Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Friday, February 16, 2024

4kUHD/Movie Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Spoilers)

 


2001 is widely considered one of the most iconic Sci-Fi movies ever made. The 1968 movie was directed by Stanley Kubrick and adapted from the novel by Author C. Clarke (who wrote the screenplay for the movie with Kubrick). The movie stars Keir Duella, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain. The movie is set in 2001, in a much more technologically advanced future than we actually had in 2001 or even now. Duella stars as Dave Bowman, a scientist on the Discovery spacecraft which is bound for Jupiter. The ship is run by an artificially intelligent supercomputer called the HAL 9000 (voiced by Rain). The mission goes sideways and becomes (in part) a story of man versus machine.

This is an excellent movie, but it may not be entertaining for everyone. It touches on many different topics, including life's origin, artificial intelligence, and space exploration. There is not really any action in the movie. The closest thing to that is when Dave was trying to get back into the ship after HAL locked him out. It is very much a movie that requires you to think more than anything else. The idea that a computer goes bad and attacks humans would appear later in movies like The Terminator, but what made this version of that story work was how HAL interacted with the other characters. Ultimately, 2001 is an interesting, but not exactly exciting, movie. It is really a very long thought experiment, made by the only director that would ever be allowed to make it the way he did. As is the case with many, if not all, of Kubrick's movies people tend to either love it or hate it. It received a ton of bad reviews when it came out in 1968 for being too long and boring, with nothing happening for most of it. And to some extent, those are valid points. It is 2.5 hrs long, and there is no dialogue for the first half-hour or the last (give or take) half-hour of the movie. The first two minutes are a completely blank screen, it has an intermission, and there is (an approximately) 20-minute long vertigo-inducing light show toward the end of the movie.

Even with all that, the movie plays on concepts of the origin of life, god, alien life, technological advancement, human reliance on computers, and the possible dangers of artificial intelligence. All of this makes for ripe debate now 50 years past the movie's release. It is unique in the fact that it does not really try to provide any answers, or really set up all of the questions that it is posing all that well. It is not a movie that you can really have on in the background and follow everything, yet there are parts where you can completely ignore it and not miss anything.

The 4k set is a three-disc set. The movie looks great in 4k UHD format. On the UHD disc, you just get the movie, with or without the option of playing the commentary track with actors Gary Lockwood and Kier Dullea. It is hard to tell exactly how great the restoration is until you see the low-definition clips from the movie on the special features disc (which is a separate blu-ray). While it does not look as good as some of the new movies do in 4k, given that it is now over 50 years old, it looks as good as it will ever look in any format unless it gets an extensive restoration. That said, the A/V transfer was of good quality and it is a step up from the DVD and the initial blu-ray releases. There is also a regular blu-ray disc with just the movie itself on it.

There are about 2 hrs worth of extras, some of which were documentaries shot in the 2000s which discussed the movie's impact on all the sci-fi movies that came after it, and how it was a giant in the world of practical special effects. There was also some behind-the-scenes material shot while the movie was being made, a documentary from back when it was being filmed about how the filmmakers and NASA were working together to make it as authentic as possible, and for me, the most interesting, how they thought technology and the space program would be in 2001 as opposed to what reality has been. They got some very close (like the tablet devices on the ship that look a lot like iPads do today) and other things that were way off about (like permanent bases on the moon, and space flight being as normal as flying in an airplane). There is also an almost hour and twenty-minute long audio interview with Kubrick done in 1966).

Overall, I cannot say that this is a movie that everyone will enjoy. Chances are, however, anyone who is considering this has already seen the movie and is a fan. I would say, that it is a good idea to also get 2010 which was the sequel that was made in 1985 which not only concluded the story but also helped make the story in 2001 make more sense than it does upon first viewing. It is also, in my opinion, a more entertaining movie than this one, because it is less thought experiment and more drama. Even though I do like 2010 better, this one is still one of my must-watch movies.

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