THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/02/05 -- Vol. 24, No. 10, Whole Number 1298
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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Topics:
Science Fiction Citations (site pointer)
Your Horoscope (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
How My Back Yard Became the Entertainment Center of the
Neighborhood (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Talking to Onesself (letter of comment by Andre Kuzniarek)
Oz, Twin Towers, and Historical Confusion
(letter of comment by Bill Higgins)
ETERNAL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
RED EYE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
WALKING ON THE SKY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE SUMMER ISLES and TURNING JAPANESE:
MEMOIRS OF A SANSEI) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Your Horoscope (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
(Due to economy concerns we cannot provide complete horoscopes.
Your cooperation is appreciated.)
Capricorn: Follow your curiosity wherever it leads you. The
rewards will be surprising.
Everyone else: Don't play with matches. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: How My Back Yard Became the Entertainment Center of the
Neighborhood (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Don't expect a strong incisive editorial this week. It is summer
and I am just putting down some lazy thoughts as I watch the
squirrels on my back patio eating sunflower seeds.
Well, the word has gotten around the neighborhood: I am what is
known as a "soft touch." All the wild animals seem to know that
I tend to give handouts. Every three days or so I throw out some
sunflower seeds on our back patio. You get them in big sacks in
grocery stores. Most people buy them for bird feeders. They
need the feeders to protect the seeds from squirrels, but you and
I know they are doomed to failure. But those squirrels are smart
as little Ph.D.s and are acrobats to boot. It is almost
impossible to keep squirrels out of bird feeders. They will
crack your security system and chatter at you as they are eating
the seeds that you intended for birds. I think they do this to
criticize you for having so little loyalty to your fellow
mammals. I don't want my squirrels to put on airs or feel
superior, so they can eat right off the patio as far as I'm
concerned. No feeders for them. If they don't like it they can
go eat in someone else's yard.
Anyway, I like to vary the bill of fare a bit. I supplement the
seeds with the occasional slice of stale bread. The pistachio
nuts that Evelyn found difficult to get open I let the squirrels
have. I don't keep the close track I should, but I don't think
it is the squirrels who eat the rotten apples I put out. I know
someone is eating them, because when I am not looking the apples
go away. Core and all, the apples just disappear.
I even tried the assembled multitude on some old brown rice. I
didn't see who ate it, but it disappeared. When I left the
backyard menagerie the fine honeydew slice, aged to perfection,
whatever ate it left us the thin rind to throw away. I had to
clean up, because I think the neighbors think I should not leave
fruit remains around. But they ate as much as anyone could.
All this went well for months. But now I think someone is
leaving the animal equivalent of hobo signs on our lawn so
strange animals will know I leave free meals. Anyway I put out
seeds and we get sometimes as many as six squirrels free-loading.
I am sure we don't have that many in residence. They probe for
the seed with their noses and then they pick it up and hold it
between their hands. (You may call them forepaws.) They cannot
actually see the seed they are about to eat. Like some birds
their field of vision does not let them see near things straight
ahead. Their muzzle and snout get in the way. Their heads see
better to the left and the right for close-up items.
Of course eating is exhausting and I seem them resting from the
hard work. If they want to relax they lie prone, legs to the
back, arms to the front. When they pick up seeds they support
themselves on their elbows. They look like kids watching
television. Sometimes they chase each other around the yard. It
makes for sort of the squirrel equivalent of a picnic with
sports, I suspect. I like to think I am giving the squirrels
what they will remember as some of the best days of their lives.
These are the good days I want them to remember in the cold of
winter.
I guess I was sort of hoping that the squirrels would appreciate
all I was doing for them. I don't know what I was expecting. I
just wanted them to be a little friendlier. I wave at them
through the patio window and they just ignore me. They should
understand waving since part of their language is to wave their
tails at each other. Still they just turn around as if I am
annoying them. It would be nice if they would show appreciation
somehow. Maybe they could bring the kids around to show me or
something. You would think a little gratitude would not be too
much for a squirrel to show. Well, forget it. I think they know
who it is that is feeding them. They should know I am not trying
to harm them by now. They keep treating me like their own
personal Godzilla. They never thank me. They run away when they
see me. Ungrateful wretches. Well, it is probably good they are
wary of people. Not everybody will be as nice as I am.
Probably what is eating the fruit is a woodchuck. I think there
is one of those that come around. You occasionally see him or
her running across the back yard. If we are outside he makes
himself scarce. But the other day he was actually looking in the
patio window to see how the other half lives. That is very
unusual because they are usually very shy of people. Maybe he
was trying to figure where we are getting the apples.
I haven't mentioned all the birds we get to pick up the seeds the
squirrels missed. We get cardinals, robins, morning doves, and
even crows. A lot of people try to feed the birds and keep the
squirrels away. Frankly I prefer the squirrels. I think we
mammals have to stick together. I think there is one squirrel
who seems to rule the roost, so to speak. She may be the alpha
squirrel. If she (if it is a she) thinks that there is not
enough food she will charge the bigger male and chase him away.
She has a nasty temperament. The problem is that if I am going
to befriend any of the squirrels it will have to be her. She is
the one that stays in the yard and watches me put out sunflower
seeds. She is the one who shows some curiosity. She probably
realizes that I have never threatened her. When we eat on the
patio I have seen her climb a chair just to eye human food.
Well, those are my observations, I guess. Make of them what you
will. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Talking to Onesself (letter of comment by Andre Kuzniarek)
In response to Mark's article in the 08/05/05 issue of the MT
VOID, Andre Kuzniarek writes, "My theory is that we do this self-
talking more as we get older. I think that might be why younger
people tend to make more, possibly intuitive, breakthroughs in the
sciences and other areas (Bob Dylan recently admitted he could no
longer write as creatively as he did when he was younger). If
your thoughts are confined by language, they probably become more
limited. These days I go through entire conversations in my head
sometimes, anticipating what co-workers or my wife my say to
something I want to say to them, then I end up saying nothing or
revising the thought. Perhaps self-talking this way allows us to
become wiser, or at least more discreet, as we age. I simply
don't remember self-talking so much when I was a kid or in my 20s,
except for amusement. Just a theory though, would have to be
tested, perhaps easily enough by talking to some younger folks
about it. Or maybe it's a side-effect of proofreading email for
the last 15 years! [-ak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Oz, Twin Towers, and Historical Confusion (letter of
comment by Bill Higgins)
In response to Mark's comments about the movie THE WIZARD OF OZ in
the 08/19/05 issue of the MT VOID, Bill Higgins writes, "I recently
read a biography of Yip Harburg, the lyricist for THE WIZARD OF OZ,
and I seem to recall that he hated the ending, mostly because "it
was all a dream" is cheating, and Baum hadn't done that."
In response to Evelyn's comments on Barry Malzberg's THE SODOM AND
GOMORRAH BUSINESS and the Twin Towers in the 08/19/05 issue, Bill
writes, "This line made me think, not of the WTC in NYC, but of the
twin corncobs of Marina City. They are not among the very tallest
Chicago buildings, but they are distinctive." Regarding
historical confusion, he adds, "Marcus Rowland's role-playing game
'Diana, Warrior Princess', exploits this sort of historical
confusion, and it may amuse you to learn more about it." [-bh]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ETERNAL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: The notorious Countess Erzsebet Bathory has returned and
is repeating her crimes in modern day Montreal. ETERNAL is a
sexy and stylish horror thriller from Canada that unfortunately
seems to be re-treading all-too-familiar territory. It gets
points for its lavish production design, but very little for
originality or real horror. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Most people who would see a film like ETERNAL probably already
know something about who the historic Countess Erzsebet Bathory
was. The 16th and 17th Century Hungarian noblewoman (to use the
term loosely) really existed and had the delusion that she could
keep her youth by bathing in the blood of young women. In this
pursuit it is claimed she murdered and estimated 650 young women
before she was recognized as a serious criminal and was
imprisoned. The countess was portrayed in several European
horror films, particularly during the 1970s. Ingrid Pitt played
the title role in the best-known film version of her story,
COUNTESS DRACULA, made by Hammer Films.
What may be a reincarnation or the still-living spirit of Bathory
stalks Montreal Island in this new thriller written and directed
by Wilhelm Liebenberg and Federico Sanchez. Elizabeth Kane
(played by Caroline Néron) possesses a very ornate mansion in
Montreal and uses computer chat rooms to attract lesbian lovers
and invite them to her lair. There she makes love to them,
graciously thanking them for their beauty, before slashing their
throats. As the film opens, she is enjoying an assignation with
a woman who signs her chat-room name, "Wildcat". Kane
understands Wildcat instantly and sees immediately through
Wildcat's little white lies about not being married and not
having had lesbian encounters before. But Kane misses one
important detail before harvesting Wildcat. She was not only
married, she was married to a homicide detective. Ray Pope
(Conrad Pla) is as kinky as his wife was, choosing the wife of a
partner for some S&M. When his wife, the former Wildcat, is
found dead he has a vendetta and quickly collects enough
information to suspect Kane. From there the plot is a fairly
familiar game of cat and mouse with Pope happily breaking the law
and risking dismissal to get his revenge on Kane while Kane kills
as many of the women in Pope's life that she can manage. Néron's
exotic lesbian vampire is reminiscent of DRACULA'S DAUGHTER,
though her assistant and victim-procurer Irina (Victoria Sanchez)
is much less powerful than Sandor was in the earlier film.
The art direction by Massimo Antonello Geleng and Valma Pfaff is
probably the best feature of the film. It adds mood to the
earlier parts of the film, though it really comes into its own in
the scenes later in the film set in Venice. Some of these scenes
look like they might have been inspired by EYES WIDE SHUT. It
does more for the film than some of the direction which has its
share of cliches like dark and stormy nights, false jumps, an
angry Rottweiler, and over-use of camera filters to bathe scenes
in yellow or blue. One can pretty much pick out who will be
Kane's next victim without too many surprises.
Caroline Néron is satisfyingly attractive, but just does not have
the exotic style that the film would call for. It is never clear
what her connection to the Transylvanian countess was, but she
seems entirely too Canadian. Conrad Pla does very little for me
as her chief nemesis. He looks like Billy Zane but with a
constant three-day growth of stubble from the top of his head to
the bottom of his chin. I suppose that is what a postmodern hero
looks like, but I still can lament that that is the case.
ETERNAL is polished, sexy, and entertaining, and the art
direction is its best aspect. But it is not a film that will
stick with the viewer. It is too similar to films like JACK'S
BACK (about Jack the Ripper returning) and several others. I
rate it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: RED EYE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Wes Craven's RED EYE delivers a good tense 85 minutes.
The film mostly works and the thriller plot is reasonably
believable. The problem is that this film has nothing
particularly new and original to make it stand out from the
thrillers like, for example, Larry Cohen writes. The film needs
a little more flair to stand out as a memorable experience.
Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
As a thriller RED EYE is a lot like the mailman. On one hand it
really delivers the goods. But on the other someone delivers the
goods nearly every day of the week. This is a nice taut little
thriller. Director Wes Craven keeps it brief enough so that the
non-stop suspense does not let up. The whole story takes place
in no more than seven or eight hours. The film is not like a
James Bond film with one action sequence illogically following
after another and robbing from the effect of the next sequence.
The plan of RED EYE's baddies is not some complex chess gambit
that you have to put together in the lobby after the film. This
is a good compelling thriller. That is the upside. The downside
is that we get a lot of nice taut suspense films. RED EYE is a
nice thriller, but no better or worse than, for example,
CELLULAR. Maybe it was a little better than PHONE BOOTH.
Rachel McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a young attractive hotel clerk
(or perhaps the manager of clerks), who has taken the day off to
fly to Texas to attend the funeral of her grandmother. Of course
in the age of the cell phone she cannot really take the day
entirely off. Her nervous replacement is in frequent touch with
her for help and advice. Reisert is also on the phone to her
retired father (played by Brian Cox in a lamentably small role).
Now Reisert is taking the red-eye flight back to Miami. Seeing
customers verbally abuse the airline clerks touches a nerve with
her. Stepping in to defend them she finds an ally in the
attractive guy behind her in line. This turns out to be Jackson
Rippner (Cillian Murphy of BATMAN BEGINS). The two make friends
and happen to sit next to each other on the plane. Reisert soon
discovers that their meeting and their sitting together is no
coincidence and the two are soon engaged in a life-and-death
struggle involving an assassination attempt.
This film taps into the real-world discomfort of flying known
only to well to us coach fliers. Films like AIRPORT and THE HIGH
AND THE MIGHTY frequently show planes as roomy and comfortable.
Our characters have trouble getting seats in the first place.
Then when they have the seats the narrow aisles, the cramped
seats, and the high unreachable luggage racks help to make the
tension seems even more painful. The characters are isolated in
the sky with very little freedom to move around. Carl
Ellsworth's screenplay takes (nearly) full advantage of the
annoyances of flying. The screenplay loses a few points because
of cliches like the little girl flying alone who is treated by
the staff like a princess. The main characters seem to find it
too easy to steal objects from other passengers in a crowded
plane. One more problem is that the final chapter turns too much
into a standard damsel in distress from a stalker plot. In a
film that is not sufficiently original, the final reel is the
most cliched.
I like my thrillers with a little more verve than this one has.
Wes Craven is no Alfred Hitchcock. On the other hand I think
this film works considerably better than many of the films he
makes in his home genre, namely horror. The film does succeed in
maintaining tension. I rate RED EYE a high +1 on the -4 to +4
scale or 6/10. (Are there really red-eye flights between two
states so close? Maybe it was West Texas. I don't think we are
told.) [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: WALKING ON THE SKY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: When one of their number commits suicide, the remaining
six of a group of close-knit friends get together in their dead
comrade's New York apartment to talk things out and to try to
understand why their friend killed himself. In the next few
hours they will learn about each other and their lives.
Meanwhile their relationships will change. This is really a film
not about plot but about connections between people and about
characters. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Yesterday there were seven close friends who thought they knew
each other fairly well. Today there are only six. Josh Salinger
(Michael Knowles, in flashbacks) committed suicide, jumping off
the roof of his apartment building. Now the other six have come
together to try to make sense of what has happened. Their one
clue is the discovery of Josh's diary. Even Sara (Susan Misner)
had not known about the diary. Until recently she had been
engaged to Josh. She was still trying to put the pieces together
of why Josh broke the engagement. Now has killed himself and she
realizes she really never knew him at all.
Liz (Nicole Fonarow) at one point deeply loved Jim (Chris Henry
Coffey). The two have become successful yuppies, but over time
Liz has lost her spontaneity. Now she needs to be in control.
She is frequently rude and unpleasant to Jim and sometimes to
others while he recedes into being a non-entity. She is of late
considering dissolving their relationship.
Joann (Kristen Marie Holly) has empathy as the strongest fiber of
her personality. She is a veterinarian for a non-profit animal
shelter and gets too involved with the animals she is treating.
Nick (Randal Batinkoff) is a child-man who wants to be a
professional ballplayer. He is brash and unpolished and is
gambling his life on a dream he probably cannot make to work.
Centrally there is Dylan (Carl T. Evans who also wrote, produced,
and directed WALKING ON THE SKY). Life is just not working for
Dylan. He is unsettled on what to do with his life. His
relationships with women do not last. He has poor relations with
his family and fragile relationships even with his friends. He
bears the emotional scars of a life of self-hatred.
This is a talk film. It is a film of the same breed as RETURN OF
THE SECAUCUS 7 and THE BIG CHILL. Evans defines his characters
fairly well in each one's first scene or two, then spends the
rest of the film really giving us much more of the character to
support our first conclusions. Some of the revelations are a bit
par for the course. There are infidelities. There are Freudian
slips. There are some deep hidden secrets. Some of the action
seems like filler. In one scene out of the apartment the group
does Karaoke. I am not sure that we get much from the males
doing Karaoke together. We do see when the women get up that Liz
is just as stiff and formal at the microphone as she is otherwise
until she finds that it is out of place. The scene however does
give the film the combination of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
The score is a little jarring early in the film and a little
sweet at the end. Michael Tremante does the honors. This is
Evans's first outing as writer or director, but he has acted
before, usually in daytime drama. WALKING ON THE SKY is not so
much a mystery as a study of relationships among people who are
more different than they realize. I rate WALKING ON THE SKY a +1
on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Too many alternate histories spend all their time on how things
got to be different without telling you how things would be
different. One gets a five-hundred-page book that details all of
the battlefield and political maneuvers of Lincoln, Davis, Grant,
Lee, and everyone else, then ends with, "And so President Lincoln
signed his name to the treaty that once and forever recognized
the Confederate States of America as a separate country." That's
not the end of an alternate history; that's the beginning. So it
is wonderful to get an alternate history that looks at just what
life would be like in a changed world, and such a book is Ian R.
MacLeod's THE SUMMER ISLES (ISBN 1-933-08300-X). The premise
(hinted at from the beginning, but spelled out about a third of
the way through) is that Britain and her allies lost the War of
1914-18, and was taken over by a "Modernist" (fascist) party.
The time frame is 1940, but there is, of course, no hint of a
second World War. Our main character is, as is often the case in
alternate histories, an outsider, someone who does not quite fit
in with the new way of things. But MacLeod does not make him
Jewish (too cliche) or Irish (too obvious) or even Communist.
No, MacLeod makes the main character a homosexual and by doing so
makes it more difficult for readers to see the Modernists just as
people who are evil, but of course we would never do anything
like that . . . . As an American, it is difficult for me to be
sure, but I get the feeling that MacLeod captures very well the
feel of Britain and the feel of what a defeated and demoralized
Britain might have been like in the 1930s. There is one major
plot contrivance that seems forced, but not impossible as
described, so I can suspend my disbelief, particularly since in
everything else MacLeod takes a very realistic approach. A
novella-length version appeared in the October/November 1998
issue of ASIMOV'S, was nominated for a Hugo for that year, and
won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History (Short Form). In
spite of this, the novel-length version was turned down by every
major publisher, and as a result, is available only as a limited
edition from Aio.
David Mura is a third-generation Japanese-American and his
TURNING JAPANESE: MEMOIRS OF A SANSEI (ISBN 0-385-42344-6) is the
story of his one-year sabbatical in Japan where he discovers that
he is more Japanese than he thought he was. (He was born and
raised in Minnesota, where his parents lived after they left
their internment camp.) This book is very similar to Victoria
Abbott Riccardi's UNTANGLING MY CHOPSTICKS (which I reviewed in
the 12/03/04 issue of the MT VOID) in its story of an American
trying to live in Japanese culture rather than make a brief
visit. In both cases, though, the author has gone to Japan with
a specific educational/artistic agenda and in both cases, the
books spend a lot of time discussing classes, teachers, and
meetings with others in that field. TURNING JAPANESE also spends
time discussing the strain that Japan put on Mura's relationship
with his Euro-American spouse. (Shifra Horn's SHALOM, JAPAN,
reviewed in the 12/31/04 issue of the MT VOID, is a much "purer"
look at Japan.) Choose Mura's book if you're interested in
someone discovering his "roots" (or some of them), Mura or
Riccardi for a discussion of Japanese art and the philosophy
thereof, or Horn's book for more about Japan itself. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
-- Fred Allen