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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 08/21/98 -- Vol. 17, No. 8
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 2E-537 732-957-6330 robmitchell@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
201-447-3652 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. 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.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/ase/ For all the old-time book
collectors among us, the story of the "Armed Services Editions,"
including pictures. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. "... And don't forget that at Lucert Technologies no sale is
ever final. If we find out you are buying from our competitors
we'll come right in and rip that sucker out." [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. This is going to be some stream of consciousness thoughts about
art. That is probably appropriate, I figure. You know we see a
lot of art that is called avant-garde. That means it is the
advanced guard of a new movement. It is something that is new and
different. And people are anxious to see it because it is new and
different. I, however, am going on strike. I am not going to
believe a piece of art is avant-garde without the artist telling me
when the rest of the movement is coming and from whom besides
her/himself. I mean, you cannot be the avant-garde of a movement
if you are all there is.
It is like these films that came out in the 50s and 60s that
proudly proclaimed "This is the first film shot in the new miracle
of the screen, Hypno-Vista." You seen any other Hypno-Vista films
recently? Did you ever see even the second film shot in the new
miracle of the screen, Hypno-Vista? No. And there were never any
plans for one. And look how often the new miracle of the screen
was something like William Castle putting a joy buzzer in random
seats or flying a plastic skeleton over the audience on a wire.
These films all claimed to be the first that had done it and forty
years later they remain the only films to ever having used this
miracle of the screen. Well, I guess it is true that there are not
a lot of Julia Roberts comedies that really have an obvious need to
have a glowing plastic skeleton flown over the audience. I suppose
that there are some that might be improved with the skeleton, but
none that really have as much as something we would call a need.
But that is the problem with avant-garde art. You are really
taking the artist's word that in being the avant-garde, the work is
not also the ensuite-garde, the pendant-garde, and the suelement-
garde. So often a work of art is all these things. So frequently
in art the real issue of whether there will be more similar is the
issue of whether a work of art makes, well, let's use the word...
money. While it does not get said a great deal, movements in art
are heavily governed by the issue of what sells to an audience.
You can pretty much track what is selling to audiences in art by
what the artists are doing.
Incidentally, this has an interesting corollary. It has been
discovered that many of Vincent Van Gogh's contemporaries imitated
his style. They would not have done this if it had not been
profitable for them to do so. This has led modern art historians
to doubt the old legend that Van Gogh never sold a painting in his
life. He must have had at least some limited financial success
that other artists wanted to cash in on.
Of course, when we talk about money and the arts in this country,
there is the controversy over the National Endowment for the Arts.
You have wars between representationalists and abstract artists.
You have artists unpopular in some quarters and the question of
whether they should be funded or not. Then you have questions of
censorship. I believe that everybody has a First Amendment right
to create any sort of art they want. I think that the National
Endowment for the Arts has no right to act as a censor. I think
they should confine themselves to deciding what art gets funded and
what does not. And I think that on the National Endowment for the
Arts and I are in perfect agreement. The First Amendment guarantees
free expression, not free greenbacks. Should the NEA be
accountable to public taste? Well, turn on the major networks and
watch a comedy. The networks really are accountable to public
tastes, not by principle but by something much stronger. That is
how they make their money. Pick a comedy show at random (not one
top-rated, but pick one totally at random). Or better yet, pick a
show like BAYWATCH or MELROSE PLACE. There. That is public taste
for you. Now you decide if the National Endowment for the Arts
should be accountable to it. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. THE AVENGERS (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: The screen version of the 60s TV
classic will probably do well only with real
fans of the series. Non-fans of the series
should give this one a miss. Still, this is
just about the best and most accurate re-
creation we could have expected at the end of
the 90s. Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes star in
a film drenched in the 60s atmosphere of series
THE AVENGERS. Those were not great stories and
neither is this, but both are fun. Rating: 6
(0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
Starting in January 1961, the British were treated to a sort of
tongue-in-cheek crime and spy series on television. THE AVENGERS
was about secret agent John Steed and his various partners who
changed over the years. The original concept for Steed was to have
the personality of a George Sanders--sort of worldly and a little
sarcastic. I cannot help believing part of the inspiration was
also Ralph Richardson's brawley-toting and bowler-hatted secret
agent Major Charles Hammond from the 1939 film Q PLANES (retitled
in the U.S. CLOUDS OVER EUROPE). Initially the partner was Dr.
David Keel (played by Ian Hendry). Later for four years it was
Catherine Gale (Honor Blackman). When she left the producers
looked for a replacement that would have the same "man-appeal" as
Ms. Blackman did. "Man appeal" was abbreviated "M-appeal" and when
actress Diana Rigg was hired "M-appeal" or rather Emma Peel became
her character's name. She was not with the series even as long as
Blackman but hers were the years that the series got its widest
viewership. She is the best remembered of Steed's partners, though
there were others before and after her. The episodes of the Emma
Peel years were noted for a sort of 60s mod surrealism that became
the hallmark of the series. That was a trademark and so was making
the characters veddy, veddy sophisticated and stylish. So when in
the late 90s, the film industry is making a feature film based on
the popular series, these are the years they choose to copy.
And remake the series they really did. The recent film MISSION
IMPOSSIBLE took place in the same world as the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
TV series and had some of the same characters, but the writers
clearly did not know or did not care what a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
story was all about. They told their own kind of story with
characters from the series. THE AVENGERS on the other hand have
authentically told an AVENGERS sort of story and they have told it
in the style of THE AVENGERS. For the most part, the faults of the
film are actually cases where the original formula did not age
well. As Mike Myers shows us in AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN
OF MYSTERY, much of the 60s mod style looks pretty silly today.
The story of THE AVENGERS is trivial and comic-bookish, but that
was the series. The 60s mod surrealism comes through loud and
clear. Suffice it to say that there are scenes in this film that
are sufficiently visually weird and unexpected to bring a smile to
any viewer's face. Toward the end of each episode there usually
was a fight under outlandish circumstances and the circumstances in
this film are about as outlandish as any. The only place where the
formula was not quite followed was that in the series any romantic
feelings between Steed and Peel were strictly between the lines of
the script. There was a sexual tension, but the characters never
acknowledged it. In this version is not much romance, but it is
much more clearly spelled out for the viewer. The Michael Kamen
and Joel McNeely musical score I think should have made more use of
the original music. The opening title music is something of a
letdown only because I had hoped to hear a good version of the
original theme. This is one aspect where MISSION IMPOSSIBLE was
better. In fact, the music could have done a lot more to create
the feel of the film. In the final analysis it does little to
enhance the atmosphere. Even if it was not trying to re-create the
60s feel, it should have been able to add to the excitement better
than it did. There is one minor plot variation on the canon I
would like to add. In the film, Steed and Peel meet for the first
time, yet the story also features Mother. In the series, the very
last episode with Peel introduced Mother for the first time. And
to the best of my knowledge the character of Father was invented
for the film.
Bon vivant and crack secret agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) is
called in after an attack on the British government's secret
weather project Prospero. Oddly enough the attacker seems to be
there very founder of the project, the beautiful and leggy
scientist Dr. Emma Peel (Uma Thurman). In spite of actual film of
Peel committing the crime, Peel claims to be innocent. Steed's
suspicion falls on the aptly named August de Wynter (Sean Connery),
a flamboyant Scotsman who is doing funny things to weather in a
project that seems related to Peel's Prospero.
How are Fiennes and Thurman at re-creating the characters of John
Steed and Emma Peel? Not too shabby. The real danger is that a
well-cast Mrs. Peel will upstage the more quietly conservative John
Steed. However Steed holds his own and never becomes second banana
to Mrs. Peel. Both seem physically up to the challenges of the
role. Both seem to ooze charm and class. Their interpretations
are really fairly close to the originals. They have one minor
change in style, they seem to smile a lot less and are more serious
about their work. But they do seem to be the same people the
originals played. And they are helped along by Don MacPherson's
script, which has a very AVENGERS feel. I kept picturing Patrick
Macnee and Diana Rigg delivering the same lines and in almost the
same way. Patrick Macnee does not appear in THE AVENGERS, by the
way, while Diana Rigg is not in the film at all. Sean Connery is
Sean Connery is Sean Connery.
A little fine-tuning could have made this a perfect 90s
representation of the 60s TV series. That might not have raised
the rating, but it would not have hurt either. I give this one a 6
on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
The infliction of cruelty with good conscience is
a delight to moralists--that is why they invented hell.
-- Bertrand Russell
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