20th century

Multiple Maniacs

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1970)

“I can only take so much of this kind of talk, especially from common lesbians.”

—Bonnie

‘Cheap,’ ‘campy,’ and ‘scandalous’ are all words that accurately describe the work of John Waters—his early stuff, anyway. No one makes depravity as fun or funny as he does. Multiple Maniacs, his second feature-length film, is unmistakable Waters: it’s a twisted and revolting mess of antipathy, vitriol, sacrilege, and sleaze. Holy shit, Sugar Scrub—and I mean that literally!

Multiple Maniacs depicts the mental breakdown of Lady Divine (Divine), the proprietor and star of a traveling freak show called “The Cavalcade of Perversion.” The show’s “performers” literally drag people off the streets and under a tent, where they eat puke, take drugs, lick armpits, and perform other acts of deviance in front of them. For the grand finale, Lady Divine robs everyone in the audience at gunpoint. One day, she decides out of sheer boredom to murder them instead—much to the dismay of her lover, Mr. David (David Lochary). Lady Divine flees the scene of the crimes to hide out at the home of her hooker daughter, Cookie (Cookie Mueller), whose horny new boyfriend, Steve (Paul Swift), is crashing there. Mr. David takes off with his lover, Bonnie (Mary Vivian Pearce), who wants nothing more than to “perform acts” with him. A phone call from a bar owner (Edith Massey) takes Lady Divine down a debaucherous path of rape, lesbianism, blasphemy, betrayal, and more murder.

Like many members of my generation, demographic, and cultural persuasion, I discovered John Waters when I was a teenager. Everything wrong with his films—silly plots, over-the-top trashy cartoonish characters, amateur “acting,” low-rent production, and his general misanthropic outlook and total irreverence—is precisely what drew me to him. He was punk before punk rock. It’s all so wonderfully awful, like Ed Wood with an intentionally nasty, edgy bite—not an unsophisticated innocence that happened by accident.

Multiple Maniacs is typical John Waters, but it’s noteworthy for two reasons. One, it’s loaded with ideas that show up in later films—as far down the line as Serial Mom and Peckerhead. This definitely will appeal to fans, especially when it becomes apparent that Multiple Maniacs is a rough (if you can imagine) blueprint for Pink Flamingos. If nothing else, this film is interesting from a developmental perspective. Two, the shock value is extreme even considering the source. Eating dog shit is tame compared to shooting up in church, cannibalism, a rosary up Divine’s ass (as she recites the Stations of the Cross), and a rape scene involving a giant lobster straight from a Godzilla flick. Jammed with references to Catholicism—including Jesus (George Figgs), Mary (Massey), and the Infant of Prague (Michael Renner, Jr.)—and Charles Manson, Waters creates a number of shall we say “colorful” moments you won’t see anywhere else, ever again.

Oh, Sugar Scrub, can we watch a Disney movie now?

Side note: I started to write this entry as a letter to my friend John (a.k.a. Sugar Scrub), who saw Multiple Maniacs with us. The idea didn’t work. Sorry, John!

91 fucked up minutes
Rated X (NC-17 today)

(Music Box) B

http://www.janusfilms.com/films/1817

Any Number Can Win [Melodie en Sous-Sol]

Video posted on by moviebloke

(France 1963)

I approach “heist” movies with hesitation—they tend to be silly, formulaic affairs. As a fan of midcentury Italian and French film, though, Any Number Can Win caught my eye. The promotional blurb I read persuaded me to give it a shot. I’m glad I did.

Charles (Jean Cabin) is a gruff career criminal who just got out of the joint. His wife (Viviane Romance) wants to retire and play it straight, but he insists on one last job: knocking off a casino in Cannes. He recruits Francis (Alain Delon), a petty thief he met in prison, and Francis’s brother-in-law, Louis (Maurice Biraud), a simple mechanic who really has no business participating in a scheme like this. The plan calls for Francis, posing as a high-rolling playboy, to stay at the casino for a week; his job is to scope out an entrance to the elevator shaft backstage that leads to the vault where the money is kept.

Once Francis arrives, he’s immediately smitten with Cannes: hanging out at the pool, driving a cool car, chatting up beautiful girls over cocktails, hitting night clubs, ordering room service. He hooks up with a dancer, Brigitte (Carla Marlier), as a means to an end—but he gets caught up in the melodrama of their fling and the glamorous life he’s gotten himself into. His dalliance threatens to derail the entire operation.

Any Number Can Win gets off to a shaky start—it’s so slow that I began to doze off. Director Henri Vernuil picks up the pace once Francis gets to Cannes and steadily builds momentum and suspense as the story progresses. I got more and more anxious watching the plan come to fruition, excited to see what happens next. A great jazz score orchestrated by Jean Gitton punctuates the action nicely. The early Sixties French Riviera setting—palm trees, lights, and nouveau-meets-modern architecture—is dazzling in black and white. Delon fits perfectly with his smoldering, polished looks. The ending is one of the most memorable I’ve ever seen: floating cash, that’s all I’ll say.

118 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B

Private Property

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1960)

Private Property, a weird and fascinating psychological thriller written and directed by Leslie Stevens and shot over the course of five days in 1959, is the best film I never heard of. Believed “lost” for decades, a print was recently discovered in the UCLA film archives, restored, and shown for the first time in more than half a century just this past May at the TCM Classic Film Festival (https://hqofk.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/2016-tcm-classic-film-festival-private-property-1960/)(http://filmfestival.tcm.com/programs/films/private-property/). It is, in a word, a treat.

Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) are two shady Southern California vagabonds who subsist by stealing, usually intimidating their victims into giving them what they want—orange soda, cigarettes, a lift to Beverly Hills. All it takes is Duke’s thinly veiled threats delivered in his cold, menacing manner and a flash of their knives. The boys are sitting on the sidewalk outside the gas station on the Pacific Coast Highway where they just scored some loot when Ann Carlyle (Kate Manx), a beautiful kept housewife in a Corvette, pulls in to ask the attendant for directions. Duke is clearly intrigued by Ann, and he immediately hatches a demented plan to follow her and get Boots, a virgin, laid for the first time.

Ann unwittingly leads them to the Hollywood Hills, where she lives a seemingly idyllic life in a gorgeous home with her husband, Roger (Robert Ward), an insurance executive. Duke and Boots scope out the area and find an empty house for sale right next door to Ann. They squat there and spy on her from an upstairs window as she sunbathes, swims, gardens, eats, and comes and goes throughout the day.

In the privacy of their home, it becomes plain that Roger is more interested in work than in Ann, who not so subtly throws herself at him—splayed out on the living floor with her legs spread in one scene, and all dolled up in a negligee (no doubt from Frederick’s) in another—but can’t seem to get him to take a bite of her apple, so to speak. She stands in front of their bed and cries when she emerges from her dressing room ready for love one night, only to find him sound asleep.

Duke, who deduces that she’s unfulfilled, devises an introduction with Ann: he knocks on her door after Roger leaves for work and poses as a day worker looking for someone else’s house—the Hitchcock residence, of all places. He makes small talk about landscaping and offers to do some gardening work. The exchange sets off an unsettling connection that culminates in a bizarre lunch date in the back yard when Roger flies to San Francisco for the day.

Even with its flaws, I absolutely loved this film—it completely lured me with all it’s got going on. Simmering with sexual tension, ambiguity, and mystery, Stevens lets the plot unfold slowly, step by eerie step—very much like Hitchcock or, much later, David Lynch. It works: Duke is a psychopath, and watching him plot his next move made my skin crawl as much as it kept me glued to the screen. Boots is gay. His relationship with Duke is strange and undefined: it’s not clear whether they’re lovers, but Boots is definitely the submissive one. Roger is asexual. Manx, who has a sweet Barbara Eden thing about her and who was married to Stevens when Private Property was shot (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-leslie-stevens-1159807.html), brilliantly depicts the gamut of feelings Ann goes through: frustration, confusion, longing, hope, and loneliness. She’s a vulnerable character, and it hurts to watch her at times. Side note: knowing that Manx committed suicide a few years later makes her performance here all the more tragic (http://mobile.nytimes.com/1964/11/17/kate-manxactress-is-suicide.html). Ted McCord’s shimmering black and white cinematography and camera work add a ton of character to an already stylish and unusual film.

Promoted as “the boldest story of a planned seduction ever to scald the screen,” Private Property had to be scandalous in its day. It promises the kind of smut in a pulp paperback. It’s simultaneously groundbreaking—for its time, anyway—with its subject matter, yet surprisingly inoffensive. Sex is not shown—it’s all implied. Ann never says she’s horny—she shows it, for example, by rubbing along her neck the big phallic stopper of a huge perfume bottle and lying in bed with Duke’s belt under a towel next to her (oddly, she also puts his belt around her neck at one point). Profanity is whitewashed—in one of the film’s most ludicrous moments, an exasperated Duke utters, “What the flop?” He doesn’t call Boots “gay” or even “homosexual”—the closest he gets is something about finding a daddy.

The ending is disappointingly predictable, but it’s not so bad that it ruins the wonderfully suspenseful ride that brought us to it. From a historical perspective, Private Property stands as a seething criticism of post-War American values. It’s also got great exteriors of a long gone Los Angeles. I won’t forget this one.

79 minutes
Not rated

(Facets) A-

Private Property

Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

“Do you know how hard it is to make people laugh, to tackle big issues and get big ratings? It’s so hard that people don’t do it anymore.”

—Amy Poehler introducing Norman Lear at the PEN American Center Lifetime Achievement Awards

One commentator asserts that American television consists of two periods: before Norman Lear, and after. He’s got a point. It’s easy to spot Lear’s impact: simply go to All in the Family at the dawn of the ’70s, and look backward then forward. A marked shift to socioeconomic realism is undeniable. It isn’t fair to credit him alone with that pivotal movement—James L. Brooks and Allen Burns hit the air with The Mary Tyler Moore Show four months before All in the Family—but Lear definitely ran with the idea and pushed it farther than anyone else. As the creative force behind shows like the aforementioned All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, Good Times, The Jeffersons, even One Day at a Time and the controversial subjects they tackled, he was prime time’s Martin Scorsese to, say, Gary Marshall’s Steven Spielberg. That’s a huge accomplishment when you stop to consider that the only TV show ever to deal with abortion head-on was one of Lear’s sitcoms, and that was more than 40 years ago.

With Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady assemble a captivating picture of the man behind the curtain through clips, behind-the-scenes footage, his own readings of excerpts from his memoir Even This I Get to Experience, and an interview just for this film. Lear, who recently turned 94, is fascinatingly open and candid about the highs and lows of his personal life, his career, and what inspired him. In the film’s most touching moments, he discusses his father, what it felt like to hear an anti-Semitic speech on the radio when he was a kid, his admiration for Carroll O’Connor, and a sad incident involving his strong-willed wife. He also sings a ditty with buddies Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, which is priceless. In its most interesting moment, Good Times star Esther Rolle confronts him about his depiction of black Americans. It is, to say the least, dy-no-mite.

Comments from a number of celebrities like Jon Stewart, George Clooney, Rob Reiner, and John Amos add depth and demonstrate the reach of Lear’s work. The highlights, however, come from Lear himself. It would have been nice if the directors pushed things a little farther and did away with the dramatization of Lear as a young boy, but I can only hope I live to see the future like he does: clearly, these are the days.

91 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) B

http://www.musicboxfilms.com/norman-lear–just-another-version-of-you-movies-137.php

http://www.normanlear.com

Boyz N the Hood

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1991)

I’ve seen Boyz N the Hood a few times, but the last time had to be at least 15 years ago. I was curious to see it again when I noticed it playing on cable recently. It definitely shows its age, but it’s retained its impact and remains required viewing.

The boyz are three teens, Trey “Tre” Styles (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and twin brothers Ricky (Morris Chestnut) and Darrin “Doughboy” Baker (Ice Cube). The hood is the Crenshaw neighborhood of South Central L.A. The boyz met when they were 10 and Tre moved in with his father, Furious (Laurence Fishburne), after his mother (Angela Bassett) decided it was time for a man to raise him. Now, Tre is getting ready to go to college, football recruiters are courting Ricky, and Doughboy is in a gang and making a half-assed attempt not to end up in jail again. It’s apparent that their choices have put them on different paths that already are removing them from each other. Furious is okay with that—especially when a senseless shooting rocks Tre’s world.

In his debut, writer/director John Singleton takes a powerful and realistic look at the problems that still plague American cities: racism (internalized racism, too), segregation, economics, education, parenting, violence, addiction. To his credit, he doesn’t glorify any of it. His characters are multidimensional, into the same things that all teenage boys are: sharp clothes (and, yes, they’re awful), chasing girls, playing games, driving cool cars. Even the not-so-good kids have dignity. When shit happens, Singleton pulls us into it along with his characters. For example, we feel the sting when the Baker boys’ mother (Tyra Ferrell) unleashes her attitude on Doughboy. We also experience a shot of adrenaline when an ominous car chases Tre and Ricky up and down back alleys. It helps that the cast is fantastic.

Nominated for an Academy Award for both Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in 1992 (https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1992), Boyz N the Hood still resonates despite its tendency to lapse into short spells of preachiness. Perhaps it’s because things haven’t changed as much in 25 years as we’d like to believe.

In 2002, the United States Library of Congress deemed Boyz N the Hood “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

112 minutes
Rated R

(MoviePlex) A-

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/boyznthehood/

Some Like It Hot

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1959)

An anonymous staff writer for Variety magazine reviewing Some Like It Hot upon its initial release in 1959 said it succinctly:

“Some Like It Hot, directed in masterly style by Billy Wilder, is probably the funniest picture of recent memory. It’s a whacky, clever, farcical comedy that starts off like a firecracker and keeps on throwing off lively sparks till the very end.”

(http://variety.com/1959/film/reviews/some-like-it-hot-2-1200419454/)

And how! I never saw Some Like It Hot—I wasn’t sure how good or even funny it would be after nearly 60 years. My expectations were zero. I’m happy to report that it most certainly is a blast—the humor still works well, and the whole thing is deliciously tongue in cheek. I loved it.

Chicago, 1929: musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) desperately need work. After inadvertently witnessing the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, they reluctantly accept a gig playing in a female jazz band headed to Florida—as female musicians, of course. Yes, in drag. Who knew sultry party girl Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe) would be around, constantly threatening to blow their cover?

Loaded with sexual tension and humor, Some Like It Hot shows a side of the ’50s I didn’t realize existed: it’s brazen, offbeat, ardent, inspired, and totally original. Curtis, Lemmon, and Monroe are unstoppable together. The scene with Curtis and Monroe on the yacht is oddly hot. I definitely get the appeal of Monroe after seeing this—and I’ve seen in her other films, specifically Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Not the same effect at all. Joe E. Brown is unforgettable as cracker-barrel millionaire Osgood Fielding, who tries his damnedest to woo Daphne (Lemmon).

Some Like It Hot has the absolute best final scene—if not the absolute best final line—in film history. It’s a classic that everyone should see.

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed Some Like It Hot “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

121 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) A

http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?Movie=53017

Volcano [Vulcano]

Video posted on by moviebloke

(Italy 1950)

Vulcano, we’re informed at the end of the film, is not a story about Maddalene (Anna Magnani) or her younger sister, Maria (Geraldine Brooks); it’s about the volcano, which never changes.

I can’t resist a good Italian melodrama, especially a neorealist one. Although not a major work or a prime example of the movement, Vulcano doesn’t disappoint even with its numerous flaws. For reasons not immediately revealed, Maddalene returns to her girlhood home on a Sicilian island that she left for Naples some 18 years before. A far cry from the rough and dreary yokels who inhabit the island, Maddalene is elegant, urbane, alluring, and much better dressed. She’s also got a not-so-secret career as a prostitute back in Naples.

The women shun Maddalene, interfere with her options for legitimate work on the island, and block her from entering church to attend Mass. One crazy bitch goes so far as to kill Maddalene’s dog in a quarry. All of this confuses innocent Maria, who is unaware of her sister’s, um, vocation. Enter sexy scammer Donato (Rossano Brazzi), a sponge diver after a sunken trunk. After a few demonstrative rebukes, Maria gives in and falls in love with him. Maddalene realizes Donato is also a recruiter for a sex slave ring—and he’s got his sights set on Maria. How far will she go to protect her little sister?

The melodrama here is wonderfully overdone (Vulcano is purportedly Magnani’s revenge film after her lover, director Roberto Rossellini, dumped her and replaced her with Ingrid Bergman in another film called Stromboli). The location looks like another planet; all dirty, dry, and deserted, it works well in illustrating the desolate, loneliness of the island and Maddalene’s situation. The narration, however, is cheesy and crudely executed. Director William Dieterle throws in a bunch of odd scenes on fishing boats and underwater that come off gratuitous and not quite natural. The ending is abrupt and silly—a volcanic eruption cuts everything off. Qualunque cosa.

106 minutes
Not rated

(Gene Siskel Film Center) B-

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1986)

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”

—Ferris Bueller

I caught a 30th anniversary screening of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—what a treat to see it on the big screen again! The first time I saw this was with my mother and grandmother on a school night during its original run—that says a lot about its appeal. I had no idea that John Hughes wrote the screenplay in less than a week, or that it was his “love letter to Chicago” however readily apparent that is now, or that it was one of the top ten grossing films of 1986 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferris_Bueller%27s_Day_Off). I do know that it’s one of his best films, and in my opinion his last truly great one.

Where to begin? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is damn near perfect. An exquisite balance of Weird Science fluff and The Breakfast Club heaviness, it’s a fun escape fantasy anyone can relate to—calling in sick and hitting the city—that isn’t mindless. This film is hilarious, poignant in places, subversive, and in many ways so over the top, but it doesn’t insult your intelligence. The story’s holy trinity—mischievous Ferris (Matthew Broderick), quick-witted Sloane (Mia Sara), and high-strung jittery Cameron (Alan Ruck)—are spot on realistic. They’re downright cool—I’d hang out with them. Indeed, Ferris is enviable—admit it, you wanted to be him. I know I did.

The film is an interminable string of iconic scenes and lines: Ferris’s opening monologue, Ben Stein taking roll call (“Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?”), school secretary Grace (Edie McClurg) explaining to principal Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) that Ferris “is a righteous dude,” Cameron’s prank call to Rooney (“Pardon my French, but you’re an asshole”), the Ferrari, the Art Institute, “Twist and Shout,” the restaurant (“The Sausage King of Chicago?”), Wrigley Field, the singing telegram, “Save Ferris,” hateful Jeanie Bueller (Jennifer Grey), Rooney’s bus ride home, and being sent home at the end of the credits. Interspersed is weighty stuff like Ferris’s realization that he and Sloane probably won’t be together after high school ends and Cameron’s meltdown—none of it out of place or trite in the context of the film. I can watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off over and over, and never get tired of it because it’s multilayered and always brings a smile to my face.

As for Hughes’s love letter to Chicago, I must say that living here, it’s strangely satisfying to walk down the street on any given day and encounter a setting—a corner, a street, a building—that I recognize from an iconic movie that to this day I love. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking it up.

In 2014, the United States Library of Congress deemed Ferris Bueller’s Day Off “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

103 minutes
Rated PG-13

(Brew & View at The Vic) A

West Side Story

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1961)

Prologue

I’m generally not into musicals, but West Side Story is an exception. I saw it in high school, and I liked its retro cheese factor. Now that I’ve seen it as an adult, I love it—for quite a few reasons I didn’t appreciate back in high school.

Jet Song

The cast here is flawless. Russ Tamblyn as gang leader Riff—well, he’s a Jet all the way ‘til his last dying day. Richard Beymer brings a sweet and likable innocence to Tony. George Chakiris as Bernardo oozes mystery, menace, and machismo. Susan Oakes plays Anybodys with just the right amount of sexual ambiguity. Somehow, Natalie Wood as Maria, a Puerto Rican, works. And who doesn’t love Rita Moreno as Anita?

America

The story is clever: a modern, urban American adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Manhattan street gangs the Jets and the Sharks instead of Verona houses the Montagues and the Capulets—an S.E. Hinton novel with dancing. Very cool!

Dance at the Gym

Speaking of dancing, yes—gang members snapping their fingers and pulling ballet moves as if they’re in a Michael Jackson video is corny. But it works. Jerome Robbins does breathtaking choreography here. The shots are big, colorful, energetic, and visually stunning. My favorites are the exteriors at the beginning: I feel dizzy, I feel sunny, I feel fizzy and funny and fine. West Side Story is definitely a film for the big screen.

Quintet

Needless to say, the songs are classic. I’ve known them forever—some before I knew West Side Story. Written with Leonard Bernstein, this was Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway debut (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Side_Story). His trademark wit shines through the lyrics and the rhythms. I’ll always think of my friend Frank, who sang songs from West Side Story as he did dishes when we were roommates in college.

The Rumble

Despite its silly corniness—a large part of its charm—West Side Story is dark. It raises a lot of issues still prevalent today: race, delinquency (though we call it “thuggery” today), hate toward “immigrants.” Despite the many light moments here, the dramatic scenes are dramatic; they make you forget, albeit momentarily, the light stuff. The gym dance, the rumble, and the scene where Anita goes to Doc’s store to give a message to Tony are all suspenseful and intense. The final scene in the basketball court is a real tearjerker.

Somewhere

A large part of West Side Story was filmed on a soundstage, but it still nails the look and feel a New York City that doesn’t exist anymore.

Did I miss anything here?

Finale

In 1997, the United States Library of Congress deemed West Side Story “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

(Music Box) A

Music Box Theatre 70mm Festival

http://www.westsidestory.com

2001: A Space Odyssey

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA/UK 1968)

I expected a long, slow, laborious, and arty history of mankind extending into the near future—well, near for the late Sixties but already a decade past now—set to Classical music, with lots of scenery from outer space and little or no plot. Think of an elaborate promotional video for space travel—that’s what I anticipated. Fortunately, Stanley Kubrick was more sophisticated than that.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a cool film. After a silly opening segment that involves a group of apes, a monolith, and the birth of tools, the story jumps ahead two million years or so to the 21st Century. In the second segment, Dr. Floyd (William Sylvester) shuts down colleages asking questions about a coverup on his way to a space station to investigate an artifact discovered in a pit: it’s a monolith just like the one that sent the aforementioned apes into a frenzy. A third—and the best—segment involves two astronauts (Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood) on a mission to Jupiter controlled by a computer named HAL. HAL is making mistakes, exhibiting jealousy and vindictiveness, and being generally creepy—a little too human. The final segment is a tripped out time warp for David, one of the aforementioned astronauts. And there’s that monolith again, this time inside a goofy Italian Renaissance inspired bedroom with a glowing dancefloor.

It’s total sci fi, but 2001: A Space Odyssey is clever in ways that allow it to transcend the genre. Kubrick’s vision of the future is not only elegant but remarkably smart and accurate. Humans are still human, but technology is everywhere. Despite the appearance of defunct companies like Pan Am and Howard Johnson’s, his characters use tablets, video conferencing, flat screen TVs, and plastic credit cards. There’s a coffee bar and acronyms for unidentified things called “ATM,” “COM,” and “HIB.” Furnishings and clothing look a little different in a realistic way. The story is open to many interpretations, none of which Kubrick ever debunked. He left a lot of fodder for discussion. I see why it’s on many “best of” lists.

I saw a restored version that included an overture and an intermission. The latter broke up what probably would’ve verged on too long for me.

In 1991, the United States Library of Congress deemed 2001: A Space Odyssey “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

(Music Box) A

Music Box Theatre 70mm Festival

http://www.filmsite.org/twot.html