Lincroft-Holmdel Science Fiction Club Club Notice - 12/17/86 -- Vol. 5, No. 23 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon. LZ meetings are in LZ 3A-206; MT meetings are in MT 4A-235. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 01/7/87 LZ: NEUROMANCER by William Gibson (Consciousness) 01/14 MT: Movie: (to be announced) HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 2G-427A 949-5866 LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 1C-117 576-2068 MT Librarian: Bruce Szablak MT 4C-418 957-5868 Jill-of-all-trades: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. Due to the week of Christmas, club activities will be limited to Middletown and Holmdel. At Middletown the activity will be individual trips out to the Middletown swing. People from other locations who wish to come over and use the facilities should get it cleared with some Middletown resident. It is recommended that if we have a white Christmas that you bring a warm change of clothing for after swinging. Over in Holmdel the big activity will be the annual Christmas banquet for the Holmdel swans. In the spirit of Christmas on December 24th, when some people will be inside selfishly feeding themselves, club members who have been saving packing material "corn-curls" all year long will be feeding the corn-curls to the styrofoam swans. The grateful looks on the swans' faces make this selfless activity worthwhile. Please join us and add new meaning to your Christmas. Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 ...mtgzz!leeper Recommendation on Cinemax Films Film comment by Mark R. Leeper Looking at this month's cable listings, I see two older films on Cinemax that deserve special recommendation. Even if you do not get that station, both are available on videocassette. During a boring probability lecture in graduate school, I suddenly remembered having seen _C_a_p_t_a_i_n _H_o_r_a_t_i_o _H_o_r_n_b_l_o_w_e_r years earlier. Within an hour I was reading _B_e_a_t _t_o _Q_u_a_r_t_e_r_s, the first novel C. S. Forester wrote about his fictional naval hero of the Napoleonic wars. The film, as it turned out, was based on the this book and its two immediate sequels, _S_h_i_p _o_f _t_h_e _L_i_n_e and _F_l_y_i_n_g _C_o_l_o_r_s (in proportions about 1/2, 1/3, and 1/6). Gregory Peck is probably a little two handsome to play Hornblower, but nonetheless defines the character and it is hard to read a Hornblower novel without seeing Peck. While the script slights the second and third books a bit, _B_e_a_t _t_o _Q_u_a_r_t_e_r_s is the most enjoyable of the Hornblower stories as Hornblower must court and unwelcome ally, a South American dictator who calls himself by the Spanish name for God. The modelwork for the sea battles is excellent considering the film was released a quarter of a century before _S_t_a_r _W_a_r_s. A very different sort of film is _T_h_e _H_e_a_r_t _I_s _a _L_o_n_e_l_y _H_u_n_t_e_r, a 1968 film based on the novel by Carson McCullers. Alan Arkin plays a deaf-mute who must move to a new town when his best friend is hospitalized in that town. Mr. Singer touches the lives of many people, improving each, in a sort of a search. This is a very moving film, done very well with a cast that includes Sondra Locke, Stacy Keach, Percy Rodriguez, and Cecily Tyson. I won't say they don't make films like this anymore, but these days when they do, it is really an event. For different reasons, both these films are much recommended. THE GOLDEN CHILD A film review by Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: The mind boggles. This film is _B_e_v_e_r_l_y _H_i_l_l_s _C_o_p with Industrial Light & Magic special effects. The film offers that audacious concept and then little else that is new. It is fun-to-watch fluff and that is just about all it is. Rumor has it that Eddie Murphy is a fantasy fan. He has wanted to do a fantasy film, but never had the opportunity to make one. At one point it was announced that _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_V would guest-star Eddie Murphy. Presumably he would have been one of the characters the crew ran into in the 20th Century. Perhaps mercifully we have missed the opportunity to see Murphy mugging for Captain Kirk. Instead he has been given by Paramount his own comedy-fantasy film, sort of _B_e_v_e_r_l_y _H_i_l_l_s _C_o_p _i_n _t_h_e _T_e_m_p_l_e _o_f _D_o_o_m. The Golden Child, a Tibetan avatar sent to save the world from itself, is kidnapped by evil forces. Murphy plays Chandler Jarrow, a sort of Los Angeles amateur detective who specializes in finding missing children. Well, the Golden Child is certainly a missing child. Who better to find him than Murphy? Well, just about anyone, from Murphy's point of view. So virtually the same character that Murphy played in _B_e_v_e_r_l_y _H_i_l_l_s _C_o_p is thrown into the middle of a plot worthy of A. Merritt. When the Golden Child works it is because of the Murphy persona who is definitely funnier and has more audience appeal that, say, Howard the Duck. And that is important because in this film Murphy faces the same sort of foe, brought to the screen by virtually identical Industrial Light & Magic special effects. The surprise that all of a sudden Murphy's character is fighting something very fantastical is blunted by the over-familiarity of this style of effects. For _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_V, ILM gave Paramount some beautiful new effects and some spectacular scenes. They proved with that film that they still could do new stuff. But _T_h_e _G_o_l_d_e_n _C_h_i_l_d's effects were already well-worn two or three films back and lack the novelty that they would need to be really exciting. One more peeve I have against _T_h_e _G_o_l_d_e_n _C_h_i_l_d is its irreverence for Asian culture and Asian cuisine. Now in this it pales beside _I_n_d_i_a_n_a _J_o_n_e_s _a_n_d _t_h_e _T_e_m_p_l_e _o_f _D_o_o_m, but it still is going to win no prizes for bringing about international understanding. In spite of very funny scenes with its stars, it offers little that is new but the idea of combining Murphy-style comedy with fantasy. Rate it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS A film review by Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: Blech! I sit here, like the audience in _T_h_e _P_r_o_d_u_c_e_r_s, with my mouth half-open, and for the same sort of reason. I am being assaulted by a barrage of bad taste that I am finding hard to believe. Well, let me start at the beginning and the beginning of this mess is Akira Kurosawa, the great Japanese filmmaker. He has made a number of great films. Sometimes he borrows his plots from well-known stories like _M_a_c_b_e_t_h for his _T_h_r_o_n_e _o_f _B_l_o_o_d and _K_i_n_g _L_e_a_r for his _R_a_n. More often, other filmmakers borrow Kurosawa plots and build new films around them. His _S_e_v_e_n _S_a_m_u_r_a_i was remade once as a Western (_T_h_e _M_a_g_n_i_f_i_c_e_n_t _S_e_v_e_n), once as a space opera (_B_a_t_t_l_e _B_e_y_o_n_d _t_h_e _S_t_a_r_s), and once as an Italian muscleman epic (_S_e_v_e_n _M_a_g_n_i_f_i_c_e_n_t _G_l_a_d_i_a_t_o_r_s). Each version was a step downhill from its direct predecessor. His _Y_o_j_i_m_b_o, an adventure about a grimy and grizzled ronin who brings peace to a village torn apart by feuding clans, was remade as _A _F_i_s_t _F_u_l_l _o_f _D_o_l_l_a_r_s with Clint Eastwood's Man-with-No-Name designed to be nothing more or less than a cowboy version of Kurosawa's Sanjuro. Well, that brings me to what I am watching. It is a low-budget sword-and-sorcery piece called _T_h_e _W_a_r_r_i_o_r _a_n_d _t_h_e _S_o_r_c_e_r_e_s_s and, sad to say, it is every low-quality remake of _Y_o_j_i_m_b_o in which a grimy and grizzled warrior brings peace (and a lot of dead bodies) to a village torn apart by feuding clans. In a surprising concession to good taste, a few of the many women in the film are dressed so their breasts are covered. Unfortunately, that does include a four-breasted dancing girl who tries to kill Kain. Oh, yes. Kain. David Carradine plays the warrior Kain, just so when characters mention his name, you know who they are talking about. It is almost the same name he had on _K_u_n_g-_F_u. Actually the filmmakers pass up this great opportunity by having everyone call the un-swarthy Kain "The Dark Warrior." Nobody had ever seen him before but everyone knows to call him "The Dark Warrior." The musical score steals from James Horner and what sounds like an Italian Western. The score is credited to someone called "Saunders" in spite of obvious borrowings from other composers. The only value of watching _T_h_e _W_a_r_r_i_o_r _a_n_d _t_h_e _S_o_r_c_e_r_e_s_s is in recognizing what was stolen from better films. It is strongly recommended that you avoid this turkey. Rate it as a low -2 on the -4 to +4 scale. SWORD OF GIDEON A film review by Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: HBO's own production of _S_w_o_r_d _o_f _G_i_d_e_o_n (based on George Jonas's non-fiction book _V_e_n_g_e_a_n_c_e) is a thoughtful, intelligent thriller about the squad sent out to get revenge after the 1972 Munich Massacre. At its heart is the question of what would be an appropriate response to terrorism and it asks the viewer--it doesn't tell the viewer. Your neighborhood multiplex theater probably does not have a more intelligent film right now and hasn't for a good long while. This month HBO is showing a film made specifically for cable and video, but one which is probably as intelligent as anything the local theaters are playing right now. _S_w_o_r_d _o_f _G_i_d_e_o_n is the story of a vengeance squad sent out by the Israeli government after the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. At first brush this looks like it will be a rather superficial action film with action, explosions, blood, and an occasional thrill. This is an action film, but it is far from a mindless one. At the heart of _S_w_o_r_d _o_f _G_i_d_e_o_n is a very real moral dilemma: does vengeance do as much damage as the attacks it is trying to prevent? Avner (Steven Bauer) is a captain in the Israeli army requested by an intelligence chief (played by Rod Steiger) and Golda Meir (played by Colleen Dewhurst) to lead a squad of five men and kill the planners of the Munich massacre. Their cardinal rule: no harm to innocent bystanders. The team are successful, but soon find themselves disturbed by thoughts of the families of the men they are killing. Further, when characters Avner cares about are killed as counter-vengeance for the actions Avner's men are taking, Avner has to decide if he himself is doing good or evil. _S_w_o_r_d _o_f _G_i_d_e_o_n offers no pat answers on the justification for vengeance squads. Rather than present a pre-packaged answer to the question of a proper response to terrorism, it presents the issue and asks the viewer to decide for him/herself. HBO has a very well-made production with _S_w_o_r_d _o_f _G_i_d_e_o_n including a beautiful musical score of George Delarue. The acting is uniformly very good to excellent. Dewhurst's Meir does not have the screen time to contribute much, but Steiger is a consummate actor and when he is on the screen it is all too easy to ignore everything else that is happening. Michael York plays the team's explosives expert, an important role but surprisingly small considering the actor's popularity. If you don't get cable, keep an eye out for the cassette. The film is a strong +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK