Monday, February 26, 2007

A Space Oddity

We watched 2001: A Space Odyssey the other night. It is a Stanley Kubrick film so I guess I should have been prepared but even after my brothers warnings (he loves this stuff) I still wasn't fully prepared for the loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong cinematic sequences with scores of classical music and a box that sparks evolution (i think) and a series of lights that leads to immortality (i think) and so little talking that it drove me to fast forward through parts of the 150 minutes. To be fair, there were some very compelling parts to the movie - especially the man vs machine (HAL) moments which I thought were going to be a much larger part of the movie. Also without this movie we would never have had Spaceballs. But alas, I like so many others, have been trained to want movies that are fast and simple and easy to relate to. I don't think that movie would fly in today's hollywood which is sad. The truth is we looked at what was playing in the theaters and nothing was interesting enough to warrant paying for so we popped in the only movie we had. I am sure it was better than Jim Carrey's 23 or whatever else was playing.
Is this immortality?

3 comments:

Irene said...

Great title, hon!

Anonymous said...

This movie is just like space.
Huge
mysterious
inspiring
and for some people continuously boring

I'm a little dissappointed that you didn't watch the full movie. The long slow shots of realistic spaceships (1968 special effects), combined with an amazing musical score make up a significant part of the movie and to appreciate the movie completly, you have to watch these. I have to admit, they can get a bit tedious but you normally don't skip through a book, just because its slow.

You are right though, this movie would never make it in the ridilin generation of fast paced scenes and simple plot lines. But this movie speaks volumes of the loneliness and mystery of space. Something that I'll never be able to comprehend.

Reuben said...

Hey thats true Jared. It is like space but the ending still didn't cut it for me. Coming from a non-christian what do you expect though.