Dave, my mind is going... I can feel it.

Well it has finally happened. I was actually hoping it would happen, and with only a handful of movies left to go, I thought it may not happen, but it has.

This weeks movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey. Made in 1968, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick and winning an Oscar for best effects in 1969.

So what am I so excited about? This is the first movie I have reviewed that I am going to give a big fat zero. A duck egg, donut, nada, zilch, zip, nothing, nought. It is hands down one of the worst movies I have ever seen. After 10 minutes I thought I should turn it off and give it a score of one. I give it a zero because I really wish I had done just that. The first 5 minutes of the movie is just a black screen, the next 25 minutes is monkeys running around making monkey noises. Then we have 20 minutes of watching space ships. Then 20 minutes of normal movie happen, then it just gets weirder and weirder. I actually left the movie playing and went off and did other things several times, including writing this review. I felt like I needed to be on drugs to watch it but I wasn't sure which one I needed. Probably the same one Stanley Kubrick was on when he made this rubbish. The movie itself could be described in terms of being a drug. The first 3rd was a sedative which made me sleepy, the 2nd 3rd was valium and the last 3rd was LSD or acid. I had no idea what was going on.

The story is basically in real time, so when they are preparing to get into the pod to go out into space, we follow them down the hallway, down the stairs, get into the pod, buckle up, start the incredibly slow pod launching mechanism and then drift painfully slowly into space. This all takes 25 minutes. That is no joke. You think to your self -WHY?

Never at any stage, while watching this movie, did I think -

• this is a good movie
• I can't wait to see what happens next
• this story is building to something big

Ok, I will now look at the positives. The effects for the time (1968) are actually quite awesome. The space scenes, spacecraft and interiors would actually still hold up today in a movie. The screens and monitors in the movie would actually have been more advanced than they really were in the year 2001. So Stan had excellent foresight. Unfortunately those positives aren't even a spit in the ocean compared to the negatives.

The Rating -

2001: A Space Odyssey - zero gravity

You talkin' to me?...

Well it has been a while so I thought I'd have a go at writing another review. The movie I will review is Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro, a very young Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd and directed by Martin Scorsese. The movie was released in 1976 and was nominated for 4 academy awards and didn't win any. It is about a taxi driver (no surprises there) played by De Niro who drives around and picks up people, takes them to where they want to go, and collects a fare for it. The End. So that is the simple plotline and really about as in depth as I will go with it. Apparently Travis Bickle (the taxi driver [played by De Niro]) is a Vietnam Vet and he suffers from loneliness and insomnia. The weird thing about this movie is that not a real lot happens but I never got bored. In fact I actually wanted the movie to go longer which is really weird for me. As it is it runs for just under 2 hours. I think the reason I liked it was because I kept on thinking to myself - "something is going to happen". The Travis Bickle character is a loose cannon and the chances were that he was going to do something interesting at some stage, other than drive a taxi. In the back of my mind was the fact that I fell for exactly the same thinking in the movie Citizen Kane where that "something" never eventuates. In Taxi Driver it does eventuate. I won't give anything away but it becomes violent at the end. I got the feeling that the movie was just getting interesting when it ended - that is why I wanted it to go longer.

In summing up, I think this movie is more likeable by people who look for depth in movies, in this case how a man struggles with loneliness and alienation. If you read some of the other reviews about it they go in depth about such things and how the movie contains hidden meanings and metaphors as a reflection on how a man can be lonely in one of the biggest cities in the World, blah blah blah.... For me I like a movie to be entertaining. If I have to think, I'm probably not being entertained. If I have to search for the hidden meaning in a movie then I pretty much definitely am not being entertained. However, this movie had enough in it for me to be entertained and I think it would probably be my favourite De Niro movie (other than Meet The Parents - a movie where I could leave my brain at the door when I watched it).

I read that De Niro is a "method actor", meaning he immerses himself in his character when he plays them. For this he apparently drove taxis 12 hours a day for a month to prepare for the role. Personally I think it was a waste of time (though he probably made some good pocket money). Though he does drive a taxi for a lot of the movie, it isn't what it is focussed on. The taxi driver character is just a metaphor for the struggles of man juxtaposed with the bright lights and hussle and bussle of .... blah blah blah. I think I'm becoming a real movie critic!

The Rating -
Taxi Driver: 7 taxis

note: ratings are becoming a little bit difficult now as I compare them with previous movies I watched. I was going to give this 6.5 but noticed I gave Casino a 7. I enjoyed this as much as that so that is why it gets a 7. I probably didn't enjoy it more than Casablanca, but as it was the first movie I reviewed perhaps it now deserves more than the 6.5 I gave it at the time.