Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Rewatching 2001 recently, I was struck by just how slow it is. I mean, you can't not notice it, but this time through it almost felt like it was daring people to finish it (as was, inarguably, Barry Lyndon). I don't think this is, as Nicholas Carr would allege, a symptom of my personal overexposure to the Internet and its having conditioned me to expect lightning-quick gratification. Indeed, I felt less impatient with 2001 than I have during any previous viewing. But the slowness is one of the things that intensely stands out, and newcomers to this legendary film should account for it before idly sitting down to it.

The shot from this rewatch that's haunting me is the immediate start of "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite." Preceded by a creepy but not overly dramatic mission recording from Dr. Floyd, this segment of the film opens on a monolith flying around Jupiter space, accompanied by an amped-up reprise of the "Love Theme from the Monolith" (you know, the one that goes "eeeeeeeeee eeeeeee eeEEE EEEeeee eeeeee eeeEEee"). The shot tilts downward and we see the Discovery, dwarfed by the Jovian worlds, and (because it's Kubrick) the shot lingers so long that the viewer's imagination begins to fill in context—an opportunity so few movies afford anymore—and we realize what Bowman must be feeling: isolation to a degree never before experienced by a human. He cannot go home, as far as he is aware; he can't even contact home. Not to mention abject terror at what he sees—remember, he only just learned about the monolith. I mean, Christ, how many movies achieve such a primal, visceral effect? And all this without seeing Bowman's face (because it's Kubrick).

This may be what I enjoy most about Kubrick movies: the space to imagine. That what we imagine should terrify the ever-loving fuck out of us is merely an added bonus.

Review: Thunderball

I can't be the only hardcore MST3K fan who occasionally enjoys undertaking side-by-side comparisons of MST-ed features with the decent and/or popular mainstream films they're trying to be like.

MST-ed Feature	Decent and/or Popular Mainstream Film It's Trying to Be Like
Warrior of the Lost World	Mad Max
Time of the Apes	Planet of the Apes
Gorgo	Godzilla
Cave Dwellers	Conan the Barbarian
Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell	Conan the Barbarian
Outlaw of Gor	Conan the Barbarian
Space Travelers	Marooned

Operation Double 007 (a.k.a. OK Connery, a.k.a. Operation Kid Brother) isn't the only MST experiment from the '60s that tries to cash in on the Bond franchise, but it is the most directly comparable, and Thunderball is the specific Bond outing it's most directly comparable to—because both films have the same actor, Adolfo Celi, playing the villain. Double 007 also features Bernard Lee (the original M) and Lois Maxwell (the original Moneypenny), playing vague versions of their Bond franchise characters who recruit Neil Connery, playing the brother of their "top agent." (Yeah, it's weird.)

Review: Duel of the Titans

Among the notable names of the 1960s Italian sword-and-sandal scene was Steve Reeves, who played Hercules in two movies familiar to MST3K fans. I was delighted last week to discover a movie on Netflix Instant—Duel of the Titans—that not only stars Steve Reeves but also Gordon Brown (whom you might remember as the awkwardly-named secret agent Bart Fargo from another MSTed Italian '60s flick, Danger! Death Ray). In Duel of the Titans, they play the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, respectively—and while all the ingredients are there for another baffling, disjointed Hercules Unchained-esque spectacle, it actually turned out to be pretty good.

Review: Knives of the Avenger

As stupid sword-and-sorcery movies go, Knives of the Avenger (on Netflix Instant) is less stupid than many, but short on both swords and sorcery. It's also short on story—its simplicity and predictability make the film seem as if it may have been intended for children, except for the rape.

The sorcery is entirely dispensed with early on, after a tediously long opening sequence involving some sort of soothsaying witch. It's her cryptic exposition that clues us in that this is supposed to be a Viking movie. She persuades some Bond-girl-esque queen and her strange-looking son to flee the land, just before the antagonist (Argin? Argyle? something like that) shows up to mock and torment the witch.

Why all this is happening isn't revealed for what feels like an hour, after our hero has finally been introduced. He's played by Cameron Mitchell (Captain Santa Claus in Space Mutiny and head evil guy in Stranded in Space) in a bad dye job. His character's name is Rorik or Rurik or something, but that's technically a spoiler—not that you will care. You'll be too distracted by his terrifying similarity to Zapp Branigan in the hair and skirt departments.