Newsbreaks 9.21.07 (2001)

For best viewing, allow the video to load completely. Audio version is here. So I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey last night. On the big screen. In 70mm. Totally sober. And I didn’t fall asleep. This is newsworthy. 2001 was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I was born a year after it came out, and for most of my childhood, it seemed completely reasonable that we'd have at least a moonbase by 2001, and probably a lot more. Wonder why it never happened? Oh, I remember—the country went insane. The only thing more powerful than Humanity's unconquerable urge to explore is, apparently, its love of tax cuts. That Moonbase? It’s been turned into McMansions. Boy, am I glad we kept all that money out of the hands of the government. They might’ve wasted it. You think we’d be trading blood for oil if Stanley Kubrick were running things? Do you think we’d be burning that oil and wrecking our planet? Of course not. The insane computers wouldn’t let us! If aliens did attempt to contact us in 2001, I bet they took one look down and thought, “These jokers are beyond help…Anyway, Zorak, I like our monoliths better.” There’s no organized religion in 2001 the movie, all of Humanity’s spiritual urges apparently having been replaced by groovy Sixties design. But Kubrick's vision of the future is far from perfect. For one thing, it’s as white as Greenwich Country Club. And if you see this—RUN!