THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/10/06 -- Vol. 24, No. 37, Whole Number 1325
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:
Al Lewis Live (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
What I Did Not Like About SPIDER-MAN II (Part 1)
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)
DEATH MATCH by Lincoln Child (book review by Tom Russell)
SORRY, HATERS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (TALL, DARK AND GRUESOME; LEAVE ME
ALONE, I'M READING: FINDING MYSELF AND LOSING
MYSELF IN BOOKS; DOWN HERE IN THE DREAM QUARTER;
and THE MAN WHO LOVED THE MIDNIGHT LADY)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Al Lewis Live (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I just noticed our local radio station WBAI still has a program
called "Al Lewis Live". That is rather surprising, I guess.
Perhaps there was more truth to "The Munsters" than I realized.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: What I Did Not Like About SPIDER-MAN II (Part 1) (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
I see that discussion and publicity is already starting about
SPIDER-MAN III and the film is in production even as I write this.
There is something about a publicity release showing him in a
black suit rather than his usual red one. It is being readied for
May of 2007. But if I want it to be better than SPIDER-MAN II,
have little time left to express my complaints about the last
film. Now I realize most of America liked SPIDER-MAN II. I am
not responsible for that, but I should get out my list of
complaints about the film. People may want to review the film to
refresh their memories, and there are a zillion copies out on DVD.
The film SPIDER-MAN II was released In June, 2004. Now I had
liked the first SPIDER-MAN film, rating it a 7/10, and the
critics seemed to be very favorable on this sequel. I had high
expectations for the film. Perhaps they were too high. When I
actually saw the film it seemed to me to be an unending stream of
poorly thought-out ideas. I told myself at some point I would
try to collect all the bad touches in one article and, well, this
is it. There will be spoilers in what follows and it assumes the
reader has already seen the film.
Let us look first at the physics of Spider-Man. Part of this may
be explainable by things I do not know about his powers, I
suppose, though they should have been explained in the film. A
spider can actually fall a great distance without being hurt,
because its weight is a small fraction of an ounce. A man of 160
pounds or so is more likely to be injured when he falls even a
moderate distance. However, three times in this film Peter
Parker falls a distance of something like ten stories. He always
recovers very quickly without much damage. Maybe he suffers a
little pain in one scene. It is not clear what would have to be
done to his body to withstand pressures like this, and it
certainly does not seem to be something that could happen from
some strange contact with some scientifically modified spider. I
suppose there is no point in watching the film at all if you
don't suspend disbelief on his. I list it here as a matter of
completeness but I suspend belief on this one just like on his
ability to in five seconds go from street clothes to his
superhero suit. It is all that spider's doing.
But Peter Parker also seems to have been a materials genius. He
puts stickum on his hands or has natural spider ability or
something that keeps him stuck to the vertical side of a building
while catching his aged aunt who has been picking up speed
falling ten stories or more. How he has the muscle strength to
pull away from a wall that he is stuck to that strongly I really
have no idea. Things he does at the end that web should rip his
arms off. Again we have to suspend disbelief on this one because
it is basic to the Spider-Man character.
However, various people, not just Spider-Man, hang on a single
strand of this web and are accelerated at rates that would have
the web cut right through them like the ribbon on a pack of gum.
This web material must be a miraculous substance that any
chemical company would want to get their hands on. And they can.
Spider-Man seems to leave samples of this webbing all over the
city yet nobody synthesizes it. I believe in the comic Peter
Parker actually invented this substance, but never thinks to sell
it to get out of his desperate financial straits. In the film it
is a natural product of his body, like silk from a spider's body,
though it does not come from his thorax but his wrists. Other
forces that Spider-Man's body is subjected to and survives
include being thrown dozens of yards through a window. Also
there is a scene in which just the web and the tensile strength
of Spider-Man's body stop a speeding train. I will suspend
disbelief on this also because it is the definition of the
character.
Before this he tried to stop the train by standing in front and
dragging his feet. It doesn't work and he only kicks up some
railroad ties. Even being dragged through the streets by the
train does not harm him. He must have tremendous muscle power
just to do the whole Spider-Man swing thing. He propels himself
at a speed many times that of an automobile and does it by
muscle-power alone. He certainly does not inherit a strong
tensile strength from spiders, but these are all long-standing
assumptions about the character as he is written in the comic.
But as my friend Nick Sauer points out, Spider-Man is really the
Marvel Comics version of Superman. Okay, let me accept that
Spider-Man has this sort of strength. I will give the stories
that. But let me look at his chief villain.
Doc Ock seems to have some fairly amazing physical
characteristics himself. This is the guy who has four mechanical
arms attached to his body. At one point he picks up a taxi
driving at him and tosses it in the direction from which it came.
Newton's Laws say he would have massive recoil throw him backward
unless he with his arms was extremely massive himself. He does
have those arms, but it still seems unlikely. Of course, Doc Ock
is a pretty amazing guy. He creates a fusion reaction like a
little sun levitated over the ground a few feet from spectators
and they do not seem to need to be shielded from it. It is not
really clear what this whole thing with tritium and the sun is
all about, but it looks very powerful. (Tritium is a gas, by the
way. It is an isotope of hydrogen.) Luckily in the end the
whole self-sustaining, fusion-reacting, highly radioactive mess,
when it get out of hand, can be flushed away by simply dropping
it into a river. Look out below. And the thing looks as hot as
the sun. Why does it not vaporize the water and give off a cloud
of radioactive steam that would kill everybody in the city?
Of course, the Doc's judgment does not have the best track
record. He didn't think the reaction would run away in the first
place. He didn't think that welding those arms on his body might
cause a problem either. How did he attach metal to flesh? We
see it happening, but it doesn't make sense. It would also be
hugely painful. For that matter, what do the mechanical arms
have to do with his physics experiments anyway? Anything close
enough for them to manipulate could not be much further from the
doctor, so they do not protect him much. But can't he work on
one new innovation at a time? Anyway, doesn't he think the
little sun he drops in the river will cause a few problems to the
good people of New York? I guess New Yorkers have to be strong
enough to adapt to anything. One tough nurse tending during Doc
Ock's surgery is seen scratching deep ruts into a surgical steel
table with just her fingernails when the Doc goes wild.
Everything in the room is surgical steel including the steel
surgical chainsaw. (Just where would you get a surgical
chainsaw? Don't ask.) And what about those arms? We are never
told why they have daggers at the center of each claw. They are
controlled by artificial intelligence, but they seem to go well
beyond that level of understanding. We never understand how the
octopus arms work. They seem to tap into his spine and become
part of his physiology. It is not clear what powers they give or
why, but Doc Ock seems to recover very quickly. There is
something mystical happening that between him and his metal arms
that is never explained.
Speaking of those arms we never do get to see the scene I wanted
to see. Doc Ock goes wears a full-length coat when he goes out.
It appears to have holes for the octopus arms, not even long
slits. I really wanted to see how he takes the coat off and puts
it on. That must be something to see.
More next week. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Jingles (letters of comment)
Regarding Mark's comment about being Evelyn's Jingles in the
03/03/06 issue of the MT VOID, Peter Rubinstein asks, "Does that
make Evelyn Wild Bill Hickock? Or Joker? :-)" [-pir]
And Charles S. Harris writes, "I definitely grew up in the '50s,
and I remember Andy Devine, but I didn't remember that he was
called Jingles. Had to google." [-csh]
===================================================================
TOPIC: DEATH MATCH by Lincoln Child (book review by Tom Russell)
Two thumbs up from Tom Russell:
Some time ago Mark wrote about his graphical method of note-
taking while reading a novel. Plot plotting. Mark's technique
wasn't necessary for this straightforward, fast-reading, hard-
science-fiction, who-done-it "thriller" by Lincoln Child I found
on our library's Best Seller table.
As a quick review of sorts, here are the notes I took:
p 8. serried rows of buses
p 9. pellucid glow
p 74. enervating
p 96. - speculation that body odor reveals blood type
p 98. - computer-generated avatars interacting in a
holographic "aquarium"
p 103. - earliest? calculating machine with hard-copy output
[see URL 1]
p 104. Leibniz Wheel - a "350 year old" (in year 2021!)
calculator [see URL 2]
p 113. Junoesque woman
p 151. - speculation on a malevolent Internet use
p 171. lavalier microphone
I've omitted two key notes: spoilers.
I do like vocabulary-stretching. And ancient science and
technology.
My computer is still functioning after visiting these google-
found urls:
[1] http://freespace.virgin.net/tony.smith/doodson.htm
[2] http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/LeibnizWheel1671.htm
Comment: One dialogue in DEATH MATCH is so familiar in phrasing
and tone it must be a tribute to a well-known work by a well-
known science fiction author.
If I had three thumbs, I'd give this book two thumbs up. [-tlr]
===================================================================
TOPIC: SORRY, HATERS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A woman for no apparent reason twists people's thoughts
and actions intentionally trying to cause a disaster. The idea
could and previously has been done well, but here it makes for a
thoroughly unpleasant film experience. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4)
or 5/10
Richard Matheson wrote a short story, "The Distributor", about a
man whose sole goal seemed to be to sow evil in a small American
town. It was not for the distributor's benefit in any obvious
way--it apparently was just something he did. The short story
was very effective. Stephen King expanded the idea into the
long-winded, over-inflated novel NEEDFUL THINGS. It was not as
good as the Matheson story--not as succinct or potent--but it
still had some power. Jeff Stanzler tells a similar story when
he writes and directs SORRY, HATERS, taking the idea again and
giving it a political context in post-9/11 America. The result
is a muddled exercise into a sort of hatred pornography.
Central to the story is Phoebe, scarily played by Robin Wright
Penn, a good actor who obviously took this role very seriously.
Phoebe seems to be the host of a New York counter-culture radio
show called "Sorry, Haters". But there is more illusion and
self-delusion to Phoebe than there is reality. One night Phoebe
hires a cab and thereby meets Arab driver Ashade (played by
Abdellatif Kechiche). The cab trip turns out to be to Englewood
Cliffs where Phoebe spies on and harasses her ex-husband. Along
the way she hears that Ashade has a brother incarcerated at
Guantanamo who is being sent to Syria where he will probably be
tortured and murdered. She offers to help Ashade by having her
lawyers solve his problems. Ashade happily goes on and in the
next few days Phoebe jerks him around and frustrates him, stoking
the already smoldering fires of his anger and fear.
We never really know what is driving Phoebe except that she seems
to have deep-seated psychological problems. Her favorite day in
her recent history was September 11. This was one day when she
thought that everybody in New York felt as helpless and agonized
as she is every day of her life. So she hones and develops
Ashade, making him into the weapon that will express her own
anger. Her conversations with Ashade are solid bigotry as she
vents her spleen against the world.
It is not clear what this is all about. Perhaps it is intended
as a statement that America's enemies are entirely of America's
making. If that is the case, it would need a better evidence
than this fictional story. The film is shot on digital video, a
new inexpensive medium that has the advantage that it is cheap
enough that just about anybody can make a movie and the
disadvantage that it is cheap enough that just about anybody can
make a movie. The film is well acted by Penn as well as by
Sandra Oh and Élodie Bouchez, who appear in supporting roles.
The low production values give the film a little more realism
than it might otherwise have, if one can apply the word "realism"
to a film like this. I just am not sure what Stanzler was trying
to say. If he is saying that terrorism is actually caused by
angry, white American female bigots who have real attitude
problems, I have to say that was never my impression. If he is
saying that Phoebe represents America creating its own enemies, I
still think he is wrong, but that at least would be a message.
Perhaps the film just does not bear thinking about. I rate
SORRY, HATERS a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 5/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
A lot of celebrity autobiographies are clearly written by ghost
writers. Christopher Lee's autobiography, TALL, DARK AND
GRUESOME by Christopher Lee (ISBN 1-887664-25-4), is not one of
them. The style is so distinctive, so evocative of how Lee
sounds when he speaks, that it must be written by Lee himself.
Another sign is that it does not follow the usual "rule" of
making sure the reader is clear on when things are taking place.
Lee rarely gives a year for an event, although one can fix the
dates in the later parts by what films Lee is talking about.
However, none of this matters, because Lee's life is fascinating.
For example, he was particularly interested in playing Rasputin,
because of something that happened to him as a child: "I was once
actually hauled out of bed to meet two men and shooed downstairs
in my dressing gown, admonished to run the sleep out of my eyes
because I would want to remember I'd met them. Well, I do
remember them now--Prince Yusupoff and the Grand Prince Dmitri
Pavlovich--though I was trundled back to bed without being told
that they were two of the assassins of Rasputin." And when he
was seventeen, a family friend took him to witness the last
public execution (by guillotine) in France. Oh, yes, he talks
about his movies too.
LEAVE ME ALONE, I'M READING: FINDING MYSELF AND LOSING MYSELF IN
BOOKS by Maureen Corrigan (ISBN 0-375-50425-7) is about her
experiences in reading, both as a girl growing up in Queens, and
as a book reviewer in her adult life. Corrigan focuses on three
categories of books, as she says: "I especially want to look at
men's and women's lives as they've been depicted in three mostly
noncanonical categories of stories: the female extreme-adventure
tale, the hard-boiled detective novel, and the Catholic-martyr
narratives." By "female extreme-adventure tale", Corrigan does
not mean women mountain-climbers, but women who endure domestic
abuse, societal mistreatment, etc. Examples she gives include
Anne Bronte's THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL, or for that matter,
almost any Bronte novel. Interestingly, though Corrigan talks a
lot about the women in the Brontes' novels, she does not even
mention any of George Eliot's female characters, though Eliot's
Dorothea Brooke in MIDDLEMARCH and Dinah Morris in ADAM BEDE are
very memorable. (And it's not even clear that Eliot's characters
would contradict any of Corrigan theories.) "Catholic-martyr
narratives" was perhaps a bit more central to Corrigan's life
than to other readers since she attended pre-Vatican II Catholic
schools. They include such books as KAREN (about Karen Killilea,
though perhaps as much about the author, her mother Marie) and
Dr. Tom Dooley's memoirs. KAREN rang a bell--I'm sure I read it
back in school over forty years ago, indicating that that sort of
inspirational book was probably promoted as much in public
schools as in parochial ones. Corrigan's reminiscences of
growing up reading will strike a wonderfully familiar and
nostalgic chord with anyone for whom books were a major part of
their childhood, as well as providing an interesting perspective
on these categories.
DOWN HERE IN THE DREAM QUARTER by Barry N. Malzberg (ISBN
0-385-12268-3) is a 1976 collection of Malzberg's work from 1972
to 1976--and it contains two dozen stories and essays. A couple
of points are worth noting about it. First, Malzberg in his
comments says that the story "Transfer" was held at the offices
of "Fantastic" three years before actually being published, and
then, Malzberg says, "Barring one published letter in the fan
columns of those magazines I have never received comment upon
it." However, since this collection was published, "Transfer" has
been reprinted at least four times. Some stories just take longer
to percolate, I guess.
The other point is that of "Seeking Assistance" (published in the
April 1976 issue of F&SF), Malzberg says, "It is meant to be my
farewell to the practice of science fiction." Although he said
there would be later stories published, they were written before
"Seeking Assistance", and says that that story "is in point of
chronology the last I will ever write."
Which is why THE MAN WHO LOVED THE MIDNIGHT LADY by Barry
N. Malzberg (ISBN 0-385-15020-2) does not exist. It does not
contain thirty stories and essays written between 1976 and 1980,
and is obviously just a figment of my imagination. Well, okay,
luckily for all of us, Malzberg changed his mind about writing
science fiction. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Sex is the Tabasco sauce which an adolescent
national palate sprinkles on every course
in the menu.
-- Mary Day Winn