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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 08/28/98 -- Vol. 17, No. 9
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.bb.com/Detail.CFM?TBLBOOK__BOOKID=427. Barry Longyear's
book SCIENCE FICTION WRITER'S WORKSHOP, all about writing science
fiction. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. As we traveled across country staying in motels we noticed that
all you see are Motel 6s, Quality Inns, etc. etc. You see the
same restaurant, Taco Bells, McDonalds, Burger Kings, ad nauseum.
You see the same grocery stores, and the same department stores. I
guess it really is true that in the United States man is born free
and everywhere is in chains. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. You know, some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats
you. I should have known from the beginning that this would not be
an ursophagous day. I know how the coyote feels in those
Roadrunner cartoons.
We subscribe to VARIETY, which comes every week with gossip about
the film industry in a language I am trying to teach myself by
weekly treatments. I am almost to the point where I can say things
like "Sticks Nix Hicks Pix" and know what I am saying. Almost.
But one reason I read VARIETY is to keep in shape. You see each
week I put the old VARIETY in a box. When the box is full I take
it up to my attic. That sounds easy to say, but I have an attic
with a hatchway and a folding ladder. It looks almost like the
hatch of Flash Gordon's rocket ship except that it is horizontal
rather than vertical. In fact, I must remember that if I ever go
senile, I do want to play Flash Gordon up there.
Anyway, a box full of VARIETYs may weigh something like fifty
pounds. Ever try climbing a ladder carrying fifty pounds?
Firefighters may do it (and get paid for it). Me, I have problems.
I kind of rest it on the ladder and push it up a step at a time.
Evelyn is smarter. She realizes that she can take newspapers out
of the box and make three or four trips. But I am a man. Men can
be stupid about things like this. Somewhere in the primitive root
of the male mind is a set of rules saying that is in some way
cheating. Women can make multiple trips. Men don't do that. Men
have to haul it up in one trip. But there is a loophole. Men can
use tools. And for years I have had a dream. My problem was that
I was pushing the box up. If I had a pulley above the top of the
hatchway, hanging from the underside roof, I could do all the
lifting by pulling down on the rope. For years I had this simple
dream, to install a pulley in my attic. Every time it comes time
to move a box of VARIETYs into the attic, I would dream of the day
when I would effortlessly pull it up and tap it into place. Right.
Well, there comes a time when you have to just take the bull by the
horns. I was in the hardware store yesterday and I bought myself a
pulley. First question is what do I want to hang it from. At
first I thought a screw-in hook. But Home Depot did not find them
as far as I could find. They had a screw-in eye that was almost a
hook, but it was closed up. I would have to pry it open.
Fortunately I had enough experience to know that was a real pain to
do. These things are made out of steel. Getting the metal to
loosen enough to get a pulley on the hook would be no easy matter.
Instead I settled for the kind of J-shaped hook you find on a boat
that you mount vertically with horizontal screws.
So the day came and I went up to the attic. First I have to get up
my extension cord with a lamp up, then my power drill, then there
was my power screwdriver, then... Suffice it to say I kept
thinking of something else that I would have to bring up to get the
job done. Down the ladder and back up. Down the ladder and back
up. I try to tighten a bit on my drill and wouldn't you know the
screw-hickey-dingus (I don't know what else to call it, but if you
have a power drill you know what I am talking about) falls to the
base of the ladder. I'll get it later. So finally I am ready. I
lean out at the top of the ladder-way hanging out over empty space.
I see myself following the screw-hickey-dingus. I have visions
like Jimmy Stewart in VERTIGO. But I am careful and finally I get
the hook screwed into the inside of the roof. But that means it
goes on at an angle. Only one problem. This means that what is
going to hold up the pulley no longer has an upward turn at the
end. Imagine a J turned 50 degrees counter-clockwise and you see
what I mean. The end of the J is almost parallel with the ground.
Well that is okay. When I am pulling on the rope it will pull it
toward the base of the J. So I put the pulley on. And I play with
the rope a little. And the first thing that happens is that the
pulley slips off the hook.
There are forces in the universe that are still not completely
understood. We know about gravity. We know about the strong
nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. Then there is magnetism.
And there is the thing that lets Luke reach out with his feelings
and switch off his targeting computer. But there is one we do not
know about. At least I don't. I have observed it. But it will
flip over a falling, open-faced peanut butter sandwich. I will see
it work if I am in a buffet line with my executive director behind
me in line. I put a pair of spring loaded tongs back closed into
the chaffing dish of Kung Pao Chicken, it is the force that says
they will spring open and catapult a glob of sauce directly onto my
executive director's business jacket. (True story, unfortunately.)
Occasionally this force acts mercifully. In this case the pulley
missed each of my nine non-sore toes. These were the nine that
were not swollen with an in-grown toenail. So 90% of my toes came
out of the incident doubly unscathed. (And Evelyn claims that I am
someone who says, "the glass is half empty" not "the glass is half
full.) With nine good toes the words I said were almost fit for
mixed company. And with nine good toes acting as a team I am
almost not limping any more when I walk. Well, now what? My first
thought was to hammer on the bottom of the hook to bend it upward.
Down the ladder and up again. You know things these days are
frequently made from cheap materials. I guess it saves money. But
it is nice to know that when you buy a hook for hanging a pulley,
it is made of good steel. You can bang on that sucker until the
cows come home and it will not bend upright.
With more presence of mind than elegance I removed the lower screw
and loosened the upper screw. That screw was in very tight, I
would trust it to hold the hook. The hook looks like it is falling
off, but actually it is working pretty well. So now the big
experiment. I go get a box of VARIETYs and drag it out to the
garage. Now what? I hadn't thought much about this part. How
does one lift a box with rope? Finally I hit on tying two ropes
around the box, trussing it up birthday gift fashion. Now I can
tie the pulley rope to the two ropes around the box. So this is
the big moment. I am ready to haul up the box. Arrrgghh! My gosh
that thing is heavy. Even pulling down it is a tough pull. The
rope is eating into my hands. But you know there is one of those
existential pleasures of engineering when I see the box go up
through the hole into my attic. Man is once more the master. I
feel really good. And as I ease back on the rope I see the box
descend back though the hole. Huh? How do I get it to stay up
there? This isn't fair. I got the box up there, how do I get it
to stay in the attic? Maybe if I climb the ladder? But I can't do
that without my hands and my hands are being used to keep the box
up.
"Evelyn!" Nothing. "Evelyn?" My arms are dying.
An eternity later. "Did you call me?"
"Could you climb the ladder and push the box over onto the floor of
the attic?" She does.
"Why didn't you just take the VARIETYs out of the box and make
multiple trips?"
Some days you eat the bear. Some days the bear eats you. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. PI (a film review by Mark R. Leeper);
Capsule: A mathematician looking for a way to
predict the stock market may be close to
stumbling onto discovering a number that will
unlock the universe. The first film by writer
and director Darren Aronofsky uses a $60,000
budget very intelligently. The film starts
intelligently and even intriguingly, but it
gets lost in a miasma of self-indulgent scenes
and ends in something of a predictable cliche.
In the end the film was painful to watch
without giving us very much that is new for the
final payoff. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), low +1 (-4
to +4)
New York Critics: 7 positive, 2 negative, 6
mixed
There are some numbers in mathematics that show up again and again.
Of these the two best known and perhaps the most powerful tools are
the numbers e and pi. Another number of some interest is the
Golden Ratio phi, which curiously this film calls theta. It is the
premise of this film that there is another constant that is far
more powerful. It is so powerful that it has serious metaphysical
implications. What would happen if a mortal stumbled across such a
number?
Max Cohen (played by Sean Gullette) is a brilliant mathematician
who once showed great promise. These days he is obsessed with
finding a pattern in stock market prices. He justifies that search
with his three laws: (1) mathematics is the language of nature, (2)
everything can be understood through numbers, and (3) patterns are
everywhere and in everything. He works by himself in a disorderly,
ant-ridden apartment trying to coax answers from a super-computer
of his own design. There are three forces pulling on Max in three
other directions. Primarily there is his former teacher Sol
Robeson (Mark Margolis). Sol's studies of pi once led him very
near a great and terrible discovery. As a result Sol retreated
from mathematics. He now plays the occasional game of Go with his
former student and tries to convince his student to leave his
apartment and embrace life. Another force on Max is a mysterious
set of financiers wanting Max to complete his study of the stock
market for their own purposes. And thirdly there is a local group
of Hassidic Jews wanting to pull Max into Orthodox Jewish
observance and just incidentally use his knowledge to look for
Kabbalistic messages hidden in the Torah. At the center of all
this stress and the research Max is disintegrating into migraines
and ever-weirder and more violent hallucinations.
Sean Gullette is more believable as a great mathematician than was
Mark Damon last year in GOOD WILL HUNTING. Of course he is
supposed to have a much more believable set of skills. Another
familiar face is Mark Margolis as the wise and hurt Sol Robeson.
Margolis has a very characteristic face and I have enjoyed his
roles since he played an assassin in SCARFACE.
Aronofsky claims that this was intended to be a stark black-and-
white film with no gray tones on the screen at all. And, true, it
was filmed making extensive use of a handheld camera and in black
and white with a high contrast. But just a cursory look at the
film demonstrates that Aronofsky failed to eliminate gray tones.
Further, though this film has some of the most intelligent and
highest level mathematics of any film I can name, Aronofsky spoils
it by being sloppy in his language and terminology. Mathematics is
a very precise language and it does not take a big error to turn a
true statement into a false one. 233/144, for example, does *not*
approach the Golden Ratio or any other number but 233/144. Anyone
who knows what determines prices on the stock market knows that a
price is the result of many factors too numerous to count. A
single pattern for the stock market would entail discovering the
pattern in each of the factors or proving that it does not matter.
And there is a big difference (that this film ignores) between 216
numbers and a 216-digit number.
I expected to like this film a lot more than I actually did. As a
trained mathematician with an interest in Jewish mysticism, I
should have found this film right down my alley. Unfortunately, it
wasn't. In fact, I found myself frequently looking at my watch.
Perhaps too much of the story was obvious and moved too slowly.
Then there were the parts, not a lot but they were there, when the
film was incomprehensible. My suspicion is that this film is being
too well accepted by the mainstream critics to suit the writer and
director Darren Aronofsky. My guess is that he wanted to confuse
the mainstream critics and then have the film play as a cult film
on the midnight circuit. As is, it will probably have a quick
play-off in art theaters and then will sink from sight.
This film has been labeled science fiction but it is really more of
a science fantasy. Like FAUST or FRANKENSTEIN, it assumes all
knowledge is really knowable, but at a price too great for us mere
mortals to pay. Frankly by this point that Promethean theme is a
cliche. I rate it a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +1 on the -4
to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
5. THE GOVERNESS (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: This film had just about everything
going for it but an original story. The story
it has is just the recombination of elements
from other films. A Jewish woman needing
employment takes a Christian name for a job as
governess on the Isle of Skye. In a mysterious
house she finds sensuous romance in the best
Bronte traditions. There are more problems
awaiting her, but few unfamiliar to most
filmgoers. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), high 0 (-4 to
+4). A spoiler section follows the main review
discussing the familiarity of plot points from
late in the film.
New York Critics: 5 positive, 5 negative, 4
mixed
One wants to feel when watching a film that at least somewhere in
the film there are some new ideas somewhere in the film and
something that the viewer has not seen before. Of late, however,
we have been getting films that really are little more than
recombinations of other films. No part of the film felt like it
belonged to that film alone. Rarely does one see such a film on
the art house circuit. That is one advantage to art house films.
But occasionally even there a film comes through that feel more
assembled from parts than written. Watching THE GOVERNESS I was
reminded of pieces of JANE EYRE, of THE INNOCENTS, of Jane Austin
films, even of THE COLOR PURPLE. It reminded me of all these
films, but I cannot imagine that any other film will ever remind me
primarily of THE GOVERNESS.
Minnie Driver plays Rosina, a precocious young Jewish woman from
London some time around the 1820s. When her father is killed
Rosina does not know what is to become of her. Her mother wants to
marry her to an old fish merchant for whom she thinks she will
never feel love. Didn't I see this with a butcher in FIDDLER ON
THE ROOF? Rosina has a better idea. She will take the ultra-
Christian name Mary Blackchurch and will apply for a job as a
governess. She does and accepts a position for the Cavendish
Family on the Isle of Skye. Rosina has the most romantic of
impression what the isle will be like but it turns out to be foggy
and dismal and the house big and mysterious in the best traditions
of the Brontes. Mrs. Cavendish (Harriet Walter) seems to be
dramatically wasting away of ennui. Young Clementina Cavendish, a
small monster, does not like her new governess and immediately
tries to get the upper hand. And there is no appearance from the
mysterious Mr. Cavendish (who would be played by Tom Wilkenson if
he were around). It seems that Cavendish is performing strange
scientific experiments that some rumor to verge on the
supernatural. However as time passes nearly all things improve in
various predictable ways as Rosina's spunk, wit, education, and
intelligence proves to be just what the Cavendish house needs, and
the house is just what Rosina needs. Sandra Goldbacher wrote and
directed the film as her first major effort and perhaps that is
part of the problem with the plotting.
Minnie Driver is a good actress in a role that by turns expects her
to be plain as a bug and then later to be glamorous. She manages
to cover the range and does for the story all she could be expected
to do. Tom Wilkenson as Cavendish must go in the reverse direction
and manages quite well. Wilkenson may be remembered as the
imperious bosses from THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS and especially
from THE FULL MONTY. Ashley Rowe's photography is certainly moody
if unsubtle. There is a heavy use of filters so that most scenes
do not appear in natural light. Scenes are frequently awash in
blue or brown. And Rowe manages to make the fog outside even
appear to enter the house.
It is easy to imagine Goldbacher turning out good films in the
future, but her first effort points to a need for a little more
imagination in her storytelling. I give her first effort a 5 on
the 0 to 10 scale and a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Spoiler...Spoiler...Spoiler...
The contrivance and cliche seems to continue throughout the film in
ways that could not be described above. Rosina's photography
suggestions all make perfect sense from the present when we know
that a darkroom is a pretty good idea and that photography can
artistic. But they seem unlikely coming from a woman or even a man
of the 1820s. Even for a woman from a culture that stresses
education the extent of her general knowledge seems anachronistic.
In the final analysis THE GOVERNESS is a sort of bodice-ripper
variant on COLD COMFORT FARM, then twists when Rosina learns the
hard feminist lesson not to trust men. Every inch of the way in
the plot we are on well-trodden ground. I will point out the one
laughable irony is that so soon after photography is invented comes
the advent of the dirty picture. [-mrl]
===================================================================
6. THE CHAMBERMAID ON THE TITANIC (a film review by Mark R.
Leeper):
Capsule: In a harsh steel mill town in France
of 1912 a man's romantic fantasies transform
his life and the lives of the people around
him. This is a Spanish film about how human
nature will choose a pleasant lie over a brutal
truth and the power of the right fantasy to
transfigure the listener. Rating: 7 (0 to
10), +2 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 9 positive, 0 negative, 2
mixed
If I were to look for a film to double-feature with THE CHAMBERMAID
ON THE TITANIC, it would probably be last year's misunderstood and
under-appreciated THE POSTMAN. Both films are about unpleasant
societies and the transforming and inspiring power of just the
right lie. In each film the public is more than anxious to be
fooled by the lie that fills a need.
THE CHAMBERMAID ON THE TITANIC opens in a steel mill town somewhere
in France. One gets a feel for how harsh life is in the credit
sequence where the pouring of molten steel looks like the core of a
volcano. Fun in this town is the annual race in which the runners,
sopping wet, carry large sandbags on their backs through puddles of
standing water. Each then has to climb a hill of cinders to
retrieve a baton only to return to the run. The winner this time,
as it has been the previous two, is young and handsome Horty
(Olivier Martinez). This year there is to be a special prize. The
winner gets a trip to Southampton, England to see the embarkation
of the steamship Titanic. Actually the prize was to have been two
tickets, but the manager of the mill wants to use the opportunity
to attempt to seduce Horty's wife Zoe (Romane Bohringer). Unaware
of what is happening at home, Horty goes to Southampton.
In his hotel Horty meets a beautiful damsel in distress. Marie
(Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) is to be a chambermaid on the departing ship
in the morning, but she cannot find a room for the night and asks
Horty if she may have his room. He reluctantly agrees and spends a
frustrating but chaste night in the same bed with the comely woman.
Marie is gone before he arises and as he watches the Titanic set
sail, he notices that a local photographer captured her picture.
He purchases the picture and fantasizes about what might have been.
On his return, Horty's friends hint to him that his wife may have
been seeing the manager. Jealous of his wife, he retreats to the
bar to enjoy his memories and his photograph of Marie. When his
friends start pressing him for details, he brags of his romantic
adventures, telling his fantasies as if they were true. What
begins as the locker-room sort of boasting evolves into a sort of
romantic soft-core pornography. Ever-increasing crowds of both
genders gather each night to escape their problems and hear the
story of the romantic interlude.
The deceptively simple story touches on not just the mystique of
womanhood, but the will to believe and to a certain extent
commercialization of the arts. We have a story of the duality of
legend and reality and the will to believe. THE CHAMBERMAID ON THE
TITANIC, which takes place in Northern France and England, is
actually a Spanish film. Jose Juan Bigas Luna wrote and directed.
In keeping with Spanish film, his visuals are not impressive
exercises in effects. His film is more about people than visual
images. Luna's special effects are sufficient to let the viewer
know that it is supposed to be the Titanic in the background of a
scene, but he does not let the spectacle run away with what is
actually a simple story. Bigas Luna, a filmmaker and a painter,
has a string of interesting films to his name, few of which are
seen in the US. Perhaps the best known here is the sly comedy
JAMON, JAMON. Following his 1996 BAMBOLA, this is the second of
three films he intends to make on the mystique of women. Olivier
Martinez is probably most familiar to American audiences for the
1994 THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF. The enigmatic beauty of the
chambermaid Marie is provided by Aitana Sanchez-Gijon who is
popular in Spain but best known in this country for A WALK IN THE
CLOUDS.
The middle film in a trilogy is frequently the least of the three
films, but because of the current popularity of romantic stories
involving the Titanic, this one is getting much wider play here.
And certainly the film deserves to be seen. I would rate it a 7 on
the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Mother is the dead heart of the family, spending
father's earnings on consumer good to enhance the
environment in which he eats, sleeps, and watches