THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
04/27/12 -- Vol. 30, No. 44, Whole Number 1699
Rhett: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Scarlett: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Triangle Question (puzzle by Mark R. Leeper)
Hundred Best Horror Films (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Hugo Nominees Available On-Line
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for May (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
WORLD ON A WIRE (WELT AM DRAHT) (1973) (film comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (1958) (film retrospective
by Mark R. Leeper)
Counting Countries (letter of comment by Gregory Benford)
Language Creep (letter of comment by Tom Russell)
This Week's Reading (TWENTY THIRTY, ON CONAN DOYLE,
HEARTS OF IRON, CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER,
and THE TIME SELLER) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Triangle Question (puzzle by Mark R. Leeper)
This problem came up on a podcast. Which triangle has the greater
area, one whose sides are of length 10, 10, and 12 or one whose
sides are 10, 10, and 16? Prove your answer.
I will publish the names of all who send me correct solutions by
the end of the month. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Hundred Best Horror Films (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
"Timeout London" has put together their own list of the hundred
best horror films.
Don't take it as Gospel, but it may make some suggestions for films
people want to look for.
http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/2494/best-horror-films
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo Nominees Available On-Line
Most of the short fiction nominees are available free on-line; a
few others are available cheaply. Links can be found at:
https://www.worldswithoutend.com/blog.asp?view=plink&id…1
(novellas)
https://www.worldswithoutend.com/blog.asp?view=plink&idƒ9
(novelettes)
https://www.worldswithoutend.com/blog.asp?view=plink&idƒ0
(short stories)
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for May (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
We are now moving into May and it is time for me to be making
recommendations for what films people might want to look for on
Turner Classic Movies. Ideally I want to be pointing out good
films that the reader may have never seen or even heard of. May is
another of these months that there are good films I can point to
and there are little known films I can point to but there is not a
whole lot of overlap I know of. Films that I would consider to be
buried treasure are a bit thin on the ground.
Well, the most important film of the month is SPARTACUS. It is a
very well made film about the Third Servile Revolt against Rome in
73-71 B.C. Directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas,
it would probably be the best of the historical epics about ancient
Rome even if it had no particular political importance. In fact,
it was one of the most politically influential films in history.
The darkest chapter of the American entertainment industry was the
years of the Hollywood blacklist. People accused of disloyalty to
the government could not confront their accusers, but would
suddenly find that nobody would hire them. Careers were destroyed
by innuendo. One blacklisted writer was Dalton Trumbo. Before the
years of the blacklist he was a successful screenwriter, but when
his name appeared on the blacklist he could submit only very few
scripts and then only under pseudonyms. Then in 1960 SPARTACUS was
released with screen credit given to Trumbo under his own name.
Kirk Douglas willfully ignored the blacklist insisting that
Trumbo's name appear in the credits in type no smaller than his own
name. When there was no fuss from the public, it was generally
acknowledged that the blacklist was dead. But as star and producer
Douglas had taken a real risk of having his career destroyed. The
film has an intelligent script and excellent cast with Douglas,
Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, and particularly good performances
from both Peter Ustinov and Charles Laughton. (The latter two are
rumored to have hated each other with a passion, but while each is
good playing by himself, they are really wonderful playing together
toward the end of the film.) [Wednesday, May 9, 3:15 AM]
It should be noted that that same day, May 9, TCM is running on the
theme of Robin Hood. I do not recommend any of the films as being
particularly good in itself, but it might be interesting to see how
different directors handle the same basic story. Here is what is
running:
6:45 AM Red River Robin Hood (1943)
8:00 AM Robin Hood of El Dorado, The (1936)
9:30 AM Robin And The 7 Hoods (1964)
11:45 AM Challenge For Robin Hood, A (1968)
1:30 PM Adventures of Robin Hood, The (1938)
3:30 PM Bandit of Sherwood Forest, The (1946)
5:00 PM Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950)
6:30 PM Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960)
The first three are not really about Robin Hood. They are just
about people who are sort of latter day kindred spirits to Robin
Hood. The first two are Westerns I have not seen. The third is a
gangster film made by the so-called "Sinatra Rat Pack". I have not
seen the film since it played in theaters, which would have been
1964. Sinatra fans might like it and it does have Peter Falk.
After that TCM gets to the real Robin Hood films. Years ago when
ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES with Kevin Costner came out I
complained that it was a long way from the original story. I
discovered a lot of people did not know that there really is a
specific original story to be faithful to. The story of Robin Hood
really comes from a series of ballads from the late Middle Ages.
They have been collected and together they constitute a canonical
piece of folklore. Incidentally, originally they did not have a
Maid Marian or a Friar Tuck. Those two characters are a later
invention. But the Costner film even had the conflicts between the
wrong people and did things like bringing Islam into the story.
There probably are no really good Robin Hood films, but they are
mostly entertaining. They finish with SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST, a
Hammer film directed by Terence Fisher and starring Richard Greene
(who also played Robin Hood in the popular television series).
Also starring are Peter Cushing as the evil Sherriff, Oliver Reed,
and Edwin Richfield--all familiar to Hammer fans. Also Nigel
Green, Niall MacGinnis, and Jack Gwillim. Not a great film, but a
good one for Hammer completists. This was actually Hammer's second
Robin Hood film having done THE MEN OF SHERWOOD FOREST six years
earlier. The script is by the unfortunately named Alan Hackney.
Other films, not really obscure, that I can recommend are THE
LADYKILLERS (1955) and THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951). Each is an
Ealing Comedy starring Alec Guinness. They will be shown Friday
May 4 at 7:45 and 9:30 respectively. The comedies from Ealing
Studios are classics. And if you want very funny English comedies,
BEDAZZLED (1967) and THE WRONG BOX (1966) are two of the funniest
films I have ever seen. They run respectively at 8 PM and 10 PM on
Friday, May 11. At midnight they follow with THE BED SITTING ROOM
which may work for you if you were a fan of "The Goon Show" and its
style of humor, but even then don't count on it.
Also fairly witty is a sort of tongue-in-cheek take on film noir
there is HIS KIND OF WOMAN with a very strange turn for over-the-
top an actor played by Vincent Price and Raymond Burr as a villain.
This one is worth checking out. [Monday, May 7, 12:30 PM]
Films that may be of interest to B-movie Podcast fans include GANJA
AND HESS [Saturday, May 19, 2 AM], THEY LIVE [Saturday, May 5, 2
AM], and I BURY THE LIVING [Wednesday, May 2, 3:30 PM]. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: WORLD ON A WIRE (WELT AM DRAHT) (1973) (film comments by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
SPOILER WARNING!
In 1954, Daniel F. Galouye wrote SIMULACRON-3, and in 1999 Roland
Emmerich made it into the film THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR. This received
less notice than it might otherwise have, because it followed close
on the heels of THE MATRIX and EXISTENZ. But an earlier adaptation
of the same book, WORLD ON A WIRE (1973), got even less notice.
WORLD ON A WIRE was made by Rainer Werner Fassbinder for German
television. It may well be the first of the "Dickian" films, pre-
dating all of Philip K. Dick's films (BLADERUNNER [1982] being the
first) and all the films not based on Dick's work that seem to have
many of the same themes. It is based on a 1953 novel, of course,
and most of Dick's writings post-date that as well. (Does this
mean that Dick was inspired by Galouye? Who knows?)
Fassbinder does a lot with his visuals: lighting, set design, art
design, ... It seems as though almost every scene either features
mirrors prominently (often with the characters shown reflected in
them, creating that second-level, non-physical world), or through
glass (again setting the characters apart from our world).
Frequently there is a distortion of images because of the glass and
the reflections, especially through the use of irregular surfaces.
Often the effect looks like the artwork of Gustav Klimt, and on
occasion some of the fabrics seem to have patterns similar to those
found in Klimt.
There is some similarity to Frederik Pohl's "The Tunnel Under the
World", particularly in the application of the simulacrum to
predicting consumer trends. (THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR dropped a lot of
that aspect.) But in "The Tunnel Under the World", the
"simulacrum" is not a simulacrum, but a miniature world with a
physical reality.
(This is not to be confused with the 1953 "Hallmark Hall of Fame"
production "World on a Wire", which is about Samuel B. Morse.)
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (1958) (film retrospective
by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Czech animator Karel Zeman, nearly forgotten now, was a
genius of the animated film. Here, as his masterwork, he adapts a
lesser novel by Jules Verne into a highly creative screen
adventure. Showing great imagination on a tiny budget Zeman
emulates the look of the lithographs of Verne's early editions and
makes his film a pioneer in the style that since has been dubbed
"steampunk". Even though the style is satirical it is also loving
and the film still has the power to captivate the viewer. Rating:
+3 (-4 to +4) or 9/10
Karel Zeman was one of the leading Czech animators with a career
from the 1940s to the 1980s, but his prime was in the 1950s and
1960s when he made films like JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME
(1955), THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (1958), BARON MUNCHAUSEN
(1962) and THE STOLEN AIRSHIP (1966). His animation is punctuated
with impish humor. It is claimed that Zeman was inspired and
influenced by Georges Méliès. But his own work was later much
imitated by Terry Gilliam and even Tim Burton. For THE FABULOUS
WORLD OF JULES VERNE he illustrated a Verne novel with animation in
the style of the Edouard Riou illustrations of Verne. The Riou
illustrations were as closely associated with the Verne narratives
as Tenniel's illustrations were for ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Riou was
a student of great illustrator Gustave Dore, and the early editions
of Jules Verne's novels featured lithographic illustrations by
Edouard Riou. Throughout the film Zeman brings to life the Riou
illustrations. In the Verne-like technology in the detail to show
us detail to the steel plate and rivets. Shades of gray will be
produced by lines of white and black as would be done in
lithographs.
The film claims to have been shot in a process dubbed "Mysti-
mation". This appears to be a process that involves mixing live-
action, animation, model work, puppets, stop-motion, and whatever
it takes to put an image on the screen. If the blend is not
entirely successful that becomes part of the joke. Zeman gives the
viewers the impression he is winking at them and offering a
conspiracy that neither will notice the rough edges. And this
viewer for one readily agreed.
The time is the world of Verne's novels, one with a world obsessed
with the miracles of science. The story starts with the main
character, one Simon Hart, traveling to visit the genius Professor
Roch. On his way he marvels at the then-modern wonders of science,
mostly taken from Verne novels. The effect is a symphony of steam
and steel. There are bicycle-like flying machines, submarines and
ships floating, huge train engines. The flying clipper Albatross
flies over Hart's head and Hart is impressed. The land, the sky,
and the water are filled with marvelous inventions of the modern
age.
Roch, the professor, lives on an isolated and well-protected island
where he is creating a new and highly powerful explosive. Unknown
to either the main character or Roch there are evil men plotting to
assault the island fortress, kidnap the professor, and steal the
secret of the explosive. They do and hart finds himself taken with
Roch. Behind it all is a villain with huge resources, Count
Artigas. Artigas has his own arsenal of very modern weapons
including a submarine that he uses to sink ships that are his
victims. Unable to steal Roch's science, he steals Roch and forces
the scientist to develop weapons for him.
Hart and Roch are taken to an even more isolated lab on a remote
and supposedly volcanic island. But the volcano is dormant. The
smoke that seems to come from it is really from the man-made
manufacturing plant within the volcano's crater. Can Hart and Roch
escape?
While all this is really based on an actual, though obscure, novel
by Verne, one can see a great deal of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
and other more familiar Verne stories as well as other Verne works
pulled into the story. Much of the tale is narrated which helps
keep down the amount of dubbing needed. The story is somewhat
rudimentary, but it is the visuals that are the chief attraction.
The plot is not as interesting as the retro-futuristic background.
Zeman creates his effect any way possible and does not worry about
preserving realism of scenes. In one sequence a pirate ropes a
man. The rope winds around the man in perfect uniform rows. The
viewer is fully aware that actor was wrapped very smoothly with the
rope, it is pulled off, and then the film is run backward. But
Zeman knows the effect will be fun and does not try to be
convincing. His style remains tongue-in-cheek and whimsical
throughout.
There is a totally superfluous prolog to the film by NBC game show
host and newsman Hugh Downs. Downs, from his 1961 vantage point,
reminds us how far science has come from Verne's day and how much
of the then-modern world was the fulfillment of Verne's visions.
Perhaps that was inspired by Edward R. Murrow's prologue to AROUND
THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1956).
It should be noted that this is one of Joseph E. Levine's foreign
film discoveries. Levine was a film producer himself, being
responsible for films like THE CARPETBAGGERS, A BRIDGE TOO FAR, THE
GRADUATE, and ZULU. But he also would find foreign films that were
then not likely to be released in the US and would arrange a US
release. He did this with GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS; HERCULES
(1958); JACK THE RIPPER (1959); MORGAN THE PIRATE; and SANTA CLAUS
CONQUERS THE MARTIANS.
For a film made so far in advance of computer imaging and digital
special effects, this film goes a long way to create the mood of
Jules Verne's stories. It does that perhaps better than any other
film has ever done. I rate THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE a +3
on the -4 to +4 scale or 9/10.
THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE is available on YouTube. Part 1
is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa6JMMItTcs. At the end of each
part you can link to the next.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052374/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fabulous_world_of_jules_verne/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Counting Countries (letter of comment by Gregory Benford)
In response to Evelyn's comments on counting countries in the
03/30/12 issue of the MT VOID, Gregory Benford writes:
On countries: even if the UK is one "country" it's a small area. I
prefer to use the UN register of countries, which are more than two
hundred now. I've now been to sixty, returning this week from
Panama & Costa Rica.
That fraction, ~30%, is most of the best, methinks. [-gb]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Language Creep (letter of comment by Tom Russell)
In response to Mark's comments on language creep in the 04/20/12
issue of the MT VOID, Tom Russell writes:
Local supermarket LESS THAN TEN ITEMS checkout lanes
Freehold Burger King sign: TRY ARE FRIES
[-tr]
Evelyn notes that the BBC covered this same topic this week in:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17762034.
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Geoff Ryman's Mundane Manifesto (described in the 12/30/11 issue of
the MT VOID) calls on science fiction writers to eschew
impossibilities such as interstellar empires, time travel, etc.,
and replace these with:
"A new focus on human beings: their science, technology,
culture, politics, religions, individual characters, needs, dreams,
hopes, and failings.
The awakening bedazzlement and wonder that awaits us as we
contemplate the beauties of this Earth and its people and what will
happen to them in time.
The relief of focusing on what science tells us is likely
rather than what is almost impossible such as warp drives. The
relief will come from a sense of being honest."
TWENTY THIRTY by Albert Brooks (ISBN 978-0-312-58372-9) should warm
the cockles of Ryman's heart. The problem is that it does focus on
what is possible, indeed probable. And what is this? Well, the
United States has dug itself into an even deeper debt hole.
Because senior citizens are living longer, they are draining the
resources of their children (and everyone else). The health care
situation has gotten even worse, and if your health insurance
lapses, even the simplest procedure can cost you a fortune. And
then Los Angeles is hit by a 9.1 earthquake.
The only problem is that this scenario, while possible and even
likely in many aspects, pretty much destroys "the awakening
bedazzlement and wonder that awaits us as we contemplate the
beauties of this Earth and its people and what will happen to them
in time." Or as someone asks in the (much overlooked) film SLEEP
DEALER, "Is our future a thing of the past?"
However, as a science fiction novel, this is one of the best I have
read recently. Depressing as hell, but good. Will it make the
Hugo ballot? I figure it has about as much chance as the
proverbial snowball.
(Coincidentally, right after I finished TWENTY THIRTY, I ran across
an article, "The War Against Youth" by Stephen Marche (at
http://tinyurl.com/void-youth-war, which covers a lot of the
issues Brooks is writing about.)
Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and columnist, and
very much known in mainstream circles. So it is a delightful
surprise to discover that ON CONAN DOYLE by Michael Dirda (ISBN
978-0-691-15135-9) begins with the sentence: "Sometime in the mid-
1990s I was lucky enough to interview Robert Madle, a dealer in
science fiction and fantasy pulp magazines, as well as a member of
First Fandom, the now much-diminished group--never large--of those
piply teens who attended the inaugural 1939 World Science Fiction
Convention." How often does one see a mainstream critic who knows
about Robert Madle, First Fandom, or even the World Science Fiction
Convention, and is willing to admit it, and write about them?
This is not a biography of Doyle, but rather a series of essays
about various aspects of Doyle and his writing. Dirda is a fan,
both of Doyle and of "boys'" fiction in general. He talks lovingly
of buying books through a school book club in the late 1950s, of
discovering G. K. Chesterton in the "Junior Catholic Messenger" and
Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu in Hills Department Store.
And every book collector can identify with his early discovery,
"Little did I know then that book collecting is less about
acquiring books than about finding the shelf space to store them."
This is a wonderful book for lovers of Sherlock Holmes, and of
books in general.
HEARTS OF IRON by Ekaterina Sedia (ISBN 978-1-60701-257-3) is an
alternate history novel that has actual plot (i.e., something other
than troop movements); actual characters; a society that exists
several years after a definable change in history; a beginning, a
middle, and an end, all in one volume; ... excuse me, this has me
so flustered I have to go lie down for a moment.
Well, I suppose that is an exaggeration but, truly, so many
alternate history novels these days either are part of a trilogy
(or even longer series) rather than a self-contained story, or
focus so heavily on military planning and troop movements that they
completely ignore the society as a whole. Even the portrayal of
civilians is mostly in terms of interacting with the military. The
rest seem to be societies (usually steampunk) that have some
similarity to our own, but no well-defined point of divergence from
our time stream. Rather, there is a sort of hand-waving "society
developed along more steampunk lines" explanation, which is to say
no explanation at all. (The same is true of "everything is the
same except Queen Victoria is a vampire" or "everything is the same
except there is a zombie invasion.") Ironically, one finds more
classical alternate histories in short fiction.
Anyway, in HEARTS OF IRON, the Decembrists succeeded in 1825, and
Russia is now more advanced than it was in our time stream. The
plot concerns the power struggle among Eurasia's great powers:
England, Russia, and China. That Sedia chose a point of divergence
not usually used (the only other example I know of is a Russian
story), and that her publisher was willing to publish an alternate
history not only not focused on World War II or the American Civil
War, but not even on the United States, is a bright light in an
often-dark landscape of alternate history.
(I do have a minor quibble. The plot involves a woman disguising
herself as a man for a period of time at least a few weeks long.
Sedia does the same thing every author who uses this device does--
completely ignores how the woman deals with menstruation. It would
be difficult enough now, with disposable hygiene products, but in
19th century Russia--even an advanced 19th century Russia--trying
to conceal this from traveling companions (given the less than
private accommodations of the time) would be extremely problematic.
I have come to expect this from male authors, but to see it from a
female author is surprising.)
What can you say about someone who read CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH
OPIUM-EATER by Thomas De Quincey (ISBN 978-0-486-28742-3) and finds
the most interesting part De Quincey's description of his library?
"Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve, and not more than
seven and a half feet high. ... Of [books], I have about five
thousand, collected gradually since my eighteenth year. Therefore,
painter, put as many as you can into this room." Okay, the
perimeter of the room is (17*2)+(12*2), or 58 feet. There has to
be at least one door, and he mentions a fireplace, so let's assume
50 running feet for ease of computation. Seven and a half feet
high is 90 inches; if we assume each shelf is 9 inches high
(including the shelf itself), that leaves room for 10 shelves,
giving us 500 feet of shelving at most. 5000 books in that room
would imply 10 books per foot. According to a librarian friend,
the rule of thumb today is 25 books for each three feet of shelving
(the standard library shelf), or about 8 per foot. (For
paperbacks, it is 45 per three feet, but De Quincey had no
paperbacks.) I suppose it is possible that there were a higher
percentage of thinner books back then, but it still seems that
putting 5000 books in the space specified would be a problem.
THE TIME SELLER by Fernando Trias de Bes (read by Kerin McCue)
(ISBN 978-0-787-98838-8, audiobook ISBN 978-1-428-12696-1) is a
satire which feels like science fiction, though there is not
anything in it that is science fictional. (In this regard, it is a
lot like China Mieville's THE CITY & THE CITY.) Our protagonist,
AG ("Average Guy"), lives in the Unnamed Settled Area and works for
IBN ("International Business Nonsense"). (The abbreviation for
Unnamed Settled Area is never explicitly used.) AG is trying to
find some way to make more money, at least enough to cover his
mortgage payments. But he never seems to have enough time. And
then he realizes that is the solution--sell people time. He starts
with five-minute vials of time, but eventually sells larger and
larger containers. No matter how much he sells, people want more.
Don't have enough time to enjoy your morning coffee. Just open a
half-hour can at work and you have a half hour to drink your
coffee, put your feet up, and in fact do whatever you want. This
is the sort of premise that does not bear close examination, and
the book is best read as a commentary on our hectic lifestyle than
as a serious science fictional premise. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The only difference between a wise man and a fool
is that the wise man knows he's playing.
--Fritz Peris