INN OF LOST SOULS: general chit-chat thread

[Trantor]

Next week, I'll be going to a 2001 - A Space Odyssey screening. I've read the statement "If you haven't seen it on the big screen, you haven't seen it at all." several times now, so I fully expect this to become an otherworldly experience. I'll let you know what I think about it afterwards.

[beowuuf]

Oooh.

Actually, I wonder if the surround sound that blew everyone's minds 'back in the day' is too commonplace for us now. I remember my dad saying that at the start you had all the wldlife, and of course the various sounds were coming from around you.

[Bit]

That's for a lot of movies Trantor - LOTR on a normal TV - what's left?
I still have to watch Avatar/3d - hope on sunday and that it still runs.

[Trantor]

I still have trouble thinking about anything else than 2001. Seeing it on a big screen was indeed a very special experience, and I can only recommend it to anyone who might get the chance.

[beowuuf]

Interesting to see that the cinema experience holds up today as it did years ago!

[cowsmanaut]

for the purpose of making Ameena say.. AWWWWW cute!
http://a7.vox.com/6a00c22523e12d8e1d011 ... 860f-500pi

I post it her because it's not my rat, nor is it a baby.. but still fully cute

[Gambit37]

Awwwwwwww Cute! That's a lovely pic

[Ameena]

Bah, Cows you have achieved success - Omg aaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww ...that would be stoundingly cute even if it didn't have the ickle teddy bear thingy . Aaawww look at the little ears all folded back and the squinched-up face aaaawwww . And the little paws .

[Bit]

Took a moment to find it again, but got it. Love this one. Not that cute, but - really cool!
http://blog.racheshop.de/wp-content/upl ... PC-Fun.jpg

[Gambit37]

I still have trouble thinking about anything else than 2001. Seeing it on a big screen was indeed a very special experience, and I can only recommend it to anyone who might get the chance.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo envious!

[Ameena]

Rofl what do you mean, Bit, "not that cute"? It's a rat asleep - how can it not be cute? And he's inside the casing of a computer tower. And he's on his back. And he looks rather like my ol' Nimmy. Aaaww...now I feel a bit sad. Damn, I really need to get a rat fix from somewhere .

[cowsmanaut]

this is the girl/woman/teen? who takes those rats sleeping photos..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/necilbug/

[beowuuf]

Awww, Nimbus and Comet!

[Ameena]

Aaaaawwww, cuuute pics . There's a rat site I check every day, the Dapper Rat site, run by someone in Australia. It's not updated as often now as it used to be 'cause the lady had a kid and stuff so her life's got a bit busy. There are tons of ratty photos and some really cute/funny stories about each of the ratties she's had over the years (site is as dapper.com.au if anyone's interested). She also has a bunch of links to other ratty websites.
I think one thing that's cute about ickle-bubby ratties is when they're all still just a pink-and-squirmy pile and one of the adult rats walks over them and you just hear this mass of squeaking as they all get stepped on. Aaawww the cuteness. And fuzzles look like puppies when they're tiny - around the time their eyes open is when their noses get all pointy and stuff, and their fur goes all sort of fuzzy and soft when it's at the not-quite-fully-grown-but-no-longer-ratty-stubble kind of stage, again this is around the time their eyes open (about 14 days). And of course they keep their baby coats for a while anyway - a couple of months or so I think, though I can't remember. Baby coat is softer than the adult coat, though females tend to remain pretty soft anyway - it's males who usually get a bit rougher. I think it's due to some kind of hormone thingy they release (which can also make white fur go a bit yellowy-looking - on Dapper the stuff is referred to as "buck grease", I believe).

[beowuuf]

I remmeber that site, as it had the rat dictionary definitions of some of the weird words you used!

[Gambit37]

OMG. Cuteness overload: http://www.flickr.com/photos/necilbug/s ... 088324414/

I was never a big fan of rodentry, but getting older I seem to be finding all sorts of things cute that I never used to. I wonder if this means anything?

Of course, you can't beat these for cuteness:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluelunarrose/2726074314/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluelunarrose/2743062131/

[Ameena]

Zomg the cuteness!!! Aaaawww all those sleeping rats. I need to find and make friends with someone round here to who has rats so I can go round their house a lot and get my fix there .
Those hedgehog pics are also abominably cute...the second one I've already seen 'cause it was linked by someone on the QI forum a while back. Omg they are so cuuuuute as well .

[MasterWuuf]

I liked the one in a Christmas hat.
Still, I wouldn't be comfortable if I saw it coming down my chimney.

[Trantor]

I still have trouble thinking about anything else than 2001. Seeing it on a big screen was indeed a very special experience, and I can only recommend it to anyone who might get the chance.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo envious!

I honestly can't tell if you are serious or if you are sarcastically telling me I should stop spamming the board.
If the latter, I'm sorry.

[Gambit37]

Completely serious! I've never seen it on the big screen

[MasterWuuf]

Completely serious! I've never seen it on the big screen

Neither have I. Is it really that much better? (2001, that is).

My brother in law hated the original music, so he dubbed in his own.

I like it better, as well.

[Gambit37]

Sacrilege!!!!

[Joramun]

OUTRAGE !

[beowuuf]

Roy Schneider!

*runs*

[Gambit37]

Um, yeah, that was the sequel. You little tinker

[Trantor]

He's called Roy Scheider, without the n. And I will always look up to Martin Brody, Chief of Police of Amity Island. Though Scheider was good in basically everything, and was certainly the best thing about 2010, he will always be Brody to me.

[beowuuf]

I know. And with the same difference as aliens to alien, and ... other sequeals to famous films that were more mainstream, I enjoyed 2010, what can I say?

I find the end of 2001 the book more easy to understand than the film, obviously, but I guess Kubrick's idea was that Dave's journey shouldn't be completely understandable

[Zyx]

2001 on a big theater screen is one of the greatest, earliest experiences one could have at the very beginning of the multimedia society, just when people started to think wild, with mind at large - drugs and rock helped too. It changed mentalities and helped to shift from the realistic, animal-like apprehensions and from the simplistic social world to the era of communications, virtuality, memes, popularized science and generalized self-reflection about our reality (there is still a long way to go, though).
We live in a paradigm that has very few left of our history up to 1950-1960. Almost everything that matters or shapes our thoughts or conditions our behaviour is recent.

Experience this movie at the fullest (and others who followed): if it touches you, you'll be marked for the rest of your life. You'll never think the same. An opening mind movie.
I think there is a whole and long, sometimes tortuous, "path" of movies to watch that would lead to a deeper, broader understanding of life.
I realize I almost never managed to express the meaning I see in life and the universe with words, but I've found musics, books and movies who did express an aspect of it - as if they had found me.

Sadly, I think I went far in exploring but my thoughts are void of words and I usually can't say anything from my insights, it's like as if my listener would have to learn the correct language first. Does anybody feel the same?
I think I could try to make a list of those masterpieces who are like the authentic words for me. It would be a project worth the while.

EDIT: missing word.

[beowuuf]

I suppose it would be like someone who cannot speak, after hearing music, trying to express it. You just need to find the right language! A list of pieces that invoke those emotions may well be the answer.

[Trantor]

I agree completely that Kubrick deliberately left a lot more ambiguous than Clarke. Clarke himself said that the novel contains his interpretation and that it may not necessarily be the right one, and not Kubrick's. It's one of the many wonderful things about the film 2001 that you can interpret it in a number of ways. The film hardly ever tells you what exactly happened or why it happened. For example, I'm still unsure if HAL really malfunctioned or if he was deliberately lying about the AE35 unit, though I tend towards the latter.

As for 2010, I agree it's a good film in its own right, and having monoliths, Keir Dullea and HAL in it certainly helps. But it's much "tamer" and conventional than 2001; an enjoyable experience, but nothing too special, and little to truly think about once you finished the film.

Funny that you say Aliens is more mainstream than Alien. I always considered both to be pretty mainstream-y, and I don't even think they fall in two completely different genres (many people do). Both cover the genres of horror, sci-fi and action, with the first one putting emphasis on horror, while the second one mainly focuses on action. Both are very well-written and very well-directed. I like Aliens better because films that primarily focus on horror suffer from two thing for mes: they are more demanding and have less rewatchability. I was 14 when I first saw Alien and thought it was good, but a bit too slow and with not enough action. The second film fascinated me more because it was easier to consume for my young and not-so-innocent-anymore mind. Today, I know both films inside-out and enjoy the second one more because the atmosphere of the first film doesn't quite live up anymore when you know everything about it. But that may just be me.

The really good thing about Aliens is that it is just the right amount of different. It is set in the same universe, which is not only visible in Ripley's character, but also in the set and sound design; you feel at home watching the sequel. But instead of being a carbon copy of the first film like way too many sequels, Aliens finds its own identity in its new aspects (Ripley's character development from terrified victim to female Rambo with strong instincts of mothership, heavy weaponry, swarms of aliens instead of one, and a new dimension of the aliens with the queen). It is one of the very rare examples where a sequel does everything right; I can understand people who prefer Alien, but I really don't think a better sequel could have been done. The only other film I can think of where this is also true is Bride of Frankenstein, which I consider both Karloff's and Whale's finest hour. The scene with the blind hermit alone is better than the whole first film!