2001ASpaceOdyssey Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I grew up reading science fiction, thinking my beloved genre was all about the possibilities of the infinite: advanced civilizations inhabiting distant star systems; men with brains so large and hearts so beneficent they could barely be contained within their bodies; women with beauty so magnificent and intellect so stunning they would leave bystanders breathless.

And they I started watching movies and eventually realized it's all about death, destruction ... and more death.

This week's release of The Final Destination, which is obsessed with staging elaborate 'kill scenes,' got me thinking about memorable scenes of demise in science fiction films. Sci-fi is notably short of serial killers, but offers a wider range of death scenes, beyond simple murder and mayhem. Here's my list of the top 10 sci-fi deaths. (Of necessity, this list is nothing but spoilers, so you have been warned.)

1. The Emperor (Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi)

Everyone knows where they were when they saw the Emperor get what was coming to him. Me, I was in the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, opening night, second showing, near 5:00 a.m., shouting (and ultimately cheering and applauding) along with the rest of the sold-out auditorium as Luke looked between his father and the Emperor, in pain, agonizing, understanding that the man he had hated was being tortured by the man who should be hated. And then he made the right call. Goosebumps still raise up in the glory of the memory.

Read the rest over at Sci-Fi Squad

If you're like me, then you have no shortage of classic films to catch up on, and if you're like me, you can't exactly fork the dough over for every special edition issued for said films (and if you're like me, then you abuse parallel sentence structure like nobody's business). Thankfully, Turner Classic Movies and Warner Bros. have teamed up to offer a good fifteen discs with four movies on each of them for about twenty to twenty-five bucks apiece.

Casablanca, Gigi, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Philadelphia Story, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Searchers, Singin' in the Rain, The Wild Bunch, The Dirty Dozen, The Maltese Falcon and much more -- not too shabby, huh? And here I used to think that Warner Home Video was handiest for Stallone-themed packs (because some of us haven't seen Over the Top, okay?).

Between this and their recent initiative to provide custom-burned copies of archival titles, Warners seems to be doing the most of any studio to preserve their library and make it widely available. For about $20, you could get a movie that few people have, or four movies that you ought to own anyway -- or you could just get several copies of Demolition Man. Priorities, people.

Sitting next to my father in a crowded station wagon on the evening of July 20, 1969, I listened to the radio as we drove and stared up into the heavens. Man had landed on the moon, and soon we would all be exploring the universe, just like they did on Forbidden Planet and Star Trek. Things haven't quite worked out that way, so, instead, I've turned to the movies to fulfill my deep space fantasies.

George Melies made the very first sci-fi flick in 1902, A Trip to the Moon, which lasted all of 14 minutes. Interest picked up in the post WWII-era with George Pal's production of Destination Moon; the 1950s were a golden age for science fiction films. Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey put the moon in a whole new light. After Neil Armstrong set his foot down 40 years ago, real life footage replaced all the fictional creations. (Of course, some folks believe the Moon landing itself was faked, leading to a fake Mars mission in Peter Hyams' Capricorn One.) Things were quiet until Ron Howard's Apollo 13, in which the astronauts never even got to touch down. Bringing us up to date, Duncan Jones' highly-acclaimed Moon is now playing in selected engagements.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, please take our poll and tell us: What are your favorite movies about the moon? We've listed ten, but you're free to vote for "Other" and state your case in the comments section.

By now you've probably heard that astronauts on the International Space Station watched J.J. Abrams' Star Trek on Friday. (Here's the account in Times Online.) American astronaut Michael Barratt (left, in the photo) is evidently a hard-core fan and requested the movie specifically after realizing that "orbiting the earth in a space module was the perfect environment to watch" the flick. Also, he wouldn't have to wait in line.

I had visions of the astronauts floating in space, watching the movie as it was projected on the moon, and prompting children on Earth to point up and ask, "Is that the man in the moon, Daddy?" "No, honey, that's Spock." But actually they watched it on a computer, with their feet strapped to the floor to keep from floating away. NASA obtained a (presumably) legal copy of the film before re-formatting the movie "to enable it to be beamed up from Mission Control to the space station, floating about 220 miles above the surface of earth."

Barratt watched the movie with Russian cosmonaut and Expedition 19 commander Gennady I. Padalka (center) and Japanese flight engineer Koichi Wakata (right); any guesses as to what the Russian thought of Chekhov's accent? I didn't realize that movie nights on the space station are a tradition. Of course, that set me to wondering what other movies the astronauts have been watching and what movie I might want to see in space. Would 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Wars be too obvious? Silent Running? Marooned or Apollo 13 might not be the best choices. If you were an astronaut, what would you want to watch? What should the astronauts watch next?

We studied it in high school, which made it amazingly boring. I tried again a few years later, but just couldn't get into it. Saw it on the big screen about ten years ago and finally got what everyone was raving about ... but still the film didn't really "connect" with me in any powerful way. But then a few nights ago, I sat down with my awesome 2-disc special edition of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and was blown away as if I'd never even heard of it before. Thousands of writers much cleverer than I have devoted a billion words to this very fine film, but after watching it earlier this week, I was struck by how simple the story actually was. I mean, a film is a work of art, and as such each viewer will have their own interpretation of the experience, but if we're talking about the oh-so-confusing and deliciously ambiguous nature of the plot, um, here's what I saw:

A. Early man is little more than an animal before a mysterious object appears on their planet and signifies the next step forward: The creation of tools, which immediately leads to the creation of weapons, and then we (awesomely) jump-cut to millions of years later. Our first weapon has evolved into our ultimate weapon: A nuclear arsenal poised ominously in outer space.

B. Then we (slowly but very coolly) discover that another mysterious object has been discovered beneath the surface of the moon. When modern man places his hand on the second "monolith," a signal between the moon and Jupiter is opened. Looks like man is officially "ready" for his next step.

There are a few classic films that I simply refused to rent while growing up, specifically for the reason that I knew I should see them for the first time on a big screen. Of these, I managed to see both 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner in a theater, while others, such as Lawrence of Arabia and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, were on television too often to ignore them on the small screen first. One film that I'm still dying to see in a theater is Terrence Malick's Badlands. A few years ago I actually went to a special screening of the film in Connecticut, but it was disappointingly (understatement) projected from a DVD copy. Then two months ago it played one show at NYC's IFC Center, but I had to miss it for another engagement.

Last week Entertainment Weekly presented an article/photo gallery titled "23 Movies You'd Like to See on the Big Screen," which lists these kinds of films (there's actually many more than 23 cited), most of which should ONLY be seen on the big screen, as they were originally meant to be. The list includes obvious epic choices like 2001, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, The Greatest Show on Earth and The Ten Commandments, as well as other classics, like Malick's Days of Heaven, Casablanca, Once Upon a Time in the West, Star Wars, High Society, Halloween, Singin' in the Rain, To Kill a Mockingbird, Psycho, Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Searchers, Stagecoach and The French Connection.

When was the last time you tried to see a movie, but couldn't, because it was sold out? I mean really sold out. Sure, you may have recently sat in a packed auditorium and watched a movie that was "sold out." And you may have recently been turned away from a specific showtime for some new movie because that one showing was "sold out." These things come with the season, when everyone's rushing to see the latest summer blockbuster as soon as it's released to theaters. But I bet it's been a long, long time since you were shut out completely from seeing a movie on opening weekend.

I experienced two sellouts this week (details forthcoming), and the frustration made me recall an experience from 21 years ago, when Beverly Hills Cop II came out. The reason I remember this specific movie's release is because I was keeping a summer journal at the time. I was only ten, so I didn't write much on each day, but through the opening weekend for BHC2, I repeated the same phrase three times: "Tried to see Beverly Hills Cop II, but it was sold out." Then, through the movie's second weekend, I again repeated the same phrase on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Finally, in its third weekend, I was able to write, "Saw Beverly Hills Cop II. It was good."

• Claus Nissen (1938-2008) - Actor. Played "The Perfect Man" in Jørgen Leth's The Perfect Human, which was featured in and updated for Leth and Lars von Trier's documentary The Five Obstructions. He also played the character "Jensen" in von Trier's miniseries The Kingdom and The Kingdom II and appears in Susanne Bier's Family Matters, Bernard Girard's The Happiness Cage, Erik Balling's Olsen Gang series and Leth's Notes on Love and Good and Evil. He died April 29. (Danske Film)

• Carl Belfour (1952-2008) - Chief projectionist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He died of a brain aneurysm April 23, in Los Angeles. (Variety)
• Nino Candido (1942-2008) - Property master and actor. Worked on Bull Durham, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, Smile, Timescape, Night Game and TV's My Name is Earl. He appears in Hud and I Come in Peace. He died April 26, in Laughlin, Nevada. (IATSE Local 44)

Wowwy wow wow. I knew there were some new Stanley Kubrick special editions on the way, but I had no idea that Warner was going all out with new features! I don't even know where to begin! (OK, breathe.) According to DVDActive.com, five of the master's films will be hitting the shelves as part of a massive box set. Those films are The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut. All of 'em 2-disc widescreen treat-laden Special Editions! (And yes the DVDs will also be available outside of the box set.)

Each of the 2-disc sets come with documentaries / featurettes both old and new, but what I find most exciting are the all-new audio commentaries. (Yes, I'm a commentary nerd. No apologies.) The new chat-tracks break down like so: On 2001 we get actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood; on Clockwork it's the awesome Malcolm McDowell and film historian Nick Redman; on Eyes Wide Shut we'll hear from actor/director Sydney Pollack and professor Peter J. Loewenberg; The Shining delivers Steadicam creator Garrett Brown and Kubrick biographer John Baxter; and (this should be great) on Full Metal Jacket the participants will be actors Adam Baldwin, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio and film critic-turned-screenwriter Jay Cocks. (What, Matthew Modine was too busy?)

And again I'll reiterate an important factor: All of these DVDs (which have been approved by Mr. Kubrick's estate) will come in digitally remastered widescreen. (The old-school Kubrickians know what I'm talking about.)

The discs will hit the stores on October 23, and if you're not satisfied by these five offerings, you can also pick up the new-but-movie-only releases of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Lolita. And just to quell any confusion, I'll remind you that Dr. Strangelove and Paths of Glory are Sony properties, whereas Spartacus is a Universal title. That's why they're not included here. But hats off to Warner Bros. for this inevitably awesome box set!

I haven't picked up an issue of Premiere Magazine in quite some time, but a friend of mine recently recommended I visit the publication's newly refurbished website. So I did. Pretty solid content across the board, I'm happy to opine -- but one particular article caught my eye, tickled my fancy, and squatted in my brain long enough to recommend it here.

Basically, a bunch of the Premiere writers were asked to come up with their picks for Most Overrated Film of All Time -- and while most of the sacred cows slaughtered here are pretty darn obvious ones, the opinions and explanations as to why each film was chosen, well, I thought they were fairly compelling. Frankly, I'm thrilled to see someone call Field of Dreams "just too on the nose," because it absolutely is.

Fully prepared for the onslaught of How Dare YE!! hate mail, the Premiere posse has wisely decided to add an equally pithy rebuttal in defense of each movie. So when someone has the audacity to impugn The Wizard of Oz, we sane people have a defender who'll say Dude, Please. I've placed the 20 titles under the jump, just to help spark discussion, but do not let that stop you from reading through the whole article. It might make you think a little differently about some of those Unquestioned Classics that everyone's afraid to admit they don't really dig. (Yep, 2001: A Space Odyssey is overrated; I said it and I'm proud.)