Just Been To See… The Lost King and 2001: A Space Odyssey!

 I usually write an end of year post. This year I forgot. It has been a long time since I did midnight for New Year’s Eve anyway, since Dad passed away on December 28, 2009, and I couldn’t be bothered, but I used to at least go and see a movie with family or friends and get home before midnight. This year I was looking after Mum, and the day was so exhausting, I just forgot and went to bed.

So, here are a couple of things I did just before the year ended. No Doctor Who Christmas or New Year special, of course, since the Doctor has regenerated. 

But I have been reading - I read The Lost King: The Search For Richard III in bed, for Jolabokaflod, on Christmas Eve. I’m still reading it, over halfway through. Its chapters alternate between the history chapters and the chapters about the archaeological dig organised by Philippa Langley- right now, I have just read the chapter about the finding of the remains and am reading about Richard’s coronation and what happened there. 

Film poster - fair use

Monday afternoon I went to see the film inspired by - not really based on - the book. I mean, if Philippa Langley spent any time chatting to the ghost of Richard III, she doesn’t mention it in the book! The film is another matter. 

It is a sweet, funny and touching movie I will have to buy on DVD when it comes out, or hope it turns up on one of my many streaming services. At the start of the film, she goes to see a performance of the Shakespeare play in Edinburgh. Later, when she encounters Richard, he wears the face of the actor who played the role in the performance she saw. 

She goes to Leicester to look around and one of the places she visits is the bridge across the River Soar, where it was believed for a very long time that Richard’s remains were thrown in the time of Henry VIII, during the dissolution of the monasteries. Richard stands on the railing and throws himself backwards. 

She sees him a minute later on land and asks him why he did that. He replies, “I thought it’d be funny!”

He seems to be the person she talks to the most about what she is doing, though she does get a lot of support from her ex husband and her children(also not in the book). When his bones are found, she is sitting in a cafe, getting a text to come back to the dig - and sees Richard ride past on a white horse(I think he did have a white horse called White Surrey). 

It might have been fun to have a cameo with Benedict Cumberbatch, who was at the funeral, reading a poem, as he is related to Richard, a distant cousin, but still a nice scene and touching to see the procession going to the cathedral with his coffin, made by Michael Ibsen, a descendant of one of Richard’s sisters, who crafts wood for a living. (Carpenter or cabinet maker?)

If you get a chance, see this film!

Film poster - fair use

The other film I saw this week was a much older one, Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have seen this many times - in fact, I first saw it in my school’s General Purpose Room when it first came out. In those days you could rent a movie on film, if you had a projector and someone who could use it. 

Not the same, of course. The Astor Theatre, a 1930s cinema in my area, has what I believe is the largest screen in Melbourne and we fans got to see it in its 70mm glory. They had an intermission and all! It’s one of those special movies that is shown there once a year. 

It’s inspired by - again, not really based on - a short story by Arthur C Clarke, “The Sentinel.” In it, astronauts get to the moon and discover an artefact humans certainly didn’t make. When touched, it goes off, sending a signal. They figure it must be to a distant civilisation, to let them know humans have left their planet. The question then is… what next? Do they have benign intentions towards us or is it to warn them humans might be headed their way? Nobody knows.

The film is a piece of art that doesn’t need to be asking the questions of the story. The Monolith turns up at “the dawn of man” and inspires a prehistoric ape-like creature to pick up a bone and use it to kill a wild boar for food, then fight off a rival clan for a waterhole. It turns up again centuries later on the moon, for different reasons. The bone flung triumphantly into the air by an ancestor appears to turn into a spaceship travelling to a space station to the tune of the Blue Danube waltz. The spaceship is Pan Am, complete with flight attendants and pilots who aren’t astronauts. 

And the ending? I have no idea what it’s about, even after many viewings, but that’s okay, neither did Arthur C Clarke, according to an interview. I did see the sequel, 2010, in which much is explained and we find out that poor Hal 9000 was not at fault for his part in that ending. And I enjoyed that, but this one is the classic.

If you haven’t seen the film on the big screen, keep an eye out, it’s well worth it!

I wish all of you a great 2023. To be honest, for me, 2022 can get in the bin! Fingers crossed for this year and I hope I write many more posts than last year.