The first thing wrong with this 40th anniversary screening and celebration of Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey on October 12th in downtown L.A. is that it’s about six months too late. The classic stoner-mystic sci-fier opened in early April 1968, and so staging a 40th anni tribute three weeks from today is like…whatever, staging one in November 2007, or six months too early. You have to be serious about dates when you’re raising a glass — you can’t fuck around.

The second thing wrong is having At The Movies co-host Ben Mankiewicz co-host it. He might be an okay guy on his own terms, but that new show is a gross defiling — ask anyone — and Mankiewicz has made himself into a philistine of the first order. Herman and Joseph are twitching in their graves.
The third thing wrong is that the print shown at the Edison will apparently just be a run-of-the-mill 35mm anamorphic, as the invitation obviously makes no mention of a 70 mm version, much less the Edison’s capability to show such a print. The only way to have seen 2001 in years past was in 70 mm, which has happened, I’m told, at the Arclight twice this year.
And isn’t it time for an IMAX print to be made? I strongly agree with rgmax99 that “if Warners had some brains and/or respect, they would have prepped a 2001 IMAX print and opened it nationwide.” Although my guess (and I could be 180 degrees wrong) is that Ned Price and George Feltenstein did consider making an IMAX version and decided against it out of fear that the under-30s wouldn’t attend.