Holy shit, what a day.
Left the gf's apt at 1:00pm to help her run a couple of errands. Unbenknownst to us, there's some parade in Boston and it totally fucks up traffic (which already gets pretty rough there, especially on Sunday afternoons). As we're trying to find her friend's house, I make a wrong turn, pull a U-turn and hit a curb, busting my tire. I have a spare but for some reason not a jack! (I swear I had one, I have do idea where it is now
)
So get the car to a gas station/garage I know of but they're closed on Sunday. So is the second place I try. The gf calls a friend of hers who is willing to come help us out and bring his jack. But they end of getting caught right at the peak of parade traffic, get detoured, lost, etc, as we're waiting for a good 45 minutes or so (it should have taken them 10 minutes on a normal day).
Finally the tire is changed, it's after 3:00pm (I was planning to leave at 2), I'm faced with this decision: do I try to make it to Suffern, NY with one lesser tire or do I just give up and go straight to work the next morning? It was certainly enough time, but I feared Sunday traffic.
So I drop her off and go for it. I did hit some traffic, missed an exit, got lost, the whole works. Finally I make it there: right on time. As I sit down, the organizer of the festival was finishing his "upcoming films" and "thank you for coming" speech and then, bam, the lights dim and the music kicks. Then the curtains open and I was transformed into the greatest cinematic voyage ever created.
Whew.
The print was magnificent. Some of the great shots hit me like they never have before, particularly the recurring motif of the sun rising over the monoliths. The "beyond the infinite" sequence is a totally different experience on the big screen. It sure does remind you that the film was made in 1968.
I've learned a bit about the space program since the last time I saw the film, and it really does give you a greater appreciation for it. Like I finally understood why they showed the docking sequence with matching rotation in detail (that was done for the first time by NASA around the time the film was being made).
The actors that played Frank Poole (the astronaut Hal killed in the yellow space suit) and David Bowman (only survivor of Jupiter mission and starchild) were there and participated in an interview and Q&A. Dullea (Bowman) is still thin and in great shape. I didn't stand on line to meet them (I'm not into that), but saw them up close when I was leaving as they were preparing to receive autograph seekers. I thanked them for coming but it was kinda freaky, 'cause Dullea looked eerily like the aged Bowman when he was in his red space suit after going through the stargate thingy. Lockwood (Poole) put on some weight, so no eeriness there.
They were cool guys, had a deep appreciation for the film. Lockwood like to ramble a bit, but it was OK. Their admiration for Kubrick was obvious and it was a kick to see them talk a little like fanboys whenever the subject of Kubrick came up. As Dullea put it, "When you were around Stanley, you knew you were in the presence of greatness." They talked about their first contact with his work (ie, "A little anti-war film with Kirk Douglas called Paths of Glory), a couple of stories about some of the shots, etc.
The Q&A was cool. The subject of 2010: An Insultingly Mediocre Sequel, or whatever it's called, came up and they politely expressed what I usually rather crudely when asked about it. Dullea, who even had a cameo appearance, got right to the heart of it, pointing out that its mistake is that it tried to explain 2001.
The two actors also mentioned their idea contributions. Like for the last part of the film when Bowman is aging in that weird room, they had to come up with a way to make the younger version of himself "disappear." He came up with the solution of just having the older one look back towards where the younger one was and then assuming the point of view of the film. He also came up with breaking the drinking glass as way to get him to look towards the bed, as another way of transitioning to the next stage.
Funniest moment of the evening was when Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons asked them some shit about "mythopaic significance" of some philosophical bullshit, nobody knew what the hell he said, it was quiet, an Dullea goes, "Uh.. Gary?" So Lockwood rambles a bit about something unrelated and then says something like, "To answer your questions... well, I don't really know what you said."
Behind me, a father and his son (about 10-12 yrs old) were watching. Normally kids at movies piss me off, and the boy was understandably confused at the whole ending and was asking his dad, but it didn't bother me. I think it's cool that the movie was introducing a kid to these visuals and concepts and it actually made it more enjoyable.
So, in conclusion: flat tire, speeding down the highway on a Sunday, missing out on gorgeous weather, staying at a motel that night (work is closer than home), even not getting laid one night- and it was totally worth it.
