..because for decades I’ve been constantly irked by people saying that 2001: A Space Odyssey “is great but it doesn’t really tell you what’s going on…not really.”

It’s a God movie, dingleberries…a “shaggy God story,” as John Simon wrote way back when…Stanley Kubrick even decided to help out the slowboats just before the startgate sequence by having the floating monolith and the Jupiter moons form a crucifix…in so doing Kubrick was essentially saying “do you get it now, geniuses?”

Posted on 9.3.24: The mysterious black monolith that suddenly appears before the tribe of lesser “Dawn of Man” apes (i.e., the ones who lost access to the dirty-water pond because a tribe of tougher, snarlier apes kicked them out)…the monolith is a cosmic blessing, a civilization-saver…a bringer of deliverance, transcendence, possibility.

Now hear this: the alien life forms who sent the monolith are basically conducting a massive scientific experiment by attempting to spawn intelligence on our planet…the monolith is a bringer of intelligent initiative and awareness and technological potential…an explorational sentinel sent by aliens of incalculable intelligence, the purpose being to trigger and awaken the lesser apes to evolutionary advancement and put them on the road to eventually becoming intelligent human beings.

In the 21st Century present, the very same monolith (or a close cousin of the one that fiddled with the apes) has been found buried under the surface of the moon. Once sunlight hits it, a piercing radio signal is generated…a signal aimed at the hugely insubstantial gas planet of Jupiter, easily one of the most disappointing planets in our solar system.

Light hitting the no-longer-buried monolith informs the super-intelligent aliens that humans have advanced to a certain noteworthy point in their evolution.

All the HAL vs. Dave and Frank stuff aboard the Discovery is the only plotty part of the film, and was basically generated by Stanley-the-misanthrope…look at how Bowman and Poole allow HAL to read their lips…idiots!..plus all in all artificial intelligence is just as capable of hubris and ruthlessness and self-destruction as the humans who created it.

The finale is wonderful, of course, and the basic thing that Keir Dullea‘s Dave Bowman seems to know deep down is that the glorious monolith represents damn near everything…it’s the fountain of eternity and the central engine of life…continuity, God, essence, worship, wonder and infinite expansion.

Read more

Posted on 4.3.17:

Last evening the SRO and I were heading east on Montana Avenue when I noticed that a new 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey was playing at the Aero. It was 7:10 pm, or 20 minutes before the show would begin. I excitedly talked her into catching this 1968 classic, as she’d never seen it. So we bought our tickets, got our refreshments, sat down in the third row…and the film looked like dogshit.

Dark, muddy, no focus or sharpness to speak of, all of those exquisite values covered in shadow — a complete rip-off of the patrons who paid $15 a pop.

They were presumably showing the same freshly created 70mm print that’s been playing at the American Cinematheque Egyptian in Hollywood, which means that it probably looked like shit there also. It’s an absolute scandal that that no one’s said anything. All of these 2001 fans, paying crowd after paying crowd, watching one of the inkiest, most under-lighted prints I’ve ever seen, and they’ve all just sat there like sheep.

I went into the lobby and told the staff that the print, or at the very least the projection, was bullshit. “My 2001 Bluray looks glorious on my 65″ Sony 4K, but what you’re showing doesn’t look anywhere near as good,” I said. They reacted like cigar-store Indians. Shocked, fearful.

The manager appeared. “Have you ever seen the 2001 Bluray on a decent high-def screen?” I asked him. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, the Bluray is how it should look — what you’re showing looks like shit.” Manager: “You can’t expect a 70mm print to look like a Bluray…it’s a different thing. It’s celluloid.” Me: “Oh, yeah? I saw a clean 70mm 2001 print at the old Plitt twinplex in Century City back in the mid ’80s, and it looked beautiful. Your print looks like crap.” Manager: “You’re the first person to say anything like this.” Me: “Oh, well, that changes everything! Nobody else complained, you say? That must mean I’m full of shit then!”

Read more

By opting for a Madison Square Garden wedding, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have revealed who and what they are deep down…grandiose grifters.

…since I returned from Oslo (HE’s standard Cannes stopover) on Sunday, 5.24 at 4 pm or thereabouts. I’ve been curious about the recently restored 4K version of The Best Years of Our Lives (it was first screened at the Academy’s Ted Mann theatre last November), and seeing it the Paris (5th Avenue at 58th) would’ve been perfect. But I was so whipped from my Oslo-to=JFk flight I doubt I would’ve stayed awake.

I’ll soon be composing and posting my own N.Y. Times obit, knowing full well that my eventual passing will not be acknowledged by the judgmental, snobby-ass Times, despite my having written for their Arts & Entertainment section in the early ’90s and blah blah. This will be an enjoyable writing challenge, but I’ll have to give it some thought in order to lay it down right.

Accepted, agreed to: California Derangement Syndrome (CDS) is a political phrase coined by Governor Gavin Newsom and his administration. It describes an irrational, chronic obsession among political critics and conservative media outlets with portraying California as a failed, dystopian communist wasteland while ignoring measurable data to the contrary.

Without getting into the obviously bruising effect of Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer’s 6.4 N.Y. Times forensic report about the personal romantic history of Maine’s Graham Platner, the likely Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate who is all but certain to run against Sen. Susan Collins, a non-MAGA Republican…

Without accepting or taking issue with the story’s allegations, I’d like to ask a simple question.

Who has been without sin or selfishness in their youthful or semi-youthful (20s and 30s) romantic life? Whose history hasn’t involved a certain degree of avoidance or sudden whimsy or callousness or occasional passive-aggressive ghosting?

Imagine if Gleuck or Lerer had devoted many weeks to exploring your past shortcomings or selfish behaviors or whatnot. Almost anyone’s imperfect life can be sliced and diced.

I’m certainly not saying that Platner, 41, has been an admirably behaved fellow, sexually speaking or one-on-one-relationship-wise, over the last 15 or so years. He hasn’t been a total animal by any measure, but he certainly has blemishes.

There have been reports, of course, that the younger Platner exhibited booze-impacted PTSD behavior, and has behaved like a hound and been unfaithful with this or that ex-girlfriend, and that he’s sexted certain women behind his wife’s back.

Intemperate sexual behavior is unbecoming, obviously, and quite stupid for anyone (man or woman) thinking of running for high office.

But this is mainly an issue for Platner’s wife to kick around. (She’s been supportive.) It should not be a central or even an important consideration when it comes to Maine’s Senatorial ballot, at least in any kind of fair-minded, real-deal world.

Reader responses to Gleuck and Lerer’s report:

“Which is fine. That’s who she is. But Bari’s definitely not trying to do more and more pieces that fluff Trump. She may be trying to inject a little more ‘fair and balanced’ into the 60 Minutes pieces here and there,. I’m sure that’s what Scott Pelley objected to. But that’s not [necessarily] a bad goal.”

Right now the general line of thinking among the vast majority of journalists, editors and columnists out there is that Weiss is some kind of right-leaning equivocator who is in fact invested in stories that won’t adhere to what can fairly be called a classic 60 Minutes mindset. This doesn’t strike me as particuarly insightful.

The chaotic earthquaking of 60 Minutes over the last three days obviously constitutes major high-stakes drama. The blistering confrontation that happened between 60 Minutes corespondent Scott Pelley (who’s been canned), the show’s recently-hired exec producer Nick Bilton and editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is a much, much stronger scenario than the bellowing argument between CBS corporate and 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman…one of the scenes that make Michael Mann‘s The Insider such a classic. Obviously.

It follows, naturally, that there’s a major movie in this — a Mann film perhaps? — about the Pelley-Bilton-Weiss contretemps, and more broadly ablout the whole kowtowing-to-Trump, Paramount purchase of CBS and 60 Minutes and handing the reins to Weiss (i.e., David Ellison, son of Larry, last year took control of CBS’s parent company, Paramount, in a multibillion-dollar merger).

Love this passage from Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin’s 6.1.26 N.Y. Times story: “In an extraordinary exchange, Mr. Pelley, his newscaster’s baritone sometimes shaking in anger, told Nick Bilton, the new executive producer, that he had ‘slender’ qualifications for his new job and questioned the network’s commitment to the future of the program, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

“The 10 a.m. gathering, held at the program’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, was intended as a formal introduction to Mr. Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker who was appointed last week as part of a major shake-up at 60 Minutes. CBS fired Tanya Simon, the previous executive producer, and her deputy, along with Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, two of the show’s correspondents — an event that Mr. Pelley referred to as ‘Black Thursday.'”

\

After last night’s AMC Danbury showing of Masters of the Universe (technically an earlybird thing as the film doesn’t open in AMC theatres until this afternoon), I drove right back to Wilton and filed my review. And now it’s up. Fast turnaround!

My poor math skills ensured that I would get Nicholas Galitzine‘s age wrong — he’s 32, not 22. I informed my editors of the error this morning; presumably they’ll be fixing it soon.

I also failed to include a pretty good kicker paragraph, although I sent it along 90 minutes ago. Here it is:

Possible omen:  There’s a big Castle Grayskull scene in the second act — a dramatic surge moment — in which Galitzine’s Adam finally abandons the uncertainty and becomes He-Man, wielding the Power Sword and affirming his destiny.  The AMC Danbury crowd came alive at this very moment…energy wave!…and at that moment I noticed, three rows in front of me, an actual Power Sword being raised in celebration.  Some guy cos-playing with a plastic, full-sized replica, probably bought 40 years ago in Toys ‘R’ Us, and pumping it in the air.  Go, He-Man!  Hilarious!

As I’ve been told I can share the New York Sun article and given the standard compression edits that always happen prior to publication, I thought I’d post the original HE version. Compare and evaluate.

“Honey, I Shrunk the Skeletor,” finished last night around 11:30 pm:

My thirtysomething sons, Jett and Dylan, were never into the Masters of the Universe Mattel universe…not yet born during the heyday.  And they never saw Gary Goddard’s Cannon-produced, nearly 40 year-old Masters of the Universe (’87)…still unborn, probably wouldn’t have cared if they had been.  And so I wasn’t parent-punished into buying the action figures or watching the kiddie cartoon serial.

But I was a Cannon Studios employee when Goddard’s film was being shot at Culver Studios in the early fall of ’86, and I damn well visited the massive Castle Grayskull set, you bet…a lavish undertaking which ate up two full sound stages.  My eyes and heart were sorta kinda dazzled as I strolled around with the unit publicist, muttering wisecracks and  wondering why the place felt so quiet.

Because it was empty, that’s why.  So no casual run-ins with a bare-chested, sword-bearing, heavily-costumed Dolph Lundgren (He-Man) or a dark-cloaked, masked-up Frank Langella (Skeletor).  And yet the film hadn’t wrapped so where was everyone?  

I knew that the financially squeezed Cannon had been forced to lose several script pages and things were being re-strategized.  Perhaps some of the battle sequences were being shot in and around SoCal instead of on the fantasy planet of Eternia.  

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the sound-stage vibe felt a bit off.  Hesitant, uncertain…who knew?

I dragged myself to a screening when MOTU opened on 8.7.87, and I knew right away I couldn’t be fully honest with any of my fellow Cannon-ites. Because it obviously blew chunks.  It was critically savaged, became a box-office bomb.  ($22 million to produce, $17.3 million earned).  The tone was half-jape, half-solemn.  Lundgren struggled with his dialogue but Langella seemed to enjoy the scenery-chewing.   Courteney Cox, James Tolkan and Meg Foster costarring…whatevs.

Now there’s a brand-new Masters of the Universe from Amazon and director Travis Knight (Bumblebee)…thinner, slighter and much more expensive. Between $170M and $200M. 

So why remake an ‘80s stinker, and particularly one that feels out of synch with the here-and-now?  We’re living in an era of hit indie strange-os (Obsession, Weapons, Backrooms). IP sequels aren’t what they used to be in the teens, and nobody cares about MOTU merch…long gone.  Mattel obviously connected with Barbie, sure, but that was a misandrist, pinker-than-pink, auteur-driven one-off.

So why watch this thing, I asked myself?    Why submit to punishment?  Because a movie journo has to occasionally man up and take the pain.  And that was my attitude as I slipped into a special early-bird screening at the AMC Danbury.

Guess what?  Knight’s newbie is a feck-it movie, a mild breeze…good-natured, light-hearted and completely divorced from any notion of dramatic engagement.  Every line and every scene delivers a jack-off vibe.  It’s got that good old “nothing matters, it’s all a goof so forget the story and let’s just have fun” attitude…a Guardian of the Galaxy thing, only a wee bit lighter, a touch more throwaway.

I didn’t care about the story or anybody or anything, and that was fine.  Because it didn’t irritate me or tick me off.  This film doesn’t fly — it glides.  I was sitting in a convertible with the top down and a cold beer in my hand, and I don’t even drink.  (Sober since March of 2012.)

And guess what?  32 year-old Nicholas Galitzine, as Adam Glenn and He-Man  — the former an easygoing, blonde-haired, earth-residing dude who wears black jeans, a pink Brooks Brothers shirt and whitesides but doesn’t want to get sucked into a mediocre life as an HR guy, and the latter character the former Prince of Eternia who lives to wield the mythical Power Sword…Galitzine is a slam-dunk star in this thing, at least during the first half to two-thirds.  (I succumbed to slight boredom during the last third.) 

Galitzine is certainly ten times the actor that Dolf Lundgren** was in the ’87 version.  Having bulked himself up for this role, Galitzine is relaxed and unassuming and always conveying an intelligent vibe.  I liked him immediately because he’s always settling things down, always letting you know this this big, carefree Amazon film is into chilling, bruh, even during the violent battle scenes…shoulder-shrugging, mellow-vibing….no worries because it’s all meaningless bullshit.

Deep down this movie is total helium…a stone that doesn’t skim across a pond as much as levitate above it.  Compared to it Guardians of the Galaxy feels like Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, and The Empire Strikes Back plays like Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

I don’t know if Masters of the Universe is going to tank or succeed, but if I, a grumpy hater of empty-brain-pan CG-driven popcorn cinema, can make peace with it then maybe others can too.  And I’m speaking as someone who hated Chris Pine’s Dungeons and Dragons.

Possible omen:  There’s a big Castle Grayskull scene in the second act — a dramatic surge moment — in which Galitzine’s Adam finally abandons the uncertainty and becomes He-Man, wielding the Power Sword and affirming his destiny.  The AMC Danbury crowd came alive at this very moment…energy wave!…and at that moment I noticed, three rows in front of me, an actual Power Sword being raised in celebration.  Some guy cos-playing with a plastic, full-sized replica, probably bought 40 years ago in Toys ‘R’ Us, and pumping it in the air.  Go, He-Man!  Hilarious!

All hail Jared Leto as Skeletor, a skull-faced, buff-bod, baddy-waddy who delivers (you guessed it!) a put-on, jizz-whiz performance.  Ditto Camila Mendes as Teela, a foxy, no-nonsense warrior (a butchier Princess Leia); Idris Elba as Duncan / Man-at-Arms, a recovering alcoholic superhero who mans up when the going gets tough; Allison Brie as Evil-Lyn, a brittle-ironic suck-up worshipper of Skeletor; Kristen Wiig as the voice of Robot; and, last but not least, Morena Baccarin as “the Sorceress”.  (Except Baccarin is a much better actress than this pan-flash character allows her to be — I loved her in Phillip Noyce’s Fast Charlie.)   

** Lundgren cameos during the first half-hour or so, and does a good job of it.

…in order to bang out a review for the New York Sun, which I did upon returning at 10 pm.

Author and screenwriter Ed Naha recently shared (via Facebook) an abbreviated rundown of draining medical issues. Nothing horrible but dreary and gloom-instilling, he wrote.

I’m sorry for Naha’s mild misfortunes, but — this is going to sound perverse and perhaps even cruel — they triggered a certain alpha-karma payback response. A subtle feeling of satisfaction even.

Rather than try to explain my admittedly odd reaction, please read Naha’s post and then an 11.14.12 HE post titled “Happiness Pills.”