THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/07/01 -- Vol. 20, No. 10
Big Cheese: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Little Cheese: Evelyn Leeper, evelyn.leeper@excite.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (comments)
THE DEEP END (film review)
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (comments by Mark R. Leeper):
With the release of PEARL HARBOR an Internet radio program played
music from a lot of different films that treated the Japanese
attack on December 7, 1941, beginning the Second World War for a
country that was unaware that it had already been going on for
27 months. (In fact, really the war's most significant blow to
the German Western Front had already been struck by Britain,
though virtually nobody, least of all the Germans, knew it at
the time. Or am I being enigmatic?) But we were talking in
this article about the Pacific War.
In any case, the 1980 film THE FINAL COUNTDOWN has always seemed
a little strange to me. In the first place, I do not remember
there being a countdown anywhere in the film, final or
otherwise. The film is really just a dressed up version of a
"Twilight Zone" episode. (Not that that is a surprise. For
five seasons "Twilight Zone" churned out an idea a week. Some
were just ghastly, but some were pretty good ideas and a lot of
the fantasy films that came out after those five seasons show
the influence of "Twilight Zone." CARNIVAL OF SOULS is a very
effective horror film, but it is made of elements taken from
"Twilight Zone" episodes, particularly "The Hitchhiker." I am
told that Spielberg paid royalties to Richard Matheson because
he openly borrowed part of the plot of POLTERGEIST from the
"Twilight Zone" episode "Little Girl Lost" where a little girl
has to be retrieved after falling into another dimensional
universe.) The "Twilight Zone" episode "The 7th Is Made Up of
Phantoms" has a tank crew getting lost in time and finding
themselves at the Little Bighorn. This is the idea that was
recycled for THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, though there it was an
aircraft carrier that found itself at Pearl Harbor just prior to
the Japanese attack. (Time travel fiction seems to think that
the laws of physics seem to have some particular interest in
important events of American and occasionally European history.
Nobody ever gets dropped in the middle of an empty plain
someplace with nothing much of interest happening within 2000
miles. Nobody ever gets dropped in the middle of even a Chinese
war, much less an ant war. Anyway, THE FINAL COUNTDOWN has the
USS Nimitz dropped just off Pearl Harbor just before the
Japanese attack. While the commander discovers he cannot stay
around for the actual attack, he can take on some of the
vanguard of the Japanese planes headed for the raid.
What does Captain Yelland (played by Kirk Douglas) discover? Sure
enough modern planes are really good at taking out 1941 Japanese
bombers. Apparently this film and their victory has become a
point of pride with the real United States Navy. They have
taken John Scott's score for THE FINAL COUNTDOWN and use it in
Navy recruiting films. This strikes me as a little odd since it
is a commonly known truism of military history that countries are
always preparing to be ready to fight their previous wars. As
we entered World War II we were really very ready to fight World
War I. They are always ready to fight war in a way that would
have been state of the art the last time they fought. It is
great that the Navy is so proud of the message that they are all
set to fight World War II again and this time we could
decisively beat the Japanese. This may not be such a thing to
be proud of. The film shows us valiantly beating 1940s Japanese
planes with 1970s American planes. Actually, unless my memory
is failing me, I think we did decisively beat the Japanese and we
did it using 1940s weapons. I am pretty sure that some
government policy says that we fight wars using contemporarily
available weapons exclusively. I guess someone thinks that is a
real triumph or there would not have been a film made about it.
Perhaps this discussion would not be complete without mentioning
the classic written story along the lines of modern in previous
is "A Hawk Among Sparrows" by Dean McLaughlin. In this story a
modern fighter pilot finds himself and his plane back in World
War I fighting biplanes. He discovers much to his chagrin that
while the biplanes cannot do a lot to hurt him, he cannot do
much to hurt the biplanes. Heat-seeking missiles need to seek a
lot of heat. The motorized box kites that were the planes of
World War I just do not generate much heat and are safe from
modern missiles. It is impossible without stalling out to slow
down a modern fighter enough so that it can even engage a
biplane. However, ... Well, it is a good story. Places where
it can be found are listed:
--Analog Magazine, July 1968
--ANALOG 8, edited by John W. Campbell
--HAWK AMONG SPARROWS, chosen by Dean McLaughlin
--WAR AND PEACE (ANTHOLOGY #6), edited by Stanley Schmidt
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE DEEP END (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
CAPSULE: Tilda Swinton stars as a mother who tries to hide the
death of her son's male lover and in the process gets herself
involved in a web of blackmail and deceit. Swinton gives a
very good performance, but her character is more like a cork
in water buffeted by the force of those around her than a
person who takes action. The film is tense but not entirely
satisfying. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
For any thriller to work fully there are two real requirements.
The viewer has to have some emotional investment in the
characters, particularly the main character, and the characters
have to make choices that will affect the outcome of the story.
If we do not care what happens to the main character we might as
well be watching pieces on a chessboard. If the people in the
story do not make judgments and choices then they might as well be
on a thrill ride at an amusement park following its inevitable
track. They just ride through the various dangers they face. In
THE DEEP END we are given reason to empathize with Margaret Hall
(played by Tilda Swinton), but after the first half-hour or so she
is mostly doing just what she has to do. While other characters
are complex and at times do the unexpected, once we know Margaret
well enough to care for her, we also know the choices that she
will make. And by never doing anything unexpected she loses much
of her interest value. The film is almost a morality tale.
Having made a bad choice at the beginning, this long chain of
events is what she has earned for herself.
Margaret Hall lives with her family in an idyllic existence in a
nice house on Lake Tahoe. Her son Beau (Jonathan Tucker) is a
promising music student making applications to various colleges.
Margaret's one wish is to protect Beau from the clutches of a male
lover whom she is sure just wants to use her son. After a
clandestine assignation between the two Margaret finds the lover
dead. Without telling anyone she decides to hide the body so her
son will not be implicated in the investigation. This leaves her
prey to blackmail and a horrific chain of events.
Swinton is known mostly for roles of women who have foregone
anything like a "normal" lifestyle. Somehow her unusual, almost
albino, looks lead to unusual roles. In ORLANDO she plays her
best known role, an immortal who at one point for no obvious
reason spontaneously changes gender from male to female.
Frequently she plays women of power. It is a little odd seeing
her play a housewife who at least starts out somewhat typical. Of
course not long into the movie she is juggling her life as a
housewife with her secret life dealing with blackmailers. The man
who has contacted her for hush money also shows sides to his
personality we would not expect.
This is the second screen adaptation of the 1947 novel THE BLANK
WALL by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. The first was the 1949 film THE
RECKLESS MOMENT with James Mason and Joan Bennett directed by Max
Ophuls. Ophuls chose to use actors who would be familiar to
audiences, hence making it a glossier production. The team of
Scott McGehee and David Siegal who have been writing and directing
thrillers since 1993's SUTURE. Here again they wrote and
directed. They chose to use generally less familiar actors than
the previous version. Only Swinton and character actor Peter
Donat were even vaguely familiar to me.
THE DEEP END is a well-acted story of a woman who makes one
mistake and then faces some fairly harrowing consequences. I rate
it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport;
when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
--George Bernard Shaw
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