Posted in Nothing Is Sacred TV
2001 A Space Odyssey
I guess I should go ahead and put out a public service announcement. If you think 2001: A Space Odyssey is film making at its finest, I am about to piss you off something fierce. The reason being is I think the movie is a jumbled beautiful mess and gets way more credit than it deserves. Don’t get me wrong. I know that at the time it was made the production was gorgeous. The music is first-rate.
The rest of the movie is slower than a snail crawling up hill in a snow storm. This may be an understatement. I can’t even give it credit by saying it doesn’t hold up over time because really this movie is boring whenever it was made. Absolutely nothing ever happens. Mr. Kubrick fell in love with the beauty of his vision but forgot about the story telling. I mean seriously at one point in the move we got to watch people eat three different times. Oh, and I don’t want to forget about the nap. There is nothing quite like watching a nap to get your adrenaline flowing.
This last Saturday night my brother and I stumbled across it playing on TV. My brother said he was a fan of the movie when he was a kid but I myself have never liked it. We decided to watch it for the pure humor of it. I then began to live tweet all the ridiculousness on-screen. My own little version of Mystery Science 3000. By the end of the night I had gathered a little Twitter crowd following my movie recap. Some thought I was hilarious, others were less than amused that I was taking a dump on a movie they loved.
I have to admit it made the movie a lot more enjoyable. I would never have been able to watch it otherwise. At one point someone tried to convince me of the error of my opinion. This happened during the never-ending explosion of color which happened at the end of the movie. Stanly Kubrick knew who his target audience was, people dropping acid. I am not joking people. 15 to 20 minutes of no people on-screen (unless you count the eyeball he threw in every so often to freak out the acid trip people). Then of course it ended with (spoilers ahead) the incomprehensible old man and the giant space baby. How this movie became a “classic” I will never know.
I jokingly ended the night saying I would be back next week with Citizen Kane. The funny thing is I had several notes waiting for me the next morning asking if I was serious. So I thought to myself, “what the hell” why not? I have decided to do it again and write my anti-review next Monday. I have decided to call this new experiment “Nothing Is Sacred TV”. This weeks victim, a request, will be Avatar. I really dislike this movie. A modern picture with the same problem as 2001. All style, no substance. I shall start at 9 pm pacific on Saturday (My Twitter account is csdaley. I like to make things complicated). Hope to see some of you there.
