Celluloid Heroes

I do seem to remember a process where you people ask me questions and I give you answers, and then I ask you questions and you give me answers, and that’s the way we find out things. I think I read that in a manual somewhere.

2010 is the sequel to the film that needed no sequel, the cinematic equivalent to painting legs for the Mona Lisa. It seeks to explain things best left to the individual viewer’s imagination. For these reasons, I hate it.

But is it a good movie? Judging by the standards set by 2001: A Space Odyssey, the answer is no. By the standards set by what tends to call itself science fiction these days, it’s ok, but not great.

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I admire you as a policeman, particularly your adherence to violence as a necessary adjunct to the job.

It’s probably appropriate that the film adapation of James Ellroy’s novel L.A. Confidential contains a fictional TV series that’s an obvious riff on Dragnet. This film seems like it wants to expose every dirty secret about the LAPD that Jack Webb ever whitewashed.

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