2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
I was never that big a fan of
'2001: A Space Odyssey' so this patchy sequel isn't that far below the
Stanley Kubrick one for me but for different reasons. Story wise it makes an illuminating companion piece, completing and explaining some of the more oblique plot points of the first one. The developments to the HAL9000 story are really interesting, emotional and dramatic and put a totally different but satisfyingly logical spin on the events of the first. Most of the film takes place aboard the Soviet spaceship 'Alexei Leonov', which is sent to Jupiter to investigate the disappearance of the 'Discovery', nine years earlier.
Roy Scheider leads a trio of American astronauts (including HAL's designer) in cooperation with the Russians (featuring
Helen Mirren as the Leonov's Captain, in her Hollywood debut), just as the "Cold War" is heating up back on earth. The interplay between the two groups, sometimes distrusting, sometimes warm and friendly, sometimes just pragmatic, is really good. I love the utilitarian design of the 'Leonov' exterior and not just because it was the basis for the cool 'Omega Class Destroyers' in my favourite TV show
'Babylon 5'.
The closing monologue is rather beautiful and full of promise. Unfortunately that ending is perhaps the only bit that manages to be as poetic, enigmatic and expansive as Kubrick's film. The FX, some of the interior designs, the build quality of the sets and costumes, range wildly from good, to barely acceptable, to just plain bad and look a bit embarrassing next to the perfection of Kubrick and Douglas Trumbull's visuals. Some early CGI was utilised which might explain some of the mismatch in the composited elements, some grainy and sharp, some smooth and fuzzy. The black levels are often all over the place between the different FX elements, destroying visual cohesion. The spacesuits and interiors are b-movie level and the attempts at simulating zero-G don't work. The actors look like they are in pain and struggling in the rigs, things that should be hidden by editing. Perhaps the lack of polish is down to Director
Peter Hyams also acting as Producer, Writer and crucially, Cinematographer, when another pair of eyes was needed for quality control. On a side note, I really appreciated that the blu-ray retained a vintage "Diamond Jubilee" MGM studio card (even though it looked like sh*t), instead of replacing it with a clean, modern, digital one. It's a nice bit of film history.
I think somebody could make an ambitious combination fanedit of 2001 & 2010 intercut together. For example, when the 2010 characters board the deserted Discovery, we move backwards in time to see how it became deserted, or when HAL is powered back up, it's blended with him powering down, or the 2010 explanation of HAL's behaviour, could directly follow him killing the crew in 2001. You'd have to edit out the scenes featuring characters that were recast but those scenes probably aren't essential anyway.
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Body Bags (1993)
This
John Carpenter anthology horror is worth seeing just for Carpenter's own linking performance as a cadaverous coroner dropping blackly comic jokes and twisted puns about the stiffs in his morgue. He introduces three tales, two from himself and one by
Tobe Hooper. 'The Gas Station' is a really effective and simple setup about a college girl working a night shift at a petrol station, terrorised by a serial killer but also just by the weirdos and misfits who are up at that time wanting fuel and smokes. 'Hair' is the most interesting of the three, featuring a self-conscious balding man, who tries out a new miracle hair growth treatment, with freaky results. Hooper's segment 'Eye' isn't as good, featuring a very predictable horror plot "man gets transplant but... surprise! It's possessed by a killer". The fact that it stars
Mark Hamill as a man who receives a facial injury in a traffic accident, threatening his career, unless he can have restorative surgery, is pretty close to Hamill's real life. The whole thing is packed with other famous actors in small roles and funny little cameos by Horror movie stars, such as
Wes Craven,
Sam Raimi,
David Naughton,
Sheena Easton,
David Warner,
Greg Nicotero,
Deborah Harry,
Twiggy and
Roger Corman. It feels like everybody involved including Carpenter had a blast making this.