THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/07/05 -- Vol. 24, No. 15, Whole Number 1303
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
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent will be assumed authorized for inclusion
unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
Top 50 SF Television Shows (correction)
London Travelogue Available (better site pointer)
Intelligent Design (site pointer)
Robert A. Heinlein (site pointer)
Science Fiction Citations (site pointer)
Your Horoscope (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My Take on "Firefly" (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Bell Labs and Science Fiction (quote from Fred Pohl story)
Horoscopes (letter of comment by dsr@tao.merseine.nu)
Math Innumeracy (pointer by Charles S. Harris)
Harry Potter Site (letter of comment by Donald Blosser)
WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT
(film review by Mark R. Leeper)
SERENITY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
NBT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
NAPOLA: ELITE FUR DEN FUHRER (BEFORE THE FALL)
(film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE ANNOTATED HUCKLEBERRY FINN,
THE FRIAR AND THE CIPHER, SCIENCE FRICTION,
ARCANUM) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Top 50 SF Television Shows (correction)
Last week's MT VOID said, "The A&E Network has listed ... their
picks as the top fifty science fiction television shows of all
time." It was boston.com's list, not the A&E Network. (The
confusion was caused by the fact it was in the "A&E" section of
boston.com.)
===================================================================
TOPIC: London Travelogue Available (better site pointer)
My log of our recent trip to London is now available at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mtvoid/files/uk2005.htm, which
should not have the bandwidth blocking problems that my geocities
site has. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Intelligent Design (site pointer)
For another take on intelligent design, see http://venganza.org/.
===================================================================
TOPIC: Robert A. Heinlein (site pointer)
There is an essay on Heinlein and feminism in the New York Times,
at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/books/review/02lord.html.
This requires registration now, and may disappear after 10/12/05
(or may not--I can't figure out which disappear and which don't).
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Science Fiction Citations (site pointer)
The site http://www.jessesword.com/sf/home is connected to the
Oxford English Dictionary's updating process, and is described as
follows:
"Welcome to the new version of the Oxford English Dictionary's
science fiction words site. The base project was originally set
up so that knowledgeable aficionados could help the OED find
useful examples of words in their fields of interest. This first
project, and still the only public one, is devoted to science
fiction."
If you're curious who coined various science fictional terms such
as "blaster" or "terraform", check this site out. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Your Horoscope (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
(Due to economy concerns we cannot provide complete horoscopes.
Your cooperation is appreciated.)
Sagattarius: Switch to a sign that is a little easier to spell,
please. I am not going to be doing any more horoscopes for this
sign, so you might as well switch. How's this? From now on you
are all Leos. I give you special permission to be Leos. Domini,
Domini, Domini. You're all Leos. OK?
Everyone else: If your sign has more than six letters, maybe you
should switch also. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: My Take on "Firefly" (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
A man sits on a sand dune. There appears to be nobody around for
many miles of desert in any direction. That may be a good thing
because the man is stark naked. There is no sign of his clothing
anywhere. The man is apparently reflecting on the events that
brought him here. "That went well." You immediately find
yourself wondering what has happened and where he would have been
and in what state if things had not gone so well. This is the
beginning of an episode of the TV series "Firefly".
I didn't watch "Firefly" when it was originally broadcast. When
it was first on I did watch the first broadcast episode, and it
just did not appeal to me. It was sort of a western set in
space. These western-in-space things used to be called "space
operas" from the term "horse opera." Since then the term "space
opera" has become more respectable while westerns set in space
have not. I knew by this time that it was another series created
by Joss Whedon. Whedon had created and was the moving force
behind "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". That show had a big cult
following that did not include me. I had watched the rebroadcast
first three seasons of Buffy and felt that was all of my time that
"Buffy" had deserved. I had warmed to the series, but only a
little. Hearing that the current episodes involved Buffy-bots did not
encourage me.
So I let the series "Firefly" go without my watching it.
Occasionally on the next few weeks--and it was only a few weeks--
people would say that they actually liked the series. But these
were some of the same people who waxed enthusiastic on "Buffy".
Also by then I had missed a lot of "Firefly". I really do not
have too much time for weekly television shows in my schedule.
It could not have been too many weeks after that that I heard
that the series had been cancelled and was to be taken off
television. At the time it did not bother me at all.
Almost immediately there sprang up write-in campaigns to save the
series. Again I saw this as a disinterested third party. But it
was curious that there were so many people who really liked the
bland space western that I thought I saw in the first episode. A
little while later I heard that the entire series was on DVD.
Okay, if I could borrow it from someone I might go back and watch
the series. And indeed a good friend had the entire series and
would lend it to me. (These days you do not risk a lot by missing
a TV series. The good ones seem to all show up on DVD. (I am
waiting avidly for the "Meet the Press, Season 57, Collector's
Edition" with the WMD Easter Egg.))
I cannot say I ever was a strong fan of "Firefly" even when I
had seen the whole series, but I have to admit I was wrong and
it would have been worth watching. I saw an episode I liked and
then another one. The characters were a mixed bag, but that
worked well. That was much of the point. Certainly it was a
reaction to the early days of "Star Trek" when everybody worked
so well as a team on the Enterprise. There was a little
needling, even in "Star Trek" but on the whole everybody liked and
respected everybody else on the Enterprise. The same was true in
"Star Trek: The Next Generation", but in addition everybody was
the very best at their profession. The doctor was one of the top
medical researchers in the Federation. The kid turned out to be a
genius comparable to Mozart. It was all a little too wonderful
for my taste.
By contrast, the crew and passengers of the Serenity in "Firefly"
really were much more like people I would see at work. There was
a lot of distrust and occasionally betrayals. This was not the
spic-and-span universe of "Star Trek"'s Federation. In fact the
central enemy on "Firefly" was the Alliance, an axis not a lot
different from "Star Trek"'s Federation. This was a future
without "Star Trek"'s rubbery-faced aliens. Everybody was a
descendent of old Terra. Also in "Firefly" people got hurt.
People may have even gotten killed, if I remember right. They
were facing an enemy that could crush them. The Enterprise rarely
found an enemy they could not stomp. If they did find such a
species, the Enterprise would find a way to stomp them
(mercifully) six episodes later. The Enterprise never knew a
no-win situation. In "Firefly" there were at least some
compromises that had to be made.
How do I feel about "Firefly"? I don't love it. I think it is
better than "Star Trek". (Well, maybe "Star Trek" got better the
last season. Like a light bulb, "Star Trek" was its brightest
just before it blinked out.) The writing of "Firefly" was often
likeable and I admit chuckling at dialog. Now that we find out
what it really was all about with the release of SERENITY, I feel
quite positive toward the series as a whole. There were some
good ideas that just did not come out in the series until the film
capped it. The friends who told me I should be watching it were
probably right. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Bell Labs and Science Fiction (quote from Fred Pohl story)
Fred Pohl's latest story, "Generations" (Asimov's, Sep 2005), has
a mention of Bell Labs:
"Since so many American facilities got merged or shut down
entirely due to the War not a lot was happening in theoretical
physics. ... This seemed to piss my father off even more than it
did Ron. 'You're too young to remember,' he'd tell me, 'but I was
around when places like Fermilab and Stanford and Bell Labs were
turning up new stuff every day. You don't know about Bell Labs,
do you? They invented the transistor there, and Claude Shannon
developed his information theories, and Rudi Kampfner invented the
traveling-wave tube and God knows what all else. It wasn't the
Arabs that did the Labs in, either. It was just corporate greed.'"
[Pohl lived in Red Bank, NJ, for a long time, so he is familiar
with the Labs from way back.] [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Horoscopes (letter of comment by dsr@tao.merseine.nu)
As it is clear that economic considerations require a cutback in
your budget for astrological natal horology, I have taken the
liberty of sending in not just my sign, but my horoscope as well.
Aries: Everything you wanted will happen. Today is a good day for
thanking people for their contributions to your welfare. Consider
other's needs before you do what's right.
All other signs: donating your time, energy and money to an Aries
will make him happy. Take joy in the happiness of others.
[-dsr]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Math Innumeracy (pointer by Charles S. Harris)
Charles S. Harris writes that http://tinyurl.com/7ftpa has the
following shaving tip:
"As long as I'm departing from the usual this week, here's a tip
the razor blade companies don't want you to know about. If you
shave with a blade - any blade - rinse it in cold water while
you're shaving, then in rubbing alcohol before you set it to dry.
That will prevent mineral crystals from forming on the edge as
quickly, and will increase the life of your blade a couple
hundredfold. I routinely get fifteen to twenty shaves from an
ordinary blade."
Charlie comments, "So without the special treatment, he normally
gets less than 0.1 shave per blade?" [-csh]
Mark notes, "Sometimes it seems that 10,000% of the population
does not understand even simple math."
===================================================================
TOPIC: Harry Potter Site (letter of comment by Donald Blosser)
Donald Blosser wrote asking for clarification: "The Harry Potter
web-site http://www.So-and-So-nameisnotdead.com keeps coming up
server not found. I tried a couple variations but still get "not
found". Is there an extra character or two or missing characters
in the URL?"
We probably should have explained more clearly. To construct the
real URL, start with the phony URL
http://www.{NAME}isnotdead.com, take out the string "{NAME}",
put in its place the appropriate character's name, and try to go
to that site. If you have not substituted the proper character's
name the site will not exist. If you think the character is
Bozo, try http://www.Bozoisnotdead.com. If there is no web
site there the character is not Bozo. [-mrl]
[I have also seen the syntax "[Deceased Character]isnotdead.com".
-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT (film review
by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Nick Park's animated comic duo is back, this time in a
feature-length satire of Terence Fisher's CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF
and several other films. The previous Wallace & Gromit
adventures have been shorter and more dependent on cuteness. The
script this time is really better than the animation and the
result is genuinely funny. This is an animated film, but it aims
to please the whole family and its aim is good. Adults will
appreciate the humor perhaps more than the kids, and especially
the references to old horror films. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or
7/10
As most readers will be aware, Wallace and Gromit are the
Claymation stars of a series of films made by British Nick Park
of Aardman Animation Productions. Wallace is the creator of
absurd inventions--many with a Rube Goldberg accent--and a lover
of cheese--especially if it is Wensleydale. Gromit, his ever-
patient dog, is the real brains of the operation. Wallace talks
but says little that is not inane. Being a dog, Gromit cannot
talk in words, but he is constantly saving Wallace from
destruction and his eyes and their prominent eyebrows perform the
function of a Greek Chorus for the stories. As always you can
tell Nick Park's animation style. His characters look like a
dentist has stuffed cotton wadding in their cheeks.
Wallace seems to be in a different profession in every tale.
This time around Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) and Gromit (who
has or needs no voice) are in the vegetable garden security
business calling themselves Anti-Pesto. Of course there are some
people around who are willing to kill the rabbits and other
garden pests, but Anti-Pesto promises to protect gardens without
harming the sweet little creatures who prey on them. They are
particularly in demand as their town's Giant Vegetable
Competition (is that Giant Vegetable-Competition Giant-Vegetable
Competition?) is coming up and the rivalry is cutthroat. Leading
the competition is Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter).
Wallace fancies Lady Tottington, but has competition in the suave
and cultivated but dangerous Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes).
Then a new factor is added. There is some sort of super-beast
that is preying on gardens. Wallace and Gromit must solve the
mystery of the terrible were-rabbit.
This is a better script than the dynamic duo's shorter
adventures. Those depended to a greater degree on the novelty of
the characters and their cuteness. This film has more references
to other films and a greater density of jokes. There are
probably more jokes here than even in CHICKEN RUN, Nick Park's
other feature film. Perhaps the charm of Wallace and Gromit was
starting to wear thin. It is unlikely it would not have
supported a feature almost as long as all the previous adventures
put together. But this script is a lot funnier than those of
previous outings and it should breathe new life into the
characters. (It was even a little disconcerting for me to hear
the audience laughing and to realize I missed it because I was
looking in the wrong part of the screen. This is a film that
will bear repeated viewing. Of course, I saw some jokes I think
other people missed.)
It should be noted that this is the first Wallace & Gromit
adventure that is not directed solely by Nick Park. Primary
direction credit goes to Steve Box who has been an animator on
previous adventures. For this feature-length film he has first
billing (and his first billing) as director. Also, Park's
writing partner on the last two Wallace & Gromit films and this
film has been Bob Baker. However, this time around he also has
Steve Box and Mark Burton doing the writing.
WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT is a good
afternoon's fun. Given their international popularity already, I
expect it to be popular all over the world. I rate it +2 on the
-4 to +4 scale or 7/10. It is of minor interest to note that
Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace, was also in the original THE
CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: SERENITY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: TV's series "Firefly"--cult and cancelled--comes to the
screen not as a glorified episode of the series but as a finish
to the series and that ties up the loose ends. While the film
may be a little terse and telegraphic for people who were not
fans of the series, those familiar with the series will be quite
please that there were some interesting ideas behind the fun
adventures. It was a pleasure to see what was really happening
and also to return to the characters of the series. But
objectively I cannot recommend the film for people who were not
already fans. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
In the fourth season of "Babylon 5" J. Michael Straczynski was
told his show would be cancelled at the end of that season. He
had expected and planned for five seasons and had a lot more
story to tell. All he could do was speed up the storytelling to
complete his tale. Then ironically he got a fifth season from
another network and could not do much with it. My guess is that
the inspiration for SERENITY was that Joss Whedon also had a
background story he wanted to tell for the science fiction series
"Firefly". That series was cancelled with the major questions
left unanswered. The film SERENITY actually ties up all the
loose ends left from the television series "Firefly". It tells
us what would have happened with the story.
SERENITY is an aptly named film even if the story it tells is
anything but serene. The film is about the attempted serene
utopia that the Alliance, a federation of planets, wanted to
found. Explained here clearly for the first time we hear about
the plans of the Alliance to end strife. We are told how in the
outlands that were the setting of the original TV series not
everybody wanted to be utopianized by the Alliance. They had
their own idea of what is serene. The film continues the story
of the very mixed bag of characters who populated the original
series. The series centers around a rogue space-freighter the
Serenity commanded, if that's the word, by Capt. Malcolm Reynolds
(Nathan Fillion looking just a little older and grimmer than he
was in the series).
The plot initially is not a lot different from what might have
been an episode. An agent of the Alliance (played by Chiwetel
Ejiofor), a bizarre assassin who kills with a sword, wants to
track down River (Summer Glau) who is on Serenity as a semi-
welcome passenger. River knows something that the Alliance does
not want leaked. She also has powers that make a danger to the
Alliance. But unlike a series entry, the reason the Alliance
wants her will be revealed. What her powers are will be
revealed. What she knows will be revealed. SERENITY will cap
off the television series and make it a complete story.
SERENITY is written and directed by Joss Whedon who created the
original "Firefly" (not to mention something called "Buffy, the
Vampire Slayer") and wrote much of the series. The popularity of
that series can be attributed in large part to the witty dialog
(quite present in the film version) and the really off-beat
comedic situations (mostly missing from the film probably due to
pressure of time). As in the series the cinematography is
intentionally just a bit off-kilter. That gives the film a
feeling more of realism and immediacy. The entire film seems to
be on imperfect films stock. Most of the film looks just a bit
washed out. I do not know if this is generally true, but the
dialog is often indistinctly recorded. That is a pity because
usually Whedon's dialog is a lot of fun. Also the plot is
complex and much is carried by the dialog. This is supposed to
be a rock 'em sock 'em space swashbuckler so there is a lot of
loud shooting and a lot of spaceships fighting in close
proximity. Wow.
Speaking for myself I was of three minds about SERENITY:
-- As a fan of "Firefly" I thought it was terrific. It took all
the unanswered questions and explained them. It probably was the
story that Whedon wanted to do all along and that the
cancellation did not allow him to tell. In one neat bundle
everything I was wondering about made sense.
-- As a fan of science fiction films, it was okay. I myself am
getting a little sick of all the gunplay that is used so often in
science fiction films. The films that originally attracted me to
the genre had ideas, not gunplay. SERENITY had some decent
science fiction concepts. They were nothing to knock me over,
but at least some decent ideas.
-- As a fan of cinema in general it was an ugly little film with
a whole lot of noise and violence and a murky look. Some of the
dialog is engaging. There is not much human drama as I think of
human drama. The visuals were okay but not inspiring or really
what passes for imaginative any more. It is not the kind of film
I can recommend to someone unless I know they are fans of the
series.
On balance I rate SERENITY a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: NBT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is an often hilarious and painfully on-target
mockumentary about people who are pulled into special interest
cults like "Star Trek" or, in this case, frozen entree fandom.
How these interests interlock has never been treated in film and
at least this first time the result is a gem of a film. Rating:
+2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
I was a science fiction fan from about the age of six and when I
got to college I discovered science fiction fandom. There were
people who got together to discuss science fiction. There were
conventions for people who had the interest. Some people were
fanatical on the subject. There was a great deal of politics in
the fandom having little to do with science fiction itself. In
addition there were interlocking fandoms. People who had the
time and capacity to be drawn into one such fandom would be drawn
into others--and to be just as fanatical in others. There is
fantasy fandom. There are rabid fans of "Star Trek". (Some of
the members very seriously believe that the series gave us an
openness of thought that allowed us to survive the Cold War.
They literally believe that "Star Trek" saved the world.)
Another fandom is for "Star Wars". Then there is one for comic
books. Another one is for Japanese animation. There is a
related fandom for games and particularly war gaming. Old time
radio is the subject of another. There is the Society for
Creative Anachronism that studies history and frequently reenacts
events and styles. They segue into historical reenactors. My
wife is active in a separate fandom for alternate history,
stories of how history might have taken different turns if
various small details of history had happened differently.
Some films have treated these individual subcultures: films like
TREKKIES, and George Romero's best film, KNIGHTRIDERS. Now a new
pseudo-documentary or mockumentary looks at strange interlocking
subcultures. NBT starts by investigating frozen entree fandom.
These are people who collect and cherish frozen TV dinners much
like comic book fans collect comics. A mint condition TV dinner
is NBT--never been thawed. There is not such fandom that I have
ever heard of in reality, but I suspect this film might spawn
one.
Fans of TV dinners, apparently, have special heroes among the
package designers. They wait avidly for Swanson to release TV
dinners with new side dishes. They hold conventions to allow the
fans to meet the people behind the selection in your grocer's
frozen food section.
From there the documentary moves out into inter-linked
subcultures, many of the religious right. There is a hilarious
if somewhat off-color look at the work of people at a sexual
abstinence hotline. An extended segment on the religious right
co-opting a hard rock band is further from my experience and I
could only appreciate the segment as whimsical. But when the
film described how a frozen food fan had furnished his apartment
to accommodate his collection of frozen TV dinners, a friend
laughed hard with recognition and embarrassment. Her apartment
which is floor to ceiling books (and even has stored books in her
oven) is no less ridiculous.
NBT is a little uneven with most of the big laughs in the first
half of the film. This may have just seemed that way to me
because the groups we see at the beginning are more similar to my
own experience. But the film never drops below being a lot of
fun. It also captures an aspect of the American people that many
know exists and few have ever looked at on film. Certainly the
multiplicity of interlocking weird subcultures is something I
have never seen treated in cinema before. In fact perhaps even
the filmmakers do not know how accurate an assessment it really
is. It may be that rare film that is better than the filmmakers
realize.
Certainly for people who know special interest groups like "Star
Trek" fandom this is a highly recommended comedy, even if they
find it a little painful. This is a small film that may not be
seen by many people. Perhaps the release can get financial
support from Swanson. I give NBT a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or
7/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: NAPOLA: ELITE FUR DEN FUHRER (BEFORE THE FALL) (film review
by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Hitler's National Political Academies (NAPOLA) are
little remembered by history. NAPOLA: ELITE FUR DEN FUHRER is
the story of the experiences of one young man recruited for a
Napola. The film shows us how normally decent people can be
attracted to and seduced into an evil system. While the
background of the story is fascinating and enlightening, the
foreground story could be more complex and original. The plot is
a good story whose arc is a little overly familiar. Still the
production values are high and the story is compelling. Rating:
+2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Dennis Gansel and Maggie Peren resurrect a nearly overlooked
chapter of history with NAPOLA: ELITE FUR DEN FUHRER. Adolf
Hitler selected out his enemies for special and barbaric
treatment as is well known. Not nearly as well covered in the
history books is how he treated those he considered to his elite
youth. This goes beyond the Brown Shirts and the Hitler Youth.
There was a small and privileged few, mostly in their late teens,
who were trained physically and mentally to be ideal soldiers and
rulers. These were to be youth without conscience or pity.
Their cardinal virtues were to be loyalty and unquestioning
obedience. These hand-chosen relative few (by the end of the war
there were 15,000 of them) were trained in the National Political
Schools. They were trained to be Hitler's viceroys in conquered
lands and to lead the military. Life in the Napolas looked good
from the outside, but inside they had vicious and highly
competitive societies not unlike those of ancient Sparta.
The setting is Berlin in the late summer 1942. Max Riemelt plays
Friedrich Weimer, a promising boxer at age seventeen. A teacher
from a Napola sees Friedrich fight and offers him a position at
his academy. Friedrich is flattered by the invitation and would
like very much to go to the Napola where there are niceties like
real showers.
Against his father's objections--and by forging his father's
signature on a permission slip--Weimer enrolls at the Napola.
His expenses are all paid by the state so he does not need his
father's support. Almost immediately he finds himself bullied by
upperclassmen and by the faculty. He expects no help and no
sympathy from anyone. As in the ring his only defense is what he
himself can make. We see the boys being indoctrinated into Nazi
ideology, and they are willing participants in the process. They
are happy to accept the suggestions of whom they should hate and
happily bully anyone who gets out of line. The boys are taught
no pity and to trust their killer instinct.
Friedrich befriends Albrecht, a Nazi official. While Friedrich
rebelled against his father in favor of the State, Albrecht
rebels against his father and the State. He is a sensitive boy
who has serious reservations about the barbarity of Nazism. The
stories are parallel but mirror images and they work to a tragic
and not unexpected destiny.
What eventually happened to the real Napola students? With the
Third Reich falling, they were sent in to fight. Many of them
were still teenagers. They became just so much cannon fodder.
Half were killed. This film tells us what happened before that
bad end. Some good World War II history films are coming from
Germany. While this one is not in the class of DAS BOOT or
DOWNFALL it is a major history film and one about history rarely
remembered.
The background and historical context of the story is what makes
this film worth seeing. I cannot down-rate it much for the
somewhat predictable and familiar plot. It is a good film worth
seeing with that one reservation. I rate NAPOLA: ELITE FUR DEN
FUHRER a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10. A similar story of
two boys caught up in the gears of totalitarianism is the current
THE GREAT WATER. In that film the characters are more complex
and of greater interest. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Not much subtlety here. When their parents separate two
troubled boys are caught between them. Writer-director Noah
Baumbach leaves no doubt which parent is really at fault.
Bernard is self-absorbed, intolerant, and pompous. The boys
believe him that the divorce is all the mother's fault until they
see how well their father's selfish philosophy works in their own
lives. While the film is billed as a comedy and a drama, this
story of a childish father spoiling the lives of his family is
not a laughing matter. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) or 4/10
The setting is Brooklyn in the mid-1980s. We are looking at the
marriage of two Ph.D. literary writers. In the first scene of
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, we see Bernard Berkman (played by Jeff
Daniels) playing tennis with his family. He is a bad sport and
ends the game by lobbing a ball directly into his wife Joan
(Laura Linney). As viewers we take an immediate dislike to him,
but it takes most of the film for his two sons to come around to
our opinion. In scene after scene Bernard is irritating in a
variety of different ways. He tells the boys, Walt (Jesse
Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline), that the divorce was caused by
their mother (Laura Linney) and her sexual affairs. Bernard
considers himself a great author, though it could be hardly
proven by his recent literary output.
Meanwhile Joan's writing career is turning successful in spite of
Bernard's belittling of her writing. Son Walt leans toward
siding with his father and picks up many of his father's
attitudes. The younger Frank is leaning more toward still
needing his mother's nurturing, but is swayed by his father and
his brother. He is a very troubled person and it is becoming
obsessed with his body's newfound ability to masturbate. (Owen
Kline in the role, incidentally, is the son of actors Kevin Kline
and Phoebe Cates.)
Bernard gets a dilapidated house and his sons live with him half
the time as part of the divorce settlement. Soon also living
with them is Lili (Anna Paquin), one of Bernard's students. As
Walt emulates his father's self-absorption the boys find their
father may not be a good role model. Soon they have a better
appreciation for the trials that their mother must have
experienced.
As writer and director Noah Baumbach has a good cast to work
with, but why they wanted to do this one-dimensional story is
difficult to tell. His visual style is unpolished and
reminiscent of European films. Baumbach was the co-author of the
screenplay for Wes Anderson's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU.
Perhaps he is trying here to emulate Anderson's off-center style.
But Baumbach's script is far more judgmental than are most of
Anderson's films. THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS comes to mind and there
the family is troubled, but the fault seems more evenly
distributed.
I have found several people who did like this film, but it just
did not work for me. A little more subtlety in the script might
have been called for. I give THE SQUID AND THE WHALE a 0 on the
-4 to +4 scale or 4/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Regarding my comment in the 09/23/05 issue of the MT VOID about
too many "definitional annotations" in THE ANNOTATED HUCKLEBERRY
FINN, Fred Lerner suggests, "Perhaps this edition was produced (at
least in part) for use by students of American literature in
universities overseas, where some help with colloquial English
might be useful?" Perhaps, but at $40 it doesn't seem very
likely--most textbooks are less beautifully produced than this
illustrated volume.
THE FRIAR AND THE CIPHER: ROGER BACON AND THE UNSOLVED MYSTERY OF
THE MOST UNUSUAL MANUSCRIPT IN THE WORLD by Lawrence and Nancy
Goldstone (ISBN 0-7679-1473-2) is of the same ilk as their
earlier OUT OF THE FLAMES--the story of a book (or here, a
manuscript) and the people who affected its creation and
survival. In this case, it is the Voynich Manuscript, which Mark
wrote about in the 03/18/05 issue of the MT VOID. The
Goldstone's book centers primarily around the theory that Roger
Bacon wrote the manuscript in code, but along the way they
discuss the history of universities, the theology of the Catholic
Church, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, the scientific method,
Albertus Magnus, Dr. John Dee, Rudolph II, cryptography, and
Francis Bacon (no relation). (How they missed including Rabbi
Loew is a mystery, to me since he was active in Prague at the
same time as Rudolph II and Dee.) As with all the Goldstone's
books, this is a book highly recommended for book-lovers.
SCIENCE FRICTION: WHERE THE KNOWN MEETS THE UNKNOWN by Michael
Shermer (ISBN 0-8050-7708-1) is a sampler of various aspects of
science (and the public perception of science), history (ditto),
and other topics. The chapters of most specific interest to
science fiction fans, though, might be "What If?" and "The Hero
on the Edge of Forever". Both are about counterfactuals and
alternate histories, and both discuss what Shermer calls
"contingencies" and "necessities". These are pretty much
parallels for "The Great Man" and "The Tide of History" theories.
The former was championed by Thomas Carlyle, who wrote,
"Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in
this world, is at the bottom the history of the great men who
have worked here. Worship of a hero is transcendent admiration
of a great man." The latter was supported by Friedrich Engels,
"That a certain particular man, and no other, emerges at a
definite time in a given country is naturally a pure chance, but
even if we eliminate him there is always a need for a substitute,
and the substitute . . . is sure to be found." Like so many
dichotomies, the truth probably lies between the two, which
Shermer calls "the model of contingent-necessity: In the
development of any historical sequence the role of contingencies
in the construction of necessities is accentuated in the early
stages and attenuated in the later." Shermer then applies these
ideas to the Neanderthals, the development of agriculture, Ray
Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder", and "The City on the Edge of
Forever" (Gene Roddenberry's, Harlan Ellison's, or a combination
of the two?).
ARCANUM by Thomas Wheeler is a mystery where the sleuths are Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, Marie Laveau (the Second),
and Harry Houdini. This is a bit of overkill, especially when
Wheeler adds William Randolph Hearst into the mix. Also,
Wheeler's research could have been better. The story is set in
1919, yet one character "poured himself a generous Jim Beam."
While the bourbon was around then, it was still called something
like "Old Jake Beam's Sour Mash"--it did not adopt the name "Jim
Beam" until the 1940s. Lovecraft is supposedly living at 1414
Delancey Street--there is no such number. Tarrytown is described
as "only forty minutes outside Manhattan." The actual trip the
characters make is from Bellevue at 29th Street, which would be
about twenty-eight miles--forty minutes today maybe (without
traffic), but not in 1919 by horse-drawn carriage. And, in a
minor slip, Doyle sets fire to a spider's web--which I believe
are not flammable. The language also has some jarring words
(e.g. a reference to a "meet-and-greet") that shatters the period
feel. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
No matter what side of the argument you
are on, you always find people on your
side that you wish were on the other.
-- Jascha Heifetz