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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 11/13/98 -- Vol. 17, No. 20
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2E-537 732-957-6330 robmitchell@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. The Denver Area
Science Fiction Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of
every month at Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URL of the week:
http://mimas.astro.washington.edu/balick/leonids98.html.
Information about the upcoming Leonid meteor shower. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. Is it true that the Macarena was invented by someone who was
not sure in which pocket he put his car keys? [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. I think it is time for the President to stand up and confess to
the American people. I think it has become very clear that Bill
Clinton looked the American people in the face and intentionally
lied to them. It is darn clear the President NEVER had sex with
that woman.
This whole thing was a frightfully devious scheme to entrap the
Republican Party and have precisely the effect on elections that it
had. Clinton knew darn well that the scandal-hungry Republicans
could not resist clamping onto this putative affair with a White
House intern. They had worked so hard on the Paula Jones fiasco
and Whitewater. Clinton just dangled a juicy White House affair on
a hook in front of them and they bit. I have never seen so clear a
case of entrapment in my life. Slick Willie waited until the
Global Economy was ill and then released the bait. So Clinton ends
up dealing with the real business of the President while the
Republicans are spending all their time sniffing out planted clues.
Just as soon as the Republicans leaked to the press a few alluring
tidbits they no longer had a choice. If they backed off, the
salacious public would demand to know more. And Starr would have
to provide more "findings" or look soft on Clinton. Clinton could
look Presidential ignoring Kenneth Starr and looking at world
issues. And nothing drives the Republicans madder than being
ignored. Clinton gets to tie up his opponents. Meanwhile Starr
was looking for the next planted piece of muck to rake. Starr
never knows he's working for the Democrats. The public looked to
him to provide more and more juicy details to read in bed, but do
not really respect Starr or his party in the morning. Meanwhile,
the plain-Jane Monica becomes the National Sex Symbol without ever
having to pose in the altogether.
It was a perfect ploy, and it worked like a well-oiled machine. It
even toppled Newt Gingrich, as if he really had a choice in
emphasizing the Lewinsky Affair or not. Now even if the
Republicans figure out what Clinton did to them, who are they going
to tell? [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. THE SIEGE (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: This film starts out like a police
action film and just keeps getting better.
Islamic fundamentalists of varying factions,
the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the
Army all struggle with each other for power
when terrorists target New York City. This is
a complex political thriller from Edward Zwick,
perhaps one of the best we have seen since the
1960s. Taut and well-directed. Zwick gets a
surprisingly good performance from Bruce Willis
as an enigmatic army general. Rating: 8 (0 to
10), +3 (-4 to +4)
Earlier this year when John Frankenheimer's RONIN was released I
was reflecting that it was a pity that nobody was making good
political thrillers like his THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and SEVEN
DAYS IN MAY. Now just a few weeks later I think I actually have
the thriller I would have hoped for from Frankenheimer, but it has
come instead from Edward Zwick who has directed such films as GLORY
and LEGENDS OF THE FALL. But he has not done a political thriller
since his excellent 1983 TV movie SPECIAL BULLETIN, also on the
subject of terrorism.
The nightmare that everyone has feared has finally come about.
Islamic fundamentalist terrorists want to force the hand of the
United States government when a militant religious leader is
kidnapped. The siege starts with a harmless paint bomb on a
cross-town bus and mysterious anonymous demands to "release him."
Anthony "Hub" Hubbard (played by Denzel Washington) is an FBI agent
working with an anti-terrorism unit of the New York City Police.
But the investigation leads him to the mysterious Elise Kraft
(Annette Bening). Kraft is working for the National Security
Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, also fighting
terrorists. Somehow she is not willing to be totally cooperative
with the FBI. Kraft, however, has contacts in the Islamic
community from her days spent in the Middle East. Hub needs her
contacts and is able to obtain her cooperation without her
confidence. While the CIA's goals may be the same as the FBI's,
their policies conflict and Hub is surprised how they are more
competitors than they are peers. Both of their approaches are
called into question when the terrorist acts turn violent and there
is more and more public pressure on the President to counter the
terrorists. The President declares a State of Emergency and calls
in the military.
Army General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis), a quiet intellectual
with a strong belief in civil liberty, cautions what a mistake
giving control to the Army would be. As he puts it, "The Army is a
broadsword, not a scalpel." But there is growing sentiment to do
something about the rising toll from the terrorist attacks and
martial law may be declared. Now there are three different
government factions superficially cooperating but each struggling
for power and pulling in its own direction. The issue becomes
whether to defend the people at the expense of their constitutional
rights, or to protect the rights at the expense of public safety.
Middle East foreign policy also comes into question in interesting
and morally ambiguous ways. While this is an action film, it never
sacrifices the intelligence of the background story. While some of
the moral issues do get resolved into a right and a wrong, most are
not resolved. The gray areas of the questions pose make THE SIEGE
more interesting than Zwick's last film. The much-lauded COURAGE
UNDER FIRE leaves little doubt at the end who is right and who is
wrong.
Denzel Washington plays a certain kind of role with real integrity.
But Hub Hubbard is essentially Nathaniel Serling from COURAGE UNDER
FILE or Hunter from CRIMSON TIDE. Washington's character of
Hubbard is not much of a stretch for him, and is as familiar and
pleasant as a McDonalds hamburger. I think of him as a better
actor than Bruce Willis, but that certainly is not true in THE
SIEGE. Bruce Willis's General William Devereaux is written as a
complex character and a man with conflicting attitudes and agendas.
Some will look at his as being a little stiff in this film but
underneath there are a lot of factions warring within this man.
There are a lot of surprises in Devereaux in this film and Willis
makes them believable without telegraphing them. Of the roles in
which I have seen Willis this performance is second only to the one
in IN COUNTRY. Annette Bening is also an enigmatic figure here.
Her alliances and past in the Middle East has obviously left her
very disturbed and both she and Willis outshine Washington.
There has been some discussion as to whether this film is unfair to
the Arabic community in this country. The filmmakers took
something of a chance placing the terrorists in a particular ethnic
community. It may not be for me to say, but the film has a balance
of positive and negative people from that community. It will be
interesting to see what protests result. This is a film that takes
some chances, but I think that the result is worthwhile. I give it
an 8 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
5. WHAT DREAMS MAY COME (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: Robin Williams plays a man who dies
and goes to an art gallery curator's idea of
heaven. He yearns to be reunited with his
wife, unfortunately still alive. Visually this
film is real jaw-dropper, one of the most
amazing visual films ever made, but the content
of the story is syrupy sweet and cloying.
Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 3 positive, 10 negative, 5
mixed
One of my favorite writers is Richard Matheson who represents to me
the Twilight Zone sort of fiction that I enjoyed so much when I was
growing up. His writing spans science fiction and horror; it spans
books, magazines, TV, and film work. Stephen King cites Matheson
as a very strong influence on his writing, and justifiably so.
Matheson is probably the major American writer to take horror and
move it from Transylvanian castles to places like American suburbs.
The only Matheson novel I have ever not liked was a horrible sugary
view of heaven called WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. At the time I read it
I had speculated that Matheson had recently lost a loved one and
had to get that death out of his system somehow. I assumed that
his way to do it was to write a novel that would give him comfort.
It did not do much for me. The novel has been published alone and
bound with a Matheson companion novel BID TIME RETURN, basis of the
film SOMEWHERE IN TIME. The two novels together form his
sentimental works.
One is pulled in two very different directions by WHAT DREAMS MAY
COME. The story is still the treacle that Matheson wrote. But the
visual imagery is spectacular to use a word that gets used too
often and should be reserved for a film like this. I have not seen
very many films done this beautifully in my life. Matheson's novel
has been transformed into a new Divine Comedy for our times. And
like the original "Divine Comedy" of Dante, the story is wretched
and the imagery is totally enchanting. (Okay, that is a personal
opinion on Dante).
Chris Nielsen (played by Robin Williams) and Annie Nielsen
(Annabella Sciorra) have more love in their lives than is really
safe to have. They love each other so much that it is almost
perverse. They also love 19th century painting. They love their
two children. They love their pet dog. But their marriage is
marked by tragedy. Death has claimed first their dog and then
their two children. Four years after an automobile accident has
claimed the two children physician Chris stops to be a Good
Samaritan in a traffic tunnel accident. In a flash he is the last
in a line deaths that Annie has had to face. But the point of
view is not Annie's but Chris's. He finds himself first in a
middle world where his ghost haunts Annie, then it moves on to
heaven. Chris is guided through the lands of death by a Virgil-
like angel figure named Albert (Cuba Gooding, Jr.).
And what a place heaven is! For Chris, heaven is in three
dimensions what a beautiful 19th century painting is in only two.
Everywhere he looks from every angle what he sees is a beautiful
painting. And who comes bounding up but his dog, no longer old and
feeble but young and vibrant. Chris loves heaven. The dog loves
heaven. Chris will be angelically happy here... at least for the
first two weeks. We get to see Chris's heaven, we get to see the
heaven of some other people. And Chris gets to work out his
problems. But then something happens. This something will lead
Chris on an adventure seeing more of this metaphysical world
including a visit to hell.
Vincent Ward, director of THE NAVIGATOR and MAP OF THE HUMAN HEART,
gets from both Robin Williams and from Annabella Sciorra
performances that are unselfconsciously unctuous. Cuba Gooding,
Jr. comes off as benevolent and dull. But then even the plot
twists are dull and have a "so-what?" feel about them. Max Von
Sydow adds a Bergman-esque touch appropriate to this world. (There
is one minor problem I can help the viewer through right now. When
there are references to the Nielsen's daughter, they are referring
to the younger child. Marie Nielsen, played by Jessica Brooks
Grant, is deceptively boyish looking but proves to be a girl.)
But then there are the visuals. And if you just turn off your mind
and look at the screen, all plot problems can easily be forgiven.
Most artistic visualizations of heaven are saccharine. People have
a natural interest in hell most visualizations of heaven are not
all that interesting. This film manages to make heaven almost as
interesting as hell... but in a different way.
It is really difficult to rate a film with such extremes of
quality. The story is nothing impressive, but some of the images
are breathtaking. On balance I have to rate it a 6 on the 0 to 10
scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
6. LIVING OUT LOUD (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: Two emotionally wounded people have an
off-kilter flirtation in a bittersweet comedy.
Holly Hunter plays a very confused divorcee
unable to cope with her changing world, and
Danny DeVito is a lonely elevator operator from
her building. The script meanders aimlessly
over the short distance it travels but the
characters are worth knowing. The story was
inspired by two stories by Anton Chekhov.
Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
Judith Nelson (played by Holly Hunter) is a very married woman at
the beginning of LIVING OUT LOUD. Having quit medical school and
become a nurse while her husband became a cardiologist, she has
wound her whole life around her husband like thread wound on a
spool. When he leaves her for another woman it is like removing
the spool. What remains is a confused and knotted jumble without
purpose or organization. She fantasizes a variety of crazy
thoughts including a suicide that will take her ex-husband and his
wife with her.
Meanwhile we also follow the story of Pat Francato (Danny DeVito),
a widower with a daughter who is very sick. He plays poker and has
gotten into trouble with loan sharks. He is the elevator operator
in Judith's apartment building and has taken an interest in her,
though he is painfully slow in getting around to talk to her. Pat
realizes that an attractive blond like Judith--uh, Holly Hunter is
a blond in this film--would not want a short bald man who is also
in trouble. He starts pulling his life together. Judith, on the
other hand, is a much weaker person and will have a much harder
time getting on with her life. It is not a romance that has much
of a chance. Judith needs some good advice and finds it in a blues
singer at Jasper's, her favorite nightclub. Liz Bailey, played
majestically by Queen Latifah, is a mother figure that Judith
desperately needs at this crisis in her life.
Richard LaGravenese wrote and directed LIVING OUT LOUD taking his
inspiration from two stories by Anton Chekhov, "The Kiss" and
"Misery." (The latter is available at
http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/ac/misery.htm.). I did not realize
that as I was watching the film but it explains a lot about the
style and pace of the film. Not much can be said to happen in the
LIVING OUT LOUD, which creates its characters, and then lets us
look at them almost affixed in one episode of their lives. When
one thinks of Hunter one first thinks of the supremely organized
women she played in films like BROADCAST NEWS or even RAISING
ARIZONA. Here she is almost the antithesis of that role. She is
capricious, flighty, and internally crumbling. Above all she is
self-destructive. It is really Hunter's film. We see a lot less
depth in DeVito who is can almost be summed up with the phrase
"nice guy." There is a great deal in this film that stretches the
viewer's credulity. Liz Bailey very quickly becomes a friend and
confidant of Judith. This seems particularly odd since Judith
seems frequently to be more a pest than an honored customer at
Jasper's. It even seems a little strange that Pat is interested in
Judith, who is obviously trouble.
LIVING OUT LOUD is long on character and short on plot. I rate it
a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-
mrl]
===================================================================
7. The 1998 Toronto International Film Festival (film reviews and
commentary by Mark R. Leeper) (part 6 of 8)
SIX-STRING SAMURAI (United States)
CAPSULE: In a post-holocaust world, a guy who dresses like Buddy
Holly and fights like Sanjuro struggles his way to "Lost Vegas"
where he will be "the King." No new ideas, no plot, just a string
of fights and music. Rating: 1 (0 to 10), -2 (-4 to +4)
- Directed by Lance Mungia. Starring Jeffery Falcon. Written
(if that is the right word) by Mungia and Falcon.
- The director claims to be a fan of Akira Kurosawa, and
imitates the fight scenes in some of his films fairly well.
But he has missed a very important aspect of Kurasowa'a work.
If you walk out of a Kurasowa film for ten minutes the plot
will have advanced and you will need to do something to catch
up. The plot of this film does not advance. If you walk out
of SIX-STRING SAMURAI for ten minutes, you will have missed no
plot complications beyond whom the title character is fighting
and you will enriched your life by ten minutes. I recommend
at least eight such absences during the course of the film.
- Alternate history in which the USSR defeated the US in a 1957
atomic war.
- Music is supplied by The Red Elvises who rely on doing rock
versions of classical Slavic music.
- Yet another film in which the props all seem to come from a
particularly impoverished junkyard. Costumes seem to be from
Good Will.
- Words don't fit characters' lips, as if incompetently redubbed
in the studio.
- If there was a nuclear war in 1957, where do the Eisenhower
dollars come from that one set of baddies are flipping?
09/15/98
The pace is starting to get to me. I got maybe five hours of sleep
and we are off again. Breakfast at McDonald's so that I could get
some protein and get moving. Maybe I will have something exotic
for dinner to make up for it.
I made a real fool of myself in line. I was trying to remember
what DOG PARK was about. That's right, I remember reading about
the documentary about dogs and dog owners. So when we were lining
up I mentioned that it was a lot of people to see a documentary
about dog owners in New York. Well, when you register for the
festival you see a lot of film descriptions in a short space of
time. And that documentary may have been on Public Television. In
any case...
DOG PARK (Canadian)
CAPSULE: Yet another comedy about the singles scene, dating, who is
going to have sex with whom, and what relationships are going to
last. This one is also about dog owners and a dog psychologist and
obedience trainer. Nothing in this film is heavier than a cocker
spaniel. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), 1 (-4 to +4)
- Bruce McCulloch wrote and directed as well as having a role.
- Luke Wilson plays Andy, a man who has just broken up with his
girlfriend and is again looking for someone to share his life.
In a singles bar he meets Lorna (Natasha Henstridge) whose job
is being Miss Bookworm on children's television. He is
interested in her, but in part because of a friend's
philosophizing she is not interested in him. "People should
provide you with romantic resumes." From the start we know
they are perfect for each other. Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da.
- There is also some titillation in liberal doses of sex scenes.
This too is part of the formula.
- Being about singles and dogs, of course, it has Janeane
Garofalo.
- Janeane Garofalo plays a friend of Andy, part of a "perfect
couple."
- These people don't know what they want and end up being stupid
and hurting each other.
- Some of the best humor is from the absurdity of the dog
psychologist played by "Kids in the Hall" alumni Mark
McKinney.
- When the story gets slow they bring a dog on-stage. Dogs are
natural entertainers. That's why they were domesticated in
the first place.
IN THE WINTER DARK (Australian)
CAPSULE: In an isolated part of the Australian outback a mysterious
creature is preying on farm animals. An older farmer leads four
local people into a journey of their inner fears as they try to
find the source of the animal mutilations. Dark is indeed this
story of natural and unnatural evils. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), 2 (-4
to +4)
- Directed by James Bogle who co-wrote the screenplay.
- Four people are living in this remote region of the outback:
Morris and Ida, an older farmer who has seen his share of evil
done by nature and his strange wife. Then there is Murray
Jacob, an inexperienced farmer. Finally there is Ronnie, a
semi-hippie from the city whose husband has abandoned her.
- Based on a novel by popular Australian novelist Tim Winton.
- The film was five years in the making, made for three million
Australian dollars-something like one and a half million
American dollars.
- Ida is played by Brenda Blethyn of SECRETS AND LIES.
- Moody photography. Score by Peter Cobbin long on ominous
strings.
- Morris finds what may be a footprint of the beast, but this as
almost everything else is ambiguous.
- Morris and Ida lost a child to some unknown animal.
- Could be one animal or coincidence and several animals.
- Nature is a force to be feared, not a benevolent being.
- Tension under the surface of people dealing with each other.
- Everyone drinks for recreation.
- Morris to Ronnie in labor: "You can't have that baby right
now. You have to wait for the authorities."
- Some echoes of Moby Dick.
I joined Kate for AT SACHEM FARM.
AT SACHEM FARM (United States)
CAPSULE: Well-produced, well-directed, but a fairly weak theme.
This is a film that tells you that you can be everything you want
to be if you just decide to be true to yourself and if you happen
to have a lot of money. Rufus Sewell, Minnie Driver, and Nigel
Hawthorne star. The film is competently made but the story is
muddled. Rating: 4 (0 to 10), 0 (-4 to +4)
- The story deals with an extremely wealthy British family who
own a fantastic farm out somewhere in the American West. Ross
(Rufus Sewell) is fairly normal and is trying to sell off the
family's wine stock in order to buy a local manganese mine and
get his own fortune. His brother has gone off to live in the
woods. Uncle Cullen (Nigel Hawthorne) dresses in Eastern
robes and has plans to live at the top of a column like the
hermit St. Simeon. Living all around the farm are eccentrics.
Coming to visit is Ross's wealthy girlfriend Kendal (Minnie
Driver) and her friend Laurie (Amelia Heine).
- Written and directed by John Huddles, who does not make very
clear what he is driving at.
- Apparently trying to go for the same sort of audience as
HAROLD AND MAUDE, but the deep meanings all seem to fall flat.
- Tone of the film begins madcap, but it becomes serious before
long. Different people try to reach the top of Uncle Cullen's
column in different ways.
- Pleasant photography of the farm only underscores the wealth
of the family and hence undercuts the theme. Would you and I
have the same set of options? There were a few errors in the
photography and parts of scenes that go out of focus.
- Some scenes seem to go on and on.
- This should be a G-rated script.
Following that we went to dinner. The place we chose was Ginger
for Vietnamese cuisine, mostly noodle dishes.
The Air Canada strike is over. Now people can stop hissing the Air
Canada ads. (P.S. They didn't stop.)
At this point we had put is a pretty hard day. We could have
continued at the pace, but you need to take a breather sometime.
We decided to say "forget it" and just to go out to a movie.
[to be continued] [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com