Dailles and Nightlies- 2010: The Year We Make Contact

   2001: A Space Odyssey is my all-time favorite film. I've said this on this site multiple times, and will probably bring it up whenever it feels appropriate. I see the film at least once every year, I've read the book, I've read the sequel books, and I've read everything I could on the production of this film and its novel. So, it was a pretty good year for me when it became its 50th anniversary. With the attention given to the film due to this, I decided, with the inauguration of this new series, to spotlight its lesser known sequel. Arthur C. Clarke (co-writer of the original film, and the author of the book) wrote 2010:Odyssey Two specifically as a sequel to the film's continuity (i.e. changing Saturn in the book to Jupiter in the film). Stanley Kubrick declined directing, so Peter Hyams (known for Capricorn One and Outland) took over those duties, (having to start over with effects due to Kubrick destroying the original props), and was released to mixed critical and financial success in 1984. So, yeah, in honor of its 50th anniversary, we take a look at its underappreciated sequel.

     In 2010, 9 years after the Discovery shut down in Jupiter's orbit, Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider, taking over the role William Sylvester played in the first one) took the fall for the events, and is mostly working in the Very Large Array. He is approached by Dimitri Moiseyevitch (Dana Elcar), a representative of the Soviet space program (remember, this was made in 1984), who hopes to recruit him for a Jupiter mission they're planning with their ship  Alexei Leonov (named for the first human to conduct a spacewalk). They hope to investigate the events that lead to the shutdown of the Discovery , the malfunction of its computer HAL-9000 (Douglas Rain), and the disappearance of Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea). Most significantly, they hope to examine the large monolith the Discovery was sent to investigate (as revealed in the climax of the first film). Despite rising tensions between the US and USSR under a conservative president (who cut funding to Floyd's agency while they were planning their own Discovery Two to investigate) and an incident in Central America, Floyd agrees, and manages to get approval for him, Walter Curnow (John Lithgow), the designer of the Discovery and Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban), HAL's creator, to travel with the Leonov. They find themselves with already tense relations with the crew, including Captain Tanya Kirbuk (Helen Mirren), who is concurrently a major with the Soviet Air Force; Dr. Vladimir Rudenko (Saveliy Kramarov), the ship's doctor; and Irina Yakunina( Natasha Schneider), the ship's nutritionist. As they enter Jupiter orbit, they find strange signals coming from Jupiter's moon Europa. After prodding from Floyd, they investigate further, only for a strange light to emerge. This only harkens the strange events that may or may not explain what happened to the Discovery, Dave Bowman, and HAL-9000.

      This could've easily just been a Kubrick knock-off, a way to just imitate his style without any sort of consideration as to why that style is effective or making it work in its own way. While there are a couple Kubrick style shots and homages in the film (including an amusing one where he and Arthur C. Clarke are the US President and Soviet Premier on a Time magazine cover), Hyams largely does his own style, making it very distinct from the original and not overly reliant on it. I do like the more modern, 80's feel to the film, which, while unable to top the timeless period-ness of the original, is an interesting enough in its own right. The effects are superb, especially considering that they had to largely remake a lot of them from the originals. It keeps up with the original in those terms. It largely keeps to the events of the book (though my favorite scene in the book, where Dave Bowman is shown the floating gasbags of Jupiter, and oceanic creatures of Europa by the monolith beings, isn't in the film).

     Which probably leads me to my first problem with the film (and the book): the ending, where it is revealed the monolith beings want to create a new sun using the monoliths to create enough mass. It makes sense, given what has been stated in the plot and gives a good climax. However, it stretches belief and feels a bit odd in an otherwise realistic film. Another book-related problem was the explanation of HAL's malfunction. It is revealed that he was torn between the original mission orders and orders given to keep the Monolith secret. It feels like a disappointment given the scale of his malfunction, and felt like something else was missing from this, but the film decides to just leave it there.

      This is definitely not as good as the original, but most films in general aren't. However, I do think it is a good sequel in spite of that, and just a good standalone film, and does improve on the book by adding the Cold War tension to it. If you like the original, you'll like this, or appreciate it. Even if you don't like it, this is distinct enough from it that you might enjoy it. Definitely see 2001 first, though, if you haven't already. It is a far better film, for sure. However, this is a nice underappreciated film, and especially a study of Cold War tensions in film.   

Current Film Review- Bohemian Rhapsody

        The main criteria for whether I review a film or not is "Is there enough for me to say on it?" and "Is there an interesting spin to it?" There are films I strongly like or dislike, but don't really write a review, because I can't really find anything to really say about the film in detail, or say something that hasn't already been said before. In the case of this film, it has gotten notoriety ... actually for most of its production history. With the conflicts between original actor Sasha Baron Cohen and the surviving members of Queen, to the further conflicts caused by the notorious instability and unreliability of director Bryan Singer, it was not really an easy transition to the screen. Not helped by the fact that early versions of the script downplayed Freddie Mercury's bisexuality and AIDS diagnosis (I'll get into that later.) With this extremely troubled production, it really is something of a surprise that this is as banal and unremarkable as it is.

       The film follows the life of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), from his origins as  Zanzibar-born Parsi immigrant Farrokh Bulsara joining a band named Smile with guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) in Imperial College (later joined by bassist John Deacon ( Joseph Mazzello), to their rise under the new name Queen, to the seminal album A Night at the Opera (or rather, just "Bohemian Rhapsody"), eventually ending at their iconic performance at Live Aid in 1985. All the while, Mercury deals with various relationships, both romantic, including Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), Paul Prenter (Allen Leech), and Jim Hutton (Aaron McCusker), and professional, with the other band members dealing with his more ostentatious, volatile nature.

       The hype is true: Rami Malek is absolutely fantastic in this role. He manages to get the accent down, he gets the stage presence so perfectly, it's a tad unnerving, and manages to imbue his performance with both loud rocker style and the quiet, nervous presence Mercury was reported to have in private. The physical resemblance also helps. If there is one reason to see this film, it's for his performance alone, especially during the Live Aid segment. That segment is also probably the best scene in the film, a near perfect recreation of the event, where we actually get to focus on Malek's performance as a musician and Queen playing music ....

      Which brings me to my first problem: there isn't really a full Queen song until the end. They play some of their iconic songs, sure, but not in full or they're background music. You'd think they'd focus on the various innovative, memorable songs that are still played and remembered today, but the film basically rushes through them, going from one to the other without really exploring them or having the decency to play the whole song! Even the titular song (while its production is explored in full) isn't played in its entirety. Seriously, in a Queen biopic, you'd think they'd play more Queen in it. The point about how they rush through their discography is really emblematic of the film's central problem. It is so standard and by-the-numbers that one can predict how it'll go even with the bare bones synopsis I provided. Filmmakers ought to be screened Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story before they make music biopics, because they haven't really learned to go beyond the tropes and plot structure that film satirized very acutely. This film is very Walk Hard in how its plot is structured and how it portrays its lead figure. It doesn't help that the other band members are cyphers that just don't have personalities and largely exist to just react to Mercury's antics. John Deacon especially, who barely gets anything to do. (This might be because Brian May and Roger Taylor are producers, so the filmmakers might not have wanted to offend them). The script for this is really overcompensating for the controversy centering around it, to the point of changing the sequence of events to fit it all in. I understand the controversy around straight-washing his bisexuality (and, to the film's credit, it does explore his complicated sexuality, but since the characters aside from him aren't fleshed out, it still doesn't fully work), but, since his AIDS diagnosis came years after Live Aid and they were always planning on ending its there, it does make sense that they wouldn't really cover it except for an after epilogue text(unless they were planning on ignoring it entirely, which is pretty bad). Minor spoiler, but the film moves his diagnosis to before Live Aid, and portrays his performance as some last testament. Also, the band broke up years before and Mercury gravels to them to reunite and Live Aid is their big comeback (something that never happened, and Queen had toured regularly in the years prior.). I understand that liberties need to be taken in order to make an entertaining story, but this level of revision seems only to exist as to get another cliche "musician is too difficult, band breaks up, band makes up" moment that feels like a scene straight out of Walk Hard, and again, feels like it's overcompensating for not dealing with it in the original drafts.

    I'm a huge Queen fan, so this being as boring and cliched as it is is disappointing, given how versatile and ecletic Queen was and the massive influence they've had on music. Even if you just want to hear Queen songs, they don't play a full one until the end, and the film is two hours! Just stay home and play those songs online. Still, Rami Malek's performance is good enough that I kind of recommend it if you're interested in seeing that. However, the rest of the film is just mediocre and really doesn't deserve his performance or the great Live Aid scene towards the end.