The Playlist

The obsessives' guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, movie music, soundtracks, DVDs and more.

Interviews

James Gray Reveals Details About His Developing Sci-Fi Thriller & The "Conceptual Brilliance" Of '2001'

By Jessica Kiang
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May 28, 2013 12:59 PM
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6 Comments

News

Following the premiere of “The Immigrant” in competition late last week (our review is here), we got to talk to director James Gray in Cannes. We’ll have more of his thoughts on the shaping of that film, on working with Marion Cotillard for the first time, and a few minor updates on some other upcoming projects later on, but one topic we spoke about in greater depth was his recently announced sci-fi film. Plot outlines have been scarce so far, but Gray revealed some exciting details about what he has in mind, and the learnings he is taking from his own favorite sci-fi film, Stanley Kubrick’s exceptional and influential “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

By Kevin Jagernauth
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May 27, 2013 9:35 AM
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4 Comments

News

The mysterious beauty of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" still resonates and haunts more than 45 years after it was first released into theaters, blowing the minds of an entire generation of movie-goers. And while there has been plenty printed about the movie since then, this might be one of the very first books about the movie ever to hit shelves. Now thanks to the interwebs, you can see how it must have felt like back in 1970 when the phenomenon was just picking up.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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May 20, 2013 10:15 AM
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6 Comments

News

It's only just Monday morning, and here we are to throw a fun, distracting spanner in the works of your productivity. An online collection of rare, incredibly fun behind-the-scene photos has been doing the rounds this morning (h/t to @nevpierce and @katbrown82), featuring 100 stills from the sets of 100 of the greatest and most famous films in history.

By Kristen Lopez
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May 7, 2013 2:45 PM
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8 Comments

News

There’s no doubt Terry Gilliam is one of the chattiest directors out there, and his disdain for mindless popular entertainment is well-documented. During a sit-down interview at Entertainment Weekly’s first ever CapeTown Film Fest, the director answered questions about his career, popular culture, and everything in between.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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April 2, 2012 11:38 AM
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17 Comments

Features

Forty-four years ago today, "2001: A Space Odyssey," Stanley Kubrick's classic science-fiction movie, premiered at the Uptown Theater in Washington D.C. While neither commercially or critically successful to begin with (the legendary Pauline Kael called it a "monumentally unimaginative movie"), but it soon took off with audiences, in part thanks to its psychedelic closing sequence, and is now rightfully regarded as perhaps the greatest, and most prophetic science-fiction movie ever made.

By Kevin Jagernauth
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December 21, 2010 10:23 AM
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2 Comments

Turns out that reports of a "recent discovery" of seventeen minutes of excised footage from Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" was kind of old news to Warner Bros.

By Kevin Jagernauth
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December 17, 2010 2:54 AM
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6 Comments

Merry Christmas, Stanley Kubrick fans. Devotees of the director have received some mouth-watering news this holiday season as seventeen minutes of footage cut from the stone cold sci-fi classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" has been found.