2001

This was my first time watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's funny to think that back in the 60's this is really what they thought our technology would be like in 2001. While that was just a sub-plot of the film, it was really interesting to me to think of evolution as quick, abrupt stages in time spawned by intelligent monoliths from outerspace. I am a huge fan of some of Kubrik's other films, especially Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange, so I went into this film expecting great things, and while I wasn't let down, it was not what I expected a Kubrik film to be. To start off with it was incredibly slow at the begining, though I was quite suprised to hear the unique music that has been sampled and replayed a thousand times in other media. Was this movie the first to use that music? I was also suprised to see that this was the movie that featured the apes circled around a mysterious large object in awe, that has been re-used hundreds of times in other outlets. I did not know that 2001 was the movie that first used that image. The movie left a few questions to be answered, but overall was pretty good, maybe a bit too long though... oh yea, and what the heck does "HAL" stand for? It has to be an acronym for something!