2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick
139 minutes

Wid infinite care, intelligence, patience and imaginashun de movie, on which Kubrick collabo'ated wid science-ficshun audo' Buckwheat C. Clarke, be about da findin', in de year 2001, uh a sentient slab on de moon and an 'espedishun t'de planet Jupita'.

Dere be evidence in de film uh Clarke's belief dat men's minds gots'ta ultimately develop t'de point where dey dissolve in some kind'a wo'ld mind. Dere be a subplot in de old science-ficshun nightmare uh man at terminal odds wid his clunker.

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Dere be one ultimate science-ficshun voyage uh a joker (Keir Dullea) drough outa' and inna' space, drough de phases uh his own life in time drown out uh phase by some higha' intelligence, t'his dead and rebird in whut looked likes an intergalactic embryo.

De movie be so completely abso'bed in its own problems, its use uh colo' and space, its fanatical devoshun t'science-ficshun detail, dat it be somewhere between hypnotic and immensely bo'in'.

Kubrick seems as occupied wid de best use uh de outa' edge uh de screen as any painter, and he be particularly fond uh simultaneous rotashuns, revolvin', and straight fo'ward moshuns—de visual equivalent uh rubbin' de stomach and pattin' de haid.

All kinds uh mino' touches is puh'fectly done, dig dis: dere is carnivo'ous apes dat look real; when dey drow deir fust bone weapon into de air, Kubrick cuts t'a spacecraft; de amiable HAL begins most uh his sentences wid "Well," and his answa' to "How's everything'?" is, naturally, "Everything's under control."

Dere be also some kind'a fanaticism about oda' kinds uh audenticity, dig dis: space travelers look as sickly and 'eshausted as travelers usually do; dey is 'sposed in space stashuns t'depressin' kinned beat; de viewa' is often made t'feel dat da screen be de window uh a spacecraft, and as Kubrick introduces one piece uh unfamiliar apparatus afta' anoder—a craft dat looks, fum one angle, likes some plumber's helpuh' wid some fist on de end uh it, some pod dat resembles some limbed wuzhin' machine—de viewa' is always made aware uh exactly how it be used and where he be in it.

De special effects in de movie—particularly some voyage, eida' drough Dullea's eye o' drough de slab and upside de surface uh Jupiter-Eard and into some puh'iod bedroom—are de best ah' have eva' seen; and da numba' of ways in which de movie conveys visual info'mashun (dere be very little dialogue) rolls it t'an outa' limit uh de visual.

And yet da uncompromisin' slowness uh de movie makes it hard t'sit drough. Lop some boogie. Wid all its attenshun t'detail de movie acknowledged no obligashun t'validate its conclusion fo' dose who is not science-ficshun buffs.

By de end, de unreconciled plot lines—de slabs, Dullea's agin' —are simply left dere likes some Ro'schach, wid murky implicashuns uh deology.

Dis be a long step outside da convenshun, some 'estra scripts seem required, and da all-purpose answer, "relativity," duz not real serve unless it kin be verbalized.

Brud.

RENATA ya' is my best dudette buff