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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 01/02/98 -- Vol. 16, No. 27
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. URL of the week: http://www.upc.es/sia/cat/agenda/scf.htm. The
"Premio UPC de Ciencia Ficcion" web site. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. Congratulations to *Sir* Arthur C. Clarke, just awarded his
knighthood.
Trivia question: How many other knighted science fiction authors
can you name? [-ecl]
===================================================================
3. Well, our first revived Leeperhouse festival had some people
show up. It is successful enough that I can show a BBC production
I think is pretty good. On Thursday night, January 8, at 7 PM, we
will be showing the 1981 BBC version of THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS.
Society has fallen apart. In one night a strange and spectacular
meteor shower has blinded nearly everybody in the world. When
morning comes, only those who by chance missed seeing the celestial
event still have their eyesight. They are the most valuable people
in society. In one night the old order is swept away and new
little societies gropingly try to form. Some fall apart on their
own. Some survive on their own only to be destroyed by contact
with other societies. The ones strong enough to survive that have
a third, higher threat. Triffids are a new form of intelligent
life from the plant world. They can think and they can even walk a
little. They were a little dangerous when people could see. To a
blind man, they are deadly.
John Wyndham was a fine British science fiction writer and his best
work was THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS. (He also wrote THE MIDWICH
CUCKOOS which twice has been filmed as VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED.) In
the late 1962 there was a mediocre film version of THE DAY OF THE
TRIFFIDS. It never really jelled. In 197? the BBC turned the
novel into a miniseries in three parts. There were three one-hour
chapters. The last time I saw it I had the book in my lap and
turned the pages as the story got to them. That is how faithful it
is to the novel. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. News item: Robert J. Sawyer of Toronto, Ontario, and James
Stevens-Arce of San Juan, Puerto Rico, were recently jointly
awarded the world's largest cash prize for science-fiction writing.
Sawyer and Stevens-Arce shared the 1997 "Premio UPC de Ciencia
Ficcion," which carries a cash prize of one million pesetas (about
US$7200). By comparison, the largest North American cash prize
available to published SF writers is the annual Philip K. Dick
Award, which carries a US$1,000 prize; the largest British prize is
the annual Arthur C. Clarke award, valued at 1,000 pounds (about
US$1650).
The "Premio" is open to manuscripts between 25,000 and 40,000 words
long in Spanish, Catalan, French, and English.
Sawyer's winning work was a portion of his forthcoming tenth novel
FACTORING HUMANITY, which will be published in hardcover by Tor
Books (a division of St. Martin's Press, New York), in July 1998.
Sawyer has previously won the top SF awards in the United States
(the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula
Award), Canada (the Aurora), Japan (the Seiun), and France ("Le
Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire").
Stevens-Arce's winning work is called SOULSAVER. It deals with the
increasing intervention of the religious right into the political
process. His short fiction has previously appeared in the
magazines AMAZING STORIES and ABORIGINAL SF, and in the acclaimed
1995 anthology NEW LEGENDS, edited by Greg Bear.
Last year, the one-million-peseta prize went to Carlos Gardini of
Buenos Aires for his story LOS OJOS DE UN DIOS EN CELO. The 1995
award went to Mike Resnick of Cincinnati for his novella SEVEN
VIEWS OF OLDUVAI GORGE.
[Note: After this was announced, LOCUS reported that a new French
award for SF, The Eiffel Tower, would carry a prize of 100,000
francs (about $20,000).] [-ecl]
===================================================================
5. THE POSTMAN (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: After some unexplained apocalyptic war
that destroyed society, a drifter is looking
for a free meal. He pretends to be a postman
from a newly reformed US Government and
unintentionally makes himself a hero of mythic
proportions. THE POSTMAN was torpedoed by what
is perhaps the most disastrous film trailer in
history. But Kevin Costner's film's worst
fault is merely that it covers territory that
has already been covered so many times before
and uses a sensibility that would have worked
better in the 60s than the 90s. Still, this is
*not* the bad film that people are expecting it
to be. Rating: 6 (0 to 10) +1 (-4 to +4)
The plot has been done so many times in so many tiresome ways that
we really did not need one more. Society has been destroyed and
peaceful good guys of the world are menaced by marauding nasties.
Then one hero (or perhaps a handful) stands up and saves the good
guys. It is really SHANE turned into a science fiction film. NO
BLADE OF GRASS, THE ROAD WARRIOR, WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND, and
any number of bad sci-fi films on cable have used the plot because
it does not require fancy special effects to make a science fiction
film. Of course it can still use up a big budget on the plot if
the filmmaker wants. Kevin Costner's WATERWORLD is just one
example. Now Costner is back and, surprise, it may be the best
film on this theme ever made. But it came along too late and had a
misleading trailer. Had THE POSTMAN been made in 1960--and except
for having been based on a later novel it well could have been--it
might have been stiff competition for THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. But
that was almost four decades ago. Audiences might have been more
receptive to the film's idealism. Today audiences might be more
cynical about the film's message of the power or idealism and
optimism.
It should be noted that in spite of the impression given by the
trailer THE POSTMAN is not BACKDRAFT with mailmen. The film is
*not* a tribute to the loyalty and service of letter carriers.
That would be a cause whose banality would be second only to that
of the importance of good dental hygiene. The trailer gave
audiences that impression, and as such it may turn out to be the
most disastrous movie trailer in cinema history. I saw this film
at a Saturday matinee and there were four people in the audience,
three of which were my group. This film is not STAR WARS, but it
is not that bad of a film either. It is considerably better than
ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES.
We never do find out exactly what the war was that destroyed
civilization. There was ground fighting in the United States and
there was either a nuclear winter or something similar. In any
case, the world of 2013 is little pockets of people trying to
scratch out a subsistence living. Making that more difficult are
"the Holnists," a private army, raiding small settlements. The
leader of the Holnists is the fascist General Bethlehem (played
with nice savagery by Will Patton). Bethlehem spouts the self-
reliance rhetoric of the right wing taken to a sadistic extreme.
Kevin Costner plays a drifter, a sometime Shakespeare player, who
is conscripted into the Holnists, meeting their admission criteria
("if you are between fifteen and fifty and of suitable ethnic
foundation...") When the drifter finds the opportunity he escapes.
On the run, he finds a post office jeep with a skeleton of a
postman inside. He thinks up a scam to get some food. Putting on
the postman's uniform, he takes some letters to a small nearby
community of Pinetree, Oregon, to deliver. He claims to be an
official postman appointed by the newly reformed government and
they have a responsibility to feed and house him while he performs
his duty. The effect is totally unexpected. These are people
desperately in need of good news and a return to the world that
they knew. (There is an amusing scene earlier demonstrating that
even Bethlehem's army is tired of all the violence in their lives
and refuses to watch UNIVERSAL SOLDIER on a movie screen when there
is THE SOUND OF MUSIC to watch.) The Postman is treated by the
settlement as a romantic hero. His false story rekindles optimism.
Writing a letter for the postman to deliver becomes a symbolic act
signifying faith in the new government.
With a government to help protect them, people are willing to
resist the Holnists. This hope and optimism is something that
Bethlehem cannot allow ("morale is a dangerous thing"), but also
cannot stop. Two people are especially affected by the visit of
the Postman. One is Abby (Olivia Williams) who is looking for
someone to impregnate her. Her husband is impotent and both have
decided to find someone virile to act as biological father,
especially one who will not be around much. The Postman fills the
bill. The other person affected is a black teen who goes by the
name Ford Lincoln Mercury (Larenz Tate). He is so inspired by the
Postman, he decides on the spot that he will become a Postman also.
Playing another clean-cut hero, albeit an involuntary one, will not
do much for Costner's career even if this film does find an
audience. There is little in his role that Costner has not done
many times before. There probably is little in the role of the
idealistic savior that he could not do in his sleep. Will Patton,
on the other hand, is spell-binding playing the self-indulgent and
inflexible fascist leader with total conviction. He plays the part
like some great but strange Civil War general. Olivia Williams is
sharp and smart as Abby. Most of the cast are little known but
good actors while a few of the characters are a little too
cloyingly polished and pretty for their roles--specifically a child
actor handing off a letter to a racing Costner. But generally
Stephen F. Windon provides some terrific images of Oregon and Utah.
James Newton Howard provides a stirring if not greatly original
score.
This film covers thematic territory that has become too familiar
from too many lesser films. And then it made the further mistake
of releasing to theaters a trailer that distorted the thrust of
this film. Get past those two problems and this is actually not
too bad a story, even at its three-hour length. I rate it a 6 on
the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
6. DECONSTRUCTING HARRY (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: A number of interesting stylistic
touches that work to varying degrees of
success. The story, however, is a disjointed,
confusing portrait of an almost totally
uninteresting Lothario who never misses an
opportunity to screw up his own life and to
hurt others. The film is a collection of story
fragments and manipulative arguments. If this
is a confession Allen should have written it in
his diary and put it under his pillow, not on
the screen. Rating: 3 (0 to 10), -1 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 16 positive, 4 negative, 1
mixed
Woody Allen is one of the most successful artist-directors in
Hollywood, but he is becoming less and less reliable as a
filmmaker. In his early years of film-making he mastered the
simple comedy. From there he went into a second phase and took
risks experimenting with different approaches and styles. Some of
these work better than others. ZELIG and CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
are the work of a creative and intelligent artist. DECONSTRUCTING
HARRY goes to the other extreme and is a bizarre experiment
demanding more of the viewer than it gives back.
Harry Block (Allen) has in his life only two drives. He wants to
have sex with as many women as possible and when he makes a mess of
his life and those of his lovers he wants to retreat into his
writing. The story of this static and highly unsympathetic
character is told with a number of often clumsy stylistic
experiments. Perhaps the most irritating device is to express the
disjointedness of Harry's life by editing Harry's scenes putting in
cuts in the middle as if to show missing time with something edited
out. As a writer, Harry puts his friends into his books in the
thinnest of disguises. The film dramatizes incidents from these
supposed books and cuts between his real story line and fragments
from Harry's books with different actors playing the real and
fictional people in Harry's life. These fragments are frustrating
in their lack of completion, but even more frustrating is the
bringing of the characters out of the fragments into scenes with
the real characters. It is up to the viewer to keep track not just
who is fictional and who is real but also to keep straight who is
the fictional doppelganger of which real person. If that sounds
complicated, it is. Then as another device in one of the stories,
an actor seems to have the peculiar property that he has gone out
of focus and can only be seen in blurry image. Harry sees this as
a metaphor for his own condition and himself goes blurry for a
short time. As if these touches did not create sufficient
confusion, the story is told out of chronological order. If Allen
were giving the audience a story that was worth decoding, any and
all of these stylistic touches could be excusable. But Allen puts
the audience through all of this to give us a portrait of Harry
Block who is a selfish manipulator who is not worth the effort to
understand.
DECONSTRUCTING HARRY is set at a time when Harry's old college, the
one that expelled him when he attended it, wants now to honor him
for a lifetime of writing achievement. Harry is searching among
his friends to find one who will go with him. Just why someone who
is so unwilling to commit to a relationship with anyone suddenly
needs the support of someone else is unclear. Harry tries his
current girl friend Fay (Elizabeth Shue) only to find that she is
about to marry Harry's old friend Larry (Billy Crystal). Block
would like his son Hilly (Eric Lloyd) to accompany him, but Hilly's
mother, previously first Harry's psychiatrist and more recently his
wife, refuses to let her son see his father. Another friend
Richard (Bob Balaban) would go but has health problems. Harry also
considers bringing a prostitute Cookie (Hazel Goodman). It is
interesting that Allen should introduce another likable prostitute
so soon after MIGHTY APHRODITE, but Cookie is considerably
different--black and a lot brighter than Mira Sorvino's character
in the previous film.
While the comedy sequences are never complete, a few are elaborate
and some quite funny. The centerpiece of the film is a journey
into Hell with Allen playing a sort of Orpheus rescuing Fay from
the clutches of the Devil, who looks a lot like Larry. That story
also is left uncompleted, perhaps to show Harry's unwillingness to
commit even to telling a story. The linchpin that was needed to
tie together the stylistic quirks of this film was a central
character who changes and who gives us something about which to
care. That character is patently not the one Allen creates in
Harry Block and not the characters around Harry as seen through his
acerbic eyes. Allen can do much better than DECONSTRUCTING HARRY.
I rate it a 3 on the 0 to 10 scale and a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
7. GOOD WILL HUNTING (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: A twenty-year-old super-genius works
as an anonymous janitor at MIT. He is also
into brawling and getting into trouble with the
law. A parole is arranged on the conditions
that he do mathematics and get a psychological
analysis. This is key to a difficult turn in
his life. Ben Affleck and Mark Damon wrote the
screenplay and play major roles in the film.
Gus Van Sant directs. The character is a
little too sharp and the action a little too
dull. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), low +1 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 18 positive, 1 negative, 1
mixed
Frankly, the film did not do a lot for me. I could not believe the
main character. Goethe was one of the great geniuses in history
and he excelled, as opposed to just being good, in only a few
fields. The premise of GOOD WILL HUNTING bothered me from the very
beginning because it was too difficult to believe that Will Hunting
could be as brilliant in as many different fields as the script
requires him to be. To have a super-genius of his caliber places
this film more in the category of science fiction than that of a
believable drama. The premise that there is someone out there of
this magnitude of brilliance who has not by the age of 20 come to a
lot of people's attention seems unlikely. Here he is working as a
custodian at MIT and he can easily beat the best mathematics
professors on the faculty. Then he demonstrates he is way ahead of
an economics graduate student in that student's own field. This
would be hard to believe of someone who spends his full time
studying, but Will Hunting (played by Mark Damon) seems to spend
very little time in books. Instead he spends most of his spare
time drinking with his blue-collar buddies and getting into trouble
with the law.
His real genius is discovered by mathematics Professor Lambeau
(Stallan Skarsgard), winner of the Fields Medal (the most
prestigious award in mathematics). Lambeau gives his classes a
prize problem to see if one person can get it over the semester.
Janitor Will Hunting solves it with the effort of doing the Times
Crossword Puzzle and leaves the answer anonymously on a hallway
blackboard.
Lambeau sets a harder problem and Hunting solves it also, but is
seen leaving the answer. This gives Lambeau the clue needed to
track down the mysterious genius whom he finds conducting his own
legal defense after having attacked a police officer. Hunting
fails to convince the judge and is sentenced to jail. Lambeau
arranges a parole on two conditions: Hunting will undergo analysis
and will do math with Lambeau. Once he is discovered, different
people fight to understand Will Hunting and to pull him in
different directions. For a long stretch there are just four
breeds of scene in this film. Hunting carouses and drinks with his
rough-playing blue-collar buddies; Hunting does math with Lambeau,
proving himself a far better mathematician than anybody on the MIT
faculty; Hunting has a relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver), an
English Chemistry student; Hunting has mutually parasitic mind game
sessions with his analyst (Robin Williams). The film just goes
back and forth among these scenes until Hunting decides how to
handle his life.
Hunting's ability to turn psychiatrists into raving animals in
minutes seems more modeled on Hannibal Lector than on anything
human. It takes many sessions with his analyst before they can
talk in anything but sarcastic jabs. The film does a decent job of
showing the relationship between Hunting and his lifelong friend
Chuckie (Ben Affleck) who really care for each other. The
relationship with his girlfriend was okay, but covers well-trodden
territory. But Hunting's mind seems really clear only when he is
doing mathematics. It is never clear what exactly is going on in
Hunting's mind or why he changes in just the ways he does,
sometimes playing games and others following the simplest of
advice. This is a film with a serious credibility problem and one
which stagnates in the middle act. I would give it a 5 on the 0 to
10 and a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Side comment: It is difficult to present someone superbly brilliant
in a film without having someone being superbly brilliant to write
the script. Damon does a reasonable job playing the troubled
super-luminary who has buried himself in a lower-class lifestyle,
if any such person has ever existed. The film draws false
parallels to Ramanujan and Einstein, neither of whom had Will
Hunting's broadband versatility. For what it is worth, this is one
of the few film that did a reasonable job of representing higher
mathematics. Certainly the they got the facts on the Fields Medal
(though they omitted to mention that you have to be young to win
the Fields). Ramanujan did not actually work for "many years" with
Hardy as stated. He died quite young, probably in large part
because of his transplanting from his native climate to England.
It was a tremendous loss.
I would have assumed that answers to really difficult problems in
combinatorics might involve complex counting arguments and would
not fit on a single blackboard, but it is possible. It filmed
nicely, but it is unlikely a mathematician would do math with a
marking pen on a mirror. It is too easy to accidentally rub off,
it does not give enough writing space, and the results are not
easily portable or savable. He may have done some scratch-work
there, but even that seems unlikely.
It is hard to believe an American mathematician would not know who
Ted Kaczynski is. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
-- Fred Allen
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