2001  The year after next

Rating: 10/10 (15 February 1999)

Kubrick has his finger thrust into every pie in this project, even designing most of the special effects (as well as the more mundane: producing and directing). It also bears his trademark; a sinister soundtrack running throughout the film, which regularly reaches unbearable crescendos, before sudden silence
Part one sees a bunch of apes getting the low-down on rapid career development from a 10ft-tall headstone. Thus using a combination of tools, co-operation and a great deal of shouting, they are eventually able to step off-planet. Around this time, another slab is found on the Moon and 20th Century mankind suddenly gets a very real sense of being close to a great and long sought-after discovery (a very 60s notion  all that Age of Aquarius' stuff). I like the shot where the astronauts are crowding round the slab looking very similar (obviously with the addition of spacesuits) to their earlier chimpanzee counterparts
Part two of the movie moves on to tackle AI and whether we're just machines. Great, great cinematography. Hal steals every scene with his Prozac-happy delivery style: `I honestly think you ought to calm down; take a stress pill and think things over, Dave.' Awesome amounts of irregular breathing.
Part three is the final FX sequence followed by the `let's put that thing in a zoo' type ending, with smatterings of reincarnation as Dave becomes Starchild.
Several devices run throughout the film. One is the extensive use of long pauses in the dialogue and the other is the abundant use of distressing sound effects (like the heavy breathing, the chimps screeching, alarms, etc). A possible third being the intense use of colour in deep space. (Though it could just have been showcasing the talents of the new Colourama' processing technique  dunno).
The Apollo astronauts went to the premiere of this movie, before going to the Moon and apparently got a big kick out of it. Although I'm sure it was entertaining, you can't help wondering whether they were just a little freaked by it all. If Neil Armstrong felt a bit of resistance as he pushed the flag into the ground and half wondered whether there was a black slab of granite beneath his feet?
I love this movie. It's visionary, original and plain weird. And the good news is: there's only two years to go.