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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 12/17/99 -- Vol. 18, No. 25
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@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 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. Our Paris trip logs are available at:
http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/paris.htm
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/paris.htm
===================================================================
2. As we approach the end of the century I think there is one
subject on just about everybody's mind. Not all writers have been
willing to fact the situation, but part of the reason people read
the MT VOID is that we handle the issues that nobody else will
touch. In that spirit I think it is time to look back and assess
just what exactly has gone wrong with mashed potatoes and how we
have arrived at the current deplorable mashed potato situation. I
think it is purely human nature and the invisible hand of the
marketplace that have brought us to the current sorry pass. But
let us look unafraid at the facts. It was not that long ago that
mashed potatoes were different...
Old fashioned mashed potatoes were a standard dish. My own mother
used to make mashed potatoes. She would take a special device
called a "potato masher" and mash them and they would come out the
consistency of mashed potatoes. All the way through. There were
no lumps. Well-mashed potatoes should have no lumps. "Silky"
would almost describe the way they came out. People who had lumps
in their mashed potatoes simply has not taken the time and made the
proper effort to make the dish correctly. A good cook made
perfectly homogenous mashed potatoes. Oh, those were such
wonderful times. Little did we see that change was coming to the
world of mashed potatoes.
Then came the mashed potato flake and the mashed potato bud. Add
boiling water and butter and they made perfect mashed potatoes.
Every time. Well most times, sort of. They were easy to make but
they were not always perfect mashed potatoes. If you added too
much water you could end up with mashed potatoes you could sip
through a straw. This was not good. Also the flavor might not
always be exactly right. This was even worse. But they were easy
to make so lunch counters, cafeterias, and bad diners everywhere
made instant powdered mashed potatoes from flakes and passed them
off as real mashed potatoes. Sometimes they made them well.
Sometimes they were made not so well.
Then the public started catching on. There were those who refused
to order mashed potatoes altogether claiming it was one more step
downward in the sausaging of America. Or they felt they really
were mashed potatoes but they had been made in a food processor.
Even good restaurants where the potatoes were hand-mashed were
caught up in the paranoia. Their answer was to try to find some
way to make mashed potatoes that would obviously been hand mashed.
They began to not make the potatoes quite so perfectly. Leave a
few lumps in the potatoes, that was their philosophy. If they
missed a few lumps that only proved that they made them the right
way with a potato masher. It is the imperfections that confirmed
they did the job the old fashioned way. A lack of lumps altogether
makes the potatoes suspect. It is just like the fact that you can
detect an artificial diamond by its total lack of imperfections.
And that was how things remained for many years. But things have
not continued like that forever. I realized this the day I ordered
turkey and mashed potatoes in a diner. And the potatoes came a
little too liquid and smooth. They were almost the consistency of
a thick milk shake. But as I ate them I was amazed by finding a
lump in the potatoes. Had they really over mashed these potatoes
to this extent and still left a lump? But then my tongue noticed
edges on the lump. It was a diced potato. Then it dawned on me
what was happening and the full horror of the situation hit me.
Yes, these were powdered potatoes as I had first guessed. The
powdered potato mixes were now coming with lumps. I don't know if
they have them mixed into the powder or if you get a little packet
of potato lumps as part of the mix. I started imagining what they
must have said on the box. "Mix the magic potato lumps into your
mashed potatoes to get a real --down home' mashed potato
consistency." No.
So this is it. That was about a year ago. Since then no matter
where I get mashed potatoes, fancy restaurant or cheap diner, they
ALWAYS have lumps. The mixes have gotten smarter and they are now
not usually diced potatoes, but every restaurant that serves mashed
potatoes has lumps. This was not how it was supposed to be.
Mashed potatoes should not have lumps. But you cannot serve mashed
potatoes without lumps in the mad race to make all mashed potatoes
seem hand-mashed. But the lumps no longer prove anything. Some
mashed potatoes will be hand mashed and some will be assembled from
hobby kits, but ALL will have lumps. This is the legacy that the
20th century will leave the 21st in the field of mashed potatoes.
The next generation will grow up believing that mashed potatoes
just always have lumps. This is not a legacy we can be proud to
have left. An inexorable part of the dumbing down of America will
be the lumping up of mashed potatoes. And we will have done it to
ourselves.
Now don't get me started on what has gone wrong with the taste of
Coca-Cola. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. THE GREEN MILE (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: In a Louisiana prison in 1935 a black
giant sentenced to death adds a touch of magic
to the death row cell block. Frank Darabont
returns to writing/directing a Stephen King
prison story with THE GREEN MILE. He spends
three hours on his film and gives us some
moving moments, but the dramatic payoff is
never strong enough to justify the length and
the artificiality of his new work. What
Darabont did naturally in THE SHAWSHANK
REDEMPTION seems far more contrived here. This
is a decent film when a very good film was
expected. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to
+4)
Five years ago Frank Darabont released THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION a
film he wrote and directed based on a Stephen King story set in a
prison. I picked that as the best film of its year. Now Darabont
returns to that territory with what promised to be a powerful
Stephen King story, but one which is not compelling enough to
justify the film's three-hour length. Certainly the payoff, when
it comes, is moving. But it is undercut by the introduction of
mystical elements and by heavy-handed stylistic touches. The
addition of supernatural elements to a gritty story of human
experience seems ill-conceived.
At a home for the elderly one resident Paul Edgecomb (Dabbs Greer)
has a number of strange behaviors. Every day he gets out and takes
a walk in the woods. Seeing the film TOP HAT on television reduces
him to tears. Finally he tells his story in private to a friend.
In 1935 he was the lead guard on death row at a Cold Mountain
Penitentiary in Louisiana (here he is played by Tom Hanks). The
team of guards was made up of decent men most of whom just wanted
the best for the convicts under their care. The one exception is
the sadistic Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), the governor's wife's
nephew. [No mention is made of Senator Huey Long who was a virtual
dictator in Louisiana. It was under his auspices political
appointments like Percy's were made. The governor that year was
Long's handpicked replacement when three years earlier in the
middle of his term Long vacated the office for a seat in the US
Senate. Long was at the height of his power at the point this film
was set. Change was fast in coming, however. This film is set in
July. A little over a month after the events of this film, on the
night of September 8th, 1935, Dr. Carl Austin Weiss assassinated
Long in the State Capitol Building in Baton Rouge.]
The story really begins when John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) a
huge black man is brought to the cell block having been convicted
of raping and murdering two young girls. Paul cannot believe that
this giant child-man who is afraid of the dark could be a murderer.
The film slowly develops the stories of some of the inmates and
guards. For a long time the script neglects Coffey whose angel-
like presence is felt over the entire cell-block but who does
little to interact with people.
Darabont's script apparently wanted to carry over from the novel
the feeling that the viewer really knows the inmates as individuals
and cares about them. But the characterization comes slowly and
too frequently characters are dispatched quickly. The one inmate
not well characterized is Coffey, the one who would be most
interesting to know. Our reactions to Coffey come mostly from
stereotypes borrowed from other films. That is the problem with
too many of the main characters. We do not really understand Percy
at the end of the film. Nor do we really understand Wild Bill.(Sam
Rockwell of JERRY AND TOM), a wild animal of a man. Even Paul is
not a character of much depth or wisdom. He is simply a good and
decent man.
Almost the entire film is shot with a heavy yellowish filter that
blocks out any bright light and artificially casts a pallor on the
film and calls attention to itself. In THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
Darabont's team created a prison that looked like a prison of the
period. This is a longer film and most of the film takes place in
the one cell block and the room of the electric chair. While the
confinements are not claustrophobic, they do start to become
tiresome after a while.
Tom Hanks is reasonable as the decent and likable prison guard, a
welcome change from usual negative stereotypes. A man with grown
children, he looks a little young for the role and the accent never
sounds exactly right. His second in command is David Morse as
Brutus "Brutal" Howell. Morse is a large quiet actor familiar from
THE CROSSING GUARD. He his tall and calm image gives him the air
of a blond Gary Cooper. James Cromwell has been a familiar face
for many years, but since BABE he has been getting more major
roles. Here he plays a prison warden with the requisite dignity.
Another familiar face in a very small role is Gary Sinese.
The lineage of THE GREEN MILE is excellent, but the film itself is
only decent and probably could have been more effective at a two
hour length. I rate is a favorable but disappointed 6 on the 0 to
10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. THE INSIDER (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: THE INSIDER traces the story of the
incident in which the big tobacco companies
went from incredible power to their current
huge losing streak. It is told blow by blow
(by blow by blow by blow). A former tobacco
executive is slowly convinced to become a
whistle-blower for the CBS News "60 Minutes"
team. It shoulda, coulda, woulda been
exciting, but is told so authentically and in
such detail that it becomes ponderous, over-
long, and at times even dull. Rating: 4 (0 to
10), 0 (-4 to +4)
I read the NEW YORKER magazine and I enjoy some of their really
in-depth articles about some incident. They will take some
incident like the investigation of a mysterious plane crash and
tell you what happened in detail. It becomes a real education in
what agencies get involved and how theories are suggested, and what
kind of pressure the investigators are under, and just about any
other aspect you can think of. Frequently I get the feeling that
the article sounded exciting, but I am being told in more detail
than I really wanted to know. Often I get to the middle of a story
and say, OK, it sounded good but I now have invested more time than
I am willing to spend on this subject. Film is a different medium.
It is a visual medium. That slows down the telling of stories much
more than people realize. I frequently am surprised to find out
how short a film script is and how much of the pages are empty
space. The magazine article and the film script are two very
different media. THE INSIDER is a film adaptation of the Vanity
Fair article "The Man Who Knew Too Much" by Marie Brenner. It is
too much an adaptation of a magazine article slowed to the pace of
a film. It really verges on being tedious at least at times.
For years the seven big companies knew that they dealt in an
addictive drug that caused a host of unhealthy side-effects. But
they pretended for the public that it was unproven and they did not
really believe it. The business was incredibly profitable and the
proceeds translated into the political power to squelch and
discredit any political movements against big tobacco. The tide
turned when a former vice-president of one of the companies was
convinced by the CBS "60 Minutes" News team to tell the public how
much the tobacco companies really knew about the health effects of
smoking. The resulting pressure to stop the story created a small
civil war at CBS. Who were the major people involved, what were
their motives, how was the story almost killed, how did it get
aired anyway? That is the story covered in surprising detail by
THE INSIDER. This all could have been enthralling, but it is not
the sort of thing that a stylist like Michael Mann would be likely
to do well. And in the end, he failed. To make a long story
short, the film needed a director who knew how to make a long story
short.
The film opens with the CBS "60 Minutes" team in Iran with the
assignment to interview a terrorist. We get a taste for their
personal style and how they get the upper hand. They go from being
one newsman blindfolded at the hands of the terrorists to the
actual interview with Mike Wallace (played by Christopher Plummer).
There the news team under producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) are
ordering around the terrorists and getting away with it. This
seems to have nothing to do with the main line of the story, but
later when the tobacco industry is so much harder to manipulate
than committed terrorists, we have a wry irony on who really has
clout in the world. Terrorists can grab the headlines, but the
tobacco companies have the real position of power.
Incongruously intercut with the Iran interview sequence we see
Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) dejectedly returning from work to
his home. We discover that he has been fired and his career
brought to a complete halt unexpectedly. He had been a very
profitably rewarded vice-president in charge or research and
development at Brown and Williams Tobacco; now he was unemployed
and needed money to support his family. Rather than support him
his wife Liane (Diane Venora) demands of him what are they supposed
to do for income. Meanwhile the "60 Minutes" team trying to do a
story on fires started by cigarettes have obtained some data they
do not understand. They offer Wigand $12,000 just to interpret the
data. Wigand's severance agreement swears him to secrecy about
anything he knows about tobacco dealings, but he is reluctantly he
stretches the severance terms. He is willing to read some
documents from another tobacco company and interpret them for
Bergman. In spite of the secrecy, Wigand's former employers seem
immediately to know Wigand is talking to "60 Minutes" and he is
warned off by former boss Thomas Sandefur played Michael Gambon in
an all too brief but deliciously sinister role. And so the game
begins. Wigand is irate at his negative treatment for what he
still considered continued to be loyalty to his agreement and his
former employer. Meanwhile someone is playing very rough with
Wigand and his family.
The film examines Wigand and the pressures placed on his family as
they are caught between two powerful giants. Wigand has always
wanted to make tobacco safer and has natural sympathies with
getting the story out. He and his family are assaulted
psychologically and financially by the giant tobacco industry that
had never lost a legal fight. Al Pacino is given top billing but
the Wigand family is the core of THE INSIDER.
The story is told slowly and in just a bit too much meticulous
detail. The film is 157 minutes and is an extremely demanding film
for the audience. The musical score by Pieter Bourke, Lisa
Gerrard, and Graeme Revell is one of the worst in recent memory.
It puts ominous chords under some scenes and using voice in ways
that become a distraction that gets in the way of the storytelling.
Also disturbing is the casting of Christopher Plummer as Mike
Wallace. Plummer and Wallace are such different types and Wallace
is too well-known for even so good an actor as Plummer to play him
convincingly.
This film might have been a really engaging experience under
another director's control. Michael Mann was the wrong person to
helm this film and THE INSIDER lacks intensity because of his
style. I rate it a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4
scale. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
and when I was a man I discovered that nobody wise ever really gives that up.
-- Mark Leeper
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