THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/02/15 -- Vol. 33, No. 27, Whole Number 1839
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Philcon 2009 and 2010 Con Reports Available (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Give It Up for Science (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
De-Cluttering (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Mini-Reviews of 2014 Films (IVORY TOWER, FRANK,
HAPPY CHRISTMAS, HONEYMOON, FILTH, LIFE PARTNERS,
THE DOUBLE, and NYMPHOMANIAC (I and II)) (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
THE IMITATION GAME (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
BIRDMAN (film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Fall 2014 SF TV Reviews (ASCENSION, HAVEN, SLEEPY HOLLOW,
GOTHAM, FOREVER, SCORPION, SHIELD, VAMPIRE DIARIES,
ORIGINALS, SUPERNATURAL, FLASH, ARROW, CONSTANTINE,
THE MENTALIST, Z NATION, THE 100) (television reviews
by Dale L. Skran)
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES and Evolution (letter of comment
by Taras Wolansky)
Spacecraft News (letter of comment by Dan Cox)
This Week's Reading (WAR AND PEACE) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Philcon 2009 and 2010 Con Reports Available (comments by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
In my Philcon catch-up, I have finished the 2009 and 2010 reports:
http://www.leepers.us/evelyn/conventions/phil09.htm
http://www.leepers.us/evelyn/conventions/phil10.htm
Also, the 2008 report is now also at
http://fanac.org/Other_Cons/PhilCon/q08-rpt.html.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Give It Up for Science (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
People are all upset that Pluto lost its status as a planet. I
don't hear anyone complaining that dinosaurs like the fierce
Tyrannosaurus, the star of many people's most enjoyable nightmares,
was probably downy and feathered. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: De-Cluttering (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Marie Kondo is known for her "de-cluttering" method, which involves
getting rid of everything that "does not give you joy." But what
do you do when none of the clothes that give you joy fit, and none
of the clothes that fit give you joy? [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Mini-Reviews of 2014 Films, Part 2 (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
As promised I have more short reviews of recent and upcoming film
releases. These are films I have been asked to consider for awards
from the Online Film Critics Society. By their nature most of
these films will be unfamiliar to the readers. Anyone wanting help
in finding some of these films can contact me for help. I cannot
swear I can find the film for you, but I may well have places I can
look.
IVORY TOWER
This is a strong argument that the education system is in serious
trouble. The cost of education tuition has escalated at a terrible
rate. Student loan debt has passed the trillion-dollar point and
is higher than credit card debt. Education has become fabulously
expensive. There seems to be enough fault to go around to
teachers, students, and schools. The situation is presented and
then various alternatives to the education system are presented.
For example, Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow free
tuition for online courses. However, each alternative seems to have
large drawbacks. In the end there is no single solution that the
film can get behind. The film is just a heads-up on the
seriousness of the problem. Rating: high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale
or 8/10.
FRANK
Jon, a young man who is sort of a non-entity but who loves music
gets a chance to join an avant-garde band led by the mysterious
Frank, a music genius (it is claimed) who constantly keeps his
appearance hidden in a large false head. The group has constant
conflicts, generally started by Frank's girl friend Clara (Maggie
Gyllenhaal). Not being a fan of this sort of music I could not
tell what was good and what wasn't. The film did little for me.
Rating: low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 5/10.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS
This film is not nearly as thrill-packed as the title suggests it
is. Done in a mumble-core style, most scenes do not seem to
advance the plot at all. I kept getting to the ends of scenes
wondering why that scene was even recorded. I watched only the
first half hour and most of that opening is mind numbingly banal.
This film is not recommended. Rating: high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale
or 5/10.
HONEYMOON [spoiler]
A young couple (played by Harry Treadaway and Rose Lsslie) goes on
a honeymoon in deep woods on a lake. The wife acts more and more
strangely as time goes by. The range of viewers' possible guesses
for an explanation of what we see happening get narrower and
narrower. First it must be being done to the newlyweds. Then the
wife must be part of the conspiracy. Then it must be happening in
someone's head and it is perhaps just a dream. Finally we get down
to it must be something science-fictional. Then the film goes all
incoherent. Enjoy. Rating: 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10.
FILTH
The title tells a lot about the film. James McAvoy stars as the
ultimate corrupt policeman. Detective Bruce Robertson mostly takes
drugs and coerces women to have sex with him. He is competing with
his fellow police for a promotion fighting dirty as only he can.
At the same time he is investigating a murder by bullying anyone
whom he thinks can help him. The film is presented as a comedy but
is repetitive and not particularly funny. Rating: 0 on the -4 to
+4 scale or 4/10.
LIFE PARTNERS
Seinfeld made it acceptable in comedy to tell a very minimalist
plot and to pad the film out with witty dialog. That works but the
dialog has to be very, very good. Having quirky characters the
audience knows helps a lot. If you cannot make the dialog really
compelling, serious or funny, this approach is not recommended.
Two very close girlfriends are not interested in romance with boys
because their relationship with each other means more to them.
Then one gets interested in a nerdy man. Will this destroy the two
girls' relationship? The dialog is cute but does not power the
film. Rating: 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10.
THE DOUBLE
This is a very strange and very dark comedy based on a story by
Dostoevsky, but it feels more like Kafka or BRAZIL. A young man
works for a company determined to de-humanize him. Then the
company hires a man who looks like an identical twin and he is
treated lovingly by the company. As time goes on, everything only
becomes stranger. The film just keeps getting more surreal.
BRAZIL may not have had a happy ending, but it was an ending. THE
DOUBLE does not really have an ending. It fades off to obscurity.
Rating: high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
NYMPHOMANIAC (I and II)
A man (Stellan Skarsgard) finds a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who
has been badly beaten, and he brings her home to care for her. She
claims to have had sex with thousands of men and tells the story of
her life to the man who rescued her. The man listens to her story
and ties up what she is saying with analogies to fly fishing, James
Bond films, Edgar Allan Poe stories, etc. Written and directed by
Lars Von Trier, the film features graphic sex in many of its forms
as will as S&M. The writer is often pretentious and heavily into
metaphoric pronouncements. The film is four hours long and is
being released cut in two pieces at the halfway point. Rating:
high 1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE IMITATION GAME (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Benedict Cumberbatch, one of the busiest actors in
filmmaking, turns in a bravura performance as computer theoretician
and code-breaker Alan J. Turing who broke the Nazi Germany military
Enigma code and later was persecuted by the British government for
being gay. The film's release could not have been more timely and
topical. Rating: high +3 (-4 to +4) or 9/10
Early in the film A BEAUTIFUL MIND, a claim is made that
mathematics won World War II. Sadly, that film did not explain the
claim and many viewers probably just assumed the claim was a wild
boast. In fact, highly math-charged programs like the Manhattan
Project, Linear Optimization, Statistical Methods, and Cryptography
all played an important role in winning the war. The lack of any
of these would have seriously hampered or crippled the war effort.
A major piece of the mathematics of the war effort was contributed
by the British (and incidentally the Polish, who went almost
unmentioned in THE IMITATION GAME) to the breaking of the Enigma
encryption system. This was the system for the encoding and
decoding German military communications. A relatively simple
device could be reset in seconds and the code changed for
encryption/decryption. Once the device was reset it would change
to one of 159,000,000,000,000,000,000 other codes.
The man who was most credited with breaking the Enigma code was
Alan J. Turing, here played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Turing was
one of history's great geniuses and also one of the most tragic.
After the war the British government turned on Turing much as the
American government turned on Robert J. Oppenheimer. THE IMITATION
GAME is a film biography of Alan J. Turing going back and forth
among three streams of narrative. One stream follows Turing's
boarding school days persecuted by his peers for being strange.
One stream is about Turing during the war while he led the team
working on breaking the Enigma code and later with the technical
issues and the project politics and interpersonal relationships
while he worked on breaking the code. Later in the same stream of
narrative the issue became when, where, and how often could the
knowledge of the code be used without tipping off the enemy that
the British could read the Nazi's military communications. In the
third narrative stream Turing was persecuted by the post-war
British government for being gay.
Keira Knightley co-stars as Joan Clarke, who really existed, but
probably was less pivotal in Turing's life than shown in the film.
During her first meeting with Turing she improbably proves she can
out-think him to a degree he believes impossible. The two become
good friends and she is one of the inner circle of the team.
(During her association with Turing her wardrobe mysteriously goes
from frumpy to stylish.)
THE IMITATION GAME was written by Graham Moore based on the
biography of Turing by Andrew Hodges. Morten Tyldurn directs. The
music score was composed by Alexandre Desplat who is credited with
six musical scores in 2014 including THE MONUMENTS MEN, THE GRAND
BUDAPEST HOTEL, GODZILLA, THE IMITATION GAME, and UNBROKEN. That
is quite a line-up.
Cumberbatch says that the script of THE IMITATION GAME appealed to
him right away, but he was told he was not right for the part.
Warner Brothers wanted to make the film, but only if they could get
Leonardo DiCaprio to play Turing. Cumberbatch had been more
anxious to play the role of Turing than the producers were to make
the film. The character has certain similarities to geniuses that
Cumberbatch had performed in the past. For example, he gets on the
code-breaking team using Sherlock-like reasoning to deduce that the
team had to exist and that it had very high priority. He can
manipulate other people to get his way.
The release of this film during the Sony data scandal could not
have been planned, of course, and could not have been better
planned. The film is all about the losing of privacy of secrets
and losing of control of supposedly secure private information.
The real Turing may have been the first hacker to use a computer to
spy. If even Enigma, with its 159 quintillion ciphers, is not
unbreakable security to keep information private--and thank
goodness it was not in this case--what is sufficient security? The
film itself relates information that was kept an official
government secret in Britain decades after the war was over.
Turing had a great mind but his career and his life were destroyed
by his loss of privacy in his personal life.
THE IMITATION GAME is a thriller that really does thrill and at the
same time draws viewers into a mathematical problem. The film is
the best picture I have seen this year, and one of the most
important. I rate THE IMITATION GAME a high +3 on the -4 to +4
scale or 9/10.
Film Credits:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/combined
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_imitation_game/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: BIRDMAN (film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
My thoughts on the film BIRDMAN and some things the film is saying
or doing [POSSIBLE SPOILERS]:
- It seems to be saying that Hollywood is fake acting, and the
"actors" just celebrities, while Broadway is real acting. (One is
reminded of people like Bess Myerson and Kitty Carlisle on "I've
Got a Secret" who were famous for being famous.)
- On the other hand, the shots of Broadway show it full of shows
like Phantom and Motown, which chase the box office as much as
Hollywood.
- Within the film, the actors talk about what they are doing as
being real, but they are also full of cliches (e.g., "I just wanted
to give you a range").
- Critics risk a lot less than actors--or chefs, as in CHEF. In
fact, the second scene between Thomson and the critic was
remarkably similar to a scene between the chef and the restaurant
critic in CHEF.
- This movie (supposedly) is aspiring to be art, yet also inserts
a big CGI sequence disparaging philosophical dialogue.
- On the other hand, maybe it is just being ironic.
- This movie is as close to a stage play as possible, with no
obvious cuts and long takes.
- The movie plays with time the same way plays do (with blackouts
or other signals). Neither the movie or most plays really adhere
to an Aristotelian unity of time.
- It is not clear how some shots are done (e.g., through a
barred window).
- This movie emphasizes that soundtracks are illogical unless you
see the musicians on screen. (The same thing was done by Woody
Allen in BANANAS and Mel Brooks in HIGH ANXIETY.)
- There are a lot of parallels to NETWORK, e.g., how the Edward
Norton character keeps doing outrageous things, presumably to
create "buzz" and build up the audience.
- The only clear edits are in Thomson's dream/coma sequence.
- The last word formed by the red letters at the beginning is
"amor", Spanish for "love", and the play within the movie (and the
famous short story on which it is based) is "What We Talk about
When We Talk about Love". Alejandro G. Inarritu is Mexican and a
native Spanish-speaker.
- Mike (played by Edward Norton) complains about the redundancy of
the following lines and wants to cut three or four sentences: "I'm
the wrong person to ask. I didn't even know the man. I heard his
name mentioned in passing. I wouldn't know. You'd have to know
the particulars." But that is word for word the dialogue that
Carver wrote in the story.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Fall 2014 SF TV Reviews (television reviews by Dale
L. Skran)
It's official--the number of genre shows on TV at the same time has
reached absurd proportions. I've given up trying to follow all the
shows I like in real time. Some I'll catch up on DVD and others on
the Internet, but I just can't keep up. And this is not counting
the shows I don't like enough to watch--GRIMM or ONCE UPON A TIME,
for example.
ASCENSION (SyFy)
This new SyFy show appeared as a mini-series of 5-1/2 hours over
three nights in December. The basic idea is that in the early
1960s Kennedy secretly launched an Orion-class generation ship, the
Ascension, to Alpha Centauri with a mission to preserve the human
race. In 2014, the second generation of astronauts has come to
power, and the society on the ship has mutated a bit from that of
the early 60s. I was a bit worried that this was not enough of a
premise to sustain a series, and I also worried when I heard the
show described as "Mad Men in Space." Without going into any plot
details, I'll simply say that this is one of the better SyFy
original movies, and that I'd be happy to keep watching it as a
series.
ASCENSION has a bit of cable-TV softcore sex, and hence is
suggested for older teens and up.
[SPOILER ALERT] This is a story, that, rather like an A. E. Van
Vogt novel, hits you with major new ideas rapidly. It is about a
lot more than it appears initially to be about, and a lot of things
that initially just seem like cheap SyFy movie touches actually
make sense. Nuff said. When my wife and I were done watching we
talked about it for almost an hour. There are a lot of moving
parts here, but this is real SF. Also, watch for the various
references that are targeted to the more serious SF reader.
HAVEN (SyFy)
Not too much to say about this. It's still fun to watch, although
always skating on the edge of absurdity. The big reveal turns out
to be that the main heroine (Audrie Parker) also (or at least some
part of her personality) turns out to be the main villain, Marla.
Marla is a ruthless psychopath who can use "Aether" to create and
control the "troubles." She appears to hail from another
dimension, and to have created Haven as a sort of sadistic
experiment, the true purpose of which has yet to be revealed.
HAVEN continues to work as a combination super-hero police
procedural with elements of the supernatural and super-science
thrown in. In the end it may yet be another LOST that leaves its
characters--literally--in purgatory, but we can hope not!
SLEEPY HOLLOW (FOX)
This fall I kept up with our intrepid crew as they battle Moloch
and the Horsemen of the Apocolypse. Part police procedural, part
NATIONAL TREASURE, part Lovecraft pastiche, part Christian
mythology, part historical romance, HOLLOW is entertaining if you
can get by an occasional scary scene. HOLLOW is also notable for
having a large number of black actors in a genre that is often
"mighty white." In case you haven't heard, John Noble from FRINGE
has migrated to HOLLOW where he plays the adult son of Katrina and
Ichabod Crane, and Moloch's main henchman. HOLLOW is not for
everyone, but it kept me watching this fall.
GOTHAM (FOX)
A new FOX show staring Ben McKenzie as a young James Gordon, GOTHAM
attempts to build up the back story to Batman. We are gradually
introduced to young versions of a wide range of major Bat-villains,
including Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and
more. The young Bruce Wayne, played by David Mazouz, also has a
major role, as does Sean Pertwee as Alfred the butler. Perhaps the
most interesting character to watch is Penguin, played well by
Robin Loid Taylor. The Penguin often is portrayed as a buffoon in
Batman comics, but here we get to see how he rose to become a
leading Gotham crime boss.
GOTHAM has offended some Bat-fans, but I find it quite watchable.
The tales are dark and violent, establishing Gotham as a grim and
crazy place long before Batman came on the scene. In fact, it
might be accurate to say that Gotham made Batman what he became.
There is a lot of plot in most of the episodes, and many characters
show more depth than you would expect for a TV show. My major beef
is that Selina Kyble (played by Camren Bicondova) just looks too
old for the role. According to the wiki page she is 15 but to me
she looks mid-twenties or older!!!
Not a show for little kids or those who dislike violent crime
stories, GOTHAM remains an interesting entrant in the TV comic book
sweepstakes.
FOREVER (ABC)
This new ABC show stars Ioan Gruffudd (Reed Richards in THE
FANTASTIC FOUR) as Dr. Henry Morgan, a NYC forensic medical
examiner with a small secret. Dr. Morgan suffers from an
affliction of sorts, namely that since he first died 200 years ago,
he simply cannot die. Morgan has a very strong form of magical
immortality. He can die, and has died in dozens of different ways.
However, after some short interval he always re-appears in a nearby
body of water, naked but hale and hearty as he was on the day of
his first death. As near as I can tell, no mortal means can
permanently kill Morgan--even an A-Bomb would not suffice.
The good Dr. solves crimes for the most part via his vast knowledge
of death, much of it gained via personal experience, and via his
keen sense of observation, honed for centuries. In the last
resort, he has an real ace in the hole--if he is killed, he always
comes back, so no killer is a real threat to him. His only fear is
exposure as an immortal, or injury to his friends and co-workers.
Many of the plots deal with historical events he experienced that
relate to modern crimes, but we also see the conventional "I, the
Immortal" plot lines. For example, Morgan lives with an elderly
man who shares his secret and is his adopted son.
There is a weak story arc concerning another immortal that is
stalking Morgan, and seems to have taken on a psychopath's lust for
death. FOREVER goes through the paces fairly well, but suffers
from an implausible back story that seems wholly magical, but lacks
any internal logical. By comparison, the weirdly complex plots of
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES are air-tight.
FOREVER is not for everyone, and includes routine CSI-type gross-
out scenes, but it does work well enough as a police procedural.
I'm still watching, but am close to cutting it adrift.
SCORPION (CBS)
SCORPION attempts to capitalize on the success of shows that
glorify genius such as THE MENTALIST and BIG BANG THEORY. It tells
the fictional adventures of a real person, one Walter O'Brien, IQ
197. O'Brien apparently hacked NASA as a kid and was arrested, but
went on to form a computer security firm targeted toward difficult
cases. In the grand tradition of DOC SAVAGE, O'Brien gathers about
him a "fabulous five," including Dr. Tobias Curtis, a brilliant
behaviorist with a gambling addition, Happy Quinn, a genius
mechanical engineer and a Chinese female, and Sylvester Dodd, an
overweight genius mathematician with anxiety disorders. These
three main "assistants" are rounded out by Agent Cabe Gallo, a
special agent with the Department of Homeland Security who provides
the muscle and government liaison, and Paige Dineen, a single
mother of a 9 year old genius, who acts as their interface to
normal folks.
Some of the creators of the show worked on FAST AND FURIOUS, and it
shows. Most episodes start with some kind of reasonable scientific
setup and end with a car chase and absurd action in which Walter
O'Brien is way too involved. This is not a good show, but it has
some good moments. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the show
is that the mental differences of the main characters are
highlighted in a fairly realistic fashion. There is even some
justification for the crazy risks O'Brien takes. Alas, the plots
have unbelievable elements with great consistency. SCORPION is too
intense for young children but otherwise suited for most audiences.
As for the real Walter O'Brien, there is such a a person, and he
did found a company called Scorpion Data Services. He claims to
have an IQ over 190, but alas did not keep the paperwork. He
appears to be a highly proficient programmer, having participated
in various computing competitions, but has only a BS in Computer
Science. There is some controversy as to whether some of his
claims are true, but I have been unable to discern a clear bottom
line. As can be seen from the web page of the real-life Scorpion,
perhaps the plan all along was to advertise O'Brien's company:
http://scorpioncomputerservices.com/. And it should not surprise
you that the TV actor is a lot better looking than the real
O'Brien.
SHIELD (ABC)
The second season of AGENTS OF SHIELD takes place in a darker world
following the events chronicled in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER
SOLDIER. It has been discovered that SHIELD was deeply infiltrated
by HYDRA, and even Coulson's intrepid team harbored a snake--Agent
Ward. Revealed as a ruthless HYDRA killer with complex motives,
Ward shows his acting chops to a greater degree as he moves into
deep, dark places. The main thrust of the plot revolves around
efforts by SHIELD and HYDRA to find an ancient city built by the
alien Kree, and for Sky to figure out exactly why she is so
special. At times SHIELD's is so plot dense that things are hard
to follow, but you can't say it isn't interesting. New characters
include various mercs who have joined SHIELD and SHIELD Agent
Mockingbird, a character drawn from the pages of the Avengers
comic. This season is more intense, and probably too much for
little kids, but otherwise SHIELD continues to entertain.
VAMPIRE DIARIES (CW)
Incredibly, DIARIES is now in its sixth season! This season starts
with Damon Slavatore(one of the vampire brothers) and Bonnie
Bennett (a witch) trapped in a strange magical dimension that is
just like their home dimension, but stuck on a single day in their
past, and apparently empty of all humans. The rest of the crew,
including Elena Gilbert (now a vampire) and Stefan, Damon's brother
(also a vampire), struggle to adjust to the apparent deaths of
Damon and Bonnie while being unable to return to Mystic Falls,
which is now a null magic zone. It should not surprise you that
it turns out the magical dimension does have one other inhabitant,
a psychopathic male witch who has no natural magical powers but can
steal the magic of others. The dimension was created to be his
prison. This gives you just a feeling for the series is like,
keeping in mind that this description covers a small part of a
couple of episodes. As violent and sexual as ever, DIARIES
continues to be watchable. Not for kids, but still fun.
ORIGINALS (CW)
Due to various viewing conflicts, I ended up catching up with THE
ORGINALS on-line, which the CW supports well. Now in its second
season, THE ORIGINALS follows the first family of vampires,
including Klaus, Elijah, and Rebekah as they struggle to re-take
New Orleans from a horde of witches and werewolves bent on their
destruction. This shouldn't be that hard for two super-powerful
original vampires and one vampire-werewolf hybrid(Klaus), but they
must also fend off their immortal body jumping mother, the witch
who created vampires in the first place, and their vampire father,
recently resurrected and dedicated to killing all vampires
including Klaus. THE ORIGINALS spun off from the VAMPIRE DIARIES,
where Klaus was introduced as a major villain. In a perhaps
realistic touch, Klaus proved too powerful to defeat for any length
of time, but eventually a sort of truce evolved and the Mikaelsons
returned to New Orleans, which they once called home. Klaus
functions as an anti-hero of sorts, too cruel and vengeful to be
good, but also loyal, tender, and artistic.
A lot of the fun of both DIARIES and THE ORIGINALS lies in the
balance of power plotting between the vampires, the werewolves, the
witches, and the humans in each location. Dark and violent, THE
ORIGINALS is surprisingly compelling, in large part due to the
performance of Joseph Morgan as the tortured hybrid Klaus, Daniel
Gillies as the shining knight of vampires, Elijah, and Claire Holt
as the conflicted Rebekah. Another interesting aspect of the
series is an attempt to portray really old immortals, as the
Mikaelsons go back many centuries and perhaps many thousands of
years. Definitely not for kids but worth checking out if you like
tales of the supernatural crossed with GAME OF THRONES.
SUPERNATURAL (CW)
Also due to viewing conflicts, I've been catching up on
SUPERNATURAL on-line. Since the CW only allows you to look back 6
episodes, I've missed about half of this season's tales. The ones
I've seen continue to show why SF is such a versatile genre. One
dealt with fans of SUPERNATURAL creating a fannish homage play that
attracts an ancient Greek goddess hungry to consume the author of
the play. This gives the writers opportunities for meta-writing
galore, creating something with a bit of the flavor of BIRDMAN.
Another focused on how angels possessing human bodies have
destroyed the lives of their hosts, and how the angels attempt to
balance the good they do vs. the harm involved in the possession.
In short, not great stuff but the solid story telling we've come to
expect from this show. SUPERNATURAL is a dark, violent show that
is only for older teens and up.
FLASH (CW)
This new CW show has been well received. A spin-off from the
successful ARROW, FLASH brings to life another popular DC
superhero, Barry Allen, played by Grant Gustin. FLASH does a
decent job of bringing to life the scarlet speedster of Central
City. The Flash is portrayed as light-hearted, optimistic, and
perhaps a bit on the naive side, as befits the hero of a brighter,
more future oriented city. Unlike ARROW, which has stuck for the
most part to non-super powered villains, FLASH brings the hammer
with Captain Cold, Plastique, and the Reverse Flash, among others.
In a fashion similar to ARROW, FLASH portrays The Flash as being
supported by a team of STAR Labs scientists eager to undo the wrong
they did in unleashing super-powers on the world. This team is
especially interesting. Their leader, Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom
Cavanagh) was created for the TV show, and appears to be a time
traveler from the future, and perhaps a super-villain or super-hero
as well. Dr. Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabraker) and Cisco Ramon
(Carlos Valdes) are (SPOILER) better known in the comics as Killer
Frost and Vibe. Whether they become these characters in the TV show
remains to be seen. Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin, playing a
role similar to the one he held in LAW AND ORDER) also knows the
secret identity of the Flash, and assists him on various cases.
Overall, the FLASH is a fun show that can be enjoyed by the whole
family
ARROW (CW)
Now in its third season, ARROW, starring the muscular and grim
Stephen Arnell as the title character, has provided some startling
twists. Having defeated Deathstroke/Slade Wilson in season two,
the Arrow finds himself caught up in a complex battle between Ra's
al Ghul, the leader of the League of Assassins, and Malcom Merlyn,
a renegade member of the League played by John Barrowman from
TORCHWOOD. The strength of ARROW lies in three things. First,
ARROW tell the origin of the Green Arrow better than it was ever
done in the comics. Oliver Queen was transformed from a decadent
playboy to a deadly fighting machine by five years of events told
in flashbacks. I assume that if the show continues the flashbacks
will conclude in the fifth season. The second is a decision to
make ARROW a realistic telling of events that focused mainly on
characters without super powers, or, in the case of Deathstroke,
super-powers that are just one step removed from the real world.
Finally, it was decided to make Green Arrow the leader of a team,
which includes John Diggle, Oliver's former bodyguard and driver
and an ex-special forces member, Felicity Smoak, a smoking-hot
hacker and all-around computer genius, and Roy Harper, a petty
thief who the Arrow is training as his sidekick. They are
supported by their man inside the police force, Detective Quentin
Lance, and sometimes by Diggle's ex-wife/future-wife who is 2nd in
command of the Suicide Squad.
The rest of the season looks interesting. All the ground work has
been laid to introduce Black Canary, Wildcat, and the Atom as
continuing characters. Victor Gerber (from ALIAS and many other
shows) will appear as the older half of Firestorm. At this point
between ARROW and FLASH a very good approximation of the Justice
League could be put together, one that without Superman would be
much less powerful and hence more fun to watch.
AROOW is too dark and violent for young children, but many will
find it entertaining. It is possibly the best TV super-hero series
ever made.
CONSTANTINE (NBC)
CONSTANTINE brings to life the DC supernatural hero John
Constantine (Matt Ryan), a hard-drinking, chain-smoking low-life
who has seen too much and done too many bad things. Unfortunately,
he cannot turn away from the battle against daemonic evil. Joined
by Zed Martin (Angelica Celaya), a psychic artist, and Chas
Chandler (Charles Halford), who appears to be invulnerable, he uses
his vast magical knowledge and a host of artifacts to battle "the
rising dark." It should not surprise you to find that as a 10 pm
show, CONSTANTINE is dark and violent, with a large number of
disturbing images. I'm not going to say that I love it, but it is
pretty consistent and reasonably interesting. It has also started
to introduce some of the many DC supernatural characters. Zed
Martin is an interesting supporting character, but Chandler seems
little more than a Stretch Armstrong dummy who can be fed to the
monsters now and then. I also like Constantines' Dr. Stange-like
magical bunker, which is much larger on the inside than the
outside, and has some doors that should not be opened.
CONSTANTINE is only for older teens and up. Recommended for those
who like this sort of thing.
THE MENTALIST (CBS)
THE MENTALIST has returned for a 13 episode final seventh season,
which started on November 30th, 2014. The sixth season concluded
with Patrick Jane finally declaring his love for Teresa Lisbon. In
the seventh season, they are spending a lot of time together, but
concealing their relationship from their team. This leads to a
certain amount of hilarity along the way. This season drops agent
Kim Fischer, who the show could never quite figure out how to
handle, and replaces her with eager-beaver ex-military newbie Agent
Michelle Vega.
With Red John finally dead, the sixth season struggled to find a
new balance, and brought forth some of the worst episodes in the
series. So far the seventh season seems to be under a more
balanced hand, and if it lacks the dramatic energy of the first
five seasons, I find it a long cool drink with an old friend. I
expect that the series will wind to a close with Jane and Lisbon
leaving the FBI in the final episode. Their team leader, Abbot, is
a well-conceived character. I like the fact that Abbot is usually
on to what Jane is up to, and in fact loves the play-acting and
intrigue that abounds when Jane is fully engaged. The idea of
Patrick Jane working for the FBI is only marginally beyond the
headlines of the real world--check out AMERICAN HUSTLE or CATCH ME
IF YOU CAN to learn more about how the FBI makes a practice of
catching and then hiring the right kind of criminal mastermind.
This season of THE MENTALIST is less dark than earlier ones, and
I'd recommend it to a general audience.
Z NATION (SyFy)
I had this on list to watch, but after about 15 minutes of this
low-budget zombie show, I decided I had better things to do with my
time. Really really not recommended.
THE 100 (CW)
Due to various scheduling conflicts, I have yet to watch a single
episode. At this point I'm planning to catch up on DVD. I have
nothing bad to say about the second season of THE 100--I just got
overwhelmed by the sheer number of SF shows running in conflicting
time slots.
[-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES and Evolution (letter of comment by
Taras Wolansky)
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES in the
12/26/14 issue of the MT VOID, Taras Wolansky writes:
The "Sir W. Thompson" who gave such a short age of the Earth was
presumably physicist William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. The reason was
that the only then-known mechanism for producing the heat of the
Sun and the Earth was gravitational collapse; a warning for all
scientists who forget that a currently dominant theory is merely
the "fastest gun in town", and a "faster gun" may arrive at any
moment. (I call this the Don Knotts Rule.)
This short age, of course, made Darwin's theory seem implausible
even to him; thus, the Lamarckian elements he introduced in later
editions of Origin.
I enjoyed INHERIT THE WIND (1960) when I first saw it, years ago,
but since then I've learned just how dishonest and tendentious it
is, so I've lost much of my respect for it. I now know that the
whole "trial" was a publicity stunt for the town; the prosecution
and defense went out to dinner together constantly; the defendant
wasn't even sure he had ever taught Darwinism, but they needed
somebody to play the role.
After making his own summation, Darrow pled his defendant guilty,
cheating Bryan of his opportunity to speak. That never-delivered
summation was published in Skeptic magazine: I was impressed by
Bryan's prescience in seeing how Darwinist beliefs could lead to
something like a Holocaust. The Darwin-inspired eugenics movement
was very strong at the time, of course. [-tw]
Mark replies:
You are right about scientific theory just being just the fastest
gun in town, or more accurately the theory that best stands up to
critical evaluation. That is precisely why the scientific method
gives such VERY reliable results. People who take a scientific
position with religious or political (or any) motivations almost
never come up with anything nearly as ironclad. In scientific
methodology everybody is looking for and encouraged to be a faster
gun.
INHERIT THE WIND was, of course, inspired by the Scopes trial, even
taking some discussion directly from testimony, but the play/film
was about morality and mob rule and is no more accurate to real
history than the John Wayne version of THE ALAMO. What you want to
find is the play THE GREAT TENNESSEE MONKEY TRIAL by Peter
Goodchild. That is quite accurate to history and is very accurate
to the accounts of the trial we got at the Dayton Tennessee
Courthouse. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Spacecraft News (letter of comment by Dan Cox)
In response to Greg Frederick's comments on spacecraft news in the
12/19/14 issue of the MT VOID, Dan Cox writes:
The attempt to land a Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage on a barge will be
interesting. They have shown that they can reach (close to) zero
velocity at zero altitude with the first stage after a launch.
They have shown in short-range tests that a first stage can land
precisely enough to land on something the size of their barge.
What has not been shown (at least publically) is that when
returning from a launch, can they get the stage from its launch
velocity and altitude to a neighborhood close enough to the barge
that its precise control will have a chance to land it on a barge.
But if they don't this time, it is likely they will improve and be
able to do this soon.
Then comes the hard (but less exciting) part. What condition will
the stage be in? Can they refurbish it cheaply enough to
significantly reduce launch prices? A Falcon 9 launch is priced
around $65 million. Preparations for launch, including the
integration of the spacecraft with the rocket, can run something
like $25 million (based on a recent NASA deal, which was about that
much more than the cost of the rocket alone). Since that was a
NASA deal, there are probably some additional government
requirements. The government self-insures its satellites, but has
launch providers take extra precautions. It may be that payload
integration and launch operations are the next area that SpaceX (or
someone) needs to reduce costs in, if we're ever going to have our
space colonies.
Like most progress, it takes a lot of work to turn the ideas into
reality. [-dtc]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Looking over my 2014 reading, I find I read 170 books (assuming
that one can decide what is long enough to be called a "book"). Of
these, non-fiction was 44%, science fiction was 32%, and alternate
history, mysteries, and general fiction were about 8% each.
I am reading WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Aylmer and
Rose Maude) (ISBN 978-1-853-26062-9). It has some footnotes
explaining Russian customs, puns, etc. Among these is: "It is not
strictly accurate to use the word biretta for the headgear used in
the Russo-Greek church, but it is the nearest word available in
English." My question is, why use any word other than the original
(probably "klobuk")? After all, it isn't as though the word
"biretta" has a long history in the English language.
For fans of alternate history (or for that matter, ordinary
history), Book XI, Chapter I will be of particular interest. This
is a Tolstoyan infodump, starting with a discussion of continuous
versus discontinuous events, then onto calculus (!) and finally
sequeing into a discussion of "The Tide of History Theory Versus
The Great Man Theory."
Tolstoy writes, "Absolute continuity of motion is not
comprehensible to the human mind. Laws of motion of any kind
become comprehensible to man only when he examines arbitrarily
selected elements of that motion; but at the same time, a large
proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary division of
continuous motion into discontinuous elements." A description of
Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise follows.
Tolstoy then moves on to history: "In seeking the laws of
historical movement just the same thing happens. The movement of
humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary human
wills, is continuous." But historians make a couple of errors in
looking at history. They look at only a few selected events,
rather than look at all events--but of course, there is no way one
can look at all events from the beginning of time. The other is to
look at the actions of a single man (a king or general) as being
"equivalent to the sum of many individual wills." This, Tolstoy
says, is never the case. "Only by taking infinitesimally small
units for observation (the differential of history, that is, the
individual tendencies of men) and attaining to the art of
integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals)
can we hope to arrive at the laws of history."
So attributing the French Revolution to a few men in Paris is a
mistake. "'But every time there have been conquests there have
been conquerors; every time there has been a revolution in any
state there have been great men,' says history." True, but
correlation does not imply causation.
So, Tolstoy concludes, "To study the laws of history we must
completely change the subject of our observation, must leave aside
kings, ministers, and generals, and study the common,
infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are moved."
The next chapter goes on to explain that it may seem as though
generals make decisions, but in fact they are pawns of the forces
of history. A general is asked whether the troops should take a
different road, but by the time the messenger gets to him with the
question, and all the other distractions preying on him are
dispensed with, the troops have passed the point where they could
change roads and the decision is out of his hands. Similarly, by
the time people starting asking whether Moscow should be abandoned
to the French, it was already to late to say no.
(Book IX, Chapter I has a similar discussion, but centered on
determinism (fatalism) and free will.) [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
--W. Somerset Maugham