@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
@ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 05/04/01 -- Vol. 19, No. 44
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. The article I referenced in my editorial on fat and food is
available at http://www.malcolmgladwell.com/2001_03_05_a_fries.htm
[-mrl]
===================================================================
2. Evelyn Leeper's Boskone 38 report is available at
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/bosk38.htm. [-ecl]
===================================================================
3. There is an article in the current LINGUA FRANCA about Philip K.
Dick and his interactions with the FBI. It is available at
http://www.linguafranca.com/print/0105/cover.html. [-ecl]
===================================================================
4. A few notes on the Hugo nominees listed last week:
The Retro-Hugo short fiction nominees are available in various
anthologies. Particularly useful if you can find it is Isaac
Asimov's GREST SF STORIES 12: 1950, which contains *eight* of the
stories.
"To the Stars" by L. Ron Hubbard is the first part of the novel
RETURN TO TOMORROW.
"...And Now You Don't" by Isaac Asimov is the second part of SECOND
FOUNDATION.
"The Dreaming Jewels" by Theodore Sturgeon, listed as a novella, is
actually the novel. (For that matter "...And Now You Don't" is
also novel-length, and C. S. Lewis's THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE
WARDROBE is novella-length.)
The other short fiction pieces are available as follows:
"The Last Enemy" by H Beam Piper--ASTOUNDING SF ANTHOLOGY
(Campbell); also the just published COMPLETE
PARATIME
"The Man Who Sold the Moon" by Robert A. Heinlein--
THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON
"Okie" by James Blish--EARTHMAN, COME HOME
"The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out" by Reginald
Bretnor--SF BESTIARY (Silverberg)
"Generation Gap" by Stanley Schmidt is available at
http://www.lrcpubs.com/artemismagazine/issue01/gengap1.html. (If
links to more nominees become available, I will try to collect
them. But the Schmidt is particularly hard to find, because it
appeared in "Artemis" rather than one of the more widely circulated
magazines.)
Asimov's SECOND FOUNDATION; Blish's EARTHMAN, COME HOME; Heinlein's
FARMER IN THE SKY; and Heinlein's MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON are
available for loan to Lucent, Avaya, or Agere employees from the
Science Fiction Club library. On the other hand, unless you're in
Holmdel, it's probably faster to get them from your local library.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
5. I am in the process of listing my choice for the ten best films
of the 20th century. So far we have
10) INHERIT THE WIND
9) KING KONG (1933)
8) STAR WARS (1977)
Honorable Mention: THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1903)
I showed my list of films to a friend and he took me to task
because every film was shot in the English language. That really
does seem unreasonable. Do I really think that all the best films
ever made have been made in the English language? Well, no, I
don't. The problem is that every foreign-language film I have seen
has been either with dubbing or subtitles. Neither is a very good
way to see a film. One super-imposes foreign voices over the
actors' own voices; the other continually pulls the viewer away
from the visual component of the acting. Foreign-language films
always are presented to me under a handicap. There is no way I can
accurately compensate for that. I just have to call them as I see
them and say it is a subjective choice. It is just one person's
opinion. Your mileage may vary, as they say.
Continuing on:
7) THE KILLING FIELDS -- There have been few enough films about the
Vietnam war experience and those have frequently gone off in
strange directions like the fictional Russian Roulette suicide
parlors of THE DEER HUNTER. Certainly the most even-handed and the
most realistic film I know of about the war experience is THE
KILLING FIELDS, Roland Joffe's true story set in Cambodia before
and after the Americans pulled out of Southeast Asia. The central
figure is Dith Pran,played by Haing Ngor. Both of them, the actor
and the person he played, lived through the holocaust in Cambodia
after the Americans left. Pran had worked with New York Times
writer Sidney Schanberg. When Schanberg left Pran was left to face
the excesses of the Khemer Rouge. The story is by turns horrifying
and heart-rending. Films this powerful are very rare.
Honorable Mention: EMPIRE OF THE SUN -- Stephen Spielberg directed
the film version of J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel.
The film becomes an ode to a sense of wonder that protected the
main character through times that in retrospect the author realizes
were extremely dangerous. Ballard has always been a strange writer
and one gets a feel for the forces that made him that way.
Spielberg recognized an opportunity that few filmmakers ever get.
He shows the audience what looks like literally thousands of people
in front of his camera in the stunning scenes of the panic. This
is what streets of Shanghai were as the Japanese marched on the
city. Just about anywhere else in the world it would have been
prohibitively expensive to film so many people.
6) PATHS OF GLORY -- This was Stanley Kubrick's first really major
film and it is for me the best film for which he maintained such
artistic control. This remains the most powerful anti-war film
ever made. The blistering dialog was provided in part by crime
fiction writer Jim Thompson. No film has ever portrayed so angrily
the lot of the dog soldier in the hands of callous and ambitious
commanders. Kirk Douglas made some excellent powerful films of
social commentary in the 1950s but made none better. Also starring
are Ralph Meeker, Aldolphe Menjou, and George Macready.
5) THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING -- In the 1800s two scoundrels from
the British Raj in India decide to go north and make themselves
kings of Kaffiristan. John Huston does the Kipling story in grand
style. This was the last film made by Allied Artists and it broke
the company. Michael Caine and Sean Connery were, it is rumored,
never fully paid for being in this picture. But I know better. I
think Caine and Connery will be remembered for this film when their
other films--including Connery's Bond adventures--are forgotten.
It is a film for anyone from age ten up and a great time for
anyone. This is each actor's best role as far as I am concerned,
though Caine manages to outshine Connery. The film is beautifully
photographed. Huston had wanted to make a film version of this
Kipling story for years, originally with Bogart and Gable. THE MAN
WHO WOULD BE KING is crowned with a great score by Maurice Jarre.
4) LAWRENCE OF ARABIA -- David Lean's masterpiece is a spectacular
account of T. E. Lawrence's leadership of the Arab revolt against
the Turks in World War I. Robert Bolt adapted Lawrence's own
account, THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM. Peter O'Toole treads a thin
line between genius and insanity and, with Alec Guinness and Omar
Sharif, he leads a cast as brilliant as the script. It has another
classic score by Maurice Jarre and some terrific desert
photography. One of the most remarkable things is how so many of
the major characters actually resemble the people they are playing.
In THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM we see that Lawrence, Prince Faisal,
and General Allenby looked like and the actors strongly resemble
them.
This article is getting fun to write now that I am talking about
films I love so much. I am sorry to say that next week the list
will be complete and I will have to write about something else.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
6. THE WIDOW OF ST. PIERRE (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: This is an ironic story, a bittersweet
parable that builds to an odd paradox. Juliet
Binoche and Daniel Auteuil star in a Quebecois
film about the wife of an army captain who
befriends a man condemned to the guillotine for
murder. The film at least appears to be a nice
simple film that is hard to dislike, but by the
same token which has no great virtues. Rating:
6 (0 to 10), +1 (-4 to +4)
Having just recently seen Juliet Binoche in CHOCOLAT and now seeing
THE WIDOW OF ST. PIERRE invites comparison of the two films. While
the majority of critics seem to prefer WIDOW I would have to say
that I rather preferred CHOCOLAT. WIDOW is a cold tale told in a
cold and foggy climate that mirrors a cold and obscure legalistic
landscape. In spite of some likable people in THE WIDOW OF ST.
PIERRE, it is a bleak little story. CHOCOLAT is more positive and
life affirming.
In 1850 the three-month fog that has blanketed St. Pierre off
Newfoundland seems to have found its way into some of the people's
heads, particularly two drunken fishermen. The two men including
Ariel Neel Auguste (played by Emil Kusturica) get drunk and commit
a senseless and stupid murder. They confess at their trial. In
charge of seeing that Neel's death sentence is carried out is Jean
(Daniel Auteuil). The court decides that Neel is to be guillotined
and his partner transported, but there is no guillotine in St.
Pierre and Neel gets a temporary reprieve while the authorities
arrange for a guillotine to be brought to St. Pierre. Meanwhile
Jean's wife Pauline (Juliette Binoche) wants to help Neel pass the
time and arranges for him to have what is essentially a parole to
help her with her gardening. She forms a close relationship with
the condemned man and finds him to be a decent and even likable
man. As time passes he wins over other people. All the while an
unforgiving legal system is slowly grinding toward his execution.
The story builds to a paradox as cold and bitter as St. Pierre.
An American directing the same film might have gone for the drama
of making Neel resist his execution. Neel seems a little overly
resigned to his fate, but not everyone is the same. Few other
characters in the film seem inclined to come to terms with Neel's
shockingly senseless crime.
Director Patrice Laconte has cinematographer Eduardo Serra
artificially distort the picture. A distorting lens turns lines to
curves, an effect that is further exaggerated by shoot scenes with
a tipped camera. Laconte's films are rarely seen in this country
but his MR. HIRE was a very effective film in the Hitchcockian
mold. WIDOW is not as strong a film as MR. HIRE is. It does not
create the same sort of suspense. It is a sensual story about
attraction where sexual expression would be forbidden by duty, not
unlike it was in THE REMAINS OF THE DAY. It is a story that
implies more than is said.
Laconte does as well as can be expected from the story, but it is
one that is better suited to the written word than to the screen.
Pauline remains an enigma through most of the film when we really
need to see what she is in actuality thinking. I rate THE WIDOW OF
ST. PIERRE a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK