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2001: A Space Odyssey.

Very late to the party, clearly.

I’ve seen this movie probably twice before in snippets caught haphazardly over the years but permanently hamstrung by my staying power to get through the sheer length of it. For a 2 hour 20 minute movie, it feels a whole lot longer - minutes worth of black screen where strings and voices swirl threateningly are great for atmosphere in short doses but here end up bordering on torture treatment not unlike a less interesting version of A Clockwork Orange.

Ponderous doesn’t begin to capture it really, does it? Glacial comes close but is probably still too expedient sounding a term. That said, I do feel conflicted criticising the movie on the basis of its pacing. While it may deliberately take its time in drawing the scene and giving a sense of scale to the events, narratively the movie positively blisters through millions of years worth of story.

Kubrick gives a sense of gravitas to almost every scene, which is appropriate in spades where it aligns with the thematic content but is utterly bewildering and frankly, fucking boring when it doesn’t. The level of care in the detail and science of how deep space exploration works was revolutionary for its time, I imagine. I don’t think any movie has come quite this close to depicting the true banality of space travel as well as this, yet not made the entire thing a waste of the audience’s time by boring the living fuck out of them - though it did come perilously close to losing me more than once.

In terms of brave storytelling the dawn of man sequence seguing into modern man’s next awakening or stage of evolution is still powerful today, even if the message gets somewhat muted in the delivery by a whole series of fairly pointless scenes on the circling doughnut space station. I get that Kubrick likes to portray almost all facets of human interaction as meaningless bureaucratic twaddle while the interactions of machines and the emptiness of space are filled with a childlike wonder and sense of true beauty, but what that does is distance the audience from any human core in the storytelling and makes the experience cold yet enjoyable, like an academic pursuit.

The ending is ultimately a source of concern for me though, and I can’t help thinking it fails to satisfy what comes before it. In building a picture of man’s evolution through alien and machine interaction in such bold, broad strokes that then gives way to a bad acid trip and playing with the perspective of time in a disco floor hotel room through the lens of one man (who we never really know and hence can’t care terribly about) feels like the grandness of the tale lost its way in the conclusion.

Also, Kubrick’s unwillingness to spell anything out causes needless confusion… is the monolith over Saturn the same one that was on the Moon or a different one? Did he “enter” the monolith or did the alignment of the planets (a sequence repeated twice before) trigger the “beyond the infinite”? Is there something in the planetary alignment that speaks about a higher force yet again? Is mankind bound to evolve into Star Children or is it the new “monolith” for the next evolutionary step? I don’t know, and no one does clearly as evidenced by the number of theories that abound on the internet.

Ultimately it was an interesting but unmoving experience. I doubt I’ll ever revisit it and while I can appreciate the level of technical craftmanship involved in the project, it doesn’t feel complete to me.

Back to work! And what a week ahead, yesterday I had an all-afternoon meeting followed by a business dinner in the city, today is chock full of interviews for my assistant (mwahaha) and yet more meetings. Tomorrow is quiet, oh wait, there’s another half-day meeting and then I’m taking Friday off in lieu of the public holiday next Monday because I’ll be flying to bloody Perth for the week! Madness.

This is without mentioning I’ve just had a week off sick, which I’d thankfully recovered from to fully enjoy the long weekend. Played a bit of poker both live and online just for a bit of a change, cashed in both instances which is always a plus! Took Evie cycling in a local park which we found has been half sold off to some kind of development or construction so that was cut a bit short. Did some solid cooking on the weekend: slow-roasted lamb shanks in a rich tomato and red wine gravy and a carbonara rich with cream and carmelised onions. As if to compensate for this I then spent nearly 3 hours in the midday heat building a cross-trainer under the house for Clare - that may be the hardest workout I’ll do in the vicinity of it, but we’ll see. I’m keen to get my fitness back in the headlights.

Also attended a house-warming that ended in taking a detour to the local Germanic club where I, of course, sampled several of the House Schnapps. Quite delicious and powerful stuff, Sour Apple was great, Blackcurrent a little too sweet and one of them was a bit too much, Orange and Peppermint schnapps - apparently a cleansing drink (if you get my drift) - and I passed it to another who, after a sip, said: “Mmm… nice, do you mind?”.

I did not mind. He soon did however when he missed his face, poured it down his shirt (it was an unnatural shade of blue) and what little made it down his throat burned like the fires of Hades. First sips can be deceptive, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaking of first sips, I’ve come to a revelation that has forced me to revise an age-old stance of mine: tequila is not vile demon piss. The key seems to be to eschew every friendly looking tequila bottle out there, that means you Golds and Silvers can fuck right off, and anything with a plastic cap that’s been remoulded into the shape of a sombrero or has the remnants of any non-arthropod invertebrates lurking at the bottom.

I picked up a bottle of Anejo Tequila - gotta look up the brand when I get home - after having tried some in a margarita recipe at a friend’s which also contained Grand Marnier. I looked up recipes online and stumbled across the perfect margarita (also known as the Grand Margarita or the Cadillac Margarita). I took this recipe and padded it out a little with some simple syrup, which I think takes just enough of the edge off to make it addictively drinkable. Other tequila cocktails addicts feel free to throw in some reccs!

I tell you, it was such a bloody busy week that I somehow even managed to do some writing. In perhaps not a great move, I’ve started yet another script which means I currently have about four at several stages of development (all around the end of act 1 stage) but it was in my head and I just needed to get some of it out. This is the Weekend At Bernies meets Grosse Point Blank with a dash of Romancing the Stone thrown in there for good measure (… actually, not so sure if that’s good measure). I’ll try to keep the momentum on it and to aid in this I’ve bought a cheapo ex-work laptop to use that has no access to internet etc so I can just focus on the writing!

Anyway aside from all that, I watched a bunch of movies lately I thought I’d give some thoughts on:

Where The Wild Things Are: an insight into the mind of a child in the grip of their emotion. I’ve never read the book but I found everything about the film to be steeped in the mental imagery of a child’s sensations of the world around them. Everything was steeped in twilight or darkness, things could be simultaneously fascinating and terrifying, everything looks tangible and tactile. It sort of meandered as a narrative and I’m not sure what message a kid would take away from it, but as a parent more than anything else I found it an interesting movie.

The Squid and the Whale: this dramedy about the breakdown of a family in the wake of the parents divorce is a very watchable character study enriched by the lead performances of Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, the writing packed full of brittle humour and quiet sadness regarding the acrimony that can ensue between former lovers.

Humpday: my first foray into the mumblecore genre was an extremely successful one. Two guys, a buttoned down married thirty something and his wandering vagabond buddy - who’s clearly trying to be Zach Galifianakis on Ritalin - get blasted at a sexually liberated hippy party and spawn the idea of creating an arthouse porn movie as part of a festival aimed at reclaiming the seedy industry for the artists. Their idea? Two straight guys fucking. Sounds ridiculous, but the grounded performances really make it work and the sense of these two buddies locked in a path they can’t turn away from for their own motivations made the story easily believable.

Zombieland: watchable but utterly forgettable action comedy, why it’s rated so highly on RT is beyond me. The funniest moment involved “zombie” Bill Murray and introducing some of the “rules” (an aspect they didn’t explore enough, in my opinion). It’s as though they started making a different parody take on the zombie genre than Shaun of the Dead then ran out of steam and just filled the rest of the running time with Woody mugging at the camera and lots of boring zombie fights.

Update

What’s been going on with me lately? Not a lot to be honest…

Sike.

I’ve been ridiculously busy. New career has been skyrocketing as some positive news regarding our shareholding has meant a lot of work for us at Head Office, plus in general the job has been very engaging… but also financially rewarding. It’s good to have payoff commensurate with effort!

I also got to visit Daydream Island recently for a “conference” where a lot of “heavy working” (drinking) was followed by periods of “reflective introspection” (vomiting) and this led to an “appreciation of our working environment” (lounging by the pool).

Outside of work, life as usual continues, Evie awaits the birth of “baby brother” eagerly and our recent 3D scan was good to get a closer look at the little fella. I think both Clare and I have gotten more comfortable with the idea of a Mini-Me hellraising around us for the rest of our lives… ahh, parenthood is bliss.

I’ve been playing poker again, I know, I know… but in the past 120 days or so I’ve had over $5k US in profits so I must be doing something right! I’m enjoying the game, playing MTTs only really, just need to make sure I don’t get addicted and try to play lots of different stuff all the time.

And other than that…

The Wire - Season 4

I thought it impossible to top season 3. The writing was impeccable and the scope of the narrative pretty astonishing, some of the emotional swings and loss of familiar faces was a big impact. Well, it just goes to show that they can create tangible connections in a short period of time that hit home just as hard, if not harder due to the nature of their particular struggles, as we follow a group of schoolkids getting taught at school and in parallel to that, the real life teachings of the corners. It’s heartbreaking and frustratingly inevitable as we chart the rise and fall of some youths and the lives that some of them cannot escape. This season simply cemented and then gold-plated its status as “best show on television”.

I’m currently a third of the way through the final season, and it is no disappointment.

District 9

I’m still not sure how I feel about this on an overall basis. I wasn’t actively put off (much) during the screening I attended, except at the key stage which I’ll cover off later in the review, but looking back on it the stuff that it did well is (for some reason) clearly undone by the (frankly, quite dumb) broad-stroke approach they took in making this flick.

Starting off as a gritty pseudo-documentary retelling the origins of a nomadic and rather pathetic alien species pejoratively called “Prawns”, who are herded into ghettos and exploited by the local Nigerian gangsters for their inexplicable love of cat food, the film puts its best foot forward. You are sucked into the day-to-day doings of a hapless goof charged with the unenviable task of relocating the entire Prawn populous in an attempt to minimise crime and destructive disturbances both from within and without. It’s worth noting that the protagonist (Wikus) isn’t terribly likable and this a slightly refreshing standpoint for a movie to take… not too often is your character unlikable unless he’s a charming rogue, or devastatingly handsome anti-hero, or whatever, and usually that character makes a turnaround like say a Han Solo saving the day moment… aaaaannd this movie is no exception.

But I’ll get to that.

The initial groundwork in detailing an incredibly complex history is masterfully done in a series of “interviews” and news reels from the past two decades. You get a real sense of the scope of the problem facing the country but I never felt they did quite enough with it. There wasn’t any real indication of the international community having any involvement here, which seems quite preposterous to be honest. No mention of the UN or International Concerns, but instead some faceless (presumably SA) corporation are given the “shadowy government” role for the course of the film. This is fine for creating some biomech-R&D intrigue with secret labs and white coated Gordon Freeman types, but it totally removes the ability to make any sort of compelling social commentary. The parallels between the Prawns treatment and Apartheid are blatant and resonate well enough for a metaphor, but aren’t really played with terribly much.

However, quite neatly and without breaking immersion the movie side-steps from its pseudo-doc feel to an immediate-feeling action narrative as all hell breaks loose. Wikus is put through his paces after his accidental exposure to alien biotech (with some nice references to The Fly) and once diagnosed, is whisked away from everyone into a secret lab to be used as a conduit to alien weaponry. After some experiments and the conclusion that he’s going to be chopped up into little bits, he manages to break free (in a very convenient fashion, I might add) and then the chase vehicle component of the story begins and it becomes a sci-fi action movie.

Unfortunately all the popcorn trappings that come with the genre start to traipse in and mix with the original setting and fresh take on a sci-fi premise. A sadistic Prawn-hating commando is drafted in to hunt down our protagonist, the reason for father-in-law being an evil scheming corporation head became apparent and the voodoo-inspired Nigerians jump in the mix to provide some additional cannon fodder. The reasons why they are doing what they’re doing are fair enough, it’s quite simply laid out, the problem is that it isn’t terribly interesting. So we then look to our protagonist for a challenging dramatic arc and characterisation to fill in this void of rather bland fare.

It’s just not there. Wikus starts off the movie a generally unlikable prick and (in my eyes) ends it not terribly different, except physically. He’s quite clearly a racist and that never changes through what I was shown. And yeah, the whole “he becomes like them and hence gains understanding” angle only works if they explore it guys, so don’t try to pass off the mere physical transformation as anything more than that. In terms of demonstrably understanding the Prawn’s viewpoint, Wikus grows not one iota beyond eating a tin of catfood and growing a few ugly appendages. We know he’s not a monster (or particularly smart) by his refusal to kill a Prawn and then his attempt to break back into the facility to help Christopher (a fellow Prawn) escape from Earth using the biotech fuel for their command module. That’s really the extent of his development though, because later Wikus gets a disappointment from Christopher regarding the true extent of his predicament and lashes out, clobbering his only hope and then (again, stupidly) crashing their only chance of escape and his only chance of saving himself from the condition plaguing him. He launches right back into the selfish stupid mode that got him into the position in the first place, and you know what, while I commend them for challenging the audience with a non-standard protagonist … the end result is that I really didn’t care for him by the end of the story and didn’t particularly want him to be saved from his own stupidity and ignorance.

What followed next was some of the most awesome action sci-fi I’ve seen in a long time. On a conceptual and visual level it was fantastic, the visceral delivery of these scenes was somewhat undercut by the lameness of the script and the terribly inevitable, sloppily constructed “change of heart” for the character (hence why I think the character didn’t really “change”).

That said, I could probably watch Wikus wipe out the gangsters and commandos for ages as the splatter factor and ingenuity of the visuals really gave the action a naturalistic and realistic (yet alien) feel. They really nailed this part of the movie.

So… yeah, not much more to add to that I’m afraid. An incredibly conflicted B.