THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
02/24/12 -- Vol. 30, No. 35, Whole Number 1690
Ollie: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Stan: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
All material is copyrighted by author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent will be assumed authorized for inclusion
unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe, send mail to mtvoid-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe, send mail to mtvoid-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
The latest issue is at http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/latest.htm.
An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at
http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm.
Topics:
A Sign of the Times (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for March (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
HIDDEN EMPIRE by Orson Scott Card (audiobook review
by Joe Karpierz)
Freshness Dates and Adapters (letter of comment
by Kip Williams)
Michio Kaku, THE WOMAN IN BLACK, and South Africa
(letter of comment by Gregory Benford)
This Week's Reading (CITY OF TINY LIGHTS and THE GENEALOGY OF
MORALS) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: A Sign of the Times (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I am a little sorry to see vulgarity become mainstream. You hear
people using vulgarities you never used to hear. We hear all sorts
of words that used to be considered very bad taste. I cannot say
which right here because the Void has to get through nanny filters
for some readers, but they are words like "sh*t" and "f*ck." I
listen to the news on National Public Radio and even they use words
like "turd" and "undie". And they seem to be siding with the Assad
regime in Syria. They were talking about fighting going on and
they used this peculiar epithet. They said that after some
fighting the rebels were, to use their childish expression, "undie-
turd." That is just gross. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for March (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
March is one of the better months on Turner Classic Movies.
The only film that Charles Laughton ever directed, unfortunately
because it is an atmospheric gem, was THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
(1955). He did a darn good job of directing it. The two children
of a convicted robber (Peter Graves) are given the loot by their
father. Robert Mitchum plays a fake preacher who will do what he
has to to get his hands on that money. In 1930s West Virginia
people love their preachers so much, nobody questions that Mitchum
might not be exactly what he seems. And that gives Mitchum free
reins do whatever he wants to stalk and terrorize the children.
One famous bit: he has "LOVE" tattooed on the knuckles of one hand
and "HATE" on the knuckles of the other and nothing impresses the
simple country people as the sermon where his LOVE-hand defeats his
HATE-hand. This sequence has become iconic. The film is based on
a novel by Davis Grubb who specialized in hill country gothic
horror. Mitchum makes your skin crawl just a little. There is one
other film where he does that, and TCM is running that film also.
In CAPE FEAR (1962) Mitchum plays Max Cady a relentless ex-con who
is determined to get revenge on the lawyer who helped put him in
prison. Gregory Peck plays the lawyer, but Mitchum steals the
show. The style of the film is really tense and it all comes from
Mitchum. The great Martin Scorsese made a remake, but should have
known better. He could not top the original CAPE FEAR. The film
is based on the novel THE EXECUTIONERS by crime and suspense
novelist John D. MacDonald. CAPE FEAR: [Tuesday, March 27, 8 PM]
NIGHT OF THE HUNTER: [Wednesday, March 28, Midnight]
PRETTY POISON (1968) is another film that like THE STUNT MAN--also
playing this month--is little known and deserves to be seen.
Anthony Perkins is a disturbed boy who lives in a world between
fantasy and reality. He is released from an institution to try to
function in the outside world and gets a job in a chemical factory
in a small town. There he gets the attention of a cheerleader who
is fascinated by him and his strange stories. She is looking for
excitement and she finds it with Perkins. But the strange
attraction will lead in dangerous directions. I do not want to say
too much, but it this is a nice little thriller. [Thursday, March
8, 10:15 PM]
THE WRONG BOX (1966) is a send=up of Victorian manners that is
genuinely very funny. Two brothers are the last surviving members
of a tontine--a lottery in which the last person alive takes the
whole kitty. The last person alive takes all. One brother decides
to do away with the other. A manic comedy of errors, farce,
chicanery, train wrecks, races against time, and serial killers
leads to comic chaos. Michael Caine, John Mills, Peter Sellers,
and Ralph Richardson star. There are some funny bits by Peter Cook
and Dudley Moore (who next month will star in their classic comedy
BEDAZZLED). Perhaps the funniest bit is carried off by Wilfred
Lawson as the butler Peacock. Sadly this film has never made it to
video in this country. The film was produced and directed by Bryan
Forbes. [Wednesday, March 14, 2:30 PM]
Two years earlier Forbes had produced and directed the very
different SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON. This is an engrossing and
atmospheric crime thriller about a self-proclaimed medium who wants
to prove her powers by having her husband kidnap a child so that
she can lead the police to the victim with her claimed second
sight. The film does not have any real supernatural elements, but
when Kiyoshi Kurosawa remade it in 2000 as SEANCE he added a ghost
to the story to please Japanese audiences. Kim Stanley got an
Academy Award nomination for her role as the fake psychic.
[Tuesday, March 20, 2:30 AM]
My pick of the month would have to be THE WRONG BOX, a film that
really is a comic masterpiece.
Other very notable films--March seems to have a lot of good films,
more than I could cover--CHARLY, DAMN THE DEFIANT, GET CARTER, LA
JETEE, KWAIDAN, LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, THE PASSWORD IS COURAGE,
PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, THE RIGHT STUFF, THE STUNT MAN, and TERROR IN A
TEXAS TOWN. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: By being less bizarre than SPIRITED AWAY and having more
of a human center to the film, THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY is one
of Studio Ghibli's best efforts to date. Adapting Mary Norton's
frequently filmed novel THE BORROWERS, director Hiromasa
Yonebayashi gives us a world in which tiny people live in the walls
of houses, borrowing food and tools and hiding from the big people.
The story deals with trust and loneliness as two people from very
different backgrounds and worlds learn to be friends and help each
other. The story seems deceptively simple, but there is a lot for
the viewer to think about. This is a very good film for adults and
for children. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler in the US version and Saoirse
Ronan in the UK version) lives with her two parents in a large
country house. They do not own the home, but the people who do own
it do not know of their existence. Arrietty's family lives by
stealing--oops, make that "borrowing"--food and supplies from the
people who live in the house. And what is stolen is very rarely
missed because their borrowings are small. It helps that they are
each are about four inches high. The little people live in the
walls of the house like mice, making their domain in dark corners,
in the inside of walls, and in the empty spaces under floorboards.
And in the house the only big people are an older woman and her
housekeeper. The little people go on big adventures getting the
little bits of food they need to sustain their lives. Things take
a turn when the owner's grandnephew Shawn comes to stay with his
great aunt. Almost immediately his sharp young eyes pick up the
movement in the bushes around the house and soon he becomes very
aware Arrietty's presence. To the little borrowers this is a
disaster. As soon as humans have discovered the existence of
little people in the past they have come into conflict and the
Borrowers usually do not survive. Borrowers hate and distrust the
full-sized people, whom they call "Beans" from "human beings".
Arrietty's parents, Pod (Will Arnett/Mark Strong) and Homily (Amy
Poehler/Olivia Colman), do not want Arrietty ever to come near to
Shawn for fear of discovery. But Shawn is lonely and really needs
a friend and Arrietty thinks she can befriend and trust this big
person. The ending of the film pretty much has to be the way it
is, but it is uncharacteristically melancholic for a family film.
THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY is the most recent American release
from Studio Ghibli (pronounced "ji-bu-ri," incidentally; it is the
Italian name for a hot wind from the desert). The best-known name
associated with Studio Ghibli is Hayao Miyazaki, director of
NAUSICAA, LAPUTA, TOTORO, KIKI, PORCO, ON YOUR MARK, MONONOKE HIME,
SEN TO CHIHIRO NO KAMIKAKUSHI (a.k.a. SPIRITED AWAY), and HOWL'S
MOVING CASTLE. (Your titles may vary.) This film was directed by
first-time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The screenplay was
written by Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa based on the oft-filmed novel
THE BORROWERS by Mary Norton. In fact, I think that this is one of
Ghibli's best efforts, in large part because the characters are
more likable and better developed. The theme is of two lonely
people who should distrust each other, but who want to let their
friendship overcome their differences. That is a fairly powerful
theme and is probably better than Studio Ghibli's best previous
effort SPIRITED AWAY, whose message was just one of self-reliance.
That theme is certainly part of THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY, but
there is much more to this story. The visual imagery is less
bizarre than that of SPIRITED AWAY, but the story is better founded
in more believable characters and more human drama. And this
script is actually far better than Miyazaki's most recent, PONYO.
As I said, the visual imagery is not as fantastical as was that of
SPIRITED AWAY. A somewhat more realistic style was used (if
showing the world of tiny people living in walls can be called
"realistic"). The filmmakers have created some clever machinery
used by the borrowers to move around the house to find food. I am
skeptical that the borrowers could have built the comfortable world
they have with the tools they had. But we viewers happily suspend
our disbelief.
Some of what we see seems to be inspired by images from THE
INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. The drawing style seems different and a
bit more defined when showing interiors from a dollhouse that
becomes important in the plot. The filmmakers have partially
looked at the physics of being tiny and living in a tiny world.
When pouring tea, it forms into large globules held together by
surface tension before falling. On the other hand humans and
borrowers talk to each other in normal sounding voices, something
that would not be possible with very tiny larynxes. Climbing ropes
for borrowers should be much easier than it appears due to the
square-cube law. Also there are inaccuracies due to the dubbing.
The story clearly takes place in Japan, but they have 1-800 numbers
on the telephone.
I assume that the three major characters were voiced by familiar
actors, but I recognized the name of only Carol Burnett. I do not
know if I have ever seen Will Arnett act, though he has done voices
in several animated films.
I just recently saw DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, another film with
a house with tiny people. But that film is made from the point of
view of big people. Rarely have we see this sort of story done in
which we really can see such a world from the tiny people's point
of view. The notable examples are THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and
now this film, but it is a perspective that allows us to see our
world in a new way. I rate THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY a +2 on
the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568921/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_secret_world_of_arrietty/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: HIDDEN EMPIRE by Orson Scott Card (copyright 2009, Macmillan
Audio copyright 2009, 10 hours and 13 minutes, narrated by Stefan
Rudnicki, Orson Scott Card, and Rusty Humphries) (audiobook review
by Joe Karpierz)
HIDDEN EMPIRE is the second book in the Empire "Duet". If you
remember, EMPIRE was based on a video game of the same name. I
don't know that HIDDEN EMPIRE is based on a video game. In fact,
I'm not quite sure what the motivation was for Card to write this
book. While it's an enjoyable read/listen, it's not up to the same
quality as the previous book in the duet. That book tells a
terrific story; this one is more preachy than story.
The story starts out in Nigeria with the beginnings of a new
epidemic, a "monkey sneezing virus". Chinma corrals a particular
type of monkey for scientific research. One day he finds a family
of these monkeys in a tree, but they are behaving oddly. Chinma's
brother is bitten by one of them monkeys, while Chinma is sneezed
upon. The brother dies a quick, horrible death. Thus, the outbreak
of a new strain of epidemic disease has begun.
Back in the United States, President Averell Torrent has taken firm
control of the country and both political parties. He is
charismatic and a good leader. And yet, Bartholomew Coleman, or
Cole, doesn't trust him. Torrent tries to contain the epidemic via
a quarantine. He sends Cole, along with Reuben Malich's old jeesh
with a cool set of souped-up armored suits, over to Nigeria to
handle the situation. Cole slowly learns that the jeesh doesn't
trust Torrent either, and that they have some very serious plans
for dealing with the situation.
In some ways, this story probably isn't much different from any
other story about epidemic outbreaks: initial outbreak and spread;
world reaction; volunteer workers who go to the sight of the
suffering to try and help out in any way they can, and eventual
resolution to many of the issues that come up. All doesn't
necessarily end up well, but that's the nature of these things.
However, this book really isn't about the epidemic. It's about one
man's presidency and how he manipulates world situations to make
himself and his country more powerful. It's a look at a man who
has a vision for his country and the will and determination to make
it happen. It's also about a man who compromises his morality in
order to gain power and make the country a better place. It's
about tradeoffs. And it's about the people that work for him
trying to make decisions about how they see the country being run
and how they think the country ought to be run.
However, it's also about Card being very, very preachy. Card uses
HIDDEN EMPIRE as a vehicle for his political leanings. There is a
lot of text that does nothing to advance the plot; instead, that
text advances Cards beliefs and opinions about world politics in a
way that *attempts* to move the story along. I understand that you
should write about what you know, and indeed including a bit of
politics and religion in a story is perfectly fine--in moderation.
This felt like I was being beaten over the head with it.
The book really doesn't come to that satisfying of a conclusion.
Yet another man must compromise his beliefs in order to serve his
president and his country. Indeed, I'm sure it happens more than
we'll ever know. And it's perfectly fine to use that in a novel.
But they way it was used was unsatisfactory to me.
Stefan Rudnicki once again did a terrific job narrating an "Empire"
book. I suspect that I would enjoy him reading other books as
well. Rusty Humphries as, apparently, himself, throws off the
actual narration a bit. I'd rather Rudnicki had read his parts.
Card appears at the beginning of each chapter, reading the words of
the president, but that's about it.
As the kids would say, "meh". [-jak]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Freshness Dates and Adapters (letter of comment by Kip
Williams)
In response to Mark's comments on ON THE BEACH in the 02/10/12
issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes:
Suicide pills with a use-by date, eh? I'll bet the government
would make them put labels all over them. "Caution! Read all
labels and follow all directions for a timely demise. Failure to
use these in the manner prescribed may result in failure to die!"
[-kw]
And in response to Evelyn's comments on electrical adapters in the
same issue, Kip writes:
We bought a laptop and a digital camera before going to China to
get our daughter, and I bought some adapters for the plugs. I
couldn't find an adapter for the voltage, though, and so we ended
up leaving the laptop at home and buying additional memory cards,
which ended up limiting the photos we could take, regrettably.
Later on I found out that the computer's own adapter was perfectly
able to handle the voltage change (and even said on it that it was
good for 110 to 220 volts, had I but looked). When we went back to
China, I brought the plug adapters I bought the last time, along
with an extension cord so I could multiplex, and most everything
worked fine. (Live; learn--both, if possible.) [-kw]
Evelyn responds:
I had considered bringing an extension cord, but all the cords we
had were rated for only 110 volts, not 220. You can buy higher
rated cords, but I figured it would be cheaper to buy a cord there
if we needed one. As it turned out, the only place we needed an
extension cord was in Victoria Falls, where Mark needed to request
one for his CPAP because there were no outlets by the bed. When we
asked the bellhop for one he was not sure what we wanted, but when
we said we needed to plug something in by the bed, he asked,
"Breathing machine?" I guess a lot of people have these now.
And all the electrical stuff we take now is dual-voltage. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Michio Kaku, THE WOMAN IN BLACK, and South Africa (letter
of comment by Gregory Benford)
In response to Greg Frederick's review of Michio Kaku's book in the
02/17/12 issue of the MT VOID, Gregory Benford writes:
Alas, though Michio Kaku is a good artificer, he's the one who led
the self-financed demonstrations against Cassini (for the nuclear
power source), to draw media attention and start his pop science
career. [-gb]
Mark responds:
I knew Kaku was something of a well-left-of-center political
activist in addition to everything else he is. I think it comes
with the territory for people on WBAI. [-mrl]
In response to Mark's comments on THE WOMAN IN BLACK in the same
issue, Gregory writes:
Saw WOMAN IN BLACK but the play seemed more effective. Liked the
ending, tho. [-gb]
Mark responds:
Well, the film ends abruptly. The play has a different ending and
you hear more of what happens after. The BBC TV version lies
somewhere in between with more after-story but not as much as the
play had. (Though admittedly my memories of the play could stand
some refreshing.) [-mrl]
And in response to Evelyn's comments on South African books in the
same issue (and earlier issues), Gregory writes:
Yes, liked your comments on South Africa, where I've not been. But
J. M. Coetzee you can ignore; he's much overrated. [-gb]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
CITY OF TINY LIGHTS by Patrick Neate (ISBN 978-1-59448-186-4) is
described as "Chandleresque noir". And to prove it, here is a
sample: "Problem is, the door of my shoebox flat opens right into
the waiting room of my matchbox office and I wasn't going to sit in
all day like some retired middle management with the complete works
of Gilbert and Sullivan on leatherette boxed set. Problem is, I
always leave the waiting room unlocked because mine's a shy kind of
business and you got to cajole clients in like you would a forkful
of Alphabetti Spaghetti into a reluctant Kid's mouth. Problem is,
my bedroom stank like a pub ashtray at chucking-out time and the
living room was just as bad so I needed to get out. It didn't
occur to me that this stink was oozing out of my pores like butter
through the holes in a cheese cracker."
Most of this is familiar to American readers, but add to it the
Cockney rhyming slang that Neate throws in ("Would you Adam and Eve
it?" for "Would you believe it?") and it becomes something that
takes a little longer to parse. (Actually, not all the British
slang is rhyming; for example, "a pony" is twenty-five pounds, and
a "tom" is a prostitute.) And our first person narrator is Tommy
Akhtar, a Ugandan-Indian-Muslim private eye, not quite the Philip
Marlowe type. The mystery is also patterned after those in
Chandler's novels, with twists and turns and interconnections.
Written for a British audience, this book had far more references
to, and *long* discussions of, cricket for my taste. Neate also
may have overdone the Chandleresque similes, and at times the
lectures from Farzad to Tommy, and Tommy's own philosophizing, are
a bit too much like hitting the reader over the head with Neate's
message. On the other hand, the combination of a foreign (to
American readers) setting with a genuine love of the English
language is likely to appeal to those who pick up this book.
I bought THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS by Friedrich Nietzsche (translated
by Horace B. Samuel) (ISBN 978-0-486-42691-4) in a "Dover Thrift
Edition" from amazon.com, because I was buying something for $23
and it was cheaper to buy this and get free shipping than to pay
for shipping. The good news is that they have provided additional
footnotes, probably those translating the Greek and Latin that had
been left un-translated in 1913. After all, anyone reading
Nietzsche then would be presumed to have an education that included
Greek and Latin.
Nietzsche has a reputation for anti-Semitism, which is accurate in
the sense that he blamed the Jews for the characteristics that he
felt had diminished European culture from the high level of the
Greeks and Romans. But almost all the characteristics are
Christian rather than Jewish: meekness, poverty, turning the other
cheek, forgiveness of one's enemies, etc. Nietzsche seems to see
"the Church" as the continuation of the Jewish moral code, when in
fact it was a major shift in direction. Another major difference
that Nietzsche does not seem to recognize is that the emphasis on
the afterlife is a Christian one--while Jews may speak of "the
world to come" it is not a major part of their theology. There is
no Jewish Dante writing up a detailed description of "the world to
come".
Nietzsche does point up a major philosophical issue that the
afterlife creates. No, not the idea that if one does good in this
life in hopes of heaven in the next, one is not being altruistic,
but rather is doing it for selfish reasons. Nietzsche's point is
that all the things people say are evil in this work--riches,
power, gloating over punishing one's enemies--are precisely those
that one will be given in heaven. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
To Thales the primary question was not 'What do
we know?' but 'How do we know it?'.
--Aristotle