British journalist Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats) was once invited to the estate of the late Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999), who spent the second half of his life in England. There, at the behest of Kubrick’s widow, Ronson began searching through the director’s storage boxes for a 2008 documentary, only to discover that the boxes contained still more boxes, and the archives were such an obsessive labyrinth of notes, ephemera, and just plain weirdness, that Kurbrick couldn’t be condensed or digested. (Ronson later wrote about the experience in the Guardian, a piece contained in his new collection Lost at Sea.) All of which is a roundabout way of addressing 2001: A Space Odyssey, which likewise resists synopsis or explanation. It’s a mystery about a mystery that only expands—unlike, say, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which gradually diminishes in depth. (Spoiler! Christ was an alien! And his buddies are pissed about that whole crucifixion thing!) Released in 1968, Kubrick’s sci-fi quest was immediately labeled a trip movie and embraced by baby boomers, even if few actually dropped acid for the screenings. Four decades later, whether you believe Keir Dullea’s astronaut has been transmogrified to the starchild or not, 2001 is a fitting memorial to its director, as aloof and majestic as the big, black monolith standing sentinel on the moon. Screens at midnight. (PG) BRIAN MILLER

Fri., Nov. 23; Sat., Nov. 24, 2012