@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 5/6/88 -- Vol. 6, No. 45 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon. LZ meetings are in LZ 3A-206; MT meetings are in the cafeteria. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 05/25 LZ: THE MAKING OF 2001 by Jerry Abel (The Creative Process) 06/15 LZ: The Oz Books by Frank L. Baum (Oz) _D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C. 05/14 Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Mike Sargent (phone 201-933-2724 for details) 05/21 New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA (phone 201-432-5965 for details) 09/01 NOLACON II (46th World Science Fiction Convention), New Orleans. -09/05 Info: Nolacon II, 921 Canal St., Suite 831, New Orleans LA 70112 (504) 525-6008. HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 mtuxo!jetzt LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 mtgzz!leeper HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3M-420 949-5866 homxb!tps LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-6142 lzfme!lfl MT Librarian: Will Harmon MT 3C-406 957-5128 mtgzz!wch Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. On Thursday May 12 at 7 PM, the Leeperhouse Film Festival will present one of the great epic historical films of all times: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) dir. by David Lean I won't bother to tell you if it is a good film. However: Director: David Lean (_B_r_i_e_f _E_n_c_o_u_n_t_e_r, _G_r_e_a_t _E_x_p_e_c_t_a_t_i_o_n_s, _O_l_i_v_e_r _T_w_i_s_t, _T_h_e _S_o_u_n_d _B_a_r_r_i_e_r, _T_h_e _B_r_i_d_g_e _o_v_e_r _t_h_e _R_i_v_e_r _K_w_a_i, _L_a_w_r_e_n_c_e _o_f _A_r_a_b_i_a, _D_r. _Z_h_i_v_a_g_o, _A _P_a_s_s_a_g_e _t_o _I_n_d_i_a) THE MT VOID Page 2 Screenwriter: Robert Bolt (_L_a_w_r_e_n_c_e _o_f _A_r_a_b_i_a, _D_r. _Z_h_i_v_a_g_o, _A _M_a_n _f_o_r _A_l_l _S_e_a_s_o_n_s, _T_h_e _M_i_s_s_i_o_n) Score: Maurice Jarre (_T_h_e _L_o_n_g_e_s_t _D_a_y, _L_a_w_r_e_n_c_e _o_f _A_r_a_b_i_a, _D_r. _Z_h_i_v_a_g_o, _T_h_e _P_r_o_f_e_s_s_i_o_n_a_l_s, _R_e_s_u_r_r_e_c_t_i_o_n, _A _P_a_s_s_a_g_e _t_o _I_n_d_i_a, _M_a_d _M_a_x _B_e_y_o_n_d _T_h_u_n_d_e_r_d_o_m_e, many more) Cast: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guiness, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Hawkins, Donald Wolfit, Claude Rains, Anthony Quayle, Anthony Quinn, Jose Ferrer Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinamatography, Best Score 2. Warning: There is a _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k spoiler in item 4. 3. [From the NY Times, April 28, 1988] MINNEAPOLIS, April 27 (AP) - Clifford Donald Simak, a newspaperman and an award-winning writer of science fiction, died Monday at Riverside Medical Center in Minneapolis. He was 83 years old. Mr. Simak wrote more than two dozen novels, several nonfiction science books and hundreds of short stories during his 37-year career as reporter, city desk editor and science editor for The Minneapolis Star and The Minneapolis Tribune. Among his better-known titles are "City," published in 1952; "Way Station" (1963); "The Visitors" (1979) and "Skirmish: the Great Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak," comprising stories he published from 1944 to 1975. He received three Hugo awards, regarded as the Oscar of science- fiction writing, and three Science Fiction [Writers] of America Nebula Awards, including the Grand [Master] in recognition of his entire collection of work. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1973. Mr. Simak was born on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin and attended the University of Wisconsin for a short time. He taught school for several years before taking the first of several newspaper jobs in 1929. He began his career with the Star and the Tribune in 1939. Many science-fiction writers wrote of invincible supermen, but Mr. Simak wrote about common people who didn't always win. "I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space," he once said. "I have been concerned with where we, as a race, may be going and what may be our purpose in the universal scheme - if we have a purpose. THE MT VOID Page 3 "In general, I believe we do, and perhaps an important one." Mr Simak's wife of 56 years, Agnes, died in 1985. He is survived by a daughter, a son, and a brother. 4. Well, as promised, _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k: _T_h_e _N_e_x_t _G_e_n_e_r_a_t_i_o_n has killed off a major character. Lots of folks I know were hoping it would be Wesley. If you ask me I think every starship needs a Wesley crusher. But it turns out that the first major character to bite interstellar dust is Yar. Well, I never liked that name. It always sounded like something Robert Newton would say when he was playing Long John Silver: "Yar, me maties, there's treasure for everyone down on the Worf." Yup, she's on that big Enterprise in the sky. Anyway, do you know the difference between "prime" and "choice"? No? Well, you're in good company. The crew of the Enterprise always seems to treat the Prime Directive as if it were the Choice Directive: follow it only if the scriptwriter chooses to. In this episode, the crew had found the only known member of an alien species and were proceeding to flame-broil it with phasers. It wasn't bad enough that the Earthers invaded this poor thing's planet; they also have to start frying him/her/it/whatever. So in the resulting melee Yar bought the farm. okay, at least she went out fighting. That is in the grand adventure tradition. But could they leave it at that? Noooo! Flash to the funeral--in fact, that's just what the transporter did with most of the main characters. Anyway, who is there? Not one person from the Security Staff. These people worked with her and didn't bother going to the funeral. What does that tell you? Anyway, they are at the funeral and a three-dimensional photographic image of Yar shows up over the grave and tells everyone how they've been just swell. I mean, is that a reasonable ending for the militant Yar? Here, she went out fighting and the writers still make her final scenes maudlin. Should this be the way Yar ends? "Not with a bang but a whimper..." Like something out of "The Holo-men." I mean, geez! 5. I have to go now. Bad news. Evelyn has just handed me my mail and there is an annoucement from my HMO. Apparently due to financial problems they feel the need to resort to a policy of triage. Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 ...mtgzz!leeper BILOXI BLUES A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: Matthew Broderick recreates his stage role as Eugene Jerome, who goes to boot camp in Mississippi. The film's greatest virtue is the portrayal of the troubled and enigmatic platoon sergeant. It's greatest fault is that the enigma is side-stepped rather than solved. Still, this is a credible view of a World War II army boot camp. Rating: high +1. There are lots of comedies about life in the military. There are films like _M_r. _R_o_b_e_r_t_s, _S_t_a_l_a_g _1_7, _B_u_c_k _P_r_i_v_a_t_e_s, _S_t_r_i_p_e_s, and _P_r_i_v_a_t_e _B_e_n_j_a_m_i_n. The first two may have been written by someone who actually had been in the military. Somehow the last three show very little sign that anyone in their production knew or cared what army life was about. _S_t_r_i_p_e_s is a Bill Murray comedy set in the Army as opposed to be an army comedy starring Bill Murray. No problem. Bill Murray has lots of fans and one setting for his comedy is as good as another. But I can see a _M_r. _R_o_b_e_r_t_s or a _S_t_a_l_a_g _1_7 over and over. Watching _S_t_r_i_p_e_s once--while reading a magazine--was plenty for me. Whoever wrote it had a really solid understanding of Bill Murray humor. The writer of _M_r. _R_o_b_e_r_t_s gave more of an impression of knowing the military. Someone else who had been in the military and knew it was Neil Simon. His _B_i_l_o_x_i _B_l_u_e_s is not shallow, is not stereotyped, and gives the feel that much of it might have happened. _B_i_l_o_x_i _B_l_u_e_s follows the boot camp experiences of Eugene Morris Jerome (played by Matthew Broderick) and his interactions with his sergeant (played by Christopher Walken) and the other men in his platoon, especially Arnold Epstein, an intellectual, the barracks butt, and the only Jew in the platoon apart from Jerome himself. But the character who steals the show is the sergeant. His enigmatic and idiosyncratic ways of building discipline are the core of the film and overhang nearly every scene. His character is, unfortunately, much too easily dismissed by the events of the climax of the film, so we never really come to understand him. The mystery of why he chooses such odd and intriguing lessons of discipline is never adequately explained. _B_i_l_o_x_i _B_l_u_e_s is not a great military comedy, but it is probably the best thing director Mike Nichols has done in quite a long time. Neil Simon adapted--and rumor has it, greatly modified--his own autobiographical play. At least three actors repeat their stage roles. Besides Broderick, Penelope Ann Miller returns to the part of Jerome's first love and Matt Mulhern repeats as Jerome's sometime-nemesis Wykowski. But even in this modified version one has the feeling that this film is based on something real, not fabricated as a backdrop. Rate it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. BELLMAN AND TRUE A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: Enjoyable heist film from England has a plot that should interest engineers. Not a bad little film, if not up to some of the crime films that have come from Britain of late. Unfortunately, the soundtrack is indistinct and much of the dialogue is lost. Rating: +1. One tends to think of the United States for crime films. (I distinguish between crime films and detective films; a crime film is seen mostly from the criminal's point of view.) Having had a large piece of English-speaking crime, we have also been readier to make crime films than has England. yet there have always been a number of modest little crime films made in England. Films like _L_e_a_g_u_e _o_f _G_e_n_t_l_e_m_e_n, _T_h_e _L_o_n_g _A_r_m, _T_h_e _L_a_v_e_n_d_e_r _H_i_l_l _M_o_b, and _T_h_e _L_a_d_y_k_i_l_l_e_r_s have been likable but have not gotten much attention. More recently some better films have been made, including _T_h_e _L_o_n_g _G_o_o_d _F_r_i_d_a_y and _M_o_n_a _L_i_s_a. _B_e_l_l_m_a_n _a_n_d _T_r_u_e is a throwback to the earlier, more modest British heist films. Bernard Hill plays Hiller, an electronics systems analyst who has accepted a 1000-pound advance to pas bank data to some criminals. Unable to deliver the data in any form but on magnetic tape, he runs away, only to be kidnapped (along with his stepson) by the people he was fleeing. They want more than their money back: they want an electronics expert to help them rob a bank. The film is about evenly divided between the story of the heist and Hiller's relationship with his son as they are caught up in the robbery scheme. Frankly, being an engineer myself, I have a fondness for films in which engineering plays an important part and even tips the scales. _T_h_e _D_a_m _B_u_s_t_e_r_s--one of my favorite war films--is as much a film about solving wartime engineering problems as it is about soldiering. In a sense engineering is the core of _F/_X. Engineering plays as big a role in this heist film as it does in the very enjoyable Australian heist film _M_a_l_c_o_l_m. One sequence in the film, in fact, appears to be a direct theft from _M_a_l_c_o_l_m. In a few places, the engineering in _B_e_l_l_m_a_n _a_n_d _T_r_u_e seems to have gotten the facts wrong or underestimated the time to put together a sophisticated piece of toy robotics, but that can be forgiven. The serious engineering problems, and the reason I really have to qualify my recommendation, is in the production, not the story. The simple fact is that the film needed subtitles. I had little trouble cutting through the thick Cockney accents of _T_h_e _L_o_n_g _G_o_o_d _F_r_i_d_a_y or _M_o_n_a _L_i_s_a. But I missed just too darn much of _B_e_l_l_m_a_n _a_n_d _T_r_u_e because the soundtrack seemed muddled. there are some clever and witty lines in the film, but some can be made out only by comparing notes with others. So as much of the film as I could understand I rate a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK