The best movie ever?

Rating: 10/10 (20 February 2005)

There are so many aspects of this movie that are perfect that any effort to praise it is doomed to do it injustice. Should I begin from the spectacular use of music, in combination with visuals? The perfectly timed cuts? The breathtaking portrayal of gyrating stations? The unparalleled mix between human actors and wildlife footage that creates one of the most touching sequences in cinematic history? The appropriate use of silence - filled with mute agony? The sparse, but extremely realistic dialogue - as witnessed for example in the video-conferences of astronauts with family members? The lack of overacting? Visually the movie is spectacular. All of the shots are perfect. The desert shots, with deep contrasts of colour. The planetary views are not realistic with respect to the planetary alignments, but nevertheless such spatial arrangements bring a certain sense of .. art in the shots.
The DVD I watched also included the trailers for this movie and for 2010. Watching the trailers for the latter, I got the sense of a Holywoodian reheating of the same ideas, with a lot of inane dialogue and 'action' thrown in. After having watched 2001, this trailer made me laugh until my sides ached. I don't think I'll ever watch 2010. (And does this dolphin have something to do with seaquest?)