2001: A LEGO Odyssey directed by Marc Atkin website

One of my earliest memories was trying to build a Lego castle without the required amount of bricks. The result turned out to be more like a village hut. Ever since then (and my brothers can attest to this), I've wanted to build an entire house, my dream house, out of Lego. The only thing holding me back is my greater desire not to be featured as a human interest story on a local newscast or in an Errol Morris documentary. Since the advent of DV a few years ago (I'm not 100% sure when the watershed occurred), amateur filmmakers have been given greater opportunities to realize their visions; and, average joe's have been given greater opportunities to be amateur filmmakers. This modern-day renaissance has begun to produce the subcultures that are inherent in all new mediums. Just as celluloid proliferated the WW2 propaganda film, the French New Wave and the Hollywood blockbuster, DV has allowed for the Dogme charter, the resurgence of the guerrilla process and the Lego film. Lego film? Oh yeah. Lego films represent a subculture of amateur filmmaking which use Lego bricks to tell their stories. A good example of a Brick film is this week's Bad Ass Film - "2001: A LEGO Odyssey". Directed by a PhD student in Artificial Intelligence at U-Mass with his Sony TRV20, "2001: ALO" weens Stanley Kubrick's classic down to its core 4-and-a-half minutes. There is no Dave or HAL, no pod bay door, no centrifugal exercise. Other than those few deviations, the story pretty much stays true to its source; that is, within the Lego universe. Atkin makes a cute reference to 1980, the year that Lego introduced moveable joints and other less-than-generic blocks into its repertoire. Gratefully, the ending is as open to interpretation as Kubrick's coup de grace - Atkin's finale is, however, a little less mind-numbing. To have a look at other Lego films out there, visit Lego Studios or BrickFilms.com.