Coming late to the party

Apparantly this is being passed around ye olde email lists. I found that interesting because I heard it September 1, 1999 on NPR. I thought it was so good that I printed it out and have had it on my wall since. It didn't occur to me that it has some unsettling signifigance now. It's always just been there for me.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
W.H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
( Finish the poem! )

I heard that monolith guy was running for mayor

Ok, so I've seen 2001 now. In its original 70mm format. In the year of its namesake. For the first time. I RULE! :)

What did I think of it? I enjoyed it. It holds up well for being the most parodied, pretentious movie ever released. It's kind of like snowboarding. You don't go to reach the bottom. You go because getting there is so much fun. In the same way, you don't watch 2001 because you fell fulfilled at the end, you watch it because it's an experience, like visiting another world. It has the air of reality about it because of the time factor. Kubrick films the signifigant events in the same amount of time they would actually take. For example, (spoiler?) when Frank is out in space and Dave must go get him, instead of giving you enough so that you know Dave is getting in the pod and travelling all the way out to get Frank, he shows Dave getting in the pod, shows the pod going out the door, Dave piloting the pod all the way out to Frank. He simply does not cut, until he is there. Filming nearly every scene this way gives the movie that taste of actuality. And that is why it holds up. Nobody else does this in any other movie that I can think of. I don't believe Kubrick ever duplicated it.

So there you go. Cliff, have at thee! My movie reviewing prowess can stand up to yours! En garde!