Berube on Kubrick's Silence in 2001

While he attends the MLA, Michael Berube has posted, in two parts, his 1993 essay offering a novel explication of 2001 as, inter alia, a political rumination steeped in the Cold War that prevailed at the movie's 1968 release. The point is not the accuracy of the account; I've read no scholarship on the movie, and can't gauge whether Berube was fair to the accounts he sought to correct. I do find his account salutary, however, and it does an excellent job of combining excruciatingly close analysis of the film's very limited dialogue with big-picture consideration of the political context (not just the Cold War, but the space race generally as well as the near culmination of the Apollo missions), as well as an intriguing contrast between the movie as filmed and the novel treatment Arthur Clarke offered as a post hoc explication of the bare screenplay. (Indeed, when Berube's done with this part of the analysis, one wonders how Clarke and Kubrick worked together well enough to bring the film into being.)

Regardless, for those who love the movie and the filmmaker as much as I do, it's a worthy, if lengthy, read.

Best Times Film Review Ever

You needn't follow the link; Nathan Lee's review of The Covenant follows in its entirety:

WHAT'S THE 411 ON THOSE WITH GUYS?
By Nathan Lee

“Hey, what’s up? I tried calling you last night.”

“I know. I was at a movie.”

“What’d you see?”

“ ‘The Covenant.’ ”

“What’s that again?”

“It’s that movie about these guys who are witches, and they go to this creepy school, and there’s this new kid — Sebastian Stan — who’s, like, the bad witch, and they fight and stuff. It’s super lame.”

“Are they cute at least?”

“Totally. The main guy, Caleb — Steven Strait — has, like, these big lips and sexy eyes, and he drives a Mustang, and everything. And he’s friends with this crazy, like, blond dude, who looks kind of gay, and this motorcycle guy with long hair and some other guy. Actually, the whole thing is kind of gay. I mean, they’re on the swim team, right? And there’s this scene where they’re all in Speedos and everything.”

“Awesome. I think I saw the commercial. That’s the one with a car that explodes and gets put back together by magic, right?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the coolest part. The effects are super cheesy. Like at the end, when Caleb is fighting the evil transfer student, they fly around a barn and throw magic Jell-O at each other. I’m totally serious.”

“Is it scary, at least?”

“There’s this one part, where these spiders crawl all over this girl and go in her nose and stuff.”

“Ew.”

“Super ew.”

“The Covenant’’ is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). The film is violently banal.

Juice

Again with the vain poking around on Google in search of other Moons Over Pittsburgh, as it were, I discover that a movie short of this very name was produced in Germany in 1985. If you look more closely, you'll find some interesting stuff related to the movie. But then why would you want to do that?

Also, Jeanie has posted a fantastic Bushism, in which our fearless leader tries to persuade himself that Social Security reform makes sense to him . . . and fails.

Seen, Bumpersticker

Leavening my morning:

This aggression will not stand, man."

And more to be found here.

The Onion Has Its Moments

This just about killed me.

SON ATTEMPTS TO CULTIVATE PARENTS' INTEREST IN BETTER MOVIES
DOVER, DE—Marc Morehouse, 24, made another vain attempt to improve his parents' taste in movies Monday by taking them to see Sideways. "I know you guys thought Meet The Fockers sounded really funny, but maybe we should all give something a little different a try," Morehouse said to his parents Kirk and Doris as he bought three tickets at an area cineplex. "Dad, you like golf, right? And Mom drinks wine, so this movie is right up your alley. It'll be fun." After the show, Morehouse could not convince his parents to have dinner at a non-chain restaurant.

(Hi Mom, Dad, all in good fun.) Well of course Moon has parents.