@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 11/18/88 -- Vol. 7, No. 21 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon. LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 11/30 LZ: Book Swap 12/07 MT: Book Swap (MT 4A-217) 12/20 Star Trek in the 20th Century Club: Future Science and Technology *Tuesday* (LZ 2D-305, 6:30 PM) 12/21 LZ: TBA _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. 12/10 Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Party (phone 201-933-2724 for details) 12/17 New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA (Party?) (phone 201-432-5965 for details) 05/05/89 CONTRAPTION. MI. GoH: Mike Resnick; FGoHs: Mark & Evelyn Leeper. -05/07/89 Info: Diana Harlan Stein, 1325 Key West, Troy MI 48083. 08/31/89 NOREASCON III (47th World SF Con). MA. GoHs: Andre Norton, Ian & Betty -09/04/89 Ballantine; FGoH: The Stranger Club. Info: Noreascon Three, Box 46, MIT Branch P.O., Cambridge, MA 02139. 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. There isn't much to say this week. If anyone wants Mark's 36- page trip log for Egypt or his 40-page trip log for East Africa, send me your e-mail address and I will send you the raw version. If you have no e-mail address, I will print up a copy, but I'd just as soon not be in the publishing business, as evidenced by the fact I am *not* attaching the log to every copy of the MT VOID! [-ecl] THE MT VOID Page 2 Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 ...mtgzz!leeper =============================== MYSTIC PIZZA A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: The lives of two sisters and a friend, pizza parlor waitresses, is not original and the individual stories are predictable, but as a whole it is a satisfying slice-of-life film and worth seeing. Rating: low +2. _M_y_s_t_i_c _P_i_z_z_a is a sort of a _T_h_e _B_e_s_t _o_f _E_v_e_r_y_t_h_i_n_g for the Eighties. I guess that in itself is something of a surprise: that someone is making a _T_h_e _B_e_s_t _o_f _E_v_e_r_y_t_h_i_n_g in the Eighties. It is not a film with much flash. It is just a quiet (dare I say it?) soap opera about three young women who waitress together in a pizza parlor and share each other's lives. There are the two sisters Kat and Daisy and their friend Jojo. Kat is the serious sort. She is holding down several jobs to try to earn enough to take advantage of a scholarship from Yale. Her sister Daisy is affable, attractive, and shoots a mean game of pool. She is looking to have a little bit of fun and to live a little. Jojo wants to be like Daisy. Having canceled out on her wedding day, she wants sex with her boyfriend but no commitments. _M_y_s_t_i_c _P_i_z_z_a is really three stories, one for each woman, braided together into a single story. Of the three stories the film concentrates mostly on the sisters' stories; neither is particularly original. Kat babysits for the daughter of a handsome young architect who happens to be a Yale graduate and whose wife is off in Europe. You can plot this one yourself. Daisy has a relationship with a rich law student with a checkered past and a bigoted family. Perhaps you cannot plot this one yourself, but it is unlikely you will be very surprised either. So the individual stories are not much to see the film for. But this is one of those films where the whole is considerably more than the sum of its parts. For one thing, there are few enough films that show women who are friends and how their friendship works, and at times does not work. _M_y_s_t_i_c _P_i_z_z_a is not one of the year's best films--though I think at least one critic was claiming that it was--but at a time when so many films look alike it is a surprisingly satisfying film to watch and enjoy and hopefully is a sign of more adult films (no, I mean _l_i_t_e_r_a_l_l_y adult films) being made. Rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. (Oh, a side note: New York City restaurants offered a dinner to go with viewing _B_a_b_e_t_t_e'_s _F_e_a_s_t, but it was about $100 a plate. After seeing _T_a_m_p_o_p_o I could not find a Japanese noodle house nearby. For those of you who want to coordinate a movie and dinner, this is the film!) THEY LIVE A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: Science fiction films catch up to some of the lighter stuff being written in the 1960s. John Carpenter's adaptation of a famous story drags a lot, even at 93 minutes. This is due to Carpenter using spare time to add action rather than to expand much on the original plot. Still, there is a story there and one that is not like other action films being made right now and Carpenter gets points for that. Rating: +2. These days you have two kinds of filmmakers. You have your original filmmakers who tell new stories and make new films. Then you have filmmakers who recombine elements of successful movies. This kind sprinkles science fiction ideas into a police action film and gets something like _A_l_i_e_n _N_a_t_i_o_n or _D_e_e_p _S_p_a_c_e. One filmmaker you can usually depend on being mostly original is John Carpenter. He may add some prefabricated filler but at least his films are stories you have not seen on film before. This time around Carpenter has adapted a comic book version of the popular science fiction story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson, beefed up its political message, added a lot of not very imaginative padding, and turned a fast-paced story into a snail's-paced 93-minute movie. The story is that of John Nada (called George Nada in the short story), who gets a pair of sunglasses that allows him to see what is _r_e_a_l_l_y going on. (In the short story Nada is awakened too far from an hypnotic state.) And what is going on? We are all being shepherded by aliens who to most people pass for human. All our literature and advertising and television gives us nothing but subliminal messages like "Buy," "Obey," "Stay asleep," "No imagination," "Marry and reproduce," and "No independent thought." With the sunglasses the world is black and white but you can see what is really going on. (Hmmmm! Could this be a comment on colorization?) The real problem with _T_h_e_y _L_i_v_e is that Carpenter has taken his five-page story and added little to it but padding. Most of the padding is action scenes which undiscerning audiences have come to accept as a substitute for plot. If the filmmaker has people shooting each other, breaking windows, having fist fights, and in general keeping images flicking on the screen, audiences do not care that the story is stopped stock still and is not advancing one whit. This film is packed with very long stretches of mindless action, including a seemingly endless fist fight. And mindlessness in the media is very apropos for the plot of _T_h_e_y _L_i_v_e, though at one point in the film Carpenter explicitly lists himself and George Romero as being part of the solution rather than part of the problem. They Live November 13, 1988 Page 2 In spite of the fact that there was only about thirty minutes worth of story here, it is a good story and for its sake I would rate this a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. Sources of "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson: _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e _o_f _F_a_n_t_a_s_y _a_n_d _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n, November, 1963 _B_e_s_t _o_f _T_h_e _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e _o_f _F_a_n_t_a_s_y _a_n_d _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n #_1_3, ed. by Avram Davidson _T_h_e _O_t_h_e_r_s, ed. by Terry Carr _T_a_l_e_s _o_f _T_e_r_r_o_r _f_r_o_m _O_u_t_e_r _S_p_a_c_e, ed. by R. Chetwynd-Hayes _Y_e_a_r'_s _B_e_s_t _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n #_9, ed. by Judith Merril