2001: A Space Odyssey

I am a lover of science fiction.  I had a rough time with this one.  It was too much an arthouse film - more concerned with providing a coldly beautiful landscape for your eyes, and a dischordant/technological soundtrack for your ears than anything resembling plot, character development, or acting chops from anyone.  After watching 12 Angry Men, and seeing the superb acting, I just assumed that anything else that made the AFI's list must live up to a standard in that department.  Mah bad.

Now here's my nerd coming out:  In the 2nd part of the movie...
HAL, the computer that had godlike control over the ship, discovers that the humans who are basically in his care are going to lobotomize him because they think he's off his rocker.  Once again - HAL has godlike control of the ship.  Brain a bajillion times faster/smarter than a person's.  Why off one of the crew in front of another member when he could just wait until they were asleep, and cut off the oxygen to the ship? 

The elaborate "Woah, your friend is dead in space and I don't know what happened to him.  You'd better go out there and investigate so I can lock you out of the ship and ignore you while you get back in" villainous plot seems just...stupid to me.  HAL took control of the other pod to ace one crewmember, but allowed the other crewmember to keep using his pod to break back into the ship.  Fut the wuck.

I admire how he just shut off the life support system to take out the 3 that were still inside the ship - that's the kind of cold and calculating move I would expect out of an AI ubermind, but why not all 5 in one fell swoop?  "It don't make no goddamn sense!", to quote my redneck neighbors.  A shitty antagonist always ruins a movie for me though.  It appears that many were willing to look past that, because I know it gets sterling reviews.

There were some good points - the concepts were pretty awesome, especially for being made in 1968.  The models were cool, the vision of technology for the future, the environs within the ships, the hibernation chambers and their explanation were all excellent sci-fi.  HAL was also great until he decided to ignore the dude who could just waltz into his brain and rip out his memory. 

I do like that it was more of a science-mystery.  They never really explained much about the obelisk - there was the implication that it's steered mankind's evolution/course throughout history, but they never really have a reveal as to who/why...I can respect that.  That part will make you think if you cared about the movie.

There's a "this is where man learned to violently abuse a bone" masturbation joke somewhere in here...

I saw this movie when I was in my teens, and wasn't crazy about it then, and it still holds true today...the pacing was glacially slow, and it just seemed like the movie belabored every nuance of space technology. 
"Oh look, here comes the pod out of the ship...2 minutes later, the platform has fully extended out of the ship and now you get to watch the pod slowly float off of it.  Now watch as it travels 50 feet to the satellite dish on the ship.  That's another 3 real-time minutes..." 

Speed it up for fuck's sake - I don't want to watch you move models at speeds slightly slower than a sloth with a hangover and a case of snailpox.  I made that disease up.  It implies slow movement, in case I hadn't already driven that point home.

Next up, a movie I have seen and enjoyed - The African Queen.  Based on that title, you'd expect at least one black woman, right?  Wrong!  Well, I'll have to rewatch, but I'm struggling to remember even one in the movie.

Don't look at me like that.  If the movie was titled "The Norwegian Plumber" you'd expect to see a white dude somewhere in the movie.  And a lot of buttcrack.

Movie challenge

So, Joanna and I have decided to start watching movies.  I'm not much of a movie watcher, and I really dislike re-watching movies that I've already seen.  Luckily, I'm a total philistine, and haven't watched most of these because they're really great "works of art".  I'm not much for art, even if it's really good art, but I think I could enjoy this diversion if the first movie is any indication of what's to come.

We're going through the whole AFI's top 100 Movies of All Time list, and doing it alphabetically so that we're not going through one era at a time...a run of silent movies might scuttle this, given my already weak stomach for art.  So naturally, we're starting with numbers!

12 Angry Men.

                        (One of the angry men.  Just kidding.)

It was good.  I really enjoyed it.  Almost exclusively good dialogue, shot basically in one sweaty room during the dog days of summer.  I've only ever seen Henry Fonda playing the role of an old poop in "On Golden Pond" prior to now, so this was pretty eye opening.  He was an excellent actor, as was the entire cast - it would have flopped something fierce if they weren't, because as I said - all dialogue, all acting in this flick.  There was no action to speak of, no special effects...hell, they couldn't even get the fan working at first.  I could get to like black and white movies.

I would probably not watch this again - it doesn't have much replay value for me.  Most of the enjoyment was in watching the story unfold, watch them pick away at the "facts" they were given, and come to the conclusion that they did.  We, the viewers, all knew from the start that the verdict would be what it was - the destination was clear in the first 10 minutes, but the ride was excellent and worth a watch to anyone who hasn't seen this fine flick already.  My only complaint is that there was not enough salad-tossing.

Next up:
2001:  A Space Odyssey
I've seen this one before, but my memory is shit, so that allows me to get around my re-watching rule!  As I recall, there is some serious tongue in b-hole going on in this movie.  I will be watching with one hand down my pants, as is my wont.