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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 10/24/97 -- Vol. 16, No. 17
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2D-536 732-957-6330 rlmitchell1@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-933-2724 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets on the third Saturday of every month in Belleville; call
201-432-5965 for details. The Denver Area Science Fiction
Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of every month at
Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. We will have a club gettogether to see STARSHIP TROOPERS at the
Hazlett Multiplex on Saturday November 8 and a dinner afterward at
the local diner to discuss the film. Details in next week's
notice.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
2. URL of the week: http://www.erols.com/vansickl/scifi.htm. Some
of the funniest lists I've seen in ages; the "Evil Henchman's
Guide" is especially recommended.. [-ecl]
===================================================================
3. Stephen Hawking started out the PBS show "Stephen Hawking's
Universe" by saying that he has sold more books on physics than
Madonna has sold on sex. I think that is because his books are
more believable. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. There are a whole bunch of conspiracy theories out there and
there seem to be more each year. You know what I mean--theories
that the Mafia and Fidel Castro did not act alone together when
they hired Lee Harvey Oswald to kill Kennedy and Jack Ruby to clean
up; Marilyn Monroe must have had a hand in it somewhere. But
conspiracy theories are addictive because the mind likes to dwell
on possibilities that cannot be disproved. It gives a sort of
authenticity to them that there cannot be any proof to the
contrary. I mean, we could start one right now that it was really
John Wayne, in secret conspiracy with the generals at the Pentagon,
who was determining America's strategy in the Vietnam war. Prove
it isn't true.
One conspiracy theory is that an evil mastermind, someone as wiry
and dastardly and devious as Moriarity and Fu Manchu in one man,
has taken control of our government and is now--curses!--the
American President. For years now, Bill Clinton's severest
critics, under the influence of a certain radio personality whom we
shall call RL, have been trying to find a smoking gun to prove at
last the evil in man who is--as much as anyone is--running this
country. It has been one dang charge after another in the hopes of
making Clinton the central figure in a new set of Watergate-like
hearings. And you want to talk about a Teflon President? Clinton
has either got to be relatively innocent or the greatest criminal
and legal mind this country has ever seen.
However, while it has been repeatedly denied by the White House,
the latest batch of recordings proves what we all have feared. Not
that there was any criminal wrong-doing on Clinton's part, but that
the man is incredibly humdrum. Clinton won the last election in
large part as a personality issue. It appeared that Gentleman Bob
Dole was not so much the Man of Steel we wanted in the Presidency,
but more the Man of Cream of Wheat. It seemed that Clinton could
tell a joke, and maybe play a saxophone. That was about all it
took to beat Mr. Bland. But now we have hundreds of hours of tape
that seem to prove that watching Clinton is less like watching
paint dry than it is like watching dry paint.
There is probably a conspiracy, all right, but it seems to be one
to hide the fact that Bill Clinton is really pretty much Joe
Average, perhaps not perfect but no worse than most of us. But
it's not clear if it is Clinton's allies or his enemies who are
conspiring to hide that scary fact. [-mrl]
===================================================================
5. THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: A never-losing Florida lawyer (played
by Keanu Reeves) is brought to New York to be
the hired gun for the most prestigious law firm
in New York. There his mentor (Al Pacino)
turns out to be the quintessence of evil. As
the new job takes its toll on his marriage and
his very soul, the young lawyer begins to
suspect that there is more to the job than
meets the eye. This is glossy, beautifully
staged horror film with an intricate plot that
pays homage to several classic horror films.
This one will not stretch your mind, but there
is a lot to see. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4), 7 (0
to 10). (Anyone who has seen a trailer for
this film or seen another review probably knows
what this film is really about. However, the
film itself does not confirm it until late in
the story, so I will carefully not spoil the
premise in this review.)
New York Critics: 6 positive, 7 negative, 3
mixed
Kevin Lomax is one terrific lawyer. He has an uncanny way of
sizing up prospective jury members and knowing who will be
sympathetic. Sixty-four cases in Florida and he has not lost a
case. It does not matter if the defendant is guilty or innocent,
good guy or scumbag--if Kevin prosecutes the defendant is found
guilty; if he defends, the verdict is innocent. People start to
notice. Someone who has noticed is John Milton, the head of a
prestigious and extremely powerful New York law firm. Milton is a
slick and charismatic lawyer. He is in bed figuratively with the
rich and powerful. He is in bed literally with sleek and the sexy.
And his gifts to those he likes are nearly everything that are
really worth having. Impressed with Lomax and his wife Mary Ann
(Charlize Theron), Milton is anxious to bring Kevin into the firm,
to use his genius, to pay him in money, with a palatial apartment,
to see Kevin's every sexual fantasy fulfilled. Mary Ann is at
first overjoyed at the success her husband is having and is willing
to give up some of his time and his intimacy for the success that
is everything she could not get back in Gainesville. But a bit at
a time she discovers that her husband is making too many sacrifices
of what she shared with him and giving it to the firm. Kevin never
worried about being a scrupulous lawyer in the past, but this job
is taking too much of a toll on his soul. As he gets pulled deeper
and deeper into defending the guilty, Mary Ann is slowly
disintegrating and Kevin is powerless to stop it. THE DEVIL'S
ADVOCATE is a good old- fashioned, well-plotted horror film in the
style of the horror films of the 60s and 70s. No geysers of blood
or crazed stalkers. The first half hour could be from a John
Grisham novel. Then weird things start happening. The law firm
seems to have its hands in evil, not just figuratively, but also
literally.
In the past I have not been fond of Keanu Reeves's acting which I
generally find wooden. Here perhaps that quality works to his
advantage, both to contrast to Al Pacino and to present the feeling
that there is something mysterious going on in his mind that we
cannot quite fathom. And if there is not quite enough going on the
screen with Reeves's performance, there is more than enough
supplied by Pacino. Pacino is far more expressive in part because
his character can afford to be. He gives a high-energy performance
that would steal a scene from a puppy. There are, however, two
scenes in the film when he turns the performance up too high and he
goes into overload mode. One is a pivotal scene involving the
character played by Jeffrey Jones; the other time is an extended
scene very near the end of the film. Both times his performance
gets to be just a bit overripe. Charlize Theron is rather nice as
the incredible dissolving wife. Also nice to see is an uncredited
part by the always watchable Delroy Lindo. The acting is all
brought together by Taylor Hackford, who previously did the under-
rated THE IDOLMAKER, as well as AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN and
DOLORES CLAIBORNE. The set design by Roberta J. Holinko is very
nice with some really memorable artwork. Other effects by Rick
Baker are perhaps not up to some of his finest, but are still very
worth seeing.
This may not be the most intelligent film of the autumn season, but
it stands among the best horror films we have seen on the screen in
the last few years. I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
6. SHALL WE DANCE? (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Capsule: A Japanese Salaryman leads a double
life, first learning ballroom dancing then in
competition dancing. The story is simple with
few unexpected plot twists and while it has
some bittersweet moments there is insufficient
material here to sustain a feature film. For a
Japanese audience there may be more here than
meets an American eye. Rating: low +1 (-4 to
+4), 5 (0 to 10)
New York Critics: 17 positive, 2 negative, 1
mixed
In the strict rules of Japanese society, public signs of affection
are considered to be in bad taste. Things that Americans would
find innocuous, like a husband putting his arm around his wife, are
considered to be breaches of decency. And while there are Japanese
who get involved with ballroom dancing, we learn in this film that
it is considered as tawdry in Japan, as going to strip clubs would
be in the United States. Paradoxically, the society that shuns the
touching of a partner on the ballroom floor is the same society
that jams so many people into a subway car that literally nobody
else can be shoved through the doorway. But that touching is
considered non-voluntary. Ballroom dancing has connotations of
rebellion in Japan that we just do not see in our country.
Shohei Sugiyama (played by Koji Yakusho) is a successful 40-
something business executive with a staff of people working for
him. He has a wife and daughter and has recently bought a house in
suburbia. In Japanese society, this is not just success, it is
affluence. Yet Shohei is dissatisfied with his pat little
accounting job and his simple, programmed life-style. One night,
returning home, he gazes up from his subway car and sees a
beautiful woman, Mai Kishikawa (Tamiyo Kusakari) gazing out the
window of a ballroom dance studio. After seeing her there multiple
times he decides to go up and look in on the dance studio. He
enrolls as a student in secret. As anxious as he is to meet and
even dance with Mai, he is unwilling to pay 6000 yen per lesson
from her. So, unable to afford private lessons from Mai he enrolls
in a public class with two other men to be taught by an older
woman. There at least he can see Mai and perhaps occasionally
dance with her. Shohei becomes friends with the two other men in
his class as well as with a Japanese dancer with his own fiery
Latin style. Shohei's wife Masako (Hideko Hara) recognizes that
her husband is doing something without telling her and it is taking
a lot of his time. She suspects the worst and determines to find
out what mischief her husband is up to.
Masayuki Suo wrote and directed the film that tells its story and
gives us a few chuckles and a few bittersweet moments along the
way. The real problem is that what happens is rarely unexpected
and never surprising. Indeed the dramatic last sequence of the
film is not just cliched, it seems almost inevitable. Mai's secret
that she contemplates so wistfully at the window each night seems
far too trivial to warrant so much attention, and as the core of
the film seems too meager. This almost might have made a decent
hour- long story, but there really is not enough here to make a
satisfying feature film. Perhaps some of the reason is that there
are very likely cultural differences that make this story resonate
better in Japan than it does in the United States. Certainly there
is humor in this film that requires some knowledge of Japanese
culture to appreciate. In one scene one of the characters takes a
strip of dried squid and dances it on the top of a restaurant
table. Some of the humor was lost on most of our audience who
probably did not recognize what it was that was dancing. Certainly
the Japanese would see the touching while dancing as being daring.
While Tokyo may have rock and roll dancers in the park--dressed
like 1950s bikers from THE WILD ONE- -even they do not touch each
other when they dance. It is difficult to see this film as a
Japanese would and that might make all the difference between the
simple story we see and one that is considerably richer. Similarly
it is difficult to judge the quality of the acting. While we might
recognize the difference between really bad acting and decent
acting, it is unlikely we would recognize really great acting if we
saw it.
What does come across is an innocuous and enjoyable comedy with a
touch of human drama and a bit of melodrama. The story of the
dancer with the secret past will remind some of STRICTLY BALLROOM,
but this film is nowhere near as amusing as that film was. I rate
this one a low 1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
7. TOWARD THE END OF TIME by John Updike (Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 0-
375-40006-0, 1997, 334pp, US$25) (a book review by Evelyn C.
Leeper):
If the appeal of science fiction to you is to examine how societal
changes will affect people, then this book is not for you. It is
set in the year 2020, after the Sino-American War, after things
fell apart--although not enough to cause any problems with food,
water, electricity, gasoline, etc. The level of change seems to
be, as the first person narrator says, "Once my species had been
strong enough to put [a space station] up there, and now it is out
of our reach."
But instead of any sort of examination of how this might affect
society, we get, "One advantage of the collapse of civilization is
that the quality of young women who are becoming whores has gone
way up," and we get pages and pages of descriptions of sexual
activities in the sort of detail that used to be reserved for adult
magazines. So one doesn't get much of a coherent view of the
post-apocalyptic future except to learn that some middle-aged men
prefer positions other than the missionary one. Whoopee.
Someone is sure to tell me I am reading this the wrong way, or for
the wrong reasons. Perhaps, but at least I can serve as a bad
example to others who might hear that John Updike has written a
science fiction novel. Unlike another well-known "mainstream
science fiction novel," Margaret Atwood's HANDMAID'S TALE, this
novel doesn't examine the consequences of its premise in any
meaningful way, so if that's what you're looking for, look
elsewhere. [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com