The Good, The Bad And The Classics - The Movie Review Podcast · The Good, The Bad And The Classics Podcast

2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)

March 3, 2026·1 hr 50 min·5 clips

HAL calmly tells Dave he won't open the pod bay doors, forcing a desperate escape into the vacuum of space.

Ben sets up the show's usual good, bad, or classic test, then gives John the background slot after a little self-introduction housekeeping. John has seen it many, many times. He talks about 2001 less like a casual rewatch and more like one of those films that stays lodged in your head even when it is not on television much. The conversation gets properly curious. A floating pen turns into admiration, mockery, correction, and a practical argument about how Kubrick made space feel calmly impossible. The boredom matters. They read Dave and Frank's flatness as part of the design, with space travel treated as mundane because humanity may have run out of things that still impress it. Then the craft obsession kicks in. The glass trick, the grip socks, and the rotating circular set all get taken apart with their usual mix of wonder and impatient teasing. Nobody stays solemn for long. Even when the point is serious, about achievement going stale and needing another jump, the room keeps interrupting itself with jokes and corrections. That fits the film weirdly well. The episode keeps landing between huge cosmic ideas and tiny practical details, right where their Kubrick fascination seems to live. Nolan gets dragged in too. The Inception hallway comparison lets them treat 2001 as a source for modern spectacle without turning it into museum reverence. The ending loops back to house business. Their next pick arrives through a confused musical and Australian guessing bit, with La La Land briefly pulled into the old argument about what counts as a musical. It is loose, but it has a point. The fun is hearing them admire a classic while still poking at its strange calm, chilly people, and absurd technical confidence.

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