THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/17/03 -- Vol. 21, No. 29

Big Cheese: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Little Cheese: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

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Topics:
Leeperhouse Film Festival
Windycon Report Available
England's Manzanar (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
ADAPTATION (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
25TH HOUR (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE DA VINCI CODE (book review by Tom Russell)
This Week's Reading (gnosticism, THE SEVERED WING,
THE CLUB DUMAS, KAREL CAPEK--LIFE AND WORK,
J. P. Telotte's SCIENCE FICTION FILM)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

===================================================================

TOPIC: Leeperhouse Film Festival

Our next film festival is one of the strangest films in a long
time and one intimately tied to the current film ADAPTATION,
which is also one of the strangest films since BEING JOHN
MALKOVICH. We will show this film at 7:30 PM on Thursday,
January 23.

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999) dir. by Spike Jonze

As I say, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH is intimately tied to ADAPTATION
though nothing so simple as one being a sequel to another.
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH is a film of great originality with a
really bizarre premise. What is the premise? Well, if you
don't know already you will enjoy the film more without knowing
what is coming. The truth is, if I told you what the film is
all about you probably wouldn't believe me anyway. Unless you
already know. So what can I tell you about it? Oh, the film
stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and Catherine Keener. John
Malkovich is in it also. But it is Cusack who discovers the
hole on the short floor. No, I better not tell you about that
hole. You either know the story or you wouldn't believe me. I
will say that Roger Ebert picked this film as the best film of
1999. That's not too bad considering what BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
is about. But then maybe you don't know what this film is
about. Maybe. [-mrl]

[Esteemed Boston critic Dan Kimmel said of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
that he hadn't seen such a strange film since Luis Bunuel died.
I hope that helps.] [-ecl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: Windycon Report Available

My Windycon 29 report is finally available at
http://fanac.org/Other_Cons/Windycon/w29-rpt.html (or
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/windy29.htm, but that is
more likely to be blocked. For those interested in convention
reports in general, http://fanac.org has many others as well.
[-ecl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: England's Manzanar (comments by Mark R. Leeper)

For years I have been a fan of Alastair Cooke and his incisive
comments on literature and on the American scene. He was the
long-time host on PBS's Masterpiece Theater. That seemed
somehow appropriate since much of their stock was, like Cooke
himself, an import from Britain. On that program he gave
introductions to such classics as I, CLAUDIUS and UPSTAIRS,
DOWNSTAIRS. Among other things his responsibilities might be
subtly filling the Yanks in on details the British audience
might know but Americans might not. He also has a program I
often with equal relish listened to on the BBC called "Letter
from America" which is his commentary on the current happenings
in the United States from the point of view of a quintessential
Englishman. Seeing the United States from other eyes is always
a fascinating experience.

Cooke has a nice easy conversational style that fascinates the
listener even when he is beating around the bush to fill time.
Cooke marking time is often more interesting than many people's
getting to the point. He could probably tell you what he had
for breakfast and make it enthralling. Last week he was telling
his audience in his oh-so-gentle way about some new "Orwellian"
measures that the United States Government was using to spy on
its own people in the name of security, creating an Office of
Information Management. At a point much later in his talk he
hit, not too coincidentally I think, on a memory he had of the
internment of Japanese immigrants in World War II. The subtext
is that Americans are wont to do the unjust and even the
unconstitutional in times when they fear for their security.

The observation is, to my mind, fair and well-taken, if indeed
that was what he was saying. And I think it was. I would,
however, say they are incomplete without at least some mention
of the British "Dunera Affair" that took place some two years
earlier. The Japanese internment may have been unjust and
unjustified, but it at least can be seen to appear on some level
to be in the national interest. The Dunera Affair lacked even
that much weird logic.

For German Jews, escape from Germany and the death camps
required great luck and great expense. Only a small percentage
made it out alive and managed not to fall into hands nearly as
unsympathetic as the Nazis'. Some of those were able to make it
to civilized England where they hoped and expected that they
would be safe from persecution. These people hated the Nazis as
much as anyone in England and probably with a good deal more
cause. This was not sufficient for the English government to
treat them as allies. Reasoning I have seen attributed to
Winston Churchill himself said that these people had been German
until recently, so they could not be trusted not to spy for the
Nazis.

So 2542 of Jewish refugees whose only crime was to escape the
Holocaust (they thought) were classified as "enemy aliens" and
rounded up. Not wanted in England they were arrested and herded
onto the HMT Dunera, a boat whose maximum capacity was supposed
to be only 1600 including crew. It set sail for Australia from
Liverpool in June of 1940. Much of their remaining valuables
were confiscated from the prisoners and not returned. Prisoners
were beaten at the hands of British guards. There were hammocks
strung all over the boat. There were no toilets. The stench
and the seasickness were terrible.

On their arrival at Sidney locals gathered to jeer the enemy
aliens and to throw rotten vegetables at them. These people who
had done no worse to the Allied side than to escape Germany to
save their lives were herded into camps at Hay and later the
overflow camp at Tatura in the outback.

Though mistrusted at first, the refugees were treated somewhat
better by the Australian military, who presumably understood
that these were not German spies. They were allowed to set up
informal schools. With some musical instruments they played
concerts. They were permitted to administer their own camps and
the Orthodox were authorized to establish kosher facilities. When
it was allowed, they were released and only about half returned
to England. Large numbers felt they had ties to the Australian
army and joined it after the war.

One hears very little of this incident these days, certainly
less than of the Japanese internment in the United States.
There was an Australian film on the subject called THE DUNERA
BOYS, but the British do not mention it much. If it is Cooke's
subtext is that Americans are too ready to ignore human rights
to attain a small measure of security, he should look at the
history of his own country in the 20th century. The people to
whom he is writing may well be cut from a very similar cloth.
[-mrl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: ADAPTATION (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: Charlie Kaufman has in one stroke made his the most
recognizable screenwriter's name in the country. His film,
directed by Spike Jonze, is a meditation on the forces that make
films successful; it is also a philosopher's chestnut and a
marvelous mental toy. This is the kind of film that viewers can
discuss for hours. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), low +3 (-4 to +4).
Spoiler warning: it would be impossible to discuss ADAPTATION
without talking somewhat about the nature of the film. That is
a bit of a spoiler. Those who want the film completely
unspoiled are advised to see the film without reading or hearing
any discussion of it.

In the early days of television one of the first experiments
broadcasters tried was training a television camera one a
monitor displaying what the camera was seeing. What the monitor
then showed was a picture of the monitor showing a picture of
the monitor showing a picture of the monitor showing a picture
of the monitor.& Like that image, ADAPTATION is infinitely
self-referential. ADAPTATION is about a lot of different
things. This is a film about orchids, about the book THE ORCHID
THIEF, about the man who was the subject of the book THE ORCHID
THIEF, about the woman who wrote THE ORCHID THIEF, about the man
who wrote the screenplay of THE ORCHID THIEF, about the writing
of the screenplay for THE ORCHID THIEF, about the twin brother
of the writer of the screenplay for THE ORCHID THIEF, and about
Hollywood. Above all ADAPTATION is, at least in theory, the
largest cream pie that a filmmaker could throw in the face of an
audience and still have that audience come up smiling. This is
just a story but a treasure trove of jokes on the audience and
weird script devices. The amazing thing is that when it is all
over the viewer discovers there was a complete story being told.

In Charlie Kaufman's adaptation of Susan Orlean's THE ORCHID
THIEF, real life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, here played by
Nicholas Cage, is hired to write a screenplay for the book THE
ORCHID THIEF by Susan Orlean (here played by Meryl Streep). He
is drawing a complete blank on how to tell Orlean's story of her
discovery of orchid collector and thief John Laroche (played by
Chris Cooper). Lurching backward and forward in time, showing
several story lines, the film shows Kaufman's paralysis of low
self-esteem-fed writer's block and the incidents he reads of
Orlean's relationship with Laroche. Meanwhile Kaufman is having
problems with his twin brother Donald Kaufman (played by--who
else?--Nicholas Cage) who wants to become a screenwriter
himself, but whose ideas represent the worst of the Hollywood
movie machine. Meanwhile Charlie is discovering himself
fascinated with Orlean and suspects that she is fascinated by
Laroche, an off-putting good ol' boy type.

Kaufman, who, I believe, does not really have a twin brother
Donald, mixes together truth, fiction, and semi-truth. He cut
his teeth writing material for TV shows "Get a Life" and "The
Dana Carvey Show." He worked with Spike Jonze previously on
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, a good and wacky film. In that film,
however, his writing was uneven. He had many weird ideas, all
in the first third of the film. Through the rest of the film he
just developed the strange ideas he had already without really
adding much more. This film is much more smoothly written and
uniformly strange.

This is a film that seems to be as self-modifying as it is
recursive. This film is an audience-pleaser, but it helps if
the viewer is a fan of the mathematical artist M. C. Escher.
Though there is no reference to him in the film, the film could
well be called Escher-esque. I rate ADAPTATION an 8 on the 0 to
10 scale and a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale. There are two
scenes of extreme, sudden, and unexpected violence. I wonder
what the real Susan Orlean thinks about her sincerely intended
book getting sucked into this madcap vortex and her along with
it. What does she think about how she is characterized on the
screen? [-mrl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: 25TH HOUR (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: Monty Brogan has drawn a seven-year sentence for drug
dealing. His life as he knew it is coming to an end. He as
just one last day of freedom to tie up this chapter of his life.
He plans to get together with his friends and family for the
last time and get things straight with them. Like a man who is
on the way to his death he is getting his affairs in order.
Edward Norton gives a poignant performance, but the film gives
in a little too much to sentimentality. Rating: 7 (0 to 10),
low +2 (-4 to +4)

Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) is a likable sort who had his life
more or less together. He has friends, including Naturelle
(Rosario Dawson) about whom he is serious. His father James
(Brian Cox) and he are on good terms at last. He has just
recently stopped dealing drugs for the Russian Mafia and he is
going straight. Then the police find drugs and money in his
apartment, a tie with the recent past that he has not yet cut.
Now he is going to prison for seven years, a victim of the New
York's Rockefeller laws. Thinking about the sentence that is
about to start is tearing Monty up. He broods on how much he
has lost and thinking about just what the seven years is going
to be like. His good looks which have helped him until now will
just make him a sexual target in prison and he dreads the
thought of it.

Monty has one more night before he must either turn himself in
or become a fugitive. On his last day of freedom he is getting
together with his best friends for one final night of fun and to
say good-bye to them. Most of the film is the story of his only
remaining day. His friends are stock dealer Frank Slaughtery
(Barry Pepper) and awkward and single high school English
teacher Jacob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who has his own
crisis. Monty has broken rules and Elinsky is boyishly uneasy
that he will be tempted to do the same. In his case, he is
being tempted and manipulated by a nymphet from his English
class (played by Anna Paquin). Monty needs one more piece of
closure. When the police raided his apartment, they seemed to
know exactly where to look for the drugs and money. Somebody
told them where to look. Monty wants to know who it was.

25TH HOUR was directed by Spike Lee from a screenplay by David
Benioff, from Benioff's own novel. There is some action and
even violence, but for the most part the story is driven by
dialog. Monty's father blames himself for his son's problems
and Monty wants to release him from that guilt. At times the
writing could be a little subtler. To make Monty likable from
the very beginning, the pre-credit sequence has him rescuing a
dog who has been badly injured. This is as manipulative as any
device Steven Spielberg would have used. A sequence toward the
end of the film also seems a little overly sentimental. This
Monty does not seem like the same person who in another sequence
curses all the ethnic groups he sees in Manhattan. There is
another example of going tapping a little into overly-emotional
material. The film returns repeatedly to the image of the
wreckage of the World Trade Center and frequently the beams of
the two searchlights that have temporarily replaced it. They
echo the wreckage of Monty's life and the quick last-day fixes
he is attempting.

Rodrigo Prieto's photography frequently irritates with use of
what is probably 12 frame-per-second shooting. The movement of
images is jerky. But there are moments of poignancy in this
film and I rate 25th HOUR a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2
on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: China tries to make a film that will play well as a
screwball comedy in both the United States and in China. It is
a good attempt and the words are right but the rhythms just
don't quite work. Also, there is a bit of an anti-capitalist
message that fades through. When it is discovered a great
American director is dying in China, there are plans to make his
funeral a highly commercialized international event from
Beijing's Forbidden City. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), low +1 (-4 to
+4)

 From China comes a film very atypical of that country. BIG
SHOT'S FUNERAL is a wild and topical comedy about
commercialization and global business. While it has many funny
bits, overall the film seems to have timing a little off for
Western audiences. Don Tyler (played by Donald Sutherland) is
one of the great international film directors. He is currently
in China to film THE LAST DYNASTY, his remake of THE LAST
EMPEROR. Tyler is under pressure to get more of his film made,
but Tyler is finding the process slow as he gets distracted and
fascinated by Chinese society. Yoyo is hired by Tyler's
assistant Lucy to film the process for a "Making of..." film.
Tyler and Yoyo become good friends who have long talks. When
Yoyo mentions that in Chinese culture a funeral is not sad,
Tyler gets fixated on the phrase "comedy funeral." Then a heart
attack takes Tyler off the film and in the expectation of dying
he says he wants a comedy funeral. Yoyo runs with the idea
wanting to make the funeral a global media event broadcast from
the Forbidden City.

 From there the deals and the absurdity of the commercialization
gets worse and worse in an accelerating spiral. One company
will fight to become the official beer of the Tyler funeral.
Really it is the same joke over and over. The script was
written with several topical references to recent events in
China. References are made to the Turandot broadcast from the
Forbidden City just a year before the film's production. The
film itself is obviously shot in the Forbidden City, at one
point a rare and exotic location, but its ready availability is
part of the joke. Individual gags seem to work and are funny,
but overall the feel seems uncoordinated and does not hold
together as a unity. There are too many repetitions of the same
idea, a bad taste juxtaposition of a potential sponsor and what
should be a solemn event. BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL has no good third
act to follow the rest of the story. When the jokes run out the
plot just gets tied up as quickly as possible.

Director Feng Xiaogang is known for his offbeat films and this
film is certainly not what one expects in a Chinese film. With
American actors like Donald Sutherland and Paul Mazursky, much
of the dialog in English, and a non-traditional theme, BIG
SHOT'S FUNERAL is very unusual for a Chinese film. This is
light-hearted jab at commercialization and internationalization
of the media. I rate it a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +1
on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: THE DA VINCI CODE by Dan Brown (book review by Tom Russell)

This was the best novel I read in 2002. Back in November I found
an "Advance Reading Copy" of the novel at our town library. It is
due to be published hardcover in March 2003, or perhaps May 2003
as that is the copyright date in this advance-reading (paperback)
issue.

 From the back cover: "A mind-bending code hidden in the works of
Leonardo da Vinci. A desperate race through the cathedrals and
castles of Europe. An astonishing truth concealed for centuries--
unveiled at last."

Inside the front cover there is a letter from Jason Kaufman,
Senior Editor, Random House, inviting e-mail comments. Here is
his reply to the note I sent (which I am not including here as it
contains spoilers).

 >Subject: RE: The Da Vinci Code - typos?
 >Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 12:02:24 -0500
 >Dear Tom,
 >
 >Glad to hear your strong response to the book. Unfortunately
 >these errors were in the early reading copies, but should all
 >be fixed for the book...
 >Thanks for writing, and hope you'll help spread the word!
 >
 >Jason Kaufman

To explain this: even this "advance copy" includes testimonials
from people who read even earlier versions of the novel. As he
suggested, I'm spreading the word... [-tlr]

===================================================================

TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

Of my comments about how it is difficult to find any sort of basic
book about gnosticism, Ian Gahan writes that he would also be
interested, saying, "I became interested in this from reading THE
JESUS MYSTERIES by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. This propounds
the theory that the Christian religion was formulated by a group of
Jewish Gnostics in Alexandria as a means of promoting the Gnostic
mysteries to fellow Jews. In a similar manner as was developed by
other Mediterranean peoples, Egypt - Isis/Osiris, Greece -
Persephone/Dionysus, Syria - Aphrodite/Adonis, Asia Minor -
Cybele/Attis, Mesopotamia - Ishtar/Marduk, Persia - Magna
Mater/Mithras, Judaea - Asherah/Baal."

Well, I started out this week with Martin Gidron's THE SEVERED
WING, an alternate history that assumes that we entered World War
I earlier and imposed less oppressive terms on Germany at the end,
hence preventing the rise of the Nazis and World War II. It is
set primarily in New York, which is seen as having a much larger
and more vibrant Jewish population and cultural scene (Yiddish is
still very widely used). I'm not sure one can extrapolate that
this would be the result (most of the Yiddish-speaking immigration
had dwindled by 1920 because of immigration restrictions, and one
would have to postulate that those would not be in place either),
but it's still an interesting view, and the gradual drifting of
the main character from that world to this is eeriely done (and
reminiscent of a "Twilight Zone" style).

I re-read THE CLUB DUMAS by Arturo Perez-Reverte for our library
discussion group. Much as I like the film THE NINTH GATE, it's
still annoying in that the film drops the entire Dumas plot and
pumps up the other sub-plot and makes it much more overt.

I'm still reading Ivan Klima's KAREL CAPEK--LIFE AND WORK
(certainly of interest to science fiction fans) and
J. P. Telotte's SCIENCE FICTION FILM (not as much of interest,
since there is very little new in this academic press study that
hasn't been covered elsewehere before). [-ecl]


===================================================================

Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net


Far and away the best prize that life offers is
the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
-- Theodore Roosevelt




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