Blank Check with Griffin & David - 2001: A Space Odyssey with Jordan Hoffman

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

Open the pod cast doors, HAL - it’s time for us to talk about one of the most important movies in cinema history. Jordan Hoffman - the friend of the pod who best represents both the “diamond-hard Sci Fi” and psychedelic head-trip factions of 2001 fandom - returns to Blank Check, and we’re doling out the knowledge *and* the giggles. When is the ideal moment to “partake” in order to get the trippiest experience from 2001? Is Griffin starting to change his mind about Kubrick not being funny? Do Arthur C. Clark and Dr. Evil buy their jackets from the same tailor? Is this movie actually all about dick jokes? Check out Jordan’s writing on Thrillist Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Hello Hal, do you read me Hal? Affirmative Dave, I read you you read me, Hal? Affirmative, Dave. I read you. Open the podcast doors, Hal. All right, good, good, good. Open the podcast doors, Hal. What else could you do? Well, I'll tell you what I wanted to do.

And I felt like people would have been ripping their hair out if I didn't do that, just because we rarely have a line that infamous that has pod in it. Very famous line. I'll tell you what I wanted to do. What? Pod. Yeah, right. That's the other. Podcast. Pod. Podcast. Podcast. Yeah, that'd be funny. Podcast.

Podcast. Pod. I think you made the right choice. Yeah. Pod. Pod. Podcast. What if someone did that now? I mean, this is funny. Pod, pod, pod.

Pod, pod, pod. Podcast. Podcast. Podcast. Podcast. The pipe organ stays on. I know, I know. You're better at holding. What if, like...

We also couldn't sync up there on when it's a pod and when it's a cast. It's a hard choice. What if, you know, the planets don't always align? Of course. You need a fellow like Stanley Kubrick to make sure those planets...

You need a Kubrick to line up those planets. Yeah, not every schmo can do that. Not every schmo can do it. What were you going to say, David? What if, like, Jurassic Park... Open the podcast doors, David. Yes, done. Are they open? Yeah, not every schmo can do that. Not every schmo can do it. What were you going to say, David? What if Jurassic Park... Open the podcast doors, David. Yes, done. Are they open?

Yeah, very slow. Like Jurassic Park Dominion, like some big movie from this year. Great movie, yeah. Sure. Functional movie. Opened with... Kubrickian.

Like a shot of the planet Earth and the sun rising with also spoke, you know, Sparks, Zara Sutra, however, you know, over it. Your German german is just no joke just did that yeah and then someone asks the direct you know trevor whoever why'd you do that he's like oh it's an homage to 2000 like what if someone actually just plainly was like oh i love that opening yeah the most famous movie opening of all time i just you can only do that once you can only do what he did once well a lot of parody movies

have done it that's fine that's fine but you're saying because then it's for like a bong or a hamburger oh we get it

it's not the majesty of the heavens but it's also funny that like it does feel like if you do something that even vaguely resembles this

on any level people go like was that in Amash in 2000 like you can't open a movie with a planet essentially and classical music like thunderous or the other i feel like people will be like is that 2001 thing you know what i'm really excited that we began the show by the way um i've been on the

show and i've never been introduced so i'm going to introduce myself do it have you really never been introduced it's a running bit it's funny okay i've maintained it and people have in fact called out my comedic consistency my commitment to this bit yeah do you guys know what cowper's fluid is yeah i mean okay what is cowper's fluid well it's you know what is cowper's gland is what is the street street name see i don't know know. I wasn't like David claiming I knew. We're starting early, and this is the 2001 episode, but he's talking about pre-cum. Pre-cum. Cowper's Fluid, which I could be pronouncing it correctly. I think you're pronouncing it correctly.

Known on the street as pre-cum. Sure. Going for the big dollar these days on the street. The first shot, if I may use the word shot, of 2001 A Space Odyssey, is a shot of Precum. Oh, boy. And I swear to God I'm not making this up,

and I really do believe, I have no way of confirming this, Stanley Kubrick was... He had a sick sense of humor. You know, that's true. He was part of that 1950s sick humor. We're going to get into this, the New York Jewish intellectual shtick.

That whole kind of Mort Sahl, Mad Magazine world that he lived in, which is most evidenced in Dr. Strangelove. The first shot of this movie is of... It's a crescent. It's a head of a penis and then the sun comes out and it's a little dot. He's referring to this, to be clear.

Yeah, and then as it moves on and now you can see it. Now it comes out a little bit more. It's a little bit and it's hilarious. There's a lot of humor. Well, look, let's say the main ship of this movie looks like a sperm. Sure. A lot of ships are penile.

And he ends with a... With a baby. With a fetus. With a fetus. There's a lot of vulva action. In a little embryo. There's a lot of vulvas going in and out of... Sure. When the... Pod bay doors. Pod bay doors. This is why we brought Jordan in here. I mean, I will admit. This is the thing, okay? So when March

Madness, right? Booking the show has become, year over year, an increasingly complicated puzzle. This is the thing, okay? So when March Madness, right? Booking the show has become, year over year, an increasingly complicated puzzle, right? Heavy is the head that wears the crown. I mean, I can't say it, but you can, okay? Because it's like, who are our favorite guests we haven't had on in too long, right? Then it's like, who are people we've been meaning to have on,

people who've reached out to us, and then sometimes you look at the movies coming up and you're like who isn't on that list but would be a good guest for that who we should reach out to or see if they'd be interested or whatever usually we do this in secret because we keep private what's upcoming on the schedule it's your business absolutely and gives us a sense of control but when we do march madness our business is public everyone knows what's coming up in the fall and so everyone in our orbit starts to reach out and go look i'm just saying i just want to throw my hat in the ring this and that so this was a particularly tough mini series to figure out where to land on everything because we had a lot of

people throwing out you know their bids for a lot of different movies kubrick's a big get it's a big big fish as you say and we just kept on going to, we had our spreadsheet and like four alts for each movie, right? And trying to balance them out and then move some people to different miniseries or whatever. We just kept on going back to, having Jordan on 2001 feels funny. Like other people were making their arguments for it, but we just kept on going,

that feels like that's a funny thing to do. It'll be a funny episode. Well, the movie begins with crow magnin early man and if you've seen my shoulders and back i am a semitic man of russian ural stock and i am her sweet as they say sure and i feel you pronounce that i it's cowper's gland with well um that's you know i i hope to bring the bring the heat today you're already bringing the heat um my name is jordan hoffman by the way thank you so much for having me he said he was gonna do it and then i did you notice i spent like five minutes you were trying to deflect uh i've been

a guest on this show a four times this is my fourth appearance i get it i get uh i didn't get a jacket but i got a um like a what are the pano uh with cheese bread i got a pano i got a pot yeah one of those it was delicious yeah colombian colombian cheese cheese bread danish um and i'm thrilled to be you asked for munchkins and i got you one big cheese munchkin essentially well because there's a month there's a restaurant i go to columb no. I go to a Colombian place on the other side. Four episodes. Blue Steel.

Love that movie. That's right. Melvin and Howard. That's right. Really love that movie. Beowulf. Beowulf. I am Beowulf.

What a four pack. Yeah, and a lot of times our recurring guests, our friends, our listeners will be like, oh, they always cover movies like that. Here's the theme you can find through the movies they cover.'s a pretty varied four yeah there's not a four there's not a through line with those four safely say with melvin and howard is probably because nobody else wanted to do that one i'm sure there were maybe weren't clamoring but you put your bid down early because i love that movie yeah i think it's great i think it's under yeah bay wolf as well you very early on said like i'm i'm very fascinated by that movie.

I have opinions. And you had Mead. You had Mead in the fridge. I brought Mead! Oh shit, yeah. Did you drink any of the Mead? No, because it was on Zoom. It was the deep pandemic. Oh shit, I had Mead over the Zoom.

You drank Mead on my Mead. We watched you drink Mead. Mead is not that great. 2001. What a picture. Space Odyssey. It is not that great. 2001. What a picture. Space Odyssey. It's a huge, huge movie. Do you think it is Stanley Kubrick's defining film?

In many ways. I feel like it's this and The Shining. Yeah. Right? These are the two movies that cast the largest cultural shadows to this day. It's this. It's this it's this but the only question is is this movie almost outside of careers you know certain it's like is it cinema's

defining movie i mean that's just i don't even mean that in a highfalutin way it's almost like a grand canyon thing where it's like what are you gonna say yeah a lot of these current movies it's very daunting to do an episode on these things yeah yeah because you're just like what do i have to add to the conversation well i mean I mean, what's fascinating is, you say, like, is it cinema's defining? I think it's safe to say, with the possible exception of something like Tree of Life, this is the most sort of, like, experimental movie.

Right, it's the most successful experimental film. To ever have played at a wide release. No, far beyond something like Tree of Life. But also to have been a financial success. Yes, right. My parents saw this when it came out and they are not psychedelic people. Exactly.

And I think part of a good way to think about this movie is it's a very bifurcated experience. I'll be a little bit serious now. Part of what makes the movie so great to some audiences is that it is very hard sci-fi. Sure. Diamond hard sci-fi, as they call it, which is an actual term. Yes, you're right it is very hard sci-fi sure diamond hard sci-fi as they call it which is an actual term yes you're right extremely hard sci-fi like you know him floating around

fixing the eps thingamajig during the when he's uh screwing the bolts and everything getting the wires out and we should spend some time defining the differences sure i'm just putting a pin in there for later yeah go on so on that level and of course arthur c clark uh a science fiction writer who had a science writing career and is pretty much the man who invented the concept of the communication satellite i mean that's a well-known fact so arthur c clark is hard sci-fi i would would call him very hard sci-fi, yes. Then, the other flip side of this coin is that this is a very experimental, Psychedelic.

Psychedelic, what does it all mean, man? It's about feelings. At the end of the day, we're all just like a baby floating in space, man. Yeah, I mean, there are huge chunks of the movie. I'm looking at myself and I'm old. And then I'm Emily O'Donnell. We're all just stars, man.

We're all just monkeys, man. We're all just monkeys, man. Non-narrative, just images floating around. Bone was the first tool, man. Bone was the first tool. That also has a penis thing. There's a whole thing about penises in this movie. And then also, who is to say that Hal isn't alive? Yes.

Right, right. Aren't we all just computers responding to stimuli man therefore i am yeah so there's that and then you fuse it with this like very technical sci-fi at a time perfect i'm 1968 apollo is right around the corner it's just like a perfect alignment to achieve escape velocity new and become a a sensation then like holy shit the chairs look really cool the computer readout fucking spaceships yeah the spacesuits the spacesuits the ibm think pad existing 25 years in advance all this cool stuff it's just a perfect thing that's been never been recreated never been touched again. Obviously, the sequel exists.

Clark wrote three sequels, which I have read and would love to talk about. We know we're going to get into all of this. We have to talk about it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. He got up to 3001, Ben. Did you know that? No, I did not know this.

That's the last book, 3001. The Final Odyssey. It's a hell of a book. And there's also elements of Clark's earlier work in this movie. And there's also a funny thing. Maybe now's the time to bring it up. Arthur Courageous Clark. That was his actual middle name.

No. It was. Check the dossier. It's Charles. I'm reading something different in the dossier. Arthur Charles Courageous Clark. He'd written a lot of short stories

or written a lot of science writing, but his first novel was a book called The Sands of Time, now dig this, this is really cool and I only discovered this for the first time a few months ago, when I read The Sands of Time Sands of Time was published in 1950 51, something like this, but he'd written it a few years earlier let's say he wrote it in 48, 47

something like this, just to correct you it's called The Sands of Mars, oh I'm sorry, The Sands of Mars it was published in 51 I think, published in 51 but it had been lingering for a few years, henson thing i don't know i think it is look it up sands of mars is a decent enough book and it's about um tale of sand is what you're thinking weird okay anyway it's a mars mars book mars book it's set on the first colony on mars it's sort of a government-run colony and um the the shtick is that the agency that runs the colony wants to send a well-known science fiction writer to the colony to experience

life on the colony and write about it so arthur c clark is writing ostensibly about himself the book they don't give the exact year of when it's set but if you do the math it's set around 2009 2010 now here's what's really funny in the book the guy that are the the narrator is a clark uh proxy is famous because he was a struggling science fiction writer who in the late 1960s early 1970s wrote a phenomenal runaway bestseller much much like 2001 A Space Odyssey, which came out in 68, which put him on the map and everybody loved. But the hardcore astronauts

think the guy's a fool because Sands of Mars takes place after the year in which this was supposed to take place. So it takes place in 2009, and the book was supposed to take place around 2001, and it's 2009, and the book was supposed to take place around 2001,

and it's like, ah, you got it all wrong. It wasn't like it actually is. And somehow Clark predicted this in 1950 when he wrote this, that he would write a book that would be a phenomenon that by the time time caught up to it, it would be like, we don't have space stations actually,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Remember when he beamed into the Oscars late in life? Arthur C. Clarke? Yeah. No, I don't remember this. Because he lived in Sri Lanka late in life, and he was into diving. He was even living in Sri Lanka at the time

that Kubrick reached out to him for this movie. He was gay. Ceylon at the time. He was gay and living in England when it was still illegal to be gay. And he and his lover, who was, I believe, Sri Lankan, moved to Sri Lanka. But he claimed that it was because the telescopes could see stars better. Sure.

Because they're at the equator. Sure, sure, sure. I'm sure there was a happy accident. Less light pollution over there. He just beamed into the Oscars late and very near his death. What year was this? He died in 2008. Huh?

What year was this? I think it was 2000 or 2001. And he truly looked like- looked i mean i hope it was 2001 it would that that must have been what it must have it was the 2000 oscars in 2000 that's why that's why and he truly straight up looked like dr evil because he was wearing like you know what i do remember he was wearing like a naru jacket you know he was bald and he was just like oh my god it's dr because i think he's like hello it's Dr. E. Because I think I see. He's like, hello, it's me, Arthur C. Clarke in 2001. Oh, ho, ho, ho.

And you were just like, you know, raising your pinky finger. I think I see 2001 right after that. I see it in the year 2001, I'm pretty sure. Wow. Well, it must have. I mean, it's a classic movie that you can basically see 2001 in the theater any year you want. It'll always be in a rep theater somewhere. I have been not able to find a screening these last three months.

I was just sort of like, here we go. Summer 2022. That's why I said year. I feel like it'll do it once a year. It plays fucking somewhere. Moving Image. Moving Image almost always does the 70 millimeter. And I was just like, haven't seen it on a big screen in like 21 years

would love to see it again perfect excuse for this podcast summer 2022 here we go let me keep my eyes and ears open for a 2001 screening I have not been able to find one well there was that Nolan release that happened recently that's the last really major one was that 2019 maybe it was the Damien Hirst release

we took the print he put in a jar full of piss right it was all it was what it was whatever it was the master i would imagine it was 2018 because it was the 50th anniversary i have a fun little story about that i know you do it for the listener at home they remastered the movie for what is now the base of the 4k print release digital copy that exists um but then nolan supervised this imax re-release large format re-release it was 2018 where he off of the base 4k restoration scanning demastered it to look the way he remembered seeing it at his local cinema as a child when the movie had been playing for like two or three years

he didn't want it to be like perfectly smooth it was like yellowed yeah yeah it was it was an interesting you could see it like in imax yeah and people were just like why does this look bad on purpose and they were like it's how nolan remembers it like we're brothers just he had such a blank check i don't know i saw it i thought it looked pretty cool what was it called like it was called his memory it was called like 2001 was it called? His Memory? It was called the Demastered. It was called Demastered. It was a great op.

I've seen it in 70 multiple times in a while. Not that vinyl isn't good, but it was that thing of, I want to hear all the little imperfections and the pops. Rather than a movie that is already regarded as the coldest, you know most sort of uh hermetic film ever made like just being presented

in beautiful clean you know 4k but it was this funny thing really leon vitale who just passed away and we'll talk about a lot in the barry lyndon episode uh they they knew that there was like a 4K release coming out on home video and digital after this Nolan branded IMAX re-release. Yeah. And they kept on going like, Vitaly, is the 4K Blu-ray gonna look like this? And he like couldn't say, good heavens, no. Because they didn't want to stomp on the toes of the Nolan thing.

He had to keep going like, I have overseen what to stop on the toes of the nolan thing right he had to keep going like i have overseen what will be on the disc and i think people will be happy with that they both look good and the and now in circulation if they're screening it it's it's like the proper version you know what's funny is that there's another 70 millimeter floating around that that moving image showed and there was a focus issue with it on night one, which I went, and this was actually kind of cool. The focus issue made itself known at the shot when the monolith first appears

and the apes are going ape, if you will. Shit. And so, but what was amazing, and if Eric Hines of the moving image is listening right now, he probably remembers, there was a little bit of a focus, like a, what do you want to call that? squirt a judder a judder sure a shutter right on the monolith so it felt like the monolith it was so cool to a guy who's seen the movie a million

times it was like the monolith was freaking out man and it was jumping out at me and i was like getting all weird and the apes the monkeys the crow mags whatever are like touching and freaking out and the monolith isn't what it's supposed to look like and i felt for me personally that it was the best time i'd seen it in a theater but the nolan one dig this in new york they showed it at village east which is a great theater yeah but in like not the most uh the neighborhood that's a little bit you know east village it's not like where where, you know, it's a real neighborhood where people live. It's on 2nd Avenue and 12th Street. And there's this one screen there that is like the one remaining great old sort of movie palace.

I mean, it's that and the Paris. Yeah. But this, I guess they now call it the Jaffe Art Theater. Do they give it a name now? They give it some special name now. Yeah, it used to be a Yiddish theater and there's Jewish stars stars right it's like it looks like an old opera house yeah it's a beautiful beautiful thing and they have a 70 millimeter projector there so they'll do whatever the new big releases that's playing there but they'll also do a lot of like 70 millimeter

screenings classic movie screenings there so dig this i go uh you know a couple days into the run i go to the 4 p.m screening and as i'm walking in the guy who's taking the tickets like check it out check it out i'm like what is it right there and i turn around behind me and i see like the door the door of a model i see the door of a town car close uh-huh and again this is not like fifth avenue this is like a neighborhood secondary and tall street and um it was steven spielberg was at the newton. Hey, that ain't bad. Cool. And like by himself.

And that's cool because he owns a print of 2001. And he's got a screening room. But he was like, you know what? I want to see Nolan's version. I want to see the 70. I want to see the Nolan thing. On Second Avenue by myself. He was there alone, the guy said.

He went and bought a ticket, sat for two hours and 40 minutes with the intermission. Yeah, and then got fucking pierogies of Veselka. No, and he probably dropped his bean right when he was supposed to, so the lights could really get him. I can feel it. Okay, okay, okay. I can feel it.

This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, and are given a series of blank checks

to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce. Baby, this is a miniseries on the films of Stanley Kubrick. It's called Pods Widecast. Sure is. Today we're talking 2001 A Space Odyssey. Famous movie.

More like 2001 A Good Movie. Wow. Texted that to the Doughboys at 3 a.m. You got a ha-ha. I got a ha-ha. You got a Weiger ha-ha. I got a Weiger ha-ha. Ha-ha.

I won't introduce our guest because he's already done it himself against my wishes. But I want to ask the Bean question because this speaks to why it felt like you were kind of the best guest for this. Aside from being like comedic potential, we felt, for what could be a stodgy episode. You've already represented this but half of this but you talk about the movie being bifurcated right between these weird like hard sci-fi and psychedelia right yeah yeah you're you're a person who kind of contains those two i mean i think of you as a scholar of sci-fi i love sci-fi but also you're you're a giant fish head i am into into fish. Yeah. Yeah.

And the fish covers. And the whole scene. Yeah, but I don't do drugs. I know you don't do drugs. Wait, what? I don't. From an expert opinion, for someone who exists in these worlds, is there a moment, like, is there a sync up moment where you're supposed to drop the bean, as it were? Yes.

A hundred percent. At the beginning of the movie? I don't know. No. No, no, no. Where are you supposed to drop it bean, as it were? Yes, 100%. At the beginning of the movie? I don't know. No, no, no, no. Where are you supposed to drop it so that it... I believe the idea is all... So that when you get to the end, the light show really hits.

My curiosity point is, there must be a moment that has been identified. I'm assuming you're thinking acid. Yes. I was thinking jelly beans. I believe that the classic thing was people were going in being like okay so you want to do acid

at this moment in the movie so it's going to really kick in when the light show starts what is the moment maybe the intermission it might be right after the intermission because the light show is what probably like half an hour into the second act.

Or whatever. Second act is 58 minutes with credits. It's usually about 30 minutes. So my guess is it would be like. When you come back from the intermission. Go walk around. Lights go down again. That's when you want to be.

You got to burn one down in the intermission. And the line is I can feel my brain is good. My mind is. What's the exact line? My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. And then. My mind is, what's the exact line? My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. And then the-

Oh, you mean what Hal's saying. What Hal says. What Hal says. Yeah. So fish sober? Yeah, I know. It's part of what makes me interesting, I suppose. Do you drink mead?

I, you know, the truth of the matter is I don't even drink alcohol at all. And that's not because of any... You're saying for Fisher in general? In general. Really? I have like two beers a year now. So the meat on Beowulf was like... That was a big deal.

Wow. I'll have a Heineken. Sure. Jordan, you are high on life. Wow. You truly are. You always have been as long as I've known you. And you just never felt like...

And ethnic food. Say again? You're high on life and ethnic food. You and I both love... Listen, I have my vices. Oh, no one's doubting that. I remember you would walk in... The truth, if you want to be...

It's just the three of us here. Nobody's listening. Please, there are four of us. One, two, three. I meant the three. Oh, the three. There the three of us here nobody's listening it's uh please there are four of us what one two I meant the three oh the three four of us in the room you're looking at three I mean I I used to drink like not like two like I never had a problem but I used to be like a guy let's get some beers man get wasted and drink a bunch of Heineken's I can see that I just don't do that anymore I can't say why maybe it's my because it hurts my tummy the next day and i take a terrible dump i don't know but um everyone read jordan's story about james cameron making

poop sometime you know people you know what's funny people get hangovers yeah i don't get hangovers i shit for a day and a half well we are similar in this way yeah you do not just for the shitting pretty much if i do anything if there's a strong gust of wind, I'll shit for a day. I remember, though, before I even really knew you, but you would come into Videology Trivia singing. Singing? I remember several times you walking into the background of Videology Trivia where we'd all show up early to get a good table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember at least once or twice you walking in, like, singing.

Talking about getting high on life. You'd just be, like, singing to yourself, but not, like, quietly quietly i was probably a really good song that was listening to in my head yeah i don't you know i don't really take drugs i mean i i i you know in college i did and well so i wrote this article did you read the article do you know that i'm the physical the james cameron article there was an article i wrote about my relationship with drugs panic attacks attacks in 2001, a space odyssey. Oh really? Yeah. So I did freshman year in college, take some drugs and I realized then it wasn't for me. Yeah. And I don't want to get into it too much. You can read the article. You can read it on Thrillist, I believe. Yeah. So like part of my relationship with panic attacks had to do with seeing the

movie 2001 very, very, very young because I was into sci-fi and i was in the video box looked awesome and my mother had seen um 2001 when it came out and my father got it confused by the way with the raquel welsh one million years bc sure look they're both years come on it's like oh yeah raquel welsh she's a doll. And my mother's like, now, now, now, you're confusing him. So we rented 2001 A Space Odyssey. And I wasn't that into it because I was like eight. And I'm expecting Star Wars. And it's not.

But I was watching it because it was still really cool, even on VHS for an eight-year-old. And then it got to the ending. And I had my baby's first panic attack. And I didn't know why. And my mother was like, why are you, my son, why are you freaking out? It's like the guy's in a hotel, you know, like it's not a nice hotel. Look, he's sitting in bed. He's an old man now. Uh, and I just, you know, the ending of this movie, which I think many people find disconcerting in a way that you can't put your finger on. That's it's such a fascinating ending it was a touch point of nightmares for me for years it didn't make sense

um and then this movie is frightening it's a deeply frightening music also that that georgie yeah so the ending of that movie was like you know some people some kids are afraid of jason or or freddy krueger i was um terrified of the ending of 2001 for reasons that I didn't know. And the movie was something that wasn't really something you could escape. For example, I'm a little kid and I would watch The Electric Company, I think it was. And they did a parody of 2001 A Space Odyssey. When I was a little older and getting into Monty Python they did 2001 A Space Odyssey parodies History of the World Part 1

History of the World Sleeper, Woody Allen's Sleeper the voice of Hal is in Sleeper and a lot of the look is 2001 so the movie never left me alone as I got older and I it sounds ridiculous I conquered my fear of

Stanley Kubrick 2001. No, it doesn't sound ridiculous. Those childhood things are bigger to surmount than like whatever. I also, I mean, I saw the movie a little older than you. I think I was 12, but like deeply, deeply upset by the ending. Yeah.

And then I think when it got to the baby, I was just like, what? Then I was just confused. But I remember the ending really, really un unnerving like him being an old man like that the sort of the entire nature of just like at the end of the universe there is a room and you just age right right and the whole vibe of it i was just like truly like this is my nightmare this is the scariest thing to imagine yeah it's scarier yeah. It's scarier than Jason and Freddy for some reason. Yeah. So what does it have to do with me being a freshman in college?

Yeah, so I did have a freak out. I'm a freshman in college. Hey, man, let's smoke a little grass, man, and listen to the Allman Brothers. Hey, that's cool. That's what we did. Fuck yeah, man. You know?

Sure, sure. I'm sorry, did you go to college in 1968? What's going on here? Hey, man, smoke a little tea. It's like Jordan in the year 2000. It's like, hey, man. Everyone else is like, I got to get to the Lower East Side. Or whatever.

Hey, man. Kate Moss is running a running. I went to NYU. Yeah, you went to NYU. I hung out in Paulette Goddard Hall. Sure. Jordan's wearing a bandana around his neck like he's one of ned flander's parents also as he's as he's miming

smoking a tie stick he's a real fat tire man i mean he's taking us on the way to cubesville it's like one ben loves ned's parents so much it's one of your favorite simpsons bits it's kind of one of the greatest bits in all of comedy and It's so funny. And the fact that they take like eight seasons before they get to that or whatever it is. Do they ever show up again? They show up a couple times. It's a couple times. There's a long runway before their first reveal. That's true.

They're so deep in on the Flanders thing. So you're smoking some grass in NYU. And you do say there's this new thing there's called lysergic definitely not a new thing 25 man take your bicycle ride take your magic carpet ride and um i had some good experiences and i had a particularly bad experience and yeah bad trips are rough the bad experience um reminded me of and then i had my 2000 like for some reason i was like oh i'm trapped in the movie right back there yeah ben have you had bad trips on acid and then I had my 2000, like, for some reason, I was like, oh, I'm trapped in the movie. You're right back there. Ben, have you had bad trips on acid and then

been like, well, what are you going to do, and just kept rolling with, like, because, like, I feel like if I had a bad trip on acid, I'd be like, alright, acid's going in the drawer. The whole reason I don't do drugs either is just the panic attack thing of just like, they, they... You were just kind of like, eh, what are you going to do? I mean...

You ride it out. You ride it out. You ride it out. I'm a mind warrior, man. What can I say? Well, and there's a new nickname put on your list. There's a thing in the psychedelic community, to which I am adjacent to, being a fish fanatic, even though I don't do drugs, called set and setting, man.

Yeah. And the problem I now realize with hindsight is that i was with some uncool people yeah and the vibes were not right and there was a guy in the room who doesn't set and setting i like that was a bit of a prick and i should not have been in a position of emotional um vulnerability vulnerability around this one guy he was this british guy whatever who cares who he was um but he was a he was not a nice person. And it was whatever. So the point is, Stanley Kubrick was a Jew from New York.

From the Bronx. Arthur C. Clarke was a gay British man. And this movie is actually very, very funny if you know where to look. Yeah. Yes. Look, we've been. I don't know why he's clapping. Because he nailed it episode over thank you all

for listening we've been recording this miniseries wildly out of order i feel like more out of order than a little more out of order not out of not compared to our long ago past where we really didn't give a shit no but more than we have in the last couple we try to be more chronological right even a little out of so i if if the evolution of my kubrick opinions feels uh out of whack out of order in listening to this it's because it's in the order i'm re-watching these movies sure where i feel like there are certain episodes where i'm saying like well obviously kubrick doesn't have a sense of humor and that was before i've re-watched some other films i felt this but now that i fully come around to like, Oh, Kubrick was funny.

Like he's putting comedy into all of his films. Yeah. I did. This is the movie that I always thought of maybe as being the least funny, not to a fault, but, uh, it's the lightest on dialogue.

So, but I do agree with you that watching it this time, I was really funny. Hell's funny. he's dry though he's like a joe pera he's like a great deadpan right right okay look i want to yeah when did you so you're saying you first saw it i saw 12 2001 my mother took me to a re-release i saw in the theater i saw in theaters i was pretty perplexed i I mean, it was a thing of, you know, my mother is a woman of the arts,

you know, and was always trying to expose me to more sophisticated things. And so it was just the thing. You love movies. You love sci-fi. You love Star Wars. You need to see 2001.

This is important. Sure. It was, you know, I was never kicking and screaming really about going to see a movie This is important. Sure. It was, you know, I was never kicking and screaming really about going to see a movie, but it was very much a thing that was like, I'm telling you this is important. This is like educational.

And I was largely perplexed by it. It was one of those things where I was just kind of like, I don't, not like this doesn't make sense to me, but I'm just like, what is the value of this thing? Explain this to me. And it's odd. I don't think I had seen it in full since then. What?

But it was wildly a movie where I just remembered every line, every shot, every image, every beat, even though I've only seen it once in theaters 20 plus years ago. And in my mind's eye i'm just like well masterpiece obviously like it's one of those movies i never revisited it sticks to the ribs i mean it really is and i was able to totally re-evaluate it in my head without re-watching it and then watching it this time i was like yeah correct great 10 out of 10 masterpiece but as as a kid i think i was so i was a very literal minded kid and so i think the last 20, 30 minutes in particular, just like totally I went like,

you need to explain this to me. Sure. And up until then, just the movie is so methodical, so slow, where it's just like, if you've seen Star Wars before you've seen 2001, and I was at maybe the wrong developmental stage in terms of not quite having the intellect to totally

grapple with it yet I was just like why is this movie taking 15 minutes to open a door that's the problem with me as a kid I undiagnosed ADD I was just like something's gotta happen my dad I remember him

cause your dad's a big sci-fi guy and he's kind of a hard sci-fi guy. Yes. Yes, exactly. So this was like a really big moment for us. I don't remember exactly. How old were you? Eight or seven.

Yeah, you're probably a little young. Yeah. And sits me down, and I couldn't do more than 15. Or maybe I made it through the monkey section, because the monkey section is kind of fun. Monkey section is fun. But once we get to space, I just remember I was like, I just could not pay attention. It's very, i remember you watch it like in chunks maybe like you would know it was just like i gotta go i'm out right yeah and then came back to it later

well you know it's funny my my wife had never seen it and you know i had the dvd or maybe even the blu-ray and i was like let's just like you gotta watch it and she had trouble watching at home and she did fall asleep and then i dragged her to see it at a screening she's like oh my god it's in a theater obviously it's sort of a special have you ever seen a theater ben yeah yeah yeah i saw it at uh village east yeah a few years back i'll say this too like i because my memory was as a kid like this is taking forever like everything in this movie tap in the watch right even when things were like happening why is it all happening so slowly um re-watching this i found it a surprisingly brisk watch i find this movie weirdly kind of like it moves faster than i remembered it

moving as much as it is very patient and slow and methodical and process driven and every single thing it does yeah it didn't feel laborious because it's always beautiful like even when it's even if it's just like the pod slowly getting frank pool's body yeah it just is gorgeous to look at it's so did you watch it on hbo max just the other night i got the i got i got a 4k steel book you got the steel book i got a 4k steel book titans got the steelbook, yeah. I got a 4K steelbook, Titans of Colt UK import. Well, I watched it last night on Homebox Office Maximum, and it looked great. It does.

I actually peeked on that because I wanted to rewatch a clip. Hey, man, it's good on HBO Max. It's truly an immaculate restoration without looking artificially cleaned up. 100%. I am similar to ben and that my dad loved this movie more than almost any movie so when he showed it to me too young yeah not that i had a problem with it but like like you but like he clearly was just kind of like i don't know you're you're probably old enough to handle this like he was just desperate to show it to me and i

think i made it at seven all the way through i liked how the hell story was compelling to me yeah because it's like, that's something a kid can get. Like the robots turned bad. They have to get the... And then I think after that, my dad was sort of like, okay. The rest is not going to work for you. Which is weird, because there's nothing scary

in it. It's just lights. I think he just thought I would complete his own. Or just not get it. Seeing in theaters, there was intermission we walked out and i had to like check in with my mom afterwards i was like so now the plot starts like the the structure of this movie is so strange and the placement of the intermission the way there's two and a half hours which is long but usually intermission is like this is now the third movie we've covered with an intermission this year, right?

Sure. And the other two are like three hours plus. Yeah, it's a short movie for an intermission. It's a short movie for an intermission. Wait, what's the other one? Spartacus and what? Sweet Charity has an intermission. Sure does. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And so does Barry Lyndon. We're getting to that. Yeah, well, that's a long-ass movie. Right. But the intermission comes at the moment where the plot kicks into gear. Kind of, yeah. intermission comes at the moment where like the plot kicks into gear yeah like the whole movie is set up and then at the end of like two hours an hour and a half the movie says like and now here's the conflict i think the real finally something is the best intermission break of all it's the actual cut it's the it's it's how's watching no it's how's watching them talk the

lip sync oh okay they have their whole conversation and then they cut to how's pov of their lips moving and then it goes to shit yeah it's it's yeah bowman says incredible tune of you know i don't think i how i don't think a 9 000 series has ever been uh dismantled before and i don't know how he'll take it cut to how's pov and you realize how's watching him oh shit and it's like oh a story plot there's a concrete only little bit of story before that is the you know the with the russians the clavius base uh he's lying about the you know that's the monolith itself but it's so abstract we're just like i've watched it drive a couple different creatures crazy yeah and or destroy them but like right and you can but you're but

you're so overwhelmed by the look even today i mean now you look at it from a retro future point of view yeah but to see it in 1968 to see the when he's on the moon base he's making the video call and all that stuff it's like so overwhelming to look at you can understand wanting to keep it plot light because absolutely it's just all in the in the imagery and in just the world building, to use that annoying expression. I mean, I remember my mom saying to me, when I was like, why is this so fucking slow

as a dumb, dumb 12-year-old, right? And she was like, you have to understand, people hadn't seen these things on screen or they hadn't seen them done this well or feel this real and tangible. So there was a lot of mileage out of just putting this stuff up that was thrilling to people right and also star wars hadn't come out no sci-fi movie moved fast right right that's true all space was slow basically you know and even when you

watch films that are not hard sci-fi like forbidden planet or something they are slower moving movies like that was the big in a way arguably the single most pioneering element of star wars was lucas being like we can move fucking fast yeah we don't have to everything in space doesn't have to be sort of floaty freeform silence whatever um but watching it now i was sort of like expecting to through the prism go like I now appreciate understand why this film is so slow because of value it had at the time I was saying this was to an audience and now I'm like no this is still captivating

yeah captivating is a really good way viewing it from the mind's eye of what if I was watching this in the 60s these days for me it's like if a movie looks good and 2001 is like the best looking movie I'm like yeah I'll look at this yeah I'll fucking yeah it's great I'm like, yeah, I'll look at this. Yeah, I'll fucking. Yeah, it's great. I'm not bored.

Every shot is gorgeous. And like, you know, the influence it's had on design over the years is still being felt. I mean. Wouldn't it be funny if there was one really bad shot in this movie? That's hilarious. Or there's just like someone with toilet paper on their boots. Yeah, exactly. Or Bowman kind of going like.

One shot in 2001 was done on an iPhone. Can you guess which one? You're right. There is one. That's a really good point. There's no clam. There's no raw note. Visually. There's absolutely nothing. He also makes someone walking

through the door. You're like, well, this is magisterial. Yeah, she's going upside down to deliver the Seabrook Farms pureed spinach. She sure is. This movie has like 15abrook Farms pureed spinach. This movie has 15 minutes of Skype and it's pretty compelling. I love that of all the product

placement, it's brands that are IBM and Pan Am. Big, big brands. And then Seabrook Farms spinach. Oh my god, yes. I know know, big, big brands. And then Seabrook Farms spinach. Oh my God, yes. I know I wrote down Howard Johnson.

Yeah, Howard Johnson. It's hot stuff back then. But it is funny, like, after this, there's a wave of imitators, right? And they, like, slow it down. And they're, like, really in love with their own effects. And then even post-Star Wars, the post-Star Wars boom of sci-fi movies

from the studios bear more resemblance to this than to Star Wars. Black Hole, Alien, Star Trek 1, you know? But the things even like... 2069, A Sex Odyssey. Of course. It actually is very influenced by this film. The things leading up to this, like Silent Running, Capricorn 1, and all these sorts of things,

they're all slower. And we talked about Black Hole in a recent episode where I'm like, the look of that movie is incredible. The vibes are amazing. I've never been able to watch it without falling asleep. It's very boring. I've never made it to the end. Every time I watch it, I'm like, this thing... At the end, they fall into the black hole. They're kind of like...

It feels so incredible. How is this not viewed as a masterpiece? And then 20 minutes later, you're like, this is why, because I'm asleep. I'm asleep. I'm dreaming about... Black Hole is also one of those things where you're like, the vibes, as you say, are immaculate, and the design is good, and then there are later you're like this is why because i'm asleep i'm asleep i'm dreaming about also one of those things where you're like the vibes as you say are immaculate and the design is good and then there are the two disney robots with faces and that's a thing where it's like that's what i'm saying about you that like imagine if those guys were in 2001 yeah no it's like a floating robot with a face but like all these other things like you know i you love star trek the motion picture i do i you do as well i watched it for the first time for this podcast i enjoyed it a lot i recognize it's not for everyone the slowness of that film feels more

self-indulgent that this does and that is 10 years after this right like every other movie that tries to do this afterwards you're like can't do it're like, this, the image is actually horrible. I love the slowness of motion picture. Yeah. I do too. But we're not normal. Maybe we're not normal. But I also think it's not that that movie is profoundly slower. It's that Kirk and Spock are there and you're kind of like, why aren't Kirk and Spock doing anything?

Why are they just sitting and watching this? Stop looking at V'ger. But also, and once again, I like the film as well. All right, all right. It's a movie where it's like Robert Wise is just kind of like blown away by the effects, right? That's the most expensive movie ever made up until that point in time. And he's just like, we fucking paid for this shit. We should show as much of it as we can.

Whereas 2001, there's this bizarre, the Kubrick control thing. Yeah. Where you're like, what is it about every single image in this movie that just kind of like has you gripped in an uneasy sort of like fascination. What's also interesting of course, is that there is another cut that none of us will see the debut of the premiere of the film, which was in DC had 11 and a half minutes more or something that Kubrick cut

after the first showing. Yeah. And there's also a prologue that I believe was shot but then thrown away of all the interview stuff. Yeah, they tacked it onto Lord of the Rings, actually. It was just that. It's one of the endings. There's a prologue of where Kubrick interviewed

celebrated people in the sciences, including Carl Sagan, who actually hated, who disliked the experience. Yeah. He and Cooper clashed. But what will life be like in 2001? And then these eggheads said, well, in 2001...

To try to contextualize the movie is like, this is legit. We talk to real people. Pretty much, yeah. It's like, well, in 2001, we shall all use computer terminals and it will be marvelous for education. Jeez, light my fire.

I think it was even shot in black and white or something. Of course, the great book for anybody who's interested in 2001, one of the great making of books is Michael Benson? George Benson? No, George Benson's a singer. Michael Benson's book on 2001

is... It's called Space Odyssey. Yeah, it's a phenomenal book. It's also like Michael Benson's book on 2001 is it's called Space Odyssey it's a phenomenal book it's also like it's everything it's all in there it's a very definitive it's definitive it's a soup to nuts from the first meeting of Clark and Kubrick to the premiere

which Clark didn't really dig the premiere and there was Clark and Kubrick have clashed over the years but then both realized that they were good for one another um and of course clark wrote three sequels and was involved in 2010 and wrote a really fun book called a 2010 odyssey file about the making of 2010 and what i love about that because that book came out like 83 or whenever 2010 the year we made contact came out uh it includes peter hyams as director of 2010 and it includes his correspondence with hyams and it was

done through electronic mail oh wow and it has and the first one so the chapter that introduces it is like first i will explain to you email Email. You've heard of mail? This is email. And there's like five pages that are just a chain letter. Forward, forward, forward, forward, forward. So that's cool stuff. It's cool stuff. That's wild. Yeah.

So what's your, do you think, Griffin, will artificial intelligence eventually become sentient? Will it have rights? Do you think a robot or a computer system like HAL can become so intelligent that to deny it rights would be immoral? Well, Griffin? You're asking a couple different questions here. Yeah. Well, Griffin? You're asking a couple different questions here.

Yeah. I think we will reach a point where that level of intelligence and independent thought, as it were, you know, maybe even a semblance of feelings are achieved and it would be immoral to deny them rights. My question is, do we ever grant them rights? Ah. be immoral to deny them rights my question is do we ever grant them rights ah in a time where uh our government a large uh segment of the population still feels obsessed with uh denying the rights and existence of many types of human beings i understand what you're saying i i wonder i wonder but it's like i mean even just look the last fucking six months you watch the arc of these ai art generation bots yeah it is wild you watch how quickly they've been like iterating and how much it's gone from being this weird thing of like how weird these robots don't understand the prompts we're giving them and they're like pulling weird

google images and making these bizarre nightmare images to now just being like that looks pretty good exactly yeah that looks pretty good it Exactly. Yeah. That looks pretty good. It's the ultimate joke of this movie too, which is just Kubrick, like recognizing the folly of like, you're really going to create a thing. Yeah. With the sort of intent of it taking care of us and,

and being able to sort of like oversee us at a level of intelligence and expect that it won't eventually realize that you are in fact the problem that you are the bottleneck that you are the thing that is preventing perfection that you have assigned it to identify one of the great questions of 2001 is what what does first of all does how malfunction or is he faking it right and if he's faking it why is he faking it because he was maybe programmed to fake it right why would he have been programmed to fake it we can get into it i want to get into it i want to open that door i want to rotate you want to open let me let me just leave that door jar okay give you a little doors open let's let's just roll back slightly

on why this movie was even made um post dr strange the dossier. Post-Doctor Strangelove. Sci-fi is pretty hot. Getting hotter, I would say, as a genre in general. But it's a lot of fantastic voyage-y sort of sci-fi. Sure. Good movie. It is a good movie. Fun movie.

And Artie Shaw, who's a jazz musician. You love jazz. I love it as much as fish. And a pal of Stan's. Name of my dead therapist why don't you read arthur c clark's books he's the best one he's the best sci-fi writer there is he gives in the book childhood's end kubrick does this kind of classic thing he's done many times and will continue to do many times after here where he's like no one's ever made a good

version of this movie right i want to make the one good one um and uh he reads childhood zandy likes it he's like maybe i'll do this but someone has the right so he's kind of like yeah at some point he sits down with roger caris who's at columbia at that point and he's like i'm kind of looking for a novelist i could collaborate with on a sci-fi movie and that guy also says why waste your time just do the you work with the best arthur c clark yeah stop thinking but kubrick is like doesn't that guy live in sri lanka isn't he a wacko you know like that is the fear with our city because already then he's already like you said he's already gone and they start uh writing letters and as you say griff his letter is i've wanted to discuss with

you the possibility of doing the proverbial really good science fiction movie. That's the famous line you always hear about his genesis of this movie What if it was a good one? Right, yeah. Really good. Really good. The proverbial really good science fiction movie. But I think it's the combination of him being like, no one has done the diamond hard sci-fi film

the intelligent sci-fi film done at a level and also executed the effects and the aesthetics at a level and also executed the effects and the aesthetics at a level he screened every sci-fi movie he could find and there were some that he liked, that he admired he admired the Czech film Ikari XB1

which people have got to see it's out, Ikari XB1, for a while it was a hard movie to find, now the DVD is out there. I think, I forget which company put it out. But yeah, he never saw a science fiction movie that he thought really clicked.

The combination of getting right the technology, the resources, the ideas, the versamilitude, he just felt like, yeah, there's a film that no one has made or been able to make um yeah um he likes the short story the sentinel that clark wrote so that's what they're obviously going off of the book 2001 is written for the movie basically i did read it they wrote it simultaneously so but it's going off, drafting off of the Sentinel. Well, the Sentinel sort of had the germ of the idea.

It's got a monolith-y thing. It's got a monolith-y thing. I think it was a pyramid in that. So while they're making, while they're doing pre-production in London, building the moon landing and all that, Clark is at the Chelsea Hotel banging away at his keyboard.

And he was having a whole, his life was an interesting life and if you read the benson book um his uh boyfriend at the time was i was in sri lanka making films of like like undersea films or whatever scuba films and um taking all of arthur c clark's cash. So Arthur C. Clarke was like a vagabond living at the Chelsea Hotel, writing 2001 at the same time the sets are being built. And they kind of were on the same page, but there are some differences.

And they did disagree on some things. The details are complicated, but it was sort of like, Kubrick saw this was a guy who didn't, had no experience writing in the script format. Kubrick also was kind of agnostic about screenplays. Yeah. Where he was just like, the ideas are more important. This format is unimportant. I want to iterate ideas sort of organically until they get to the place I want them to. So he sort of encouraged Clark to write

it in novel form, write it as prose. And then he was sort of like, I can adapt this into a screenplay as you're writing it. There's sort of questions as to whether Kubrick was responsible for any of the prose in the novel and or if Clark was responsible for any of the actual screenplay. But the two of them were being done in tandem and this was sort of the root of their rift was that the movie was kind of held hostage by the book and vice versa where like weird way to do it kubrick is there's no there's very little few parallels to the way they wrote he's taking prose and then going to trumbull and art directors and people and going like what can we build around this and then clark is saying like you need to tell me what you're doing on the movie because i can't release a book that is so

different from the film so he's waiting to hear back what kubrick has done so he can rewrite the book and there was this fight about when the book could be published in relation to the movie because also clark like needed the fucking money yeah he's also sold the like this book yeah well it actually worked out clark wanted the book to come out first and i think he was he he should be glad that it didn't because the movie of course is very ambiguous and everybody's like what the fuck did i just see and then the book comes out and people were like this people went and bought the book and it was the screen ran ending explained of its time. Well, that's a little rough,

but there is some truth to that. I'm being facetious. There are some elements of the movie that can leave you scratching your head that are explained in the book. Yes. For example. The book is a little more straightforward.

For example, like the room that they're in. It's like a human zoo. Yeah, it's a human zoo. The aliens created it for him thinking that it was supposed to be a hotel room it actually is supposed to be a hotel room it's why the ending of ai being considered a spielberg thing has always amused me so much because i'm like the ending of ai is so similar to the ending of 2001 is like at the end it's the far future and aliens or in AI, it's robots are like, it will make you a, you know, come on. This isn't like your life.

Look, nice room for you to be in. It's also the thing I love about both these endings and why I find them so unnerving and upsetting is like you have a basically normal looking set that through the context of what you built up in that film feels terrifying. Yeah. Like that room on its own is not really scary. In the same way that the AI bedrooms. But there's just something so incongruous about the furniture and the floor. And like, it's so spooky.

But also just editing, you're like, we've moved past me feeling comfortable seeing a room like this. That now cutting to this set feels terrifying. You know, AI, you're going back to the same sets you've seen the whole movie in the first like act but now it's just like why is this happening this far in the future you know it's funny you mentioned the editing because the and we were talking for a while now about how 2001 is

kind of slow the there are editing choices in this film that are just so that are so jarring and there's a couple of them specifically for example example, when they go down on the moon, on Tycho, when they walk down into where the monolith is, it goes handheld. And the movie has been classic Kubrick up to this point. Everything is locked off, square, very symmetrical, hyper-stylized. And then it's documentary style for like 90 seconds and then that weird sound happens it's so freaky it freaks you the hell out because you're not used to there's even lens flare while they're walking down the staircase it's this wild back pocket thing of kubrick's past as a documentary filmmaker photojournalist that he'll like whip out as a secret weapon in

these very controlled movies. And it becomes that much more unnerving where you're like, why is the camera doing this? You've established rules and now you're breaking them. Exactly, yeah. And now we're in. And then also, there's some dissolves. Right before Beyond the Infinite, when

Floyd is talking, and then it dissolves. And there's also another dissolve when he comes back in the ship. He's about to kill. He's about to kill Hal. And it's a shining shot. Yeah. Because he's looking. You almost see the axe.

You know, he's kind of the face is right in the camera and the shot from below. And it's handheld again. And then, of course, the craziest use of editing is when Hal kills Poole. The cut, cut, cut, cut. Yeah. On the eye. You know, or whatever it is that Hal can see. His face. Those unusual

edits are just like, it just grabs you by the throat. Not to mention, I mean, the bone match cut. Oh, yeah. Which is like, so much less precise than you remember it being, but it's so evocative. Well, and just the switch in sound and the switch in movement

from something uncontrolled you know the bonus like to this like very control and also it's a bone so so here's something else that i didn't know until reading the book or reading about it year to year i'm wearing a bones hat you are wearing a bunch of the maybe you guys put it together but the cut for years i thought it was like the bone is a tool you throw it up in the air you cut forward in time and it shows spaceships look at what man has achieved but specifically those first images you see in space those are nuclear weapons um i'd never knew this until i read about this kind of recently and apparently if you look really close there are flags on there there's a chinese

flag chinese army flag and stuff so it's supposed to be like weapons of the past weapons of the future and there's supposed to be a ring of nuclear bases you know pointing their weapons down at earth that's what those first shots are before you see the pan am jet going to the the the space station and then at the end when the star child comes at the end you don't see those weapons anymore. And in the book, in the screen rant conclusion, the Starchild disarms Earth. They thought of doing that in the movie, and they thought it would be too goofy. It is a little goofy. It's a little goofy.

But did you guys catch that those were weapons in orbit? No, I didn't. I never knew that. I watched the movie 25 years later is when I found this out. Because it's not mentioned. I don't know. It's hard to know. Because also, how would we know the difference between that and spaceships they all kind of look the same

exactly so kubrick fucked up all right i want to talk about bones a little bit but first you know okay he got he gets whatever they make this script in this very strange way they go to mgm mgm gives them money six million dollars hey that's a decent amount of money to make a movie absolutely um the chunk of change but it's gonna be called journey beyond the stars not a great title it's kind of a boring title it's all right they landed on a good title i would say it wasn't there also a how the galaxy was one was how the solar system was one i think that that was even half joking yeah yeah they were when they were trying to figure out what it would be about yeah it was going to be kind of about this colonization of space or something i was surprised though reading the quotes for how deliberate this movie

is that everyone was like he was just kind of making it up as he went along as much as like part of it is that the book the source material is being generated in real time as they're prepping the movie because there's 22 months in total from when he reaches out to arthur c clark and is like what if we tried to write something together to the movie coming out yeah and most of that time is production yeah so he's really like building it well the script's probably what 10 pages long on its feet yeah you know scene one the sun rises all right scene two some monkeys bash around all right we're moving on are like i'd never worked like this before we'd come in and

be like i don't know something like this and they're like what's the scene what's the deadline when are we shooting this and he's which is what's so amazing because and part of what the fascination this film has for me i mean i've now that i've been i'm a little older and i've been around the movie biz for i know how the sausage is made. I still believe in my heart of hearts that if I watch 2001 enough times, I will come away with some deep, resonant understanding about the universe. Like I believe the secrets of life

are locked in this film. I know it sounds really corny and I sound like some of the wackos from Room 237, but if there's ever a movie where I feel like there is the answers to life the universe and everything it's somehow in this film i think that movie is also the reason why kubrick has that weird mythology godlike sort of i mean i don't think people would invest as

much into the shining if this movie didn't exist because it does feel like this is a movie made by someone who knows everything and isn't telling us. Exactly. And then, and then the more you read about the production, it was like a little bit of like, just chaos. It's like one of the fucking modern mission impossible movies. It's like where McQuarrie is like, I don't know, give me like four locations and we'll write scenes on the day.

A hundred percent. Cause like when they're shooting Kubrick's like, what if they went to Saturn instead of Jupiter? And they're like, Saturn, that's just got to paint the rings. What are we going to do? And Kubrick's like, I don't know, give it? And they're like, Saturn? What the fuck are you talking about? We're going to have to paint the rings? What are we going to do? And Kubrick's like, I don't know, give it a shot.

And like, you know, it's a total disaster and they have to switch back to Jupiter and all that. For a guy whose movies are so precise, he was a bit of a mess. I mean, originally when they were working on the script, they would work in his apartment in Manhattan. And in the Michael Benson book, they talk about how Clark couldn't handle it

because his kids were running around. He was a big, loud, gregarious New York Jew. People think of Kubrick as being British because he lived in England his whole life. But he talked like this. He was like, I don't know. It's so funny when you watch the interviews with him and he's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, he's a wonderful puzzle and enigma. There's a quote from one of his daughters in the dossier about how he'd always throw these dinner parties for his cast and crew that was like his way of understanding how to reach out to people and connect to them because he was by all accounts not a very conventionally

social guy and that he liked being a host and everything but they weren't these like sort of lavish like Wes Anderson eating at the finest restaurant dinner parties. His daughter was like, I think my father always had this secret dream of being a short order cook. And you hear about these dinner parties, and they sound like the fucking rats working in the kitchen

in Muppets Take Manhattan. He liked the chaos of flipping six things over, and the kids running around and yelling and all that sort of shit. And like, and then hosting everyone that way. They also said, uh,

he, he would like go to sleep at three o'clock in the morning, wake up at three o'clock in the afternoon. Like, wow. All this sort of meticulous, refined warlock sort of shit is just like, yeah,

it does seem like he was. I thought, I thought what you said was wrong. And I'm okay. So the production kicks off 21 months after production starts sorry sorry he starts working on the script sorry uh and it was budgeted for five but it cost 12 yes so it went way over budget uh the production was massive you know cameras would be shooting on describe what's described as a 24-hour shift so i guess people are

like coming in and out to operate the cameras uh you know like i said there's like 200 special effects which is completely unheard of for a movie in 1968 so they have to figure out every single step of that in advance but then kubrick is throwing things at them to change it. It is crazy. Like, it's just what you guys were saying. It's just crazy that this movie, which feels so tightly controlled, was not. But they're kind of inventing everything when they make this movie, right?

They're inventing special effects. Certainly in terms of, yeah, process and everything. I think it's important to remember, like, there are shots in this movie that you don't even think about that are just, like, of screens, of just, like, of just like digital like those are not

those are not computer generated images those are all hand painted or hand created because it didn't exist back then you know the technology now like even in like Star Trek 2 those images are all hand done you know what's the movie is it coma is the one that has the CGI hand on a screen

that's the first CGI in a movie ever coma is the first that has the cgi hand on a screen that's the first cgi in a movie that's right coma is the first cgi movie sounds like some trivia really it's michael douglas catmull scanned his hand and made it into a wireframe image and like someone bought it for like 25 000 and that's the first cgi image and like then star wars has the one screen where like general dadana is showing like the wireframe. Right. That's 10 years away being able to even do that. As you said, every time there's like what looks like a computer generated wireframe

image in this movie, it is a painted thing. Yeah. And there are a lot of them. A lot of them. Yeah. It's like anime. It's like traditional animation. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, just think about the first shot on the Discovery. It's a pool going sideways, going around the perimeter, the equator of the screen, if you will, taking a jog with the camera locked down. I don't think there'd ever been a shot like that. And the reason why it's held for so long

is because audience members would just be gasping, like, what am I seeing? How are they doing this? It's trite to say it, but it looks good now. Trite! Trite card. There's nothing improvable about it.

Even watching it today, I'm like, I don't know if there's a movie that, a sci-fi movie that looks more real to me than this. And I can read about and watch and study all the process things and hear the explanation of how it was done. But when I'm watching it, I'm like, no, this just feels like

it was really shot in space. I understand what the tricks are more so than any other. Right, but it still looks like they were in space. It just looks, well, the answer is they went to space. Man, the design aesthetic, like the VFX, or I guess I'm calling them VFX,

they're painted but whatever but like even the font yeah it still looks so like not even contemporary ahead of its time what is the font if the font was comic sans would this movie not even have a legacy it would take me out the font really is i mean on the zero gravity toilet shot i mean i think hell's malfunctioning. Why do you say that? He's speaking in wingdings. That would be good.

You know, it's funny that we're talking about this movie. Black square triangle, bird. I don't know. What are some wingdings? Airplane. We talk about hard sci-fi. There is the, you know, America was not ready for the zero gravity toilet, but Kubrick gave it to them anyhow. Kubrick gave it to them.

Now, here's the question about. That also feels like, that's a little, like, here's a question about... That also feels like... That's a little, like... There's a little sly humor in that. Yeah, I'm going to wink. Oh, for sure. But it's also fairly provocative to put a toilet in a movie.

If an astronaut, like, goes and talks to a high school, what's the first question? Oh, my God. How do you pee in space? How do you go to the bathroom in space? How do you make? You know?

Yeah, because I want to know, how does it work? It's like a suction device, because you got gravity issue. Okay, so here, this is part of my thing. Gravity is your it work it's like a suction device because you got gravity this is part of my thing in the instructions it's like number 5 hold on to your nuts do you know what I mean

yeah exactly I mean you've seen For All Mankind I'm obsessed with For All Mankind wonderful show I think you'd like it the show no I've not seen the show. The movie's obviously good. The movie's good too.

The classic documentary is a masterpiece. And that has a thing, not to spoil, but it's early in For All Mankind. Part of the idea is what if the Russians won the space race and we stayed in it, right? Or the Russians beat us to the moon and so the space race continued. And one of the early things that happens is they're like, okay, well, let's on the moon like you know we gotta let we'll just try and beat them anywhere we can and they're getting a woman in there uh into one of the apollos and then they're like shit she's gonna have to pee we didn't think of this yeah like because we haven't invented that yet like it's a whole it's a whole storyline cool anyway you know stuff like that happens

great show yeah anyway zero gravity, Zero Gravity Toilets. Look, a big thing that's interesting about 2001, and I think you'll all agree, is for a movie to have this kind of a budget, you know,

Kubrick is a big director. It has no stars. No stars. No, barely identifiable actors. We'd say it has a galaxy of stars. Well, that's true.

It's full of stars. But, you know, he's not hitching an actor off of david and lisa correct which was sort of an indie an early american indie breakout yeah but it's maybe equivalent to like if christopher nolan cast like the other guy from primer as batman exactly right right and like obviously this is not an actor's picture like it's not like there are roles for actors that are absolutely outrageously juicy sure but you would

think like oh i you know okay i'll help the studio you know we'll get a name especially what's haywood the sort of early fake out lead the sort of would flood yeah the guy who plays floyd i don't even know his name is william sylvester obviously he's best known for his role as dr haywood floyd 2001 though who plays bowman he's no he plays pool he's pool he's pool i apologize yeah gary well you like gary lockwood because he's in he's in star trek had a great has had a great kind of journeyman actor career but actually you're right cure delay is is um is really damn good in this his his phenomenal his scene work if you will with hal um they're both everything everyone's really good you can't

read what he's thinking you know he's like no you know and that scene the really the only real scene in the movie as a traditional like acting moment is when hal is slyly doing the psychological test on him and they're playing games a little bit you can't read his face and then hal has his moment of of you know does he have a malfunction it was just a moment just a moment yeah you know which is so scary um and that's a key thing like what is going what really is going on here like yeah breaks down dave and lisa which is this like small sort of like searing relationship drama set in a funny farm if i may use that expression yeah yeah it was almost like is that is that a politically insensitive term now funny farm i don't know but it's like almost like... Is that a politically insensitive term now? Funny form? I don't know. But it's like,

almost like a mumblecore movie of it. It's sort of a post-Cassavetes kind of like, oh, this is raw. This is real people communicating with each other kind of thing, tonally. To put him in this is odd. He's mostly a theater actor. He does a run of movies after this.

But then, like, pretty much by the 70s, he's like, I don't like movies. I'm going back to theater. And he, like, does 2010. He is in 2010. He'll occasionally pop up in something.s he's like i don't like movies i'm going back to theater and he like does 2010 he's in 2010 he'll occasionally pop up in something but he's basically like i went back to theater that's what i like i don't really like film acting this is such a film acting performance yeah it's like this well maybe he really got his rocks off here and that was that yeah it's sort of surprising because it's like not only does he have so little dialogue but it's mostly like close-ups being held for two minutes that are just watching this guy think in stillness.

Right. You know, it is like such a sort of technical performance. Yeah. And as you said, he's mostly acting off of nothing. Yeah. It's bizarre, but he's phenomenal in it. I just think, yeah, it's what you said, David. Like, you're surprised that they almost

didn't make him go like have george c scott play haywood right like can we just get the unknown guy right this is for the fake out lead the elder statesman at the beginning get someone who's fucking been nominated for an oscar this is a fun i a little tidbit here that kubrick would throw a lot of dinners obviously this movie shot in's shot in England, classic Kubrick convincing the studio to let him, essentially. I've been location scouting, and I think the English countryside's the only thing that looks like space. Yeah, right. It's the only thing that looks like the dawn of man.

He would have these big dinner parties where he's like, here, Gary Locke would come over, and there would be art historians and intellectuals and authors and all that. And right, he did American food that Europeans found astonishing, and there'd be like art historians and intellectuals and authors and uh all that and right he made he uh did american food that are europeans found astonishing like hamburgers i think in the 60s you could still blow someone blow like a french guy's mind with a hamburger what is this hamburger i eat it with my hand stanley's over from america uh he makes a hamburger and listen to this put a

pickle on it a hamburger sandwich a nickname for me i, later on, Christian Kubrick says, he was the king of sandwiches. You want to call yourself the king of sandwiches? I do. Have you had one of Stanley's sandwiches? He puts a pickle on it. Do you call it a hamburger sandwich? That feels like a Hoffmanism. You know, maybe you've overheard me say it.

Because I always call them hamburger sandwiches. I just think that's always funny. Yeah, I always call them hamburger sandwiches. Yeah, my wife does too. We call them hamburger sandwiches. Impossible hamburger sandwiches. Can I get an impossible hamburger sandwich? Douglas Raine, of course, the voice of Hal,

probably the most crucial piece of casting in this movie. So good. Yeah. Had apparently done a voice or had been in this movie. So good. Yeah. Had apparently done a voice, or had been in a short film called Universe. Yeah. And I've never seen that, but that was why Kimber Kwan had it.

Moving image showed it during some of their- What's it like? It's awesome. I mean, it sounds pretty good. It's shots of like- It's got the universe in it? Awesome. Sounds good.

It's great footage of like, and the Milky Way spiral. That's my Douglas. The Milky Way spiral. I can't do Douglas, right? Yeah. But it's about the Milky Way spirals. The Milky Way spiral. Yeah. Way Spiral. I can't do Douglas, right? Yeah. But it's about the Milky Way Spiral. The Milky Way Spiral.

Yeah. It's great. It was Canadian television. You know, my name is David. Yeah. I have heard this, yeah. And so I would get a lot of that. I can't do that for you, Dave.

I can't do that for you, Dave. Well, so Howard Stern, if I may bring him the story yeah he was the mom about how he went and saw 2001 how this guy's fucked up and he saw it with um his friend dave you're a fucking free cow and okay you got a big cock took um took drugs took uh sure took uh hallucinogens and when the movie starts talking to dave my mind is going dave his buddy dave flipped out and had to leave the theater and there's also a story which i i i it might be apocryphal i don't know but it's sourced on the internet um there was a screening of 2001 a space odyssey and at the end somebody took drugs man and at the end when it got really heavy somebody in the audience starts screaming and he's saying it's god it's god it's

god and ran into the screen that rules wow that's you can google that story it's somewhere out there reverse sweetums it's just funny because of course you think of the like you know the way they'd market horror movies so people are fainting we have a doctor you know and then 2001 is like people are just it's getting too heady for them running into the screen rated movie is well you know what's i mean this is this maybe you were gonna get but kubrick was not into psychedelics i'll read the quote yeah i believe that drugs are basically of more use to the audience than to the artist he says yeah re lsd because of course you make a movie like this you are going to get a lot of like man were you so baked when you did this man

what were you taking when you wrote this man I wrote that down I said Stanley took acid question mark he claims well at least he certainly claims not his thing I don't know if he's saying I never inhaled he could have stand to fucking chill out

every once in a while the hell i think this thing i went before i just i just think this is interesting i think that the illusion of of oneness with the universe and absorption with the significance of every object in your environment and the pervasive aura of peace and contentment is not the ideal state for an artist so he's almost saying like i don't want to chill out, man. Like, you know. That's an amazing quote. I've never heard that. The guy gives good quotes if you sit him down. So yeah, he was not really into the, you know, get,

you know, but the marketing department. The way I can see it, my friends who use LSD, they're not, like, transfixed by great art. They're transfixed by, like, a table leg. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, I don't need that in my life my i got i got other things to think about my shoelace man the um the movie was not a smash hit from day one and then the hippies found it right and it ran a long time and then it was just like immediately claimed yeah it was and so the

marketing department realized that the long hairs were seeing it and there actually was like um uh there was a special screening at like you know the early computer geeks at mit and that what's called the sale on the on the west coast um they were getting into it and they were getting high and watching it so one of the hell yeah one of the um i believe it might have been as square a publication as Christian Science Monitor, in their review of the movie referred to it as the ultimate trip, but didn't mean it in a psychedelic way. It meant it in like, you know, strap on your space boots, comrades, we're going to take the ultimate trip. A fun family thrill ride. Yeah.

Pluck that line and called it the ultimate trip. And then the solarized image of the eyeball and the poster it just like made that movie's box office yeah that's so you know the do you know what he's talking about they all find it for you um because obviously the classic poster you've got the you know the space station or whatever but then there's there's the eyeball oh yeah hell yeah you see that in 1968 that you're walking around, you're listening to the, remember the Allman Brothers we talked about earlier? And there's a baby inside the eye.

Ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba should follow this with tars but just the fact that he just sounds like a guy that they don't do anything to make him sound like a rubbish he's not bleepy or also they don't put any effects on him to make him sound like it's coming out of a speaker right it's that thing that is so bracing and interstellar well it's bracing in this where you're just like that no the voice there should be a little more distance from obviously interstellar which is a supreme masterpiece and also contains a sequence where someone goes into a crazy thing and then a bunch of crazy stuff happens um but yeah tars is almost like offhand it's a guy in the room at least how has this sort of like whispered hushed kind of monotone of a documentary narrator yeah and that's sort of the authority of the interstellar. TARS sounds like he's straight.

He's like, yeah, I don't know, man. He sort of sounds like that sometimes. I don't know. Get out of here. Yeah, TARS is almost too wacky. No, I know he's not too wacky. He's a good, good boy. And we love him.

TARS hasn't worked in a while. It's weird. Well, because TAR came in and market corrected him. I know. Hal, the computer, is an icon that if you've never seen the movie, you know it. It's like Buster Keaton's face. You know, it's like famous. And only that almost the Howell voice.

Like any, the idea of Howell being parodied. Yeah, you could put him in a Pizza Hut commercial tomorrow. Everyone would get it. You get it even if you haven't seen the movie. There's definitely been a million of those fucking things. Was it a Macintosh computer? Yes, sir. Anyway, the point I'm making is the first shot of Howell is out of context. Yes, sure. is like a rainbow of colors like what the f is this like what is this thing and you don't know

until a good 15 minutes later when the bbc interview is happening and they do the backstory so i would love to have known what a person watching this for the first time would think why am i seeing a rainbow of colors right now you know it's so jarring yeah yeah also if you're seeing this in the 60s where this is not even like really established as a sci-fi trope you know right yeah like i i took my sister to see the matrix when it was sort of playing in theaters again before resurrections came out and she had not seen it she's a youngin who was born in 1998 so she's pretty much only lived in a post-matrix world it's not like matrix created the idea of us living in a simulation but it certainly like

popularized it or pushed it into the mainstream and i was just sort of trying to explain to her like when that drops in this movie people lost their fucking minds whereas she turned to me and she was like oh so it's one of these like whole world simulation movies and i was like it's not one of those it's the it's the one where you're just like sort of the idea of the evil ai is a thing that is so omnipresent now but at this point in time probably when they cut to the screen you're like what are you you're telling me that voice comes from that yeah this thing is thinking what if hal had a big boxing glove near his processing core and he could punch you away he just he because they eventually he's easy to get once they get in there he should have all the simpsons stephen hawking like yeah right little rockets right a buzzsaw maybe or if he had a little drone helper you know that could be like its physical presence yeah or what

the great kazoo could swoop in maybe this movie is weirdly lacking kazoo yeah this movie doesn't have any kazoo figures well we haven't really talked about the opening sequence of the film which is set during the dawn of man this is another stunning thing about this movie and i feel like whenever alex ross perry is on this show and we'll be on again soon winky winky uh he i feel like he'll spot like movies where he's just like this movie has like five scenes like five things happen yeah but this is truly a movie where like five things yeah it's a very light on stuff. Yeah, there's, like, a lot of buildup and, like, deliberation for each sequence. But, like, basically five acts and each one is based around, like, one thing happening.

So the opening act is the Moon Watchers, right? Yep. The landing of the monolith. Yep. This generation of apes. Yeah, they use tools. The discovery of the bone, the first tool. Yeah. And sort of the firstolith, this generation of apes, the discovery of the bone, the first tool, and sort of the first act of cruelty.

The first act of... They take a tool and the first thing they do with it is show dominance over another group. Don't they whack something, you know, whack some bones first? They hit the beasts. They start killing beasts.

Yeah, you don't see it, but he has the thought of it, and then you see them eating raw warthog or whatever. So it's implied they use it for food. Technology immediately leads to violence. Well, it leads to sustenance. I mean, warthogs,

you know, Cro-Mag's gotta eat. Tree of Life, as you've called it, is a movie that's very much in conversation with this film. And when that film does its 2001 sequence where you have the two raptors, Malick always described that as the first act of kindness,

or the first act of mercy. He's almost doing the exact opposite, where that sequence is like, for no good reason, a raptor chooses not to kill the other raptor when it could. So I always think of this movie as this is the first act. It's a little bit brutal. it's a little bit um brutal

i mean it's a little bit like this is pop i mean look i mean mankind we still got our got to get our act together here's this new tool what damage can i do it's revenge it's revenge it is revenge though because they they're fighting over them the other group is the first aggressor they chase the apes out from the watering hole yeah and then when they figure out to have this tool they get their revenge i love how unreal these apes look they look great but they don't look great they're funny but i love that about them like i'm like i think if technology was better if they look more realistic i don't know if the sequence would have as much i agree they need to be kind of alien

they need to not be exactly one thing or the other and when you see the jaguar with it's rods and cones reflecting I mean that's a real jaguar I know you're like wait that's a guy in a suit they just threw a jaguar at him Stanley's like here's my jaguar

this is one of my favorite little observations about 2001 A Space Odyssey motion picture that came out in 1968 stanley kubrick um ben just alluded to the moment where the act of violence happens it happens at a watering hole literally it's a pond with pond scum and muddy water but it's a good old-fashioned watering hole it's two tribes going head to head and one shows dominance over the other movie set in 2001 of course shot during the cold war 1968 and the next scene in the movie in which characters interact in a substantial manner is on the space station in between the earth and the moon dr haywood floyd checks in shows his passport goes to make a phone

call talks the little girl played by christian kubrick i think it was yeah and then he sits down with the russians and where are they they're around like a circle and they're taking to have drinks they're at a watering hole oh fuck man shoot pass that bong where are the omen brothers so think about it it's it's it's you know you know we're apes man showing dominance the russians the americans cold war i kind of was thinking how the space suits make people look like monkeys just a little bit sure so i had a similar kind of like yeah and if you're on like the moon surface you're kind of you're kind of walking funny the cut from the bone to the space web it's just that's too obvious well yeah but i like my watering hole

analogy much better. The Kubrick thing of like we evolved to a point where we think we've evolved. But it's the same shit over and over again just dressed up in different ways, different technology

surrounding us. Same shit, better food. Raw warthog, stupid mammals. Or the spinach. We have the same instincts. They're driving everything. Do you guys want to know

the plot of the third 2001 book? Because it's so cool. 2061, correctyssey 3 i think it's 2061 2010 the book is similar to what you see in the movie yeah well about nukes yeah more about nukes cold war uh the movie's good i think we're gonna talk about the movie i haven't seen yet we're watching it for patreon book um there's extra shit uh david bowman's ghost goes to visit his parents in like Idaho or something.

It's amazing. Because Bowman and Poole are both in it, right? In the movie? No, just Bowman. Bowman is in it. But I think Lockwood's in the movie as well. Maybe he is. I have seen it.

It's just Keir Dullea. Okay. So Bowman is in the movie, the spirit of him. And in the book, he's like hanging out with his parents. It's hilarious. So 2061, Floyd is back, and basically, the basic premise is there, and this is kind of a sci-fi trope,

particularly with Clark, the big dumb object. A Rendezvous with Rama, which is one of Arthur C. Clarke's best books, is a big thing in the sky, let's go up and look at it and find out what it is that's the whole book fincher tried to make for like 20 years yeah it was his dream project and morgan freeman also wasn't had the rights yes right freeman had the rights got fincher involved yeah you mentioned before this movie has like five scenes rendezvous with rama

has one scene yeah let's go up see the thing find out what it is. The end. But it's wonderful. 2061 is another big, dumb object. And they go up there, and then there's a discovery on Ganymede, which is one of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter? Jupiter. It's not Ben's favorite, but, you know, you're a Europa guy. Yeah, I loved Europa. You don't like Io? Io's pretty good.

Io's okay. Io's kind of the teen moon because it's kind of zit-faced. It's full of volcanoes. Good on the bear, too. Well, for some reason, even though I've read this book a long time ago, I remember it being Ganymede. They go to Ganymede because there's some shit going on. And to cut to the chase, even though it's the year 2061, South Africa is still apartheid South Africa. Why is that relevant?

I'll tell you in a minute. The De Beers company is still around, and they're like the most important company on Earth. And they discover that the monolith or something or whatever on Ganymede is, they discover a deposit of diamonds. Cool. So you think, who gives a shit?

Well, 2001 is about heavy, important stuff. Why are we here in the universe? What is the nature of man? What is the nature of God? what is the nature of man what is the nature of god what is the nature of evolution is this a fucking diamond hype book it's a diamond story yeah and you go to 26 ben is rubbing his fingers together thinking that sweet sweet moolah so here's what happens they go to 20 is they discover a cache of diamonds and they have to keep it secret, but then it leaks and the diamond market collapses. I'm telling you what actually happens in the book. Wow.

And the world is thrown into chaos and that's what the book is about. It's the most baffling thing. What's 3001 about? 3001, I'm fully convinced, was just a book that Clark wrote and then realized he could sell for more if he slapped 3001 off of it yeah um it's just set in the far future and what it is is pool who we haven't seen in a while yeah who dies early on yes um his essence was somehow saved and he's back to life and it's just the story is pool is somehow resurrected and he's learning how to live in the year 3001 and the whole gimmick is they screw in in his brain like the surgery scene is kind of gross they screw in what's basically it's like ready player one they screw

in virtual reality they're gunters they are gunters like me so So, 3001, The Final Odyssey, is just a story about what would life be like with really good VR. That's it. Wow. But toward the end of his life, Clark was not above making a buck where he could. Sure. He did a lot of sequels with other, written by Arthur C. Clark, big letters and Joe Schmoe in small letters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He did a lot of that.

Well, Joe Schmoe is a very celebrated sci-fi writer. This is tangential, but I'll say it very quickly. I took the trip yesterday, as I think you know. You went to Paris? I went to Paris with Mrs. Harris. Oh, yeah. Mrs. Harris. Well, in the States here, we call it Mrs. Harris.

Yeah, Mrs. Harris. But the romp of the year. Loved it. My favorite film of 2022. But I was texting with our good friend Bobby Finger about it. Because there are four books in that series. Yes. And I'm hoping they adapt the other ones with Leslie Manville.

Well, yeah. I mean, since Mrs. Harris made DeParis made $800 million worldwide. Is that true? No. 8 Domestic, which is pretty solid. The third Mrs. Harris book just feels like what you're talking about with the 2001 sequels yeah the third one is uh mrs harris goes to parliament she sure does so like the second one's new york yeah right we're in it the fourth one's moscow she tries to solve

international relations there right but mrs harris goes to parliament if i can just read this quickly mrs harris finds that being nice kind and quickly. Mrs. Harris finds that being nice, kind, and hopeful does not always lead to people being nice and kind in return. There is rather less comedy in this third book. Damn, Parliament really breaks her. I just like this idea that they did this swerve where it's like, Mrs. Harris warms everyone she meets. The third book, it's just like, there's a limit to your niceness, lady.

But yeah, the opening section, super striking. But an example of this movie just like kind of for how slow it is going by faster than you expect first live dialogue in this movie is 25 minutes in it's when floyd gets out of the elevator right and it's such a weird line she says main level please thank you sir yeah something like it's like a that's the first line that's the first thing said in the movie there's 15 straight minutes of the moon watchers then like 10 minutes of the ships getting to understand space the aesthetic of space before you get into characters and dialogue all of that feels like it's like it's pretty propulsive weirdly for how glacial and deliberately painted it is.

It is propulsive, I think, especially to people, maybe if you've seen it already, because the images are so striking and you're waiting to see, oh, I want to see the pen float. I know where this is going. I want to see the Pan Am logo. I want to see her feet,

not because I'm a foot fetishist, I swear, but you want to see her feet as it's clinging to the carpet and all that. I mean, there's a lot of cool stuff. I like the way that you can tell she has to get her feet just right for it to work because you can see she's kind of like oh yeah yeah well because they'll like they have two different techniques for all of these sets where it's like they'll build one version of the set where the set moves and the camera stays still and then one version where the set stays still and the camera like 360 yeah yeah

there's a lot of weird perspectives of the moon bus for example in some shots the moon bus is zooming yeah and then on other shots it's very very still because of the angle and where it's supposed to be and it's very disorienting it's also i mean the modern principle i modern i say is in the last 50 years really post this movie of special effects is that like you want to sort of make the audience think they know how you did the thing and then you do something that breaks the rules where you're like, fuck,

now it feels like a magic trick, right? So there's like, I mean, infamous like perfect subtle execution of it is like all the Lieutenant Dan leg stuff in Forrest Gump where you're like, well, they CGI this guy's legs out, but then they'll do things like he'll swing around underneath Gump where you're like, well, they CGI'd this guy's legs out, but then they'll do things like he'll swing around underneath a table. And you're like, well, how are the real guy's legs not hitting the legs

of the table? Or things like that. And the pen shot is just like even for such an early point, they're doing that where you're like, okay, cool shot, but you're not going to be able to touch the pen. And then she grabs the pen. You know, it's like either this is on wires or it's optically printed in some way,

but there's no way she's going to be able to interact with it in the shot or whatever. It's like every shot in this movie is just sort of, it still feels impossible they pulled it off. Here's, so Doug Trumbull, obviously the famous VFX artist behind this movie and behind many a great space movie, recently died, died this year.

In fact, yes. Um, he says, you know, one thing with the slowness is it's just, it was necessitated by the visual effects, right?

If they moved anything too fast, uh, like the stars would start to blur and all that. So that's why Stanley Kubrick starts falling in love with the blue Danube because he's like, everything's moving at Walt's pace, right? Like everything's so slow.

That's really smart. And he starts playing them, the blue Danube waltz over and over again and starts recutting the sequence to it because he's like, this is going to work perfect. A lot of people, including film critics,

thought he had lost his marbles, goes Jan Harlan. But as Kubrick puts it, I wanted something that would express the beauty and the grace that space travel would have, especially when it reached the routine level where there's no danger involved. And then he didn't want it to sound future-y.

He didn't want music that's like... Yeah, like Forbidden Planet had the theremins, and he... Exactly. There was, of course, a score commissioned.. Exactly. There was a score commissioned. Alex North. There's a whole score. It's out there.

You can hear it. It's good. The movie would be a disaster with it. The score itself is good. But obviously the movie is 50% the classical music. Weirdly, the classical music gives the film a sort of lightness of touch. And an odd humor. Yes.

Yes, it's funny. The juxtaposition. I mean. Well, and there's sadness, too. I mean, look, there aren't that many musical cues. I mean, there's also Sprach Zarathustra. Which Fish does a cover of. Well, they do the cover of the version by Amir Deodato that was in Being There with your sellers.

Right, right, right. The one. Yeah, the. That started as a Google. You know the. All right, well, you know what? Let's talk about this. There's like the disco version.

Let's talk about this very quickly. So. You never heard that? Do you know who Ameer Deodato is? I believe he's Brazilian. He's also, I want to say, is it Justin Bieber's wife's grandfather's grandfather really i couldn't tell wait justin bieber's wife steven baldwin's daughter yeah i think so and it's still aomir's steven

baldwin's wife all right move on i'm not looking all that up i can't be but so it's this funky disco i can't delve into the bieber family i just look how long this lasted though we're even like in the 70s you have like the fucking disco star wars like yeah i'll have that so this uh so being there hal ashby's final film one of my favorite movies of all time i mean yeah well so the audience knows this movie uh sellers of course has a tremendous cooper connection and when he goes in the outside world And they need something big And they were going to play the

Also Sprach Zarathustra But they did the funky version instead So there's a band It's so good Ben's kind of into it Ben's really getting into it It's like a nine minute thing Now prior to this though

Prior to this Elvis loved 2001 Now I'm just imagining Elvis It's like a nine minute thing. Prior to this, Elvis loved 2001. Now I'm just imagining Elvis singing it. It's so crazy. There's monkeys and then they're in space. Here's a little

movie called 2001. First of all, Elvis had great taste. Yes, he all, Elvis had great taste. Yes, he did. He had great taste in movies. Sandwiches. Sandwiches.

A great sandwich. He loved Monty Python. Yeah. He loved Monty Python. Those guys are so funny, man. Yeah, he loved the bishop. I'm a bit of a British comedy nerd. So Elvis-

What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? Almost immediately after the movie took the music. That's unrelated. The opening overture also sprak Zarathustra and used it in his concerts. Yeah, cool. That's when his concerts were at their most maximalist. In the late 60s, the Aloha concert from Hawaii, the 72 MSG concerts. All of his live shows from that era opened with the band doing the 2001 theme and then thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump th like insane like if you're just sitting in a concert hall it is one of those things where you're like pre-movies and fucking you know like when it was like the 18th i mean i know that's

stress it's from like the 19th century maybe uh yeah but still just imagine you're like you know i'm gonna go sit in a room and this music is gonna be so great dude i think about that all the time like a timpani just hearing someone smash a fucking timpani with the full orchestra there's nothing better i'm gonna say a real dumb Griffin thing. Here we go. Who is that? A Thustra? No, no, no. Who is that guy? This is one of those pieces where when I hear it it almost sounds like it is an instrument.

You know what I'm saying? I think it speaks to like... You think it's Elvis going... That's what you think it is. No, but the loudness of the thing, even when like the drum is so pronounced I'm just like that's... Well, these are just sounds. Is it just like a synthesizer from the synthesizer i'm like because it's so iconic or yeah yeah it's like these noises are just being pulled from like the heavens wow i think you could fuck with the

forcefulness of well you know i really think you would like timpani yeah all right let's get back to 2001 now i feel like we are truly haywood right and this is the sequence that's really sort of showing off here's how space works, right? We're going to start to see the threat of this thing, right? Okay, they've discovered this thing. The monolith on the moon. Yes, absolutely. He gives the

speech in that very bright... Clavius space. This guy's coming as like second wave follow-up. Yeah, important guy. But a lot of this is like showing how space travel works, showing the weird commercialization of this is like showing how space travel works showing the weird commercialization of space the sort of space airport we still get snacks the sleekness of it yeah it's still nice it's still like air travel in the 60s or whatever it's also wild that all of these scenes were like he's going through like immigration whatever where the whole

thing is you're just seeing white rooms right uh there's a line about that right where like uh the initial thought was colors. Stanley was like, I don't know, could we do like IBM blue? And then they were like, no, just white and black, white and black. That's the most striking thing you could possibly use. Most of these rooms, you're not seeing windows. There's no look to space in most of them. And yet every time he's doing some boring sort of bureaucratic step or like, you know, getting his Howard Johnson's or whatever.

I'm like, it really feels like they're in space. It's something about all of it. I'm just like, I believe that this is what, and, and like the only movie that I feel like comes close to this is cribbing from it so much. We're like the way at Astra depicts space travel.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Is the one other film where I'm like, this feels realistic. This feels like how space travel. Right. I mean, it has the same jokes where there's like a subway on the moon they're just riffing on the same things and evolving the joke where he's like can i get a travel pillow and they're like yeah that's 800 dollars just how quickly it will just become so have you seen that yeah yeah it's great kind of annoying yeah he he's not thrilled to be on the moon in the space station. I mean, we never see the moon base, really.

We see the very, it's probably the slowest sequence in the whole movie of the descent into. Yes, I remember that being where my dad was like, don't worry, this is going to pick up again. It does get a little. And it's on TV. It's not as exciting in the theater, but it slowly gets in. And then you cut to the conference room. And that's just a square. That's just a box with very bright walls, like insanely bright walls.

And you have the photographer. And then he gives the bureaucratic speech about the cover story. And that's it. And also the level of energy with which people are greeting this story, this discovery, the potential of what it implies, implies belies is like pretty similar to how everyone reacted to like fucking three four years ago the new york times being like yeah yeah no the military's been tracking ufos forever we have a bunch of footage they're a bunch of encounters and it was one of those things where i have like a friend who had a friend inside the new york times who was like i can't tell you what it is, but there's a story coming

that's going to change the world forever. And it came out and it got like less coverage than fucking, you know, some dumb think piece on like the latest Marvel movie or whatever. It's still one of those things. The marketplace of ideas is important and we have to respect it. I agree.

Are you talking about the Naval videos? Navy is like, these are UFOs. I don't know. do it that way you will 15 follow-up stories on this where they're just like yes of course we do have a program where we track all these incidents that we can't explain and here's all the footage and photos and here are interviews with like we've now declassified all this stuff weather balloons right and it's like it's what it is in this movie but every other movie like this makes it go like this is going to change the firmament of the world forever.

And some people were like, we'll see. I don't know. Maybe. Because I think people are waiting for like, come on, I want a phone call from an alien, maybe. I want like a, we come in peace. Exactly. Bring the phone to David.

Also, if an alien showed up, I feel like they would have to really get over, like, people would be like, that's not real. Like, that's the world we live in now. People are like, I don't believe that. That is, yeah, with the QAnon and all. I mean, today. That's what I'm saying. People are more, like, would rather spin out on the possibilities of Q than, like, government declassified photos and footage.

Getting us back to 2001 A Space Odyssey. God damn it. Q-thousand-one A Space Odyssey. It is called Q-thousand-one now. One thing that is eliminated from the movie, but was originally going to be, and it was all this voiceover that Arthur C. Clarke did, that was narrating the movie.

Obviously, the other thing is Alex North's score. Poor Alex North. He worked very hard and was like, I don't know how I'm going to do this and at the end of the day Stanley Kubrick didn't like it can I say something about the music because we're on the topic of the music

obviously we got into also Sprach Zarathustra there's Blue Danube is funny in Counterpoint this beautiful waltz with spaceships at the time i'm sure was even more revolutionary it's been parodied now a number of times the other musical cues there's the scary stuff leggetti is his name right a georgie leggetti and from what i remember from michael benson's book kubrick didn't know what he wanted to use this is the music that

shows up um a couple of times after the intermission the shark you hear that spooky ass music and from what i remember in benson's book kubrick's wife was had the bbc radio on and it was their like new music hour and she heard the scary music and she's like stanley stanley i don't know what she sounded like come into the kitchen she sounded like that put down your hamburger sandwich and run in and he heard it and was like wow this is really cool and then foolishly waited like a week and then called bbc and was like what did you play last week and they're like what and like it was not an easy thing to go through the files yeah it wasn't like now where you can go online and see what they played at noon come to zam it no he couldn't

shazam it so it was he couldn't Shazam it. So it was like, but he eventually found it and sourced it. Then the other thing, and it's my favorite piece of music in the film, is Aram Kachutarian's sad. When you first see Bowman and Poole and they're exercising and when he's on the bed having the conversation with his parents that kind of melancholy music this is the saddest music in the world i one time did a social experiment i used to work in an office if you can imagine this 15 years ago i have never i haven't worked in an office in 15 years because i'm society won't allow that. And when I... Like the time we brought you into the Audioboom offices

and you said the C word really loudly on them. Oh, shit. Did I do that? And David had to say, this is a professional workplace. Oh, yeah. I was doing a bit on... Oh, I remember.

He was relaying a story. I was relaying a story from Raging Bull. Yeah. And by the way, I don't cuss. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't cuss. The clean drink i don't smoke i don't cuss aram kachaturian who by the way also composed music that's very uplifting he wrote the theme

song to comedy that's him the funniest music he invented music that's the comedy theme song you can see them running around the clown clowns, Bart Simpson, they're all running around. That's Aram Kachacharian. Wow. He also wrote this. So I did a social experiment. When I worked at a company, I had speakers on my DOS computer. And I played on a loop this selection just like in the

background i did it all day and everybody was fucking bummed out that day it was like everyone you were also farting like crazy yeah well i mean that's the day yeah yeah no but you're saying right it's just it sets the mood it sets the mood and um i uh that that was the one time I experimented. I did a Stanley Milgram-style experiment on my co-workers. But I love that piece. I'm being sincere. I think it's such a gorgeous melody. It so quickly and efficiently establishes the loneliness of these guys.

It's so sad. It is sad and creepy. And he's playing chess. And by the way, Hal cheats at chess. Yeah. Google the chess scene. When Hal says, I've mated you in three moves, and Bowman's like, oh, yeah.

Yes, he doesn't describe his moves properly. Yeah, and that's not a mistake. There's a whole thread. There's no way that's a mistake, because Stanley Kubrick is like a chess nerd. Yeah. So some theorize this is... It's like the first indication that something is up.

Some theorize that Hal is constantly making sure he has dominance over the human. And we've been talking about dominance at the water cooler, dominance in space with the Russians. Hal is the next tribe. He's the tribe of artificial intelligence. He wants to maintain dominance over the humans. That's not what I think it is. What do you think it is? I think it's like he's been told to, he can't hold

two primary things in his head at once. So he's been told not to tell them about his primary programming, right? And he's been told to help them and he can't deal with it and it's just slowly fucking him up. Interesting.

Because he has this secret thing that he's not allowed to tell them. And it's like, you know, he's human. So they were like, psst, don't tell them. And he's just churning away there going nuts. This is the more mainstream interpretation. And I think you're probably right. The government knows how to lie to people but Hal

is an innocent computer. He's not built in he doesn't understand why the government would want to lie to people. He's not malicious. He's clinical about all of this. Which is scary. To be clear. Ironically enough this is the more

humane interpretation of Hal. Rather than like He's a robot and robots want to take over the world. He's kind of full of himself. You think Hal's a little highfalutin? The whole time watching, I was like, I wanted to be like to Hal. I'm like, what about Hal 1000 through 8000?

You should watch Hal's TikToks where he's like, first of all, and this just has to be said, I'm a very talented robot. It's just a fact. At this point, we have to accept it. I've been a talented robot my entire life. I like this. This is, I Googled.

By the way, Hal 1 to 8000, have you ever used preparation A through G on your hemorrhoids? Oh boy. I just think this is so elegantly done where it's like the Heywood Floyd thing. It's like, here's a guy in a mission. We're watching the process of space travel. We're watching him on a job. He's trying to figure this out.

Right. Then it ends in this sort of like bombastic, like fucking monolith is breaking all their brains, you know, white noise sort of thing. And then you cut to the ship and it's like the mundanity of their routines their exercise their meals that the trays being too hot i love that you see like four different like he has to shake off his hands kind of thing cure delay a sketching his fucking

sleeping mummies teammate which is like so creepy then you'd wait like 10 plus minutes before they watch the BBC thing. And it's such a good way to do the sort of exposition dump that this movie's been avoiding for most of its running time. Because like, A, you're spending so much time in the mundanity, the loneliness, the boredom of their routine first. And secondly, it truly plays, unlike a lot of these movies where you do the the the news piece right the package news piece to explain everything first thing yeah in this it actually works as sort of character thing because you buy the energy of we should see how this piece came out right you know the sense of them watching it is sort of like i want to make sure we came off okay even though they're not saying that they're not overplaying it they're watching as they eat their peas they're right and it's just sort of like i guess we to make sure we came off okay. Even though they're not saying that, they're not overplaying it.

They're watching it as they eat their peas. Right, and it's just sort of like, I guess we should watch this and see how it made us look, right? Yeah. And so you're watching it

through their eyes, which is funny, but you're also like, okay, now the movie's giving me the things I need. Yeah, they don't comment,

we don't even see their faces. It's kind of shot from behind. It's like you're seeing the tops of their heads as they eat. And of course, they're watching it on ostensibly iPads. Yeah.

Part of the routine is also like, what else do they have to watch? Like video messages? Yeah, the stuff from their parents. They're not getting sent honeymooners probably, you know? Obviously, the more sort of simple reading is that Hal does make a mistake in that he's like, hey, go fix that thing. And they're like, there's nothing wrong with that thing. And then at that point, Hal is in trouble because they're like,

is Hal broken? Let's turn him off. And Hal's like, you can't turn me off, bitch. I'm alive. I'm Hal. I'll turn you off. And here's Hal. Yeah. It's just pure self-defense. Yes. But I just like that idea that

he's slowly been degrading yeah quietly kind of behind the scenes and things like him cheating at chess or whatever or him being like hey go fix that antenna and they're like what the thing where he says just a moment is so eerie because his dialogue is so smooth and even when Bowman says, hey, you're doing your psych evaluations, he goes, of course I am. Like, it's so eerie. And then he goes, just a moment, just a moment. And you could tell that he had,

that Kubrick recorded Douglas Raines saying just a moment once, and they spliced it and picked it up and put it next to each other to make it sound exactly the same. But also, he's not saying just a moment in the, like, just a moment, processing, processing. It's, once again, the weird familiarity of Hal

is that, like, he sounds like your grandfather being like, you have to let me finish reading this chapter of the book before you bother me with something. But it's the closest he sounds to a sci-fi robot. Just a moment. You know, it's like that kind of, like... But because it's repeated, he sounds to a sci-fi robot. Just a moment. You know, it's like that kind of like. But because it's repeated, he does have that, you know, lost in space. Warning, warning.

Yes. You know, it's a little bit. It's just a hint of that. And that lets you see, oh, shit, Hal is not a person. And for him to need a second, think about the zillions of computations he must have just had to do to figure out all the permutations of how this is going to go. And he's like, no, I'm going to kill them this way is oh my god it's so freaky it's good the fact that you the pod bay doors thing happens multiple times before it's going to be an actual point of conflict right so you understand what should happen you understand the term you

understand like the keywords they're supposed to trigger actions whatever but also them having the conversation in the pod yeah where it's like we got to get away from hal yes which suggests that they know that hal can't hear that absolutely and they're like hal turn it around turn it around and then they're like see he's not working versus how playing kind of dumb right right they're like can he hear us maybe he can't hear us from in here and it's like no how wants to read their lips he knows he can't hear us? Maybe he can't hear us from in here. And it's like, no, Hal wants to read their lips. He knows he can't hear them. He won't let them turn it around. I better put that together.

You know what I love about the rotating pod is the moment when Poole is about to get killed. It's another one of these comedy shots. It's almost like a Michael Myers shot. He's in the background putzing with the satellite dish or whatever it is. And the pod is this way and then it turns to face the camera and so it's like it's a michael myers shot it's so great when

it's in the foreground we can see it happening but he's floating the background and then it turns around to kill him it's just it's just it's it's i mean it also like like the the cut to the to the intermission it's like a great like laugh moment in to the intermission, it's, like, a great, like, laugh moment in a way. Yeah, it is, but it's also very chilling. Terrifying. But, like, you're right, because, like, it's just, when is Asimov's, like, Laws of Robotics or something? That's the 50s, yeah.

Yeah, so, like, but, like, because I feel like with TARS, and, like, for example, in Interstellar, they'll just sort of talk in front of him of, like, should we just send TARS into the fucking black hole? And TARS is just a guy. And TARS is like, hey like hey man that's cool i'll do that that's fine and like also you know but it's funny that they can't like in front of how be like should we turn how off right what's up with how like they they know he's touchy and also he's if that makes sense like he's like omnipresent like he exists in different forms but it's. Yeah, he's not that one circle. No, he's all over the place.

Then it's in that turning moment when they cut in, you see, oh, there's a Hal eyeball. There's another Hal here. On the pod. There's like a Hal in every room. Here's the thing about it. It should feel, then I guess this is the thing about 2001.

It should feel hacky now. Especially when we've seen everyone rip it off, parody it, or both. And like, you know, know how it's very basic in a way it's like oh the omnipresent robot and he's so calm and he turns out to be a psycho he's not but whatever however you want to describe it doesn't feel

hacky or doesn't feel it feels so original to watch every part of 2001 absolutely it's pretty cool I've seen it in the theater like four times in my life I always have a good time. Yeah, this incredible intermission cut. Love it.

I feel like a few movies cut intermission at like the moment of peak tension. I feel like a lot of movies will cut at like... Okay. Right. There's a release or there's like the looming threat. We're about to jump in forward of time. You know, like ahead in i feel like lawrence of arabia has a good cut to intermission yes yeah but it's sort of like there's there's a release yeah he just did the thing and he's walking out of the building and right something like rrr is like here's the next level the stakes

are heightened or whatever but this is like you cut at the moment where the threat is really crystallized and identified like at the moment of peak sort of tension in a weird way i think if you're seeing this movie i think there's an actual intermission you're walking out to the lobby it's more unsettling because you're just like get on with it i don't hey don't i don't make me fucking walk out now and have to sit with this you know what's also funny is if you watch it now on home video or on home box office maximum, there's this sound effect that stays during the blackness for a few minutes of the sound effect of, you know, this is the sound of space, the sound of the spaceship, ambient sound, which is creepy as hell, you know?

And then we come back from this and it's like, this is the sort of plottiest section of the movie which is like the murder of uh yeah it's and but but fairly brief um but yeah it's you know it's really and it's plotty and yet it's only one character two if you count how but how's not sure moving yeah i like when when dav David goes to get Poole and is cradling him. It's like a pieta, right? So it's very, you know, there's, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of Web 1.0 websites talking about the influence. And you can find images of Christ being held by Mary juxtaposed with the shot of, uh, of the, of the pod and the spaceman. I mean, the death of how is very,

even, I remember even as a kid being very moved by it. It's very like melancholy. It's very sad. And, and when he starts singing the song, it's, it's spooky.

I'm afraid. Yeah, no, it's heavy shit. Hey, my mind is going. Yeah. Uh,

I think it's also just incredible how like that is basically how you would like design a mayframe or like a server like the way that that's laid out is like it's the same like principles of like of the technology that we have today yeah um i love just watching him unscrew yes and just like again how like technology is still at its roots just screws and wires and like i think we've really forgotten that i think in general just because things have become so designed and streamlined for us. Wireless and interfacing on your phones, but like there's still, every time you do something on your phone, there's still a computer somewhere with the data plugged into something.

Yep. You know, it's funny, there's a line when they're talking about disassembling HAL, and they say something like, we need to disassemble X Y and Z but we need to maintain its rudimentary functions and I remember one time feeling like they need to bring him back to the to like uh to like the dawn of man like what those first apes scenes are like rudimentary functions I want to eat I want to show dominance and i want to then that's it you know and then maybe have a little ape child and then you evolve through humanity you go to the next stage which is potentially artificial intelligence and then it's like we got to stop

we got to bring him back i mean you know this is like one of those heavy conversations you have when you've seen the movie 16 times but uh you know that's that's something that i remember being really turned on by after he kills hal oh and he does kill him he does murder um didn't i did you know he gets that video of floyd being like okay hi here's the secret message like only hal knows this but you're here to investigate this like mysterious intelligent signal last lines in the movie yeah last time it was like it remains a mystery yeah first line is here you are sir main level please and remains a mystery basically the first 25 minutes are silent in the last 25 minutes or so yeah yeah and then like two and a half hours like my god it's full of stars that's from the book he doesn't say that in the movie

that's from the book and then it's in the 2010 there is the uh um what's what's the line he has there there is no reason to continue this conversation any further goodbye uh-huh oh yeah yeah when hal gives his kiss off to to bowman says i'm not letting you this conversation can serve no purpose anymore goodbye right that's uh film spotting uses that at the end of every episode. And so it is one of those things now where I've listened to so many episodes of that that when he says it, I do the fucking DiCaprio point.

That's awesome. And yeah, so... Oh, I had a question. What's up? About the reveal of the plan that they're investigating the signal that the monolith sent from the moon over to Jupiter. But the whole crew is frozen. So if they see an alien ship or whatever, it's just two guys.

And how? What are they going to do about it? Do you know what I mean? Like, if they are sent to investigate what could potentially be a threat, why would they freeze the crew? The crew's there to colonize, I guess, Jupiter or whatever. I think the crew is there to, like, do part of the investigation. Yeah, that's what I thought.

If this hadn't all gone awry. That was my... Yeah, like, there's xenobiologists. They never say what they are, but I always interpret it as, like, Bowman and Poole are, they run the ship. They're Kirk and Scotty. Someone's got to stay awake in order to make sure nothing goes wrong. Yeah.

Bowman isn't the one who is supposed to be doing this or certainly not doing it alone. Yeah. It just doesn't seem like there's weapons. You know, it seems like they're going in peace a little bit. Yeah, they're going to check it out. They're taking a gander taking a gander right and they're so far out in space though that's why to me i'm just like they're like they just seem so helpless but it's sort of they're just throwing people at the problem they're trying to figure out what the fuck is going on while keeping the the sort of buzz to a minimum i mean talk about why this ending is so unnerving when you're a child i

used to really freak out thinking about space being infinite as a child yeah it was one of those things that would just break my brain sure the idea where it's like there wait there's just like vast endless what what do you mean and the only thing kind of scarier than that than the idea of like you could just float in space forever and never reach any endpoint is the idea that there is an endpoint and that endpoint is small right a little room you know but you know you just touched on something really relevant um yeah so there's a quote a very famous quote that i'm going to read to you and it goes like this two possibilities exist either we are alone in the universe or we are not both are equally terrifying yeah and the person who gave

that quote was arthur c clark pretty good so i feel like you guys pulled that up for the dossier and kubrick was like that was the thing that really hit me that was sort of the main like i don't believe in god necessarily in a concrete way it's but i'm making a movie about the concept of god because both possibilities are scary the philosophical push and pull right if we assume that god could exist in an some abstract form beyond our comprehension both possibilities are equally terrifying which Which is like... A religious person would say both possibilities are wonderful and exuberant. I think another equally

understandable reaction is like, holy shit, what the hell? Yes, no, it's equally terrifying to imagine that this is... Every day you wake up and you're still around. A meaningless accident. And the only thing scarier than that

is the notion that this was planned. Right. Designed consciously by something if god does exist i think that i wouldn't say he was evil but you could say he was an underachiever that's another lie so if god doesn't exist i can't wait to meet her hey and i'm holding for applause um i just think it's interesting that he goes through the star gates and he sees all the colors and then it's the the cigarette smoking aliens from men in black who are like hey we've created everything they were kind of the original wados i'm realizing they were there were a few years earlier than two years they had two years

on wada does the stargate sequence go on too long i mean i just love it i the only thing about the stargate sequence is that there's that bit where there's like some sort of globey things the diamonds yeah well i'm like those are those are super highways i know i think they're cool yeah they're the one thing that feels like a little kind of like dorky and 60s yeah it's a little like screen yeah yeah even that's cool that's cool yeah the diamonds are the one thing it's a little tron it's a little tron i love tron but it does it does date the movie to the moment a little bit more it's another thing where if you'd ask me from my memory seeing this movie as a kid i'd be like well the stargate sequence lasts for 30 straight minutes like as

a child i was like this is half an hour of lights and sounds and colors yeah uh where it's like 10-12 minutes it's shorter than the creation sequence in Tree of Life I believe so I would have said it went on too long and then watching it this time I found it was actually pretty breezy I feel like once you are aware that it's you know now everybody knows the ending of 2001

is a bunch of wacky shit on screen for a while once you settle in it's pretty cool when I was 12 I didn't know that I didn't know it was ever going to end 2001 is a bunch of wacky shit on screen for a while. Once you settle in, it's pretty cool. When I was 12, I didn't know that. I didn't know it was ever going to end. I was like, am I going to fucking watch this for an hour? So do they pull him through a wormhole?

That I believe is the case. It goes, they drop him through a wormhole. And then that moment, the shot of the diamonds, those are intersections. This is from my memory of the book, which I read a long time ago. But that's like, you know, take an exit on the turnpike. Sure. And then you go through another wormhole. And then you appear in this place.

And then at the end, the star child or the moon watcher, whatever the hell they want to call them, they send it back to Earth. And whether that's Bowman reincarnated or not, this becomes open to interpretation. When I was a kid and my mother, my mother, I was trying to calm me down. As I mentioned, I had a bit of a nervous breakdown. My mother was like, Hey, it's just a baby being born. It was reincarnated. And this was a thing for me because at the time I was eight years old, I was kind of obsessed with the concept of reincarnation. And when I was eight, I was very worried that I was going to become reincarnated in my next life. And I didn't want to be, I didn, and I didn't want to be a blade of grass because I didn't want people stepping on me all the time. Yeah, makes sense.

This was a very, very big concern for me. I thought you were going to say you didn't want to be a giant space fetus because then who the fuck are you going to talk to? I mean, in retrospect, there were a lot of things I probably didn't want to be, but I was fixated on the blade of grass because I think that's part of the Hinduu thing you always say we're all connected the blade of the blade of

grass is always invoked right the blade of grass is a thing it's one of the i think i may have heard some i heard the phrase blade of grass and it's stuck in my head and when the concept of reincarnation i was like fuck blade of grass that's my number like oh man stuck on the lawn everything's happening up there yeah what a bummer me and the ants yeah occasionally rick moranis's children i mean just like nothing going on so this really worried me and if like you know you're eight years old you don't want to you don't want to really you know you trust your parents i had very caring and loving parents like what's wrong tell me what's wrong i don't want to say it's embarrassing so the first night you don't sleep the second night finally you're crying in bed you're eight years old why

are you upset i'm gonna be a blade of grass and my parents are weirdo kid losing what a loser what did we raise my father wants to smack me around act like a man like the godfather but um no caring and loving parents with an insane child and um I think my parents, who didn't want to negate beliefs of the Eastern origin, were like, well, there are many who believe in reincarnation, but I don't think you're going to be a blade of grass. I mean, I don't know, but I don't think so. So you really shouldn't worry about that. Instead, worry about your asthma or whatever else is bothering you today. I think, if we can dig in a couple of things that I think make this ending so upsetting and unnerving.

One, it's like this idea that as you said, they're like, look, see, we built a normal, comfortable room for you. A hotel room to your specifications. It's just what you want. Right. But everything, you got this Kubrick like like wide angle deep focus kind of thing bright and blue right but they're like no windows everything feels like a little too like fluorescent like it's just sort of even the uh styles that are being referenced don't really match no no it's like it both looks like i wouldn't stay there like right like a parisian hotel standing from the

1600s and it looks like a Donald Trump's bedroom. I'd give it three stars on Yelp. Not a fun environment, but also just the device of Bowman seeing something. The sort of

Kuleshev effect thing. The transference of point of view. He sees the thing, you cut back, you cut back again, the first thing is gone, you've jumped 20 years. I think it's one of those powerful applications

of the edit I have ever seen. The cut. Where it's like, you're doing so much. You're changing point of view, you're changing consciousness, you're changing time,

you're doing time, everything is like shifting. But this sort of thing of like seeing Kirdalea's face, he's so good in these close-ups right seeing him observe something that anticipatory dread of like do i want them to cut

to what he's looking at so i can like cut the tension or do i not want you don't even see it because there's no grounding like you as an audience member you're like i'm so lost and floating and it's frightening because it's like well he can't go back and and these shots are so sort of cold and and pulled back that you're it's always a little bit abstract at first it takes a moment to identify that's him that's the same guy and by the time you can confirm it you are now that guy stuck you're the previous guy's gone he's in this dude now yeah yeah and just the moment you recognize the pattern and go like oh fuck this is gonna keep on going where does this go it's wild i think it's cool but it spooked me when i was a kid it really did and there's no and the sound like it's yeah

yeah total silence until he drops his plate or whatever yeah i just looked up the murals that are in the room they are so chilling yeah and it's not a detail that i feel like you could really see like at home on a tv and i definitely have never noticed that like a theater screening but looking at this article here on popular mechanics it is really disconcerting in a way where it's supposed to look like renaissance paintings but it's just there's something not right about it yeah i mean again i think it's very similar to the furniture and the the rooms design but uh something for people to look up at home have either of you guys read the Jack Kirby Marvel 2001 series? Oh, you know, I haven't read it, but I know what it's around.

It's cool that it exists. Yeah, and I think, like, Fourth World essentially comes out of it. I mean, obviously, he moves from Marvel to DC, but by all accounts, it's sort of like, because he was able to embellish. Yeah, didn't he, like, do a whole series? He did a whole series. Like, the first three issues are the movie, and then he went bananas with it yeah i does rom space knight come out of that

no it's machine man machine man thank you uh not to be nerdy but rom space knight was a hasbro creation that he was right yes no machine man like there's a marvel character that my fantasy baseball team is called de grom the space knight i'm not joking. Comes out of that and sort of, yeah, it starts him on the paths of thinking that lead to when he goes over to DC being like, I think I can create a whole mythology here. I don't know how readable it is, though. Like, is it one of those things that's stuck in, like,

I don't know. Legal gray? I would imagine so because there was one time when I went to go find it and it was difficult to find and I did find, I went on went on like Pirate Bay or something. And I downloaded PDFs and I forgot about it until this conversation. In trades. I don't think it's on the Marvel apps or anything.

I think you can buy them on eBay for a lot of money or you can go to Pirate Bay. I just think it's interesting that like this feels like such an untouchable movie and yet arthur c clark clark made three sequels yeah there's a sequel movie one of those sequels as a movie that people were like well obviously it doesn't touch 2001 but it's not embarrassing three out of four and then like jack kirby did all these comics about it it's not that untouchable yeah it's not that it's like jaws too like yeah people talk about like one day they're gonna remake jaws like heaven for finn it's like they did jaws 3d for christ's sake they did like jaws for the revenge this time it's personal i mean jaws has been tinkered with um they used to franchise out these classics but it just no one would it wouldn't stick to the legacy of the original film right in a way you know alice

doesn't live here anymore the movie alice the sitcom yeah very different properties um it was a commercial success but initially not a critical hit uh new york's critics uh were confounded and bored uh it premiered at the capitol lewis theater on broadway and apparently 240 people walked out. Wow. Which is a lot. Yeah. And Stanley Kubrick's reaction was like misery. He was like,

ah, I fucked it up. This is no good. Then he cut like 12 minutes or something. And then, you know, as it starts to commercially come out, it's one of those movies where it's like people are lining up around the block. Like, you know. He wins the Oscar for special effects.

He does. The Oscar is weirdly given to Kubrick and not to Trumbull. Like, you know. He wins the Oscar for special effects. He does. The Oscar is weirdly given to Kubrick and not to Trumbull. It's the only Oscar Kubrick ever wins. It's incredibly rude to Trumbull. It's incredibly. Because obviously Kubrick had a major role overseeing the visual effects, but it's bizarre. But they essentially give him the Oscar because they're like, well, everyone was working for you. It was your vision.

Yeah. Even in Benson's book, which is very pro Kubrick, they paint this chapter as a little bit of a dick move on his part. It's simultaneously weird that this is his only Oscar and that Trumbull doesn't get a statue. Well, even Trumbull was just like, he was part of a team. I mean, he was one of the main guys, but he wasn't the solo guy. It's just, no, but he's the guy who comes off of this with being the sort of guru. He was the guru. And certainly they had three different set designers.

One of the production designers left midway, but a lot of his work is still in there. You also had the very young Andrew Birkin was very involved as a jack-of-all-trades helper on production. There's a whole thing in Benson's book about how he went to Africa to shoot the footage for the...

for two things, for the Dawn of Man sequence and also, you mentioned earlier, those solarized images in the dawn of man sequence and also you mentioned earlier those solarized images yes in the dawn of man stuff he you know attached a camera to the bottom of a helicopter and there was an there was a plane crash or something like this all kinds of weird stories how they moved a tree you know some kind of fancy tree they moved it around south africa photography i think is the name of that technique that he uses for the yeah for the um stargate so he kind of trumbull kind of invented that and kubrick found trumbull i believe because he had done stuff at the world's fair that makes sense is that correct is that the world's fair was that the connection he had seen something for like the you know the futurama

exhibit or something and said that's my guy and then he made Brainstorm which is a great movie Brainstorm is a very cool movie it's just interesting that this like sort of high art super intellectual experimental movie was savaged by the New York literati like Renata Adler was the film critic for the Times, John Simon, Judith

Christ, Andrew Sarris and then when it starts to expand like more regular america is like we dig this like yeah bring it around you know and maybe it was our first kubrick episode we talked about how like 2001 is most people's first kubrick most people are shown up by their parents at a young age like we talked about and then someone on the reddit was like griffin and david showing their like coastal elite everyone watches 2001 when they're a kid and then like 20 people responded and they're like i grew up in like a trailer park my dad was like an auto mechanic he didn't care about movies at all he showed me 2001 when i was nine there might be a generational thing where now that

we're aging out of parents who grew up with this movie and perhaps future generations people younger than us aren't being shown this film at a young age but it was this thing that was like a very populist sort of yeah like just an important totemic thing you need to witness at some point it was like a ritual yeah my mother has no interest in sci-fi which is ironic because so much of my career has been about Star Trek. She made fun of Star Drek my whole life. Yeah. But she. Well, that's rude.

Yeah. Star Trek. Yeah, I know. But she, you know, when the video box, of course, it's like, oh, of course, I've seen this. Like, it was a movie you had to see. It was the number one at the box office that year, I believe. 2001 A Space Odyssey? Yeah.

Let's see. 1968. But it's like in that Wizard of Oz canon. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a big milestone. For sure. Everybody saw it. The second most successful film of 1968 behind, Funny Girl.

Wow. Well, Barbara, I mean, for sure. Of the other big movies that year, The Odd Couple. Mm-hmm. Funny stuff. Bullet. He drives. Pretty good. Oliver. Gotta pick a, The Odd Couple. Good movie. Funny stuff. Bullet. He drives. Pretty good.

Oliver. Gotta pick a pocket. Not a very good movie. Let's play the box office game. But yeah, weird that this movie wasn't nominated for Best Picture,

Best Director. Wasn't. It's true. Very rude in my opinion. The box office game. This movie comes out in April 20, 20, Jesus april 1968 okay

opens number four pretty good pretty good but then just runs for a long long time yeah number one of the box office is a very generationally important film hmm uh it's been number one for weeks and weeks and it's gonna keep being number one it's and weeks, and it's going to keep being number one. It's a huge movie. The Graduate? It's The Graduate. Holdover from 67. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Which came out Christmas 67, so it's been about four months, but it's been number one for months.

Yeah. Do you like The Graduate? You know, it's one of those movies I have always respected more than I've liked. I'm the exact same way with it. It's never been a movie for me. And I like it. You know, I was obsessed with Rushmore, and everyone was like,

well, you've got to watch The Graduate. That's the thing. That's the Rosetta Stone of this movie. For sure. And I watched it, and I was like, eh, it's okay. I get it. I get it.

I get it. It's very good. And then I just, every five, eight years, I'm like, I should give that another swing and see if it finally really connects with me. And I always just respect it, understand its importance. It doesn't grab me

viscerally in the way like 2001 does i think the first two thirds of the graduate are a plus and then the final third does kind of the air gets out of the balloon a little bit but then the ending is also like maybe the best part and the last five minutes are phenomenal yeah number two at the box office is uh one of your favorites it's one of my favorite films science fiction film of 1968 uh the original planet of the apes planet of the apes how long has that been out 10 weeks yeah wow they're doing good big hit big hit um yeah kind of the first modern franchise has always been my argument and very different 2001, but it's a big sci-fi year. It's also a movie where I feel like people's cultural memory or imprint of Planet of the Apes is very colored by the sequels.

And people forget how talky and slow the first movie is in particular. Where it takes like 45 minutes to see an ape and then it's a series of conversations and a twist ending. Yeah. But what's her name? Kim Hunter? No. What's her name? I forget her name. The actress. Nova.

Yeah, yeah. What's her name again? I don't know. Very, very becoming. Yes. Number three at the box office is Western starring Burt Lancaster and Oz very becoming. Yes. Number three at the box office is Western, starring Burt Lancaster and Ozzie Davis. Huh. Right? Yeah.

Had you heard of it before? Also, Telly Savalas and Shelley Winters. That's a good cast. Good cast. Directed by Sidney Pollack. What is this movie? Anyone know it? I've never seen it, but I don't know if I've heard of it.

It's called The Scalp Hunters. Wow. I've never heard of that one. It's an early Pollock, his third film. Wow. The Scalp Hunters. I thought you were about to say that you'd actually seen that movie. Yeah, Ben was sitting up.

No, I have not. Number four is 2001 A Space Odyssey. Number five is a comedy that wouldn't fly today starring a Kubrick collaborator. It's a Peter Sellers movie called The Party. It's called The Party. Blake Edwards is The Party. The Party is intense, man.

The Party is intense. Grundy V. Bakshi. Do I want to know why it wouldn't fly? Peter Sellers in brown face doing like an indian accent you know sort of yeah is the party is it done with good intentions i don't know um i remember seeing it as a kid and having a parent showed it to me not my mom like a different parent it was like this movie is racist i don't know peter sellers is funny like yes and you watch

and it's mostly just because it's set at a party, and it's just him getting into various little, like, he's always... There's sort of incredible comedic construction in it. It's like one long set. It's all set in one house, and it's him just making mistakes. People don't want to totally throw it out, because it's not just like, oh, here's Mickey Rooney in the bathtub. It's like there's things worth studying in this movie it is funny i mean like mr bean is very obviously inspired by

peter sellers in general but like that character that he's playing and it's obviously also it's like well clusso he's doing french here he's doing indian what's the problem yeah it's the 60s right now is he actually in brownface they darken his skin oh yeah no it's fucked up it's not good probably if that movie he played a french butler or a British butler. It would have been okay. And it was the exact same film, it would be considered one of the 10 canonical comedies. Right? Right.

Because it's got all this. Yeah, it's Blake Edwards, too. I mean, it's a real. Yeah. And it was a huge. Well, as you say, it was. It was a big hit. Huge hit.

Some other movies in the top 10. Gone with the Wind. Heard of it? Yeah. Talk about canceled. That's a little bit on the canceled. They just bring it back every. Yeah, it's just been reiss top 10. Gone with the Wind. Heard of it? Yeah. Talk about cancelled. That's a little bit on the cancelled. They just bring it back every... Yeah, it's just been reissued again. Five years, whatever. Go enjoy it.

Has it really been reissued? Not recently. 1968, I thought you meant now. It was every five years until the early 90s. No, it would be complicated to reissue it now. It'll happen sometime, probably for the 100th anniversary, which is not actually that long. It's a real conversation. We're not going to get into a guy with a wing conversation.

There's also The Fox with Sandy Dennis. Not after The Fox with Peter Sellers. Based on D.H. Lawrence. No, not that. There's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, another 67 holdover. That movie stinks. Ben is trying to come up with a guess. Here's what I'm trying to do.

David's flipping up the i'm doing the board game it's henry yeah yeah oh henry andrew um yes she's coming to dinner can we just this is a boring i re-watched it sometime in the last five years it's got its moments where like you know an actor especially what's her um you know bea richards who's the mom like they'll have like a speech where you're like, well, you know, they did a good job with that. But that's very much a movie where you have to go like, imagine when it came out.

Exactly, right. Like, you really have to put on the prism of the time. That movie's homework. It's also the Spencer Tracy thing of like, he's dying. And so you are watching this guy sort of like summon his last ounce of strength. Right. I think that's the movie. Clooney is like so obsessed with Spencer Tracy dying race and so you are watching this guy sort of like summon his last ounce of strength right

i think that's the cluny is like so obsessed with spencer tracy and talks about that's the movie where you literally see him mid-take check where his mark is and he was just like he was an actor of such conviction and naturalism that you even respect that as a move of honesty. Where he takes a step, starts talking, looks down, adjusts to the mark, keeps talking. Wow.

Camelot, the adaptation of the musical by Lerner and Lowe with Richard Harris. And a movie called The Secret War of Henry Frigg starring Paul Newman. Which is like a military drama. I've never seen it. Who directed that?

Jack Smite. Oh, Jack Smite. Who made Rabbit Run and I don't know, some stuff. Can I just say quickly, Merchandise Spotlight, Kubrick was always really protective of not letting people merchandise his movies and now in the last five years it's really opened up. Company Super 7

I like a lot has made a series of figures that are first american toys based on 2001 i ordered the moon watcher that comes with the uh the monolith and the bauman that comes with how last night thank you i had to say this on mic so i can write it off as a business i was waiting to order it until we got to the episode good job buddy wait can i uh how can I... I suppose I... I'll send you the links. They're really good. No, no. I'm wondering if I were to mention it on the air and I were to buy it, would it be a tax write-off for me? I'm going to pay you for the episode.

You bought me a pastry. I did. I bought you a pandan. So that was goods and services for my time. Absolutely. We pay our guests now. You do? Yeah, you'll get some cash. Are you being serious? Yeah, we're being serious. We're an upstanding business. We pay our guests.. You do? Yeah, you'll get some cash. Are you being serious? Yeah, we're being serious. We're an upstanding business. We pay our guests.

I didn't know this. It's happened in the time since the last time you were on. It started right about then. I would have pushed to been on much sooner if I'd known this. Every week, you'd be knocking on the door. Are you out of... Can I do the... I don't fucking know. What do you got coming up next week?

First of all, I insist that this part do not be edited. No, this is Anne. Are you fucking kidding me? This is Stan. We're going to triple it. You know how much they're complaining right now about the episodes being too short? We're just going to have dead air. Hold on. I'm going to have you go in the bathroom and take a

shit and we'll record it. Don't you think for the Eyes Wide Shut episode it should be six hours long. Let's just let it run for another three hours. Now, we were talking a lot on this program today. Yeah, by the way, I do have to catch a four o'clock

at 3,000 years of longing. We were talking in the program today. About 2001 and how it's about the bending of space and time and evolution and jumps in time.

Absolutely. So we recognize that fourth dimensional travel is a possibility. Yeah. What I'm driving at is I've been a guest on the show earlier. Can I invoice you for my previous? Yeah, sure.

Why not? Fine. Okay. Okay. But that money goes towards ordering the fucking action figures. I love Super 7. I've gotten some of their shit before. They're great.

They're good. They do clothes. I love them. They should sponsor the show. All right. Everyone's. We got to stop. It's over. I'm going gotta go see the george miller i mean just talk about time travel you'll have already heard me do the 3 000 years of longing episode at this point

i just feel like we have to fucking mention that we're going back to the moon baby nasa's going back that happened this week artemis project and i've been reading all this stuff about it. And what's kind of depressing and like very on the money is that what I'm seeing is like we're going to get a base on the moon and then we're going to figure out how we can start to harness minerals. Healing free. Basically figure out how to continue to go further from there. I also think this is the opportunity to mention two things with specific dates on them. I think this is the time to... I'm doing it very quickly. I have to go see a movie.

October 21st on Patreon. 2010, the year we made Contact. Yeah, we already said that. I just wanted to give the date for when it's happening because we've mucked around our schedule a little bit to make it fit. I do think this is the moment we should announce the 2022 Talking the Walk. Yeah, let's just announce it. Our main franchise of talking famous cinematic walks with J.D. Amato. the moment we should announce the 2022 Talking the Walk. Yeah, let's just announce it. Our main franchise of talking famous cinematic walks with J.D. Amato.

On December 11th, we're talking the moonwalk. We're going to discuss the moon landing with J.D. Amato and how it could or could not have been faked by Stanley Kubrick. To be clear, it was not faked by Stanley Kubrick. But we're going to talk on a technological level the reasons why. Sure. talking about something so you're walking

in podcast oh you think it's fake time yeah it's not fake where are you gonna walk on the floor all right but back you know you can do ben you can actually point a fucking camera at the moon there's flags on it they're just still there they're still there jordan we left them there thank you for being here i hope uh i hope everybody had a good time listening. I had a good time being here. I'm glad. Unfortunately, I'm probably not going to have a number two in Ben's toilet. That's sad. Because you can't control your bowels.

You can't. You can't. You can to some extent. I can't force it out when it's not ready. But I don't want to go out on that note. I want to say a few things. It's always a pleasure to be on your show. Pleasure's all ours.

But now that I know there's some money involved, I'm overjoyed to be on your show. I'm assuming that you will not be requesting W9 information from me because I'm not filing this on my taxes. Great. A round of applause. No, I mean, 2001 A Space Odyssey.

I hope people who haven't watched it in a long time watch it again. I've avoided watching it because it feels like some, dare I say it, monolithic thing. Some stodgy sort of piece of history. It's a little slow at home, so if you're going to do it,

like don't watch it on your laptop. Like do it up. Dim the lights. Sure. Put down your phone. Yeah. If you're going to watch it, HBO Max's print is pretty good.

Sit on the couch and really focus and you're going to dig it. If you can catch it in a theater, all the better. Oh, 100%. Listen, not all of our listeners are in New York City. No, most of them are not.

Thank you all for listening. Jordan, thank you for being here. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Round of applause to us for doing this. Thank you to Marie Barty. Round of applause for our social media helping to produce the show. AJ McCann, Alex Barron for our editing.

JJ Birch for our research slash the Kubricktionary. Leigh Montgomery, the Great American for our theme song, Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for some links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon,

which will feature the upcoming teased Kubrick tie-in episodes. Tune in next week for A Clockwork Orange with Alex Ross Perry, a very short and concise episode. Yeah. Yeah, if this one felt too long to you, don't worry.

The next one's also too long. Yeah. Is this episode longer than 2001, the movie? Probably. Yeah. I think we beat it by a couple minutes. And as always,

pre-comp.