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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 01/05/01 -- Vol. 19, No. 27
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@avaya.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@avaya.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@avaya.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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. It is said that it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
I turned on the radio to NPR in the middle of a story and heard
this odd story. It was about a new classical concerto based on
themes from the music of the rock group The Doors. You know, they
did "Come on Baby, Light My Fire," "When You're Strange," that sort
of thing. In fact you probably know better than me. It was not my
style of music. Somebody wrote an entire concerto based on themes
from their music and was now recording it.
The first thing I thought of is that it is probably some Eastern
European symphony orchestra playing the music and lending their
name to give dignity to something less than their usual orthodox
classical music. It seems in Eastern Europe there are these
orchestras that used to be under the thumb of the Soviets. In
those days they played Russian music until they had it coming out
the kazoo. They were probably not happy about the circumstances.
Now the Soviet Union is no longer funding them and they realize
some advantages of the old system. They now need to earn money how
they may. They need to find work where it found them before,
however dull. Playing dull Russian music may have been better than
being out of work.
This situation is bad news for them, but it is good news for some
of us over here in the US. There are those of us for whom film
music is a genre of its own. A lot of better film music is now
turning up. For example, since the 1960s there were a few rare
recordings of music taken from horror and science fiction films.
Sometimes they were accurate to the original film scores in the
film. More often it was filtered through the questionable
sensibilities of some cretin arranger who wanted to see how it
sounded with his own flourishes. In recreating film music, the
ideal is the original soundtrack recording. Anything that makes it
noticeably not like the original score is bad. You would get
people who would end the music in some pointlessly creative
impromtu composition; you would get music that would change the
tempo. These renditions would whet ones appetite for the original
score rather than satisfy it. There were some pretty miserable
variations on a theme film fans cherished.
Come the fall of the Soviet Union and there are a bunch of
orchestras used to being paid little enough to play the Soviets'
music. Now they are scratching to earn even that much. These are
orchestras who work for a small part of what an American orchestra
would. And they have talented people, people who grew up with
great melodic music. And playing that musis was a respectable
profession. Today these musicians just want work, they do not need
to put their own private creativity into film scores. They may or
may not have even seen the films whose scores they are now
imitating.
One company, Monstrous Movie Music--named for their first CD--are
getting the original scores to classic films like IT CAME FROM
OUTER SPACE, THEM!, and GORGO and getting them together with the
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Krakow, Poland. They are doing
flawless re-recordings. I do not know if the orchestras ever saw
the original films or not, but they get the music pretty close to
how it sounded in the film. This music can get what would be a
really expensive performance if done domestically. They get it for
a small fraction of the price because they are recording it in
Krakow.
So the first thing I thought to myself when they said that someone
had written a concerto for music of the Doors is that it is
probably recorded by the selfsame Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
in Krakow doing what nobody else would. It sounds impressive that
they are getting it played by a real symphony orchestra, but they
may be doing it on the cheap.
Well, I was half wrong. The concerto was recorded by the City of
Prague Symphony Orchestra. No, they don't record science fiction
film music as far as I know. They record Western film music. I
have their album "The Wild West." They do a pretty good job of
recreating the scores of American Westerns. You know: THE
MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER, THE SEARCHERS, THE BIG
COUNTRY, some of the great Westerns. Other notable albums include
ZULU, the music of John Barry. They leave the monster movie scores
to their Polish friends. But they do basically the same thing.
They usually record for Silva Screen, a label that deals in their
own very good recreations of classic film music. I guess they can
keep the orchestra going with jobs like this. They may even have
some fun with it. I suppose old movies in English are a godsend to
Eastern European symphony orchestras. And even to someone who
wants to put an impressive frame on a concerto written on themes of
The Doors. It is the musical equivalent of a vanity press. [-mrl]
===================================================================
2. O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: In 1937 Mississippi three fugitives
from a chain gang race to save a treasure from
being flooded by a new dam. Lacking the power
of the best of the Coen Brothers, this is a sly
little Southern Odyssey with more than its
share of chuckles. The story works only in
episodes but the unusual time and setting and
the odd characterization pull the film along.
Rating: 7 (0 to 10), low +2 (-4 to +4)
The 1941 Preston Sturges comedy SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS told of a movie
director who decided that in the hard depression era, fluffy
comedies just were not what the world needed. He wants to make a
serious film about the down-trodden in the South. When the
director sees the real world he discovers what the world really
needs is more fluffy comedies like . . . well, like that Preston
Sturges guy makes. On to the ash heap go his plans to make the
serious and important film O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? Apparently
Joel and Ethan Coen have decided to make a film called O BROTHER,
WHERE ART THOU? after all. In spite of the dour title it seems
that neither Sullivan nor the Coens could resist the urge to make
fluff that belies the harsh setting.
The plot is simple enough. We start with a chain gang working
soulfully in the blistering Mississippi sun. Somehow three men
have managed to escape (as convicts always seem to from cinematic
chain gangs) and are hiding in a cornfield. They are hobbled by a
chain around their ankles and betrayed by their telltale broad-
striped prison clothing. There is Everett Ulysses McGill (played
by George Clooney), Pete Hogwollop (John Turturro), and Delmar
O'Donnel (Tim Blake Nelson. The story follows them on a short
odyssey into the poor South past sights and though a series of
episodes, some of which will be drawn together in the final reel.
Along the way they pick up and then lose a black guitarist Tommy
Johnson (Chris Thomas King). They mix into music, and politics;
they see a famous criminal's getaway, a baptism, and a Klan rally.
In the end they have multiple whimsical Dei Ex Machinae. Some of
the incidents are loosely and slightly pretentiously based on
episodes of Homer's Odyssey. Others are inspired by SULLIVAN'S
TRAVELS and perhaps bits of other films set in the Depression-era
South like NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and FOOLS' PARADE and Davis Grubb
stories.
The Coen Brothers are, of course, some of the most creative
filmmakers going. This film is released by the unconventional
combination of Touchstone and Universal. Roger Deakins shot the
entire film with washed out colors to give the film something of a
period feel. It works, though I am not sure why. They drop into
scenes 1930s products, particularly hair pomade for the dapper
Ulysses. They avoided two pitfalls here. They used no brands
currently available so they respected their film sufficiently to
avoid product placements. They also avoided that great cliche of
the South, Moon Pies. One cliche they did not avoid is the
choreographed and slightly too poetic chain gang. It always seems
like an appeal to social conscience to show men chained up, though
how different is it from children led together through town on a
rope as we see in the latter portion of the film?
The music by T-Bone Burnett and others becomes an important element
of the film rather than just creating atmosphere for incidents.
The movie is suffused with the "Old Timey" music of the period
which becomes important in the plot. There is a repeating theme of
the characters getting into strange circumstances by following
mystical music coming from the woods. Each time it is heard the
boys will be tested in some way. Tim Blake Nelson is not one of
the more familiar faces on the screen but manages to stand up with
the more popular Clooney and Turturro, though in the musical scenes
he seems relegated to a distinct third place. Also along in much
smaller roles are familiar Coen veterans Charles Durning, John
Goodman, and Holly Hunter.
As a single story, O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? just does not amount
to much. But the individual episodes are entertaining. I rate it
a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-
mrl]
===================================================================
3. FINDING FORRESTER (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: Gus Van Sant returns to the familiar
territory of GOOD WILL HUNTING with a retread
of that concept. This time the genius is a
ghetto boy and basketball star who hides the
fact he is one of America's best writers.
While there are a few nice moments the film
reeks of a filmmaker who is desperate to have a
successful film. Sean Connery stars as J. D.
Salinger type who helps the hero develop his
talent. Van Sant respects great writers but
desperately needs one himself. Rating: 4 (0 to
10), 0 (-4 to +4)
Two films back Gus Van Sant had a large success with GOOD WILL
HUNTING. The public seemed to go in a big way for this story of a
blue collar mathematics genius. (Mine was one of the few dissenting
opinions and mostly for the unlikelihood of the premise.) Van
Sant's follow-up made a definite thud with an almost scene-for-
scene remake of the classic PSYCHO. PSYCHO is one of those films
that one ought not to remake. Van Sant needs another success to
show that GOOD WILL HUNTING was not just a fluke. He really has to
have another GOOD WILL HUNTING. Sadly that is rather transparently
what he was trying a little too hard to make. He took the premise
of his former success and doctored it to be an even surer success.
First he plays the race card. This time his hero is not just a
blue collar worker, he is a really deserving sixteen-year-old black
writer who is trying to succeed in an academic world dominated by
white males, some of them nasty. Coming to a new and posh school a
rich white girl takes an interest in our young writer, and you know
immediately they are going to hit it off. Why? Van Sant is taking
no chances. If they fight the script will have to make one of them
right. It can not make a white right in a conflict with a black or
a man right in a conflict with a woman. Neither would be safe
filmmaking, so the clearly can be no conflict between the two of
them. Then to make the film even safer there is a big part for
Sean Connery as a great writer who takes our deserving lad under
his wing. Connery makes few films that do not succeed and here he
even was one of the producers. Retread concept, political
correctness, and Sean Connery: this is Van Sant playing it super-
safe. Oh, yes, and did I mention there is also a "big game"?
Outwardly, Jamal Wallace (played by Robert Brown) seems like just
about any other ghetto kid. Well, he is great at basketball. But
privately Jamal likes to read the great works of Western
literature. And then he has his notebooks where he writes his
thoughts that he does not want to share with the world. In this
Bronx neighborhood there is a strange old man who never leaves his
apartment. He just stares out the window at the passing parade and
does who knows what else. He just looms as a presence over the
neighborhood.
On a dare Jamal breaks into the strange apartment and is about to
steal something small to prove he was there but is frightened off
leaving behind his backpack with his writings. The old man
eventually gives the backpack back, but the notebooks have been
marked up with the critical comments that could only come from a
great writer. It is the kind of tutelage that Jamal desperately
wants. The recluse turns out to be the great William Forrester
(Sean Connery), the J. D. Salinger-like writer who wrote one great
novel and then never published again.
Meanwhile Jamal has attracted the attention of a prestigious school
who wants the students for his basketball skills and only
secondarily for the potential that his test scores show he has.
But there is pressure in the new school to push Jamal into the
basketball track while his writing teacher Professor Crawford (F.
Murray Abraham) finding his writing getting better and better
bigotedly suspects Jamal of cheating.
There is not doubt that the best part of the film is the writing
lessons which are written with insight. Suggestions like writing
first from the heart and then rewriting from the mind sound useful,
though they may be a little obvious. And they are a special treat
delivered by the charismatic Connery who, though not known for his
writing ability, has the hypnotic style that would make even toilet
repair sound enthralling.
This is the second film I have seen this year photographed by
Harris Savides, the other being THE YARDS. I definitely see a
pattern forming. Both are films in film noir style with overuse of
dimly lit scenes. Many of the scenes really seem to be carved from
the darkness. In Forrester's apartment the lighting is so muted
that shadows on Connery join with the background darkness.
Crawford's classroom is also filmed in dim and downbeat style.
Scenes are frequently washed out. It feels to me like this is
manipulation, though in a better film it might more sympathetically
be called style. In any case there seems to be an excess of it
here.
By trying too hard to be successful, this film rarely rises above
mediocrity. I rate it a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4
to +4 scale. I did like the writing lesson, but with that
exception everything I ever needed to know about FINDING FORRESTER
I got from watching the trailer. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@avaya.com
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth. -- Lillian Hellman