Movie Review: * 2001 Space Odyssey(1968)

This movie is probably the slowest movie in the history of cinema.  They are always traveling through space at a snail's pace with music playing.  I remember falling asleep to this movie several times growing up.  True this is the early period of scifi and special effects are limited, but it is a bit much.  

Dr David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) are traveling into deep space.  They are accompanied by the computer HAL.  There are more astronauts sleeping. Hal goes weird, and kills those sleeping as well as Poole.  HAL attempts killing Bowman, not opening the ship to him to get back after he rescued the body of Poole.  However Bowman is able to turn HAL off, and then continues his journey to deep space.  He finally gets someplace and there is an apartment where he grows old and then is reborn.  It all has to do with a monolith that apes found and starting using tools.  The same thing is happenning in space.  A race of extra terrestrials is watching out for and helping man progress.  

A movie about AI going bad.  The computer never makes mistakes.  Directed and written by Stanley Kubrick.  

Music Review: Simon and Garfunkel: Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m.

 Simon and Garfunkel: Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m., Columbia Records, 1964.

This is the first studio album of the duo Simon and Garfunkel.  It is subtitled "exciting new sounds in the folk tradition."  It was first released in 1964 but not very successful, but then rereleased in 1966 when it reached no 30 on the billboard chart.  The song "The Sound of Silence" had become popular in the meantime.  This song alone makes the album special.  It was redone with guitars and a drum kit.  Other songs on the album are special.  "He Was My Brother" is a tribute to their friend Andrew Goodman who had been murdered.  He was part of a group of three civil rights workers murdered in the South.  The perform an arrangement of "Go Tell it on the Mountain."  They also cover the Bob Dylan song "The Times They Are a Changin.'"  The C.D. concludes with the titular song written by Paul Simon.  It tells the story of a man who will be forced out of his love's bed because he has committed a crime.  

Simon and Garfunkel have their distinctive harmonies with Paul Simon usually singing melody and Art Garfunkel singing above him.  Produced by Tom Wilson. 

James Stewart Movie: ***^ Winchester 73 (1950)

 Two brother, one turned out bad and the other not, are after each other.  Lin McAdam (James Stewart) arrives in Dodge City where Marshall Wyatt Earp (Will Geer) is in charge.  He puts Lola Manners (Shelley Winters) on the stage going out of town as an undesirable influence.  His brother goes by Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally) and they already have a grudge against each other.  They then compete in a shooting contest for a new Winchester.  McAdam wins, but he is waylaid by Brown and his men and the gun is stolen.  McAdam and his friend, High Spade Frankie Wilson (Millard Mitchell) and they always seem to be a bit behind.  The gun changes hand as they left town too quickly to supply themselves, and they trade it at a trading post.  The trader trades with the Indians, and they kill him for the gun.  It falls in the hands of the chief.  They are emboldened by the massacre of Custer so decide to also go on the war path.  The woman Manners is checking out a ranch with her new boyfriend, Steve Miller (Charles Drake).  When the Indians are on their tail, he abandons Manners, taking off on his horse while she is in the wagon.  He sees a calvary unit and does come back to rescue her.  The troops create a defensive posture and Miller and Manners join them.  McAdam and Wilson also ride into the group.  With the additional guns from the arrivals the hold them off, and when they kill the chief the gun Winchester falls and is abandoned.  The troops find it and the commander gives it to Miller for his help.  Miller and Manners leave together.  Miller is hoping to join an outlaw gang lead by Waco Johnny Dean (Dan Duryea).  However when he catches up to them Dean covets the new Winchester and kills Miller for it.  The outlaws are over taken by Earp and his posse.  They smoke them out and the outlaws are killed except for Dean who escapes with Manners.  They then travel and meet up with Brown and his gang.  They have a big bank job planned in Tascosa.  Brown reclaims his gun.  McAdams following his brother also arrives in Tascosa.  Dean is a lookout in a saloon across the street from the bank.  When confronted by McAdam he draws on him but McAdams is faster and kills him.  They then fight the robbers, but Brown gets away.  McAdam still pursues him.  This leads to a big shoot out.  Turns out Brown is McAdam's older brother who killed their father when he turned bad.  When McAdams returns he and Manners hug.  

A good Western movie.

Movie Review: **^ Babylon A.D. (2008)

 Babylon A.D. is a futuristic movie where everything is in chaos due to wars and economic collapse.  Only North America offers some relief.  Toorop (Vin Diesel) is hired by Gorsky (Gérard Depardieu) to retrieve a woman, Aurora (Mélanie Thierry)  from Russia.  Toorop finds her in a monastery.  Sister Rebekah (Michelle Yeoh) joins them.  They have many adventures getting back to North America.  Somehow Aurora knows that in going back they will all die.  The meet Dr. Darquandier (Lambert Wilson) who created Aurora and is in essence her father.  He refuses to give her over to Gorsky.  She has been impregnated with twins.  The high priestess (Charlotte Rampling) is somehow hoping to use them as Messiahs, as they will be virgin births.  There is a gun battle and Toorop and Sister Rebekah are both killed.  It appears Darquandier is killed as well, but he is not and he restores Toorop with cybernetic material and tells him to find Aurora and protect her.  This he does, but she dies in childbirth.  The story ends with Toorop a father of two.  His life has been restored and totally changed like a spiritual awakening.

Very hard to follow this movie and very confusing.

Movie Review: *** Ariel: Back to Buenos Aires

 A brother and sister who were born in Buenos Aires go back for a visit.  Davie and Diana (Raphael Grosz Harvey and Cristina Rosato) get into the tango scene and take lessons.  However the also decide to check on Davie's background.  They have no photos of mother being pregnant with him, so suspect he may have been adopted.  The initial check shows he has a birth certificate; but then they check further.  They visit someone who helps families reconnect, and she explains that birth certificates can be false.  He leaves a DNA sample.  After they return to the United States the discover he does have a history.  His mother was murdered, but his father and sister have been looking for him.  He decides to go back, and because of this his adoptive parents (Gerardo Romano and Cristina Banegas) are arrested.  Their father worked for Ford Motor in Argentina.  The company was involved with the military government and their properties were used to house people being tortured.  The father worked breaking up the union and did this by reporting union members to the military who would pick them up and they were at factory for a time being tortured and then disappeared.  When Davie's birth mother was picked up she was pregnant.  They never saw her again.  The baby was given to the adoptive parents of Davie and Diana.

This is a work of fiction, but there was a dark period in Argentina when 20,000 people disappeared.  Now the grandmothers are trying to find the children of their children who disappeared.  The march daily in Plaza de Mayo.  Ford was complicit in this and a couple managers were incarcerated as a result.  

Davie's birth parents planned to name him Ariel.  The scene where Davie is reunited with his father (Albión Vainstein) is very emotional, and just as tragic as the scene of Diana's birth parents and Davie's adoptive parents being arrested on extradition order back to Buenos Aires.  

Word of warning there are some inappropriate scenes where Diana is finding herself in the tango scene.  

AT the Movies: ***^ Elijah Peel (2026)

Elijah Peel is a delightful movie.  The things that makes it so is the young lady, Jessica Sanchez (Evelyn Grace Kite).  But I am ahead of myself.  Elijah Peel (Robert Malcolm Cumming) is a successful rock star whose life is spiraling out of control.  He is late for his sound check.  And the Paparazzi is unbearable and fans just as bad.  His manager, Rock (Kevin Sorbo) manages to get him to his sound check.  He is obviously impaired with drugs and booze.  He has a heart attack at the sound check, and his heart stops for a time.  He is revived and wakes up in the hospital.  He is on strict rest, but Jessica visits him.  She is a bald patient and has aggressive brain cancer.  She asks some questions after hearing things about Elijah Peel on the T.V.  Why is he self destructive?  They fast become friends, and Elijah Peel is thinking about his relationship with God.  Jessica's mother (April Billingsley) is a little bit wary but the relationship blossoms.  Peel has a change of heart, and starts to write songs about Jesus and his relationship with Jessica.  However record contractors are wary.  

This is a very good feel good movie.  Peel maintains his sobriety, but almost has one fall.  Jessica's mother, who is a probation officer helps rescue him.  Peel's nurse,  Nurse Hattie (Princess Elmore) is very helpful in bringing Peel to Jesus.  She seems to have the right questions.  I really love the characters, Peel in his pain, Jessica's mother in her grief and Jessica with her determined faith.  

Music Review: Half Nelson: Willie Nelson

Half Nelson: Willie Nelson, Columbia, 1985.

This Music C.D. gives us ten duets, some Willie Nelson songs and some songs of others but Nelson is always part of the duet.  We have: "Poncho and Lefty" with Merle Haggard, "Slow Movin' Outlaw" Lacy J. Dalton, "Are There Any More Real Cowboys" Neil Young, "I Told a Lie to My Heart" Hank Williams, "Texas on a Saturday Night" Mel Tillis, "Seven Spanish Angels" Ray Charles, "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" Julio Iglesias, They All Went to Mexico" Carlos Santana, "Honky Tonk Women" Leon Russell and "Half a Man" with George Jones.  Of these songs the one I preferred because it is most familiar is "To All the Girls I've Loved Before."  I also really like "Texas on a Saturday Night."  It really seemed like a party and everyone is having fun.