@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 12/01/89 -- Vol. 8, No. 22 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon. LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. MT meetings are in the cafeteria. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 12/13 LZ: "Well World" series by Jack Chalker (The Universe as a Mathematical Process) _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. 12/09 Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Susan Bertan Braviak & Joseph Braviak, movie dealers (phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday) 12/16 NJSFS New Jersey Science Fiction Society: John Gregory Betancourt (phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday) 12/17 Gaylaxians (Sunday) (phone 201-672-3044 for details) HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 hocpa!jetzt LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 mtgzx!leeper HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3D-225A 949-5866 homxb!tps LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 lzfme!lfl MT Librarian: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to stand up and defend their rights, I think they should do so. I am hereby giving my notice that I am fed up, as no doubt most of you who are reading my words are, and I think drastic measures are required to remedy a situation that has become totally intolerable. I am hereby founding two terrorist organizations which share common goals, a common respect for each other, and one member each--namely me--to combat a common menace. Hereby let it be stated that I am forming the FLUF and the SLUF. FLUF is the Fantasy-Lovers United Front; SLUF is the Science-Fiction-Lovers United Front. (Okay, so who would be able to pronounce SFLUF? Allow me some poetic license. Why united? I needed a vowel and at least currently, with one member in each, I would say we have to be THE MT VOID Page 2 united. Or maybe not.) What brought all this on? Well, believe it or not, it was opera. What does opera have to do with fantasy? I hear you ask in that funny voice you sometimes use. (You know the one I mean.) Well, lots of operas are fantasy. At least if they are at allowed to be. The best known is Wagner's tetralogy "The Ring of the Nibelungs." These are four giant fantasy operas; at least they are if people let them be. I mean, they are supposed to be chuck full of warring gods, angry giants, young love, flashing swords, callow heroes, dwarves, mystic lands in the sky, dark underground dungeons, even dragons right on stage, all done to music that shook the rafters even back when it was the composer who created the effect, not electronic distortion. But the turkeys who produce the play are unwilling to let it be fantasy. When it was first performed the actors wore fur and the sets represented the proper fantasy setting. But that was too much fantasy. The sets were reduced to just abstract platforms. Then the clothing became just as abstract. When it got shown on national television here (well, PBS) it was done in 19th Century dress and instead of underground forges of the dwarves we got dusty 18th Century factories. It's like setting _L_o_r_d _o_f _t_h_e _R_i_n_g_s in the streets off Newark--worse! Now the National Arts Center or some such are putting the operas on in Washington D.C. Are they doing it right? Well, the underground kingdom isn't a factory anymore. It's a [expletive-deleted] subway tunnel. If I wanted to go to a subway tunnel, I could do that in New York. Well, this is one time too many. This time they will feel FLUF's wrath. We--assuming there is a "we" by then--are going down to Washington and the night before the premiere rip down all their clever modern sets and replace them with rock caverns and sky castles. All power to the people! Right on! 2. There will be no film festival until further notice--probably not until after the first of the year. [-ecl] Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 ...mtgzx!leeper Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. -- H. G. Wells SWORD OF DOOM A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: Black samurai film noir about a psychotic swordsman and several other reprehensible people. They all meet a bad end; so does this film, which ends ambiguously and with several unresolved subjects. Rating: +1. Kihachi Okamoto's 1966 _S_w_o_r_d _o_f _D_o_o_m is aptly named. The film is about swords and about doom and about more doom. This is a relentlessly downbeat samurai film noir exercise. It is well photographed-- stunningly in some scenes--but I found myself wishing it would end sooner so I would not have to watch these people nay more. At the center of the story is an essentially mentally deranged swordsman who kills for sport and to perfect his style and for just about any other reason that comes to mind. He learned the technique from his father who invented it, taught it to his son, and then repented of all the damage it had done. Tsukue is to have a style match with Utsugi but, though his technique is superior, he agrees not to kill Utsugi. However, when Utsugi's wife Hana comes to Tsukue to beg for her husband's life, Tsukue again agrees but only if she will have sex with him. She reluctantly agrees. Her husband finds out about the arrangement and divorces his wife. In spite of giving his word twice, Tsukue finds himself compelled by bloodlust to kill Utsugi anyway. Tsukue take his opponent's ex-wife whom he maintains in a constant state of fear, even after she bears him a son. The film also concerns a beautiful young woman sold by her mother to a nobleman who uses her sadistically as a sex toy. When she is rescued by her uncle, the mother sells her into concubinage. The major characters are mostly either vicious or weak. Tatsuya Nakadai plays the evil Tsukue as a man possessed by inner devils. Outwardly passive-looking, even when fighting, he is a man deep within himself and yet always at war with the world. He reminds one of psychotic performances by Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark. The script claims he kills by an evil technique and that an evil mind is mirrored in an evil sword. There are powerful visual images to show the anger in Tsukue in spite of his passive face. In one scene he is in a dusty room with one beam of light from the sun. He is practicing strokes where the tip of his blade stops within the beam. The swirling dust makes the sword look as if it is smoking. I have never failed to enjoy any samurai film, but _S_w_o_r_d _o_f _D_o_o_m comes as close as any with its bitter and downbeat tone. Rate it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. (Two additional notes: Toshiro Mifune plays Shimada, the teacher of a fighting school who has a mutual fear of Tsukue. Director Okamoto went on to direct _A_k_a_g_e (a.k.a., _R_e_d _L_i_o_n) in 1969 and _Z_a_t_o_i_c_h_i _M_e_e_t_s _Y_o_j_i_m_b_o in 1970.) THE ABYSS A film review by Estes Slade, III Copyright 1989 Estes Slade, III You know me. I'm one of those kind of folks who never complain about anything. Well, about two months ago I went to Shrewsbury Cinema to see a new film called THE ABYSS. Now I didn't really know what an ABYSS was, and really didn't care. But I had this friend who really wanted to talk, but had not a soul (brother?) to talk to. I would have suggested your book if I had know about it. Anyway, there we were surrounded by sticky, snotty-nosed, noisy adults disguised as children, all eyes fixed on the action up front. For over 90% of the film I was on the edge of my seat (mostly because one of those "adults" sitting in back of me spilled ice down my back). But the last 15 minutes or so was a piece of ___T!!!!!! I was so mad, as I left the theater I asked the management to give me back my money. When the usher said "I'm sorry, sir, but you did stay for the whole film!" Then I responded "Well, can I have my money back for the last fifteen minutes?" He gave me a nickel, which was just about what it was worth! As I walked out toward my car I told everyone waiting in line for the next show to don't throw away their money on THE ABYSS. The theater probably made record profits that day.