Not sure whether you should be +1 or -1 for using “parsecs” correctly.

I have a similar experience in my 50s, but there was plenty of stuff back in my 20s that I was vaguely aware of, but thoroughly uninterested in. Now I have a pretty broad span of history to choose from, and little reason to just wallow in whatever happens to be “cutting edge”. I rather enjoy “discovering” music that I…

I certainly agree with you (and Kubrick) about the problems of being too explicit, and effectively prosaic, about the theme. And I’m not complaining about the pacing overall. I just felt that the Stargate sequence crossed a sort of line from the wonder-inducing into the merely baffling. That we were seeing Bowman in a…

Well, reliably as long as we’re all at about the same rate of acceleration...

That sort of passive-aggressive approach does sound like Kubrick’s style, and I might buy the comparison to “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (albeit in a much “busier” Cleopatra-eque arrangement), but I doubt he heard much more than that. If Kubrick was just going through the motions anyway, I’d imagine North was handed a…

As common as it is to comment on the rigidity and blankness of the characters in the second and third segments, they really seem to me to be in keeping with the professional and square-jawed military and administrator protagonists common through much of science fiction through the original Star Trek era, and very much…

Clearly it wouldn’t have been a clean decapitation. Which would undoubtedly have displeased Kubrick.

I believe its fairly common for directors to assemble “working scores” like that. There’s a reference to it in the original Star Wars soundtrack liner notes, and how frustrating it can be for composers to get directors to embrace original work after they’ve become enamored of their own compilations. I think the notes…

I’ve never had the pleasure, but honestly I happened to catch a little flipping channels on a big-screen TV at home a few years ago, and found the lunar sequences pretty awe-inspiring. I was fairly amazed at how much better it holds up in that regard than many other “spectacle” films released decades more recently.

The first two parts play out very well in that regard. It’s the third that’s terribly opaque, and given the length of time it plays out over, especially frustratingly so. The basic idea of “The ‘Starchild’ is the next stage of human evolution” isn’t too hard to grasp — and even the soundtrack liner notes reference it…

you’ll be surprised to learn how much Kubrick and company were winging it. They had at best the first half of a script well into filming and not a clue where they might end up

While I’m sure some folks have anecdotes about their crazy prepper uncle (we called ‘em “survivalists” back then) hoarding canned goods, I really don’t recall much substantive “panic” surrounding this — more collective curiosity, followed by a big shrug. The one major lasting effect of it was as part of the investing…

That makes sense, but I was kind of liking the idea that the reason for building it in the US was simply that they knew all of the horrible consequences of opening it, and why the hell would you want that in your own country?

Or perhaps he did survive awhile in the Upside Down before the Soviets perfected a gate enough to extract him, and they have him locked up to study how.

Declare you’re going to die in the Battle of Orgy Hill, and I bet you’ll get plenty of volunteers.

I’m sure there are a sizeable number of fans curious about this, but I don’t believe there’s any way that translates into a paying audience for anything with “a lot of green screen” in it, and there’s no way the potential audience is big enough to pay for completing the effects.

Selling porn to anyone seems like a poor business model at this point, never mind Christians.

If you embrace the giant hair long enough, you will find it also embraces you.

Stilts under Danny Strong’s slacks = 22cm

“Orgies” really require five or more active participants, IMHO. Anything less is a foursome, threesome, or as in this case, merely voyeurism. That sort of misidentification is endemic on porn websites too.