THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/03/03 -- Vol. 22, No. 14
Big Cheese: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Little Cheese: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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Topics:
Frankenstein Exhibit (announcement)
Not in MY Name (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
UNDERWORLD (letter of comment by Guy Ferraiolo)
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
OUT OF TIME (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ (film review by
Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (CHILDHOOD'S END, SELECTED MODERN
ENGLISH ESSAYS) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Frankenstein Exhibit (announcement)
For those members in the area there is an exhibit of things
related to Frankenstein are on display continuing through Friday,
Oct. 31, at the John A. Prior Health Sciences Library's Medical
Heritage Center, 376 W. 10th Ave., on the campus of Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio. For more information as to the
content and events related see . [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Not in MY Name (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
These days the news is enough just to turn your stomach. You
should be ashamed. I should be ashamed. I think everyone reading
this notice and everyone not reading it should be ashamed. It
makes me just want to pack up and move someplace else. Let me
tell you about what is being done in your name. And in my name.
Not far from our galaxy is the plucky little Sagittarius galaxy.
I mean we grew up looking at the sky and seeing this dwarf
spheroidal little galaxy. I may not have known that was what I
was seeing but there it was, up in the sky for all to see assuming
they don't live in New Jersey. (You know I had to go to Toronto
to see Mars because the skies near my house in New Jersey were
either clouded over or hazy for the whole month that Mars was
coming close to Earth. I'm talking about a whole month. I went
out six or seven times and no Mars. It is amazing that any
astronomers at all come from New Jersey. I would think we would
just have a bunch of meteorologists. You know the word
"meteorologist" was coined in New Jersey? It was so called
because the people went out looking for meteor showers and all
they saw up there to study was the clouds so they studied weather
instead in the vain hope it would clear and they could see the
meteors. The study of meteors became the logging of clouds
instead waiting and hoping for them to move aside so we could see
the meteor shower. Sorry, I just had to vent. And don't get me
started on vents.)
Anyway we grew up with Sagittarius in the sky. It is about one-
tenth the diameter of the Milky Way but weighs less than one-
thousandth as much as the Milky Way. It is just a little shy
thing up there. It had to feel intimidated being so close to a
heavyweight galaxy like the Milky Way. A bunch of us from the
Milky Way galaxy even wanted to show we were friendly and nothing
to fear with a few "good neighbor" gestures. We would go out on
clear nights with flashlights, point them in the direction of the
Sagittarius constellation (pretty much the same direction) and tap
out "-.-- --- -- .- -- .-" which is international Morse Code for
"friend."
But nobody told the Powers That Be that we felt this way.
Apparently someone in charge got concerned about how close the
Sagittarius galaxy is to the Milky Way galaxy. In fact we are
about as far from the center of the Milky Way as the Sagittarius
galaxy. I just wanted to be friendly like I am to all galaxies.
But I did not realize how much of a threat we really pose. Now I
find out that Sagittarius had every reason to fear this monster
galaxy so close. We now know that Milky Way galaxy has been
eating pieces of our little friend. It probably has been going on
for years. Thousands of stars have been ripped from our friend
are coming to our part of the Milky Way galaxy. Milky Way is
outright stealing this matter from its near neighbor to send our
way. Why? Because it can. Because it is big and massive and has
pull. Because it wants to throw its weight around. I feel just
terrible. I mean at one point I was proud to say I was a citizen
of the Milky Way galaxy. I mean in spite of the bucolic name, I
felt I was a part of something bigger than myself. Well, it's big
all right. Milky Way is really big. It is big enough to steal
matter from other galaxies that it has no right to. It just is
not big enough to know it is wrong, Wrong, WRONG!
Astronomers from the University of Virginia and the University of
Massachusetts did the study. You can see the press release at
< http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=12630 >. "It's
clear who's the bully in the interaction," said Steven Majewski,
University of Virginia professor of astronomy and primary author
of a paper revealing the discovery. (I am not at all surprised to
see University of Massachusetts involved here as it is in many
liberal causes.) "After slow, continuous gnawing by the Milky
Way, Sagittarius has been whittled down to the point that it
cannot hold itself together much longer. We are seeing
Sagittarius at the very end of its life as an intact system," said
Martin Weinberg of the University of Massachusetts." And who is
doing it? Nobody in Sagittarius. It is us.
I want it clearly understood that I do not support the Milky Way's
imperialist designs on the innocent Sagittarius galaxy. As a
statement of conscience I say that I believe that as a people
living within the Milky Way galaxy it is our responsibility to
raise our voices against the imperialistic theft of the
Sagittarius galaxy by the Milky Way. Not in my name will one
little asteroid, one particle of cosmic dust belonging to any
other galaxy be subsumed and consumed by the Milky Way. I pledge
resistance. I pledge to make common cause with any alien races
from the Sagittarius galaxy who choose to resist this callous and
inexcusable theft of foreign real estate. A better universe is
possible and I pledge myself to do what I can to reverse this
heinous imperialist action. I look forward to a day when there is
peace throughout the universe. And I think if enough sentient
beings work for it, it is possible. And I ask that you join me.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: UNDERWORLD (letter of comment by Guy Ferraiolo)
"It does not really matter a whole lot to the plot that they are
vampires and werewolves. With a little rewriting they could
easily be two rival street gangs, or Stalinists and Trotskyites."
-- Mark Leeper from his recent review of UNDERWORLD
This is the greatest movie idea of all time. An action/violence
movie done Matrix-style, set in the 30's, between Stalinists and
Trotskyites. Imagine the scene when the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union breaks out in a full-on gun
battle! Everything would be correct for the period: heavy
machineguns on carriages with wheels, Mauser pistols, grey, dull
uniforms and buildings, Socialist Realism posters on the walls,
etc.
I really want to see the final showdown between Stalin and
Trotsky. They shoot it out, Stalin with a Degtarov MG, Trotsky
with a pair of Mausers and some German potato-masher grenades.
It starts with them with masses of followers, each trying to
control the other's with magic spells. The spells all sound
something like this: "Comrades, to accomplish Socialist revolution
we must take concrete steps against reactionaries ..." We'd have
to shorten the spells, since the movie's dramatic thrust might be
impaired if a realistic 5 hour spell were recited. I think
cutting them down to 40 minutes or so, for each spell, would be
about right. Eventually Trotsky is killed when Stalin
materializes an ice-axe from nowhere and hurls it into Trotsky's
skull. Trotsky goes into a slo-mo backflip with the weapon
protruding from his head and an artistic trail of blood droplets
spraying out.
Can you imagine the trailer?
I'm serious, this would be great. I can't wait til movie tech
gets to the point where I can do it myself. [-gf]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Robert Rodriguez's second sequel to EL MARIACHI has a
much bigger budget. As I said when I had seen just the trailer,
while Hollywood is making expensive super-violence films with flat
characters, nobody can match Rodriguez for his ability to make
inexpensive super-violence films with flat characters. With a
mid-range budget Rodriguez puts a lot of mindless violence on the
screen. Moment to moment the films is unpredictable, but on the
large scale the plot is old, predictable, and familiar. Rating: 5
(0 to 10), low +1 (-4 to +4)
For those who care about such things, this is not a Rodriguez low-
budget action film, but it is not a high-budget Hollywood action
film either. ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO cost a mid-range thirty
million dollars. There are those who are fascinated with his
films to see what he can do to stretch a peso. They will be
disappointed with ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO. He has big-budget
extravagances on a mid-range budget. He has some scenes with lots
of extras in the view of the camera. He has lots of explosions,
though many look just a little too much like the explosions in the
old Bugs Bunny cartoons are obviously not real. Frankly I don't
care so much about how much money this film cost to make. Nobody
seems to be offering to pass the savings on to me as a viewer, so
the question is not one of budget but is what is on the screen
worth the standard ticket price. The answer is a definite
perhaps.
El Mariachi (or just "El") is back. Antonio Banderas plays the
hero a second time. (Incidentally Carlos Gallardo, who was the
first Mariachi, is one of the producers of this film.) CIA Agent
Sands (Johnny Depp) is down in Mexico to hire a killer for a job.
He hears about the legendary El Mariachi, and that involves El in
a very big game. The plot is a lot like ALIEN. It is not like
the plot of ALIEN--it is like the creature in ALIEN. Every few
scenes the plot has mutated and gotten bigger and has become more
outlandish. Eventually it takes in the drug lords, the military,
El Mariachi's past, the CIA, the FBI, and the entire government of
Mexico. The cast sports some major talent. Salma Hayek returns
as El's love Carolina, but only in flashbacks. Willem Dafoe is
the ambitious drug lord Barillo. Mickey Rourke plays his
henchman. Ruben Blades is an FBI agent. And what would a
Mariachi film be without Cheech Marin playing a low-life? Veteran
actor Pedro Armendáriz Jr. plays El Presidente. I will not go
into the plot in any detail, but the wide range of characters
suggests the scope.
Johnny Depp is good as Agent Sands. He is not turning in any bad
performances this year. But he is involved with a running gag
that does not really work. Sands does something to gain a
tactical advantage in fights. And he does it many times. It
probably would not succeed the first time, much less repeatedly.
But this is a film in which you are supposed to just enjoy the
cool scenes and not stop to think if they are possible or not. A
lot of what we are seeing is ridiculous but fun. It is a film
with more action scenes than plot and some of the scenes are
actually quite imaginative. But the characters are flat and we
just keep getting to the "big scene," one big scene after another.
Some are action scenes, some are jokes. And many of the jokes are
on the viewer.
There are several places where the film looks rushed or mistakes
have been made to save budget. In the middle of a sequence in
which Sands buys chewing gum from a street boy, the box of gum
betrays the fact that the editor has flipped the scene rather than
reshooting with the actors in the right positions. A little
digital work might have helped. In another scene we see Depp's
eyes though sunglasses that should have been opaque. I will not
go into why that was important, but it was at that point of the
plot. Apparently nobody proofread the credits so they left in a
credit for "Assistant Cosutme Designer." Of course these flaws
are small in relation to the tens of millions of dollars that
Rodriguez saved in production costs, but they make the film seem
unprofessional. I have to say that I did enjoy the bullfight
scene, as those who know my personal philosophy would expect.
The title is, of course, an allusion to Sergio Leone's two films
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. But
the title seems to imply that the story will be told in a mythic
style. Curiously of the three Mariachi films, this one is the one
that seems to be least done in a mythic style. If the events in
this film actually happened they would not be a myth but Mexican
history. This film is not very good as myth and is just passable
as an action film. I rate it a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low
+1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: OUT OF TIME (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: +1
The power of a thriller is to grab the viewer and pull him through
a series of dangers like a roller coaster ride. If the viewer
starts to see a lot of implausibilities, the thriller may not
recover. When thing start really happening OUT OF TIME compounds
implausibilities on impossibilities. Almost everything that
Whitlock seems impossible or contrived. The film never recovers
its credibility. Police chief Whitlock (played by Denzel
Washington) goes flying through a (safety) glass window without a
scratch. He gets access to private information about a motel
guest simply by calling the motel and claiming to be the guest and
that he has forgotten his room number. He escapes from a police
station by a restroom window. He photcopies a phone bill, scans
it into a computer and in seconds deletes the lines interspersed
throughout without it showing on the document. Each of these is
at the very least unlikely and some are impossible. It destroys
the credibility of the film.
Police chief Whitlock (Washington) is in the process of getting a
divorce and is fooling around with a married woman, Ann (Sanaa
Lathan). She is married to a man whom Whitlock detests. When Ann
is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Whitlock wants to help her get
a special treatment this leads him to be framed for an arson
murder. He must find the real killer before an overwhelming noose
of circumstantial evidence tightens around his neck.
Another problem with the scriptwriting is the number of sexual
double entendres. It seems to represent the same level of
immaturity that has invaded the James Bond films. This is true
particularly in the prolog in which the Chief is called away to an
emergency, a loose end that is never tied up. Graeme Revell has
provided a score that is all or largely jazz. There definitely
are tense moments, but the script really needed refining. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ (film review by Mark
R. Leeper)
Rating: high +2
One of the first major international successes of the Canadian
film industry was THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ (1974),
directed by Ted Kotcheff and based on the novel by Mordecai
Richler, who also wrote the screenplay. (Kotcheff and Richler
shared an apartment while Richler wrote the novel.) The film
stars Richard Dreyfus with familiar character actors Jack Warden,
Randy Quaid, Joseph Wiseman, Denholm Elliott, and Joe Silver. It
is the story of the early 1950s rise to success of rapacious
wheeler-dealer Duddy Kravitz.
Kravitz was raised in the Jewish community of Montreal, but
between family favoritism for his elder brother and his father's
admiration for local gangster Jerry Dingleman, Kravitz grew up
with the wrong kind of role model. Working in his uncle's
sweatshop, Kravitz develops an uncanny ability to plan clearly ant
to manipulate people to get what he wants. He goes about his
plots with a vigor and determinism that is unrestrained by any
ethics. Richler makes us admire, envy, and hate Kravitz all at
same time, no mean feat. Kravitz has a plan to purchase an entire
lake and to develop the land around it. Dreyfus plays the
character as the biggest shark swimming among other sharks. The
ending is realistic without being totally satisfying.
Joseph Wiseman is memorable as Kravitz's uncle. His relationship
with the new powerful force of his nephew is like the Emperor
Tiberius's relationship with Caligula--he is a scoundrel who is
shocked by the even more ruthless scoundrel in the next
generation. The film presents a less than favorable portrait of
one segment of the Jewish community. Realistically it is probably
no more anti-Jewish than THE GODFATHER films are anti-Italian.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
As I hinted last week, I was reading Arthur C. Clarke's
CHILDHOOD'S END. This was selected for our library's science
fiction reading group and turned out to be almost exactly fifty
years old when we discussed it. (It was published August 23,
1953; our discussion was September 25, 2003.) The first part had
been published previously in a slightly different form, as
"Guardian Angel" (which is how I best remember it).
Interestingly, just about everyone agreed that they liked that
part, but found the rest a bit of a letdown.
I want to comment particularly on the predictive aspects of it,
and on the Overlords' advanced technology. Two predictions struck
me as being well off the mark. In chapter 6, Clarke predicts that
"the patterns of sexual mores [would] be virtually shattered by
two inventions, which were, ironically enough, of purely human
origin and owed nothing to the Overlords." These were "a
completely reliable oral contraceptive" and "an equally infallible
method of identifying the father of any child." Clarke describes
the effect of these as "they had swept away the last remnants of
the Puritan aberration." Clarke seemed to see the sole purposes
of "Puritanism" as a method of preventing unwanted pregnancies and
verifying paternity. But that view doesn't explain the opposition
to homosexuality that is very much a part of this Puritanism, and
indeed, though we have both these inventions now, Puritanism is
still around, albeit somewhat diminished.
His other prediction that struck me was in chapter 15 someone
complains that "*every day* something like five hundred hours of
radio and TV pour out over the various channels." That's the
equivalent of only twenty cable channels, which these days is
considered even less than just basic cable. (And note that Clarke
lists radio first.) As someone pointed out at the discussion,
this may have been because Clarke didn't think about the
technology that would make all our cable channels possible--like
the synchronous communications satellite. :-)
The other point is about the Overlords' technology. Clarke seems
to provide them with whatever they happen to need for his literary
and philosophical purposes. They don't have faster-than-light
travel, but they do have some viewer that lets one see any place
and time in history. And Clarke claims that in the space of a few
days the Overlords could show everyone "the true beginnings of all
the world's great faiths." This supposedly would lead to the
almost instantaneous abandonment of religion by mankind. As
someone pointed out, this seems to imply proving a negative--one
would, for example, have not just to show Paul (or whoever) laying
down rules of Christianity, but also to *not* show the Crucifixion
and Resurrection. But no matter what you show, people could claim
that you just failed to show the scenes that happened that would
support your belief. There are also a lot of other devices and
inventions, many of which are fairly unbelievable. My theory is
that Clarke might claim it was just an application of his Third
Law ("any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic") but that it's closer to the converse (of his Third
Law ("any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from
technology").
While I was standing in line at Toronto, I was reading SELECTED
MODERN ENGLISH ESSAYS edited by Humphrey Milford for the Oxford
University Press in 1925. This is not because I am necessarily
especially enamored of modern English essays (which aren't so
modern any more), but because the book is small and light enough
to be easily carried around in a pocket, while having enough
content to last a while. Not all the essays were good, or even
readable, but two stood out. One was Gilbert Norwood's "Too Many
Books" in which he writes, "Week in, week out, a roaring torrent
of novels, essays, plays, poems, books of travel, devotion, and
philosophy, flows through the land--all good, all 'provocative of
thought' or else 'in the best tradition of British humour'; and
that is the mischief of it. And they are so huge. Look at 'The
Forsyte Saga,' confessedly in itself a small library of fiction;
'The Challenge of Sirius' is four short novels stitched together;
consider 'The Golden Bough,' how it grows." If one replaces "The
Forsyte Saga" with "The Wheel of Time", "The Challenge of Sirius"
with "The Book of Ash", and "The Golden Bough" with "Discworld",
nothing else need be done to make it as true today as then, or to
note that it was as true then as today. Norwood's modest proposal
includes prohibiting t he writing of all novels for ten years, and
even after that time prohibiting "those treating the following
topics: (a the Great War, (b) girls dressed in salad and living
beside lagoons, (c) imaginary kingdoms with regents called Black
Boris, (d) any type of 'lure.'" Other aspects of his proposal are
equally amusing.
The other essay was J. C. Squire's "On Destroying Books"
(available at http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Best/
SquireDestroyBooks.htm [no carriage return in URL] or
http://tinyurl.com/oy5e). Triggered by a report that a request
for books to be sent to the troops during the Great War resulted
in not only the usual novels and magazines, but also "magazines
twenty years old, guides to the Lake District, Bradshaws, and back
numbers of 'Whitaker's Almanack," Squire theorizes that these
were because people didn't know how else to get rid of these old
books, and describes his attempts to dispose of some "books of
inferior minor verse." Certainly I can identify with the problem.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
If women didn't exist, all the money in
the world would have no meaning.
-- Aristotle Onassis
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