2001: A Space Odyssey

SPOILER: He eventually finds it.

Yeah, but wait until we see all the Predator ship equipment stored back there.

i need to see this and the cut ending from Phase IV pls

Phase IV lost ending is on YouTube

lol wrong URL there, meant to paste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beLpsWaUDNk

When HAL is being deactivated the voice isn't simply slowed down; they used a device called the Eltro Mark II "Information Rate Changer" to achieve time compression/expansion and pitch shifting. Supposedly Douglas Rain's voice is slightly time stretched the whole way through.

There's a nice write-up by Wendy Carlos.

http://www.wendycarlos.com/other/Eltro-1967/index.html

That's super interesting to me thanks! I have obsessed for decades over the particular quality of Douglas Rain's voice in the film (my day job involves a lot of voice recording) and it's always stumped me why/how it sounded like it did, my best guess was some kind of unusual low pass filtering and compression combination that was a result of being stored on an optical format.

that's excellent.

This is still easily the greatest film ever made to me. I might upgrade to 4k whenever they release it on the format.

This is a rare example of everyone being right about something. And that is very interesting Noel thanks!

https://youtu.be/Hu64xbgprWY

1960 space documentary "Universe" narrated by Douglas Rain. He did other films and TV, but I can't find any clips on YouTube.

If you play it at half speed, it does sound like Hal being deactivated.

Douglas Rain is still alive at 89. I really hope they get Dullea and Lockwood to present the vfx Oscar this March (50th anniv), with a possible cameo from HAL.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Rain

4K disc coming on May 8.

https://www.urbandaddy.com/articles/41836/a-forthcoming-book-details-the-making-of-2001-a-space-odyssey

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/cannes-christopher-nolan-50th-anniversary-2001-1202738280/

Premiere screening in DC 50 years ago today, I think.

Opened theatrically 2 days later in NYC, day of MLK's murder.

Nolan, who will be attending the festival for the first time, will also participate in a Cannes masterclass on May 13, during which he will discuss his filmography and his passion for Kubrick’s work.

Most interested in his discussion of the extent to which his filmography is in no way reflective of his passion for Kubrick's work.

I mean, I have a passion for sentences that aren't unwieldy but you'd never know it.

people often say that kubrick's work is cold and distant and you can def see those properties in nolan (in fact i recently went off on one in the dunkirk thread about how only nolan could make an emotionally inert movie about hundreds of thousands of men awaiting violent death)

but mostly i don't happen to share that feeling about kubrick's work - yeah, he's patient and surgically precise and has a super-distinctive eye for composition and nolan def aims at all three of those, with varying degrees of success

but there's no way nolan could make a movie with as clear a vision of human absurdity as dr strangelove or as sympathetic for a monster as a clockwork orange or the startling fusion of sardonic wit and outright horror as the first half of full metal jacket

kubrick understood how people work and nolan just... doesn't

oh, and one more stray thing: i think it's kinda telling that kubrick's work can inspire an entire feature-length documentary devoted to obsessively-researched interpretations of just one of his movies and the most intense discussion nolan's work has ever inspired is whether that fucking spinning top at the end of inception is gonna fall over or not

Dunkirk is not "emotionally inert"

Sorry. Im sorry. Im trying to remove it.

The casual viewer of any Christopher Nolan film can rest assured that they're taking in the whole of the text and subtext minute-by-minute, such that all that remains when it's over is an empty celluloid husk with nothing further to offer.

The story of Douglas Rain, who was hired to voice HAL four months before the film was released and has reportedly never seen the film.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/movies/hal-2001-a-space-odyssey-voice-douglas-rain.html

huh, that's great - thanks for posting

i don't think i knew martin balsam was supposed to be hal!

I did know that! lol at Kubrick casting a fellow Bronxite

i wonder if balsam's performance survives anywhere? or for that matter if the script for douglas rain's narration is still around, if indeed it was ever written...

if not destroyed, presumably in the SK archives, not going public anytime soon

The casual viewer of any Christopher Nolan film can rest assured that they're taking in the whole of the text and subtext minute-by-minute, such that all that remains when it's over is an empty celluloid husk with nothing further to offer.

― Arthur Pizzarelli AKA The Peetz (Old Lunch), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 5:15 AM (twelve hours ago)

Is that such a bad thing? When you think about it, films are kind of like pudding cups. The casual eater of any Christopher Nolan pudding cup can rest assured that they're taking in the whole of the pudding and subpudding inch-by-inch, such that all that remains when it's gone is an empty polypropylene husk with nothing further to offer. That's kind of an ideal situation vis-à-vis pudding cups. Probably movies, too. I mean, it's not like anyone's ever gonna watch Dunkirk twice.

kubrick understood how people work and nolan just... doesn't

― someone’s burgling my miscellanea (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 3:48 AM (thirteen hours ago)

I don't know that Kubrick's work displays great insight into the subtler aspects of human experience (deeper feelings, experiences and relationships). Technical mastery aside, I value Kubrick primarily for his sharp and fascinating turn of mind. He was interested in interesting things, and he expressed his interests in interesting ways. Nolan, meanwhile, is quite keen on graph paper.

I've looked in vain for the Soderbergh edit. Anyone seen it floating around the internet?

Kubrick made my favourite movie ever (2001) and Nolan's third Batman movie is up-there in my worst-ever list

I don't see much similarity between them, Nolan plays with plot convolution and formal Gordianisms, Kubrick sought transcendence in restraint and broad strokes

I don't think of Kubrick as particularly sensitive to "human emotions", he's has the distance of a Greek chorus, an emissary from the uncaring heavens, who documents human interaction without actually caring about the humans themselves

Nolan isn't interested in human emotions either aside from "how can I elicit enough pathos in the audience to keep their attention until the extent of my clever plotting is on full display"

I guess I should say something nice in this post. Dunkirk is a good movie and the score is a good score

Is The Prestige a good movie? All I can remember about it right now is that I don't like actors and I don't like the way they act

it's pretty good, iirc. Kind of odd and ... Gothic?

the prestige is great

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/03/alternative_2001_space_odyssey/

Tucked in a downstairs corner of the maze that is the London College of Communication is the Stanley Kubrick Archives. It's open to the public for pre-booked visits and on a recent nose-around, though initially distracted by the first-edition Robert Crumb comics, I managed to get to grips (touch gently with gloved fingers) with one of the first draft scripts of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Bound in black and looking very much like the monolith from the film, I was surprised by the extent to which this script differs from what we see and hear in the finished film. One of the most striking divergences is the presence of a benevolent second HAL, determined to thwart his evil twin.

well, i'm glad that was fixed!

After listening to this half-hour feature on the making of 2001, I'm convinced the ape scene is the most impressive achievement in the history of bloody difficult film-making. It also mentions the English actor who temporarily got the HAL job in between Balsam and Rain:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0635dz7

Anyone see operation avalanche? Cool movie set at nasa when Kubrick “faked the moon landing”. Mockumentary with a dope recreation of Kubrick himself in one scene!

i still remember the first time seeing 2001 and it being a crappy VHS copy on a tiny CRT it still shaking me to the core so many times. sometimes you see a movie or hear an album that leaves you charged, maybe jittery, wanting to do something, wanting to tell the world about this experience you just had. 2001 is like that concentrated in the most potent form.

good for Nolan the celebrating films he likes. i don't see any reason to compare his work to Kubrick's. people be inspired by art and then make art in response to that inspiration which can be entirely different.

imo Kubrick's humanist side is vastly underrated. there is so much humor and pathos throughout his filmography, so many strange interpersonal conflicts nobody else touches upon in that way. i think it's an easy leap to go "Well his films are pretty, they must not have much to offer" when movies like A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon are knee deep in the question of what it means to be human.

Looks like the UHD disc release has been pushed to the fall.

imo Kubrick's humanist side is vastly underrated. there is so much humor and pathos throughout his filmography, so many strange interpersonal conflicts nobody else touches upon in that way. i think it's an easy leap to go "Well his films are pretty, they must not have much to offer" when movies like A Clockwork Orange or Barry Lyndon are knee deep in the question of what it means to be human.

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 4 April 2018 22:48 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Looks like the UHD disc release has been pushed to the fall.

― Spencer Chow, Thursday, 5 April 2018 00:25 (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kubrick street team report:

Hallmark ornament coming in October

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--qp9AdUf_--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/h3alsc3jvzzmrc79oj4g.jpg

https://io9.gizmodo.com/hallmark-has-a-talking-glowing-hal-9000-ornament-heade-1824995676?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

I had an opportunity to see the original HAL, Discovery 1 and starchild model props (plus a Bowman lithograph) at a big Kubrick retrospective.

https://scontent-sjc3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/d932425303b99f34b96ea9a57937f006/5B697174/t51.2885-15/e35/14719159_1237523612971450_5037676212172881920_n.jpg
https://scontent-sjc3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/0904b0aed83b9ba13111684af202376d/5B6BFD1A/t51.2885-15/e35/14540580_187259038396489_2470394673886134272_n.jpg
https://scontent-sjc3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/df6a4dbf17262a4e3cb379cc01d35100/5B7002EA/t51.2885-15/e35/14726477_1114684005268120_4923423742727553024_n.jpg
https://scontent-sjc3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/6e9038c8b443ecb4fbc4a851e1092cf1/5B747F72/t51.2885-15/e35/14714456_724506451040115_2110870189967933440_n.jpg

so cool!

the filming of that starchild in those brief shots at the end is so masterful, it's almost shocking to see that it's just a static plastic doll!

Excerpt from the book

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-unspeakably-disgusting-way-stanley-kubrick-created-1824112455

Returning from the factory in the early hours of the morning with red eyes and swollen from the fumes, he ignored the foul reek for weeks on end, scrupulously writing down what percentages, temperatures, and densities of which liquids required what heights to drop from to create a given effect.

it's ponderous but tbf there's a lot to ponder

and no Jedi blather befouling your ears!

If you're in the DC area this April and May you can hang out in a replica of the room from the end of the film.
https://airandspace.si.edu/events/2001-space-odyssey-immersive-art-exhibit