to the TMA site. Look familiar? It should, since Space: 1999 totally ripped off the design for their Eagles.

The photo at the site correctly shows that helmets are NOT lit from within, and would essentially be mirrors.

The trip to Jupiter (Saturn, in the original book) is made by a nuclear-powered ship -- that's why it's so long. There's a reactor at one end, and lots and lots of room between it and the living space. As there should be.

The jogging scene is astounding, when your realize (there WAS no CGI, back then) that they had to build a HUGE wheel/set, and actually ROTATE it to create just that one scene.

There is no gravity in space, there is only pseudo-gravity, and to create it, you've got to spin something big -- hence the jogging scene, and the space station itself.

The "pods" are also freakin' amazing, for the time this movie was made.

The "computer freaks out" theme has been done many, many times since (can you say "Skynet"?), but this was the FIRST real serious treatment of it.

As for "HAL"... Clarke outright admitted he came up with the acronym by subtracting a letter. Go forward one in the alphabet to see what the joke is...

Heck, it's even got a "man has to travel through vacuum unprotected" scene in it. What more do you want?!?

Again, these are all the VERY FIRST TIME anyone tried to portray any of this in a realistic way on screen before.

Just look at the computer/video "tablets" used in the film, and then ask yourself how different they are from an iPad. That's pretty good prognostication, friend.

OK, there is one point where you hear "noise in space" which I find a serious flaw... but other than that, 2001 is a masterpiece. An impossible-to-decipher masterpiece, admittedly, but a masterpiece of cinema nonetheless.

Remember, this movie was made like a decade before Star Wars and Alien. It predated such minor films as Marooned and Silent Running, as well.

Silent Running is an interesting one, since it not only introduced the concept of "driods" (Huey, Dewey, and Louie) -- which Star Wars ripped off to create R2D2 -- but also featured clips that had wound up on the cutting room floor for 2001 (the trip through the rings of Saturn).

To conclude, 2001 isn't a perfect film. It can be boring in parts, and as a whole is completely incomprehensible (to those who don't read the book). Granted, those are flaws for any movie.

But on a technical level, this is quite possibly the greatest science-fiction movie ever made. It is indeed hard to find ANY sci-fi movie that doesn't borrow or outright steal from it. It laid down a very high bar for all others to clear -- which not all of them do, even in today's filmmaking world.

So like I said, be VERY careful how you speak of this movie 'round these parts, pardner. Otherwise, thar's a gonna be a shootout...

:-)

You have been warned. In the Apple manual for their MacBasic program, in 1985, there was an example which printed out the following dialog. No explanation was necessary:

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL!"
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

This is one of the scariest lines uttered by a computer in ANY sci-fi film, in my opinion.

So there. Hmmmph.

-CW

Actually, that's a good point about Fallujah. However, this is a re-run article, so it really should stand as originally written (mistakes and all), without correction. But you're right, it wasn't just one, just had to say that.

-CW

Actually 2 questions related to AC operation in a vehicle.. While I can disassemble and repair a 4K Samsung SMART TV blindfolded, car mechanics are voodoo magic to me..

One..

My son has told me that driving a car with the windows open wastes as much gas as driving with windows closed and using the AC... While I can see the logic of that, I still wonder if it's true..

Two..

Is the use of an AC in a car absolute? By that, I mean, if I run the AC on low does it "waste" as much gas as it would if the AC was run on high??

I put "waste" in quotes because, in my neck of the woods, running the AC isn't "waste".. It's more a matter of survival..

Anyways, I have always wondered this but am too lazy to google...

US politics over the past 50 years and especially over the past 100 days + a few suggests the United States of America may not be a natural assemblage of satraps either. What wine goes with Hubris Stew?

The British sussed the strategy for defeating the Turks in WWI....exhaust them fighting highly mobile irregular forces and then mop up with a big, competent, conventional army. What the British didn't think thru who was going to take on the occupation role of the Turks in all the former Turkish satraps. This problem remains unsolved, although modern Turkey and modern Iran may be applying for the job. Nobody in the West wants it.
The approach of the West seems to be rinse and repeat diplomacy/war.

The Hundred Year War is an apt analogy.

Hope that doesn't constitute a spoiler...

I'd suggest SpaceBalls -- One of my all-time favorites!

Never been much of a parody fan... Or a Mel Brooks fan..

I know, I know...

I am culturally depraved... I mean deprived... :D

My comments might have been overly harsh, but it just seemed to me that the director was trying too hard to be futuristic.. How many times do we have to see the food packets and freeze dried food?? Interior SpaceShip, Exterior SpaceShip, Interior SpaceShip, Exterior SpaceShip, Cockpit, Interior SpaceShip, Cockpit, Exterior SpaceShip, Cockpit, Exterior Spaceship...

If Kubrick wouldn't have spent so much time "setting the mood" he could have lost an hour off the length of the movie...

But, as I said, it was a sign of the times..

It would be like watching GONE WITH THE WIND or THE TEN COMMANDMENTS...

Great movies in their day...

In the here and now???

Not so much....

Both were excellent movies. Contact would be easier to understand and follow than Interstellar. I would also recommend Passengers with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence.

Yea, I have watched both before. I opted for INTERSTELLAR.. I have only seen it once but I remember it was a bit mind-blowing.. :D

PASSENGERS was AWESOME!!! My only beef was with the last scene.. It would have been a LOT better if there were families and children playing...

History of the World, like most Mel Brooks movies, is one I can watch over and over and it only gets funnier! Did you ever see Monty Pythons' The Life of Brian? Another one of those movies that never gets old.

https://youtu.be/gggQtG8hgKY

:)

2001 a space odyssey is a very interesting film, but watching it takes some patience. you have to think of it less as a modern film and more as a walk through a museum, watching it when you're bored and have something else to do doesn't work. if you want to enjoy it, turn down the lights, pull up a glass of something strong and let the experience happen.

JL

there goes the planet

https://youtu.be/kD516OENN7s

JL

"Trying to decide now between CONTACT and INTERSTELLAR..."

Both were excellent movies. Contact would be easier to understand and follow than Interstellar. I would also recommend Passengers with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence.

I work outside and it's just too damn hot..

Don't get me wrong.. I like to think...

I just don't like to work too hard at it.. :D

I am sure that both Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick would appreciate that comment, and give it the regard with which it is due.

With regards to Clarke, you would have a point if we were talking about the written word..

With regards to Kubrick, I gave him his just due.. He really wow'ed the hell out of them in 1968...

You tell me that it translates well into the here and now and I'll *KNOW* yer frak'ed in the head... :D

I am sure that both Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick would appreciate that comment, and give it the regard with which it is due.

And, holy crap!! Helen Mirren was hot!!! :D

Was awesome!!! :D

"THAT", of course, referring to 2010... :D

Trying to decide now between CONTACT and INTERSTELLAR...

Suggestions???

The Monolith is a paradox wrapped in enigma. The press (and everyone else) are too dense to understand the true power of this alien. We are the apes.

Makes sense to me... :D

Scenario V: Trump is the Movie Critic

Vacillating between praise and condemnation, the Critic reduces the painstakingly constructed allegory into a pithy tweet: "Beautiful but Boring. Sad". We are Rotten Tomatoes.

I am sure the "painstakingly constructed allegory" really wow'ed the simple mind of the 1960s, the elitist snobs of today and the stoned of either...

But for those who live in the real world?? The here and now??

"Eh... I've had better..."
-Jim Carrey

:D

Was awesome!!! :D

Scenario I: Trump is the Monolith

The Monolith is a paradox wrapped in enigma. The press (and everyone else) are too dense to understand the true power of this alien. We are the apes.

Scenario II: Trump is Hal

We've screwed up and placed ourselves in the hands of a naive and paranoid intelligence. We are the doomed crew.

Scenario III: Trump is the Starchild

This alien child-being is actually the apex of human evolution who will remake the world. We are the lucky bastards below who will be told what to do.

Scenario IV: Trump is the Movie

Is it genius, or a stunning, but ultimately incomprehensible mess? Nobody agrees. In this scenario, Kushner is the monolith, communicating something, but to whom? And why? We are the poor confused audience.

Scenario V: Trump is the Movie Critic

Vacillating between praise and condemnation, the Critic reduces the painstakingly constructed allegory into a pithy tweet: "Beautiful but Boring. Sad". We are Rotten Tomatoes.

Maybe it will explain 2001....

I don't get it....

I am sure the story is as relevant today as it was then..

The story TELLING leaves much to be desired... :D

I realize that the director and producers want to show off the technology of their effects et al.. That's why they spend so much time on them.

And the music... oh my gods the music....

But those effects are almost 50 years out of date..

I have found myself fast forwarding to get to the actual speaking parts and things that move the plot along...

No...

I am watching 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY for the first time...

THAT is boring...

I hope it gets better...

I already did *AND* provided the FACTS to back it up..

As usual, you ignored it because you don't like facts that prove your hysterical Party zealotry...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Tell me another...

President Trump is 10 times the American and 10 times the leader that Odumbo could EVER hope to be..

That's why Odumbo always aspired to be just like Donald Trump...

At least Odumbo did when Trump had a -D after his name.. :D

Odumbo had one or two minor successes.. But NOTHING like that string of victories under General Mad Dog Mattis....

Odumbo's entire leadership "strategy" was bupkis...

From what I hear, in fact, a push against Raqqa was delayed because Flynn wouldn't okay it because it would have involved the Kurdish forces, which Flynn's client Turkey objected to.

Yea?? And WHO did you hear that from??

"Anonymous Sources".... :^/

From what I hear, in fact, a push against Raqqa was delayed because Flynn wouldn't okay it because it would have involved the Kurdish forces, which Flynn's client Turkey objected to. Way to win!

This is why we are winning the war against the Daesch..

No more of this Leading From Behind (AKA The Coward Of The Country) crap...

Should read:

If I recall correctly (and GOOGLE says I do) it WASN'T 'a' military contractor... It was 4...

My bust...

One minor nitpick...

Fallujah was where an American military contractor was killed and his burnt corpse hung from a bridge, in case you've forgotten.

If I recall correctly (and GOOGLE says I do) it was 'a' military contractor... It was 4...

Since Barack Obama took office, our troop presence has been drastically reduced in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the conflicts didn't exactly end in either place.

Ya just GOTTA appreciate the irony.. :D

This Memorial Day I'll be remembering all who died in service to the United States military. Especially all those who have died in our current and ongoing wars

hooaaaaa

While I didn't write a new column today, I did manage to get one large chore taken care of. I had been lax... well, more than lax, really... about updating the Friday Talking Points awards page, which hadn't been up-to-date since (blush) January.

But I cut-n-pasted for a few hours, and am now happy to say that it's back to being current!

Sorry for the long delay, and sorry (as always) for the clunky, non-automated nature of the page itself.

Hope everyone had a great day barbequeing in the sun!

:-)

-CW