"2001"

Out VERY late last night, having gone to a 70mm screening of the classic film 2001 ; a Space Odyssesy' last night at LACMA with our next door neighbor.  Gary said the film changed his life; that THIS was what gave him passion for film and made him choose a career in the industry.  He was so enthusiastic, I thought it might  be cool to go see the film.  I don't think I ever really saw the whole movie ( it did come out in 1968 and I wasn't much of a SciFi person back then)  It was fun.  I still am not much of  Kubrick fan, but it was interesting on a few levels

Music and other sounds.  The use of Richard Strauss and Johan Strauss music gives the film it's iconic and much imitated style.  Quite powerful to compare the floating space stations and incoming ships to waltzing partners in space.   His use of silence was quite powerful, as was the sounds emitted from the monolith.  I had to cover my ears it was so disturbing to me.  I am sometimes a bit sensitive to noise and yesterday was one of those days.

Branding.  It was fun to notice the branding in the movie.  I wonder how much of that was done "back in the Day"  I noted the "airline" the first guy flew to the space-station on was PanAm.  There was a HoJos in the station as well as a Hilton.  The microwave was Whirlpool and the video phone?  PacBell. 

It was a long film and I had forgotten that back then they used to give viewers an intermission.  It was nice to have one, as the seats in the LACMA theater are old school and got really uncomfortable after an hour and 1/2   It was nice to be able to stand up!  The film itself is listed at 141 minutes.  You know you are in Los Angeles when everyone stays for the credits!

The classic "what are you doing Dave" sequence really got to me.  I never realized before that what he is doing mimics something I read about how they used to do lobotomies.  I read that they had the patient awake and talking, so that they knew what parts they were cutting off.  They even had the patient sing, as Dave did HAL.  It kind of freaked me out and for a brief moment I felt sorry for HAL,as he displayed human emotion and fear.  Perhaps by becoming too human, he became fallible and in making an error sealed his doom. 

The final sequence in the film is going to make me look up the story that inspired it.  I never was much of an Arthur C. Clarke fan.  I want to read the original story, not the book that came out after his collaboration with Kubrick.

It was nice to be out last night at LACMA.  It was a warm evening and it was nice to be eating and chatting the courtyard before the film.   Afterward we stopped at a terrible Denny's on Sunset, the place was crowded, loud and shabby and I think our waitress would have liked to be ANYWHERE  else on a Friday night.  She never smiled once.  A HUGE noisy party came in, effectively killing the reason wee went out for coffee, which was to discuss the film.  It was late- after midnight- when we got home.