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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 1/28/00 -- Vol. 18, No. 31
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.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. A. E. Van Vogt died Wednesday, January 26, of complications of
pneumonia at the age of 87. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's
for the last decade. Van Vogt was the author of such classics as
SLAN, THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER, THE WORLD OF NULL-A, and THE
VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. I get many requests from people who read my writing and who want
to see the real person behind the writing. I am pleased and proud
to announce that you will have an opportunity to see the real me
this upcoming year in no less a venue than Carnegie Hall. Friday,
March 3, 2000, come see me in person at--that's right--Carnegie
Hall. You read right. MARK LEEPER, IN PERSON, AT CARNEGIE HALL.
Once I get my tickets (assuming they are still available) I will be
able to announce where I will be sitting. Drop up at Intermission
time and see me. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. I always have the same problems when it comes to publishing my
top ten films of the previous year. 1) It is always too soon. I
live in the wilds of New Jersey some of the best films have just
not made it to any place I can see them until well into February,
if then. What are probably the very best films are not distributed
well. I have to balance the timeliness of the article against the
poor distribution. 2) I feel that I am not really including the
best films I have seen since I have a strong leaning towards
theatrical films. I used to include cable films when I thought
they were good enough to rank in the top ten. I just saw a
beautifully filmed and fascinating documentary on the bees. It did
not go the theatrical route. That is the only reason it is not on
this list.
A word on why at least a couple of the films are on this list.
Nobody seems to remember the graphic arts of Filippo Brunelleschi.
Yet I don't think there is a painter today who is not at one point
or another influenced by Brunelleschi. Around 1410 in Italy he
discovered the geometric rules of perspective and how to draw with
them. I suspect if we did see his graphic works they would look
like uninteresting student exercises at least at first glance. At
least two films below are there not because they had such great
plots but because they did something new. They increase the palate
of the filmmaker.
Here are my top ten.
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH: Paydirt! A really, really off-the-wall
fantasy that provides just one strange idea or one weird insight
after another. An office worker discovers his file cabinet hides a
doorway into the head of John Malkovich so that fifteen minutes at
a time the visitor can be the famous actor. Different people are
affected differently and the implications of the premise are used
in multiple comic and serious ways. Rating: 9 (0 to 10), +3 (-4 to
+4)
STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE: What George Lucas does
well, he does better than anyone else. Simply put this film
probably shows the greatest visual imagination of any film ever
made. (Probably only one non-STAR WARS film even competes). It
even has a few interesting science fiction ideas. George Lucas
returns to many of the values of EPISODE 4, missing in 5 and 6.
EPISODE 1 has a host of new alien species, another strongly mythic
story, and a few embarrassments. But overall it is a lot of fun.
Rating: 9 (0 to 10), +3 (-4 to +4)
OCTOBER SKY: In Coalwood, West Virginia, 1957 a boy uses model
rocketry to escape the fate of a career digging coal. With the
inspiration of one high school teacher and the drive to follow his
curiosity and vision, he resists all the pressures of the town, and
especially his own father, to work for a dying mining company.
While parts of the story seem contrived, this is a true story. It
is based on a book by the main character is riveting. Rating: 9 (0
to 10), +3 (-4 to +4)
CRADLE WILL ROCK: In the 1930s art and politics inextricably
intertwine in this (mostly) true story of big money interests
fighting the WPA's Federal Theater Project. Also retold is the
tale of the disagreement between Nelson Rockefeller and Diego
Rivera over the mural that Rivera painted for Rockefeller Center.
Tim Robbins, who both wrote and directed captures a feel for the
heady days when American talent seemed to be blossoming but when
the mostly liberal sentiment of art was seen as a threat to the
wealthy who strongly influenced the government. This film will
certainly be in my top three films of the year. Rating: 9 (0 to
10), +3 (-4 to +4)
AMERICAN BEAUTY: A razor-sharp, merciless look at human
relationships in suburbia goes from a light satirical comedy to a
drama of piercing intensity. One man's mid-life crisis tears apart
a neighborhood. This provocative theatrical film is the debut of
former TV-writer Alan Ball and it is as perceptive and as it is
unforgiving. Ball keeps no less than six characters center stage
and defines each of them with brisk and telling dialog. Rating: 8
(0 to 10), low +3 (-4 to +4)
THE RED VIOLIN: More intricately plotted than the viewer at first
expects, THE RED VIOLIN tells the history in episodes of a
(fictional) legendary violin. This is a film that gets better as
it goes along and presents the viewer with several interesting
puzzles. The classical music that goes with the story is a
definite plus. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2 (-4 to +4)
COOKIE'S FORTUNE: A gentle crime story set in a sleepy Mississippi
town has more than its share of eccentric but likable characters.
Robert Altman has given us his most relaxing and pleasant film.
For once we do not care if all the plot strands are going to come
together or not, this is just an interesting set of people.
Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2 (-4 to +4)
TOPSY TURVY: Mike Leigh takes a break from his films about the
lower classes to give us a sort of concert film docu-drama about
the first production of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta THE
MIKADO, performed by the famous D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Many
different personalities come together and many plot threads are
woven together to tell the complete story--or at any rate as much
as you would want at one sitting--of how the production came to be.
Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2 (-4 to +4)
THREE KINGS: Set in the day or two following the Persian Gulf War,
THREE KINGS begins as a light-hearted caper film but turns into a
grim view of the realities of the Middle East and American policy.
This is an adult film, demanding but intelligent. A good film even
if it is not always pleasant. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2 (-4 to
+4)
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT: In 1994 three amateur filmmakers went into
the Maryland woods making a documentary about the local legend of
the Blair Witch. They never returned. This is claimed to be a
compilation of the footage they took showing how they were lost and
ran afoul of something unseen. This is a film that demonstrates
that horror in a film need not be created by visual effects.
Instead the immediacy created by hand-held cameras and a realistic
rather than artificial style makes this the most intense horror
film since HENRY, PORTRAIT OF
[-mrl]A SERIAL KILLER. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2 (-4 to +4).
===================================================================
4. TOPSY TURVY (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: Mike Leigh takes a break from his
films about the lower classes to give us a sort
of concert film docu-drama about the first
production of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta
THE MIKADO, performed by the famous D'Oyly
Carte Opera Company. Many different
personalities come together and many plot
threads are woven together to tell the complete
story--or at any rate as much as you would want
at one sitting--of how the production came to
be. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2 (-4 to +4)
The Savoy Theatre, London, March 14, 1885, saw the world premiere
performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta THE MIKADO, quite
possibly the most popular operetta ever written. Mike Leigh whose
films of late have dealt with the slice of life problems of the
lower classes instead this time tells us the story of the birth of
this operetta, one that almost did not make it to the stage after a
production beset with problems.
As the film opens Sir Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) is ailing.
As he sees the end of his life coming, he wants to get on to
writing serious music. Sullivan would like to write a major
serious opera. He had written the scores for several William
Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) comic librettos, but he has decided that he
should get on with his serious writing while he still could.
Gilbert had come to the end of creative streak and his new plays
were sounding a lot like his old plays. Sullivan wished to remain
friends with Gilbert, but wanted no more to do with their
partnership. Gilbert, whom Broadbent plays as witty without being
really intelligent, is bewildered at the loss of his partner. In a
nick of time a traveling fair from Japan gives Gilbert the
inspiration to set a story in Japan.
For once it may be good for the viewer to know ahead of time that
the story is leading to the production of THE MIKADO. Otherwise
the first half-hour or so would seem aimless and pointless.
Watching the elements collect in the early stages of the formation
of a classic is much like watching the dust collect in the early
stages of the formation of a star. There is not much to see.
Speaking of stars, this film has been cast with very few. Leigh
has chosen mostly lessor luminaries but nonetheless quality actors
for nearly every role. He intends the draw to be curiosity about
the subject matter rather than to see any well-known actor's next
film. On seeing the film I had to say that the only face familiar
to me was that of Jim Broadbent, and him I knew from BBC imports.
This is an intelligent policy with so many good but unknown actors
to choose from in Britain.
By the second half of the film it is clear what we are seeing. We
see some extended shots of the preparation, much as we would see in
a current documentary. In very realistic style we will see three
or four actors on a stage going over the minutiae of how to
pronounce the words of the script and where to put emphasis in the
lines. Acting seems to have changed very little in 115 years.
Elsewhere we see negotiations over what will and will not be worn
for costumes. Through it all Gilbert is demanding to tyrannical.
In one incident he cuts a well-liked song a day before production
making very clear that the cast has performed it excellently, but
that his own song is at fault. The cast is willing to take
Gilbert's treatment, but rebels because they think the song should
be performed.
One stylistic problem is the detailed inclusion of a scene in a
bordello. It seems out of place with the rest of the film and
certainly it would seem that the nudity could be implied rather
than graphic. The scene seems to be calculated to give the film a
more profitable rating, as there is little else in the film worthy
of more than a PG-rating. Arthur Sullivan's dilemma of having to
choose between creating popular crowd-pleasing entertainment or
high art revisits an argument carried on in such films as
SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS and THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. Leigh who wrote and
directed is clearly a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan as a duo and
would clearly vote for Sullivan's staying with popular art. Most
of the film takes place in rooms, but the film creates a very
credible version of England in the 1880s.
Mike Leigh gives us a very credible view of what it must have been
like to be present at the production of THE MIKADO. It gives more
than a little insight into similarities and differences in the
creative process 115 years ago and today. I give it an 8 on the 0
to 10 scale and a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of
intact ones.
-- Peter De Vries