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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 09/14/90 -- Vol. 9, No. 11

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

10/03 LZ: MICROMEGAS by Voltaire (Philosophy)
10/24 LZ: THE WORM OUROBOROS by E. R. Eddison (Classic Horror)
11/07 MT: WANDERING STARS ed. by Jack Dann (Jewish Science Fiction)
11/14 LZ: WAR WITH THE NEWTS by Karel Capek (Foreign SF)

_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.

09/15 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
10/14 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)

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 3E-301 949-4488 hotld!tps
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 mtunq!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. Years ago bookstores sold pretty much only books. That was back
in those dark days when people used to still think that books were
a viable form of communication. Not that the book wasn't a clever
invention in its time. A paperback is an object that you can
easily hold in one hand and has about 60 square feet of surface
area. A book was a remarkable advance over writing on walls and on
pots. But optimizing surface area over volume is an old trick and
doesn't really impress people much any more. Now people realize
how silly an excess having all that surface area really was. Who
really can use 60 square feet of words all at once? It is a much
better idea to have only four or five square inches of just the
information you want right at your finger tips. You can store the
rest on a chip or a tape or something and have the wonderful world

THE MT VOID Page 2

of electronics bring you just the information you want.

In this spirit I was most impressed to see that the more reverent
among us no longer have to turn to The Good Book for inspiration,
now technology has made it possible to access The Good Electronic
Calculator. Yes, for just about 200 smackers you can get yourself
the Bible in handy pocket calculator format. This little baby has
the entire Bible in its little chips. You can call up any verse
you have a need for and scroll down it to your heart's content.
Now you may have thought that technology had done great things for
religion before. You, yourself, may have found your faith
strengthened by a vacuum-formed polyethylene inspirational statue
on your dashboard or may have gone to sleep with your eyes fixed on
a cross made from glow-in-the-dark, luminescent plastic. But take
it from me, you've ain't never had your faith goosed up the way it
is going to be when you actually have the honest-to-god Bible right
there in silicon and batteries and plastic, the way it really was
intended all along. (Oh, incidentally, they really ought to change
that name "Bible." It comes from the Latin word "biblia" for book.
With Latin dead and books dying, they really _h_a_v_e to come up with a
name that is more in tune with the times and isn't inadvertently
pushing competitors' products.)

But, hey, if you are going to go to look for this baby don't expect
to find the Bible on any sort of a standard-looking calculator. I
mean this is not just your standard Holy-Trinity-on-a-four-banger.
But this gizmo shouldn't look like other calculators, just like the
Bible isn't like any other book. It is in a smart-looking casing
that not only reminds people of a scroll, but it stands up a little
better on a desk. It comes in a very reverent deep-red color. I
kind of thought that there should be a discount for Jews who would
need less of the memory. It would have been a clever design to be
able to snap out a New Testament chip and either give a discount or
be able to snap in an Apocrypha chip. Hey, speaking of that, I
hope it has an interface where you can snap in a bunch of Talmud
modules. That could be really useful.

And all this runs on four size-AA batteries. They didn't say but I
suspect that they don't even have to be long-life batteries.
Someone Else will take care of the long life. But I am sure that
after the first night of playing with this new electronic Bible it
can sit on a shelf and collect dust like the best standard Bible
you have ever owned.

Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper

DARKMAN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: This film does not have gaps in its
logic, it has gorges. Sam Raimi's transition from horror
to science fiction shows up serious problems in his
plotting. Five people wrote the screenplay, but it plays
as if it were ten. And a bigger budget is pushing
Raimi's visual sense to the pretentious. A sad
disappointment after his _E_v_i_l _D_e_a_d _I_I. Rating: -1.

Sam Raimi is a director who came from out of nowhere to become a
major name in the horror film genre. His film _E_v_i_l _D_e_a_d (1983),
produced on a shoestring, was nonetheless a very impressive debut. He
had a lot of novel variations on what was basically a zombie film.
Raimi's second film, _E_v_i_l _D_e_a_d _I_I (1987), proved to be a terrifically
inventive horror film with an amazing array of weird twists and visual
playing. You have little idea watching _E_v_i_l _D_e_a_d _I_I what is likely to
happen next but you can be fairly sure it will further twist the horror
film cliches into a knot. With _D_a_r_k_m_a_n Raimi is taking on the comic
book superhero film and trying to twist it the way he twisted the zombie
film in his previous efforts.

With _D_a_r_k_m_a_n, however, Raimi is telling a more complex story than
before and it shows up weaknesses in his story-telling abilities. In
fact, by making the short trip from horror/fantasy to what is basically
science fiction, Raimi has managed to turn his greatest virtue into his
greatest flaw. What was good about the _E_v_i_l _D_e_a_d films, particularly
the sequel, was the feeling that just about anything could happen. That
is the same feeling we get with _D_a_r_k_m_a_n, but it is a fault. As a
fantasy, the _E_v_i_l _D_e_a_d films take place in a world of the supernatural.
_D_a_r_k_m_a_n occurs in the world of the rational and it has a much more
complex plot. With a rational film you have the right to observe that
something does not make sense.

Liam Neeson plays Dr. Westlake, a scientist working on synthetic
flesh a la 1932's _D_r. _X. His girlfriend Julie Hastings (played by
Frances McDormand) runs afoul of some particularly sadistic heavies and
they horribly disfigure Westlake in an attempt to kill him. To treat
Westlake, his doctors cut his pain sensors, a standard procedure
operation that leaves Westlake with great strength and also makes him
just a little mentally unbalanced. As his doctor (Jenny Agutter in a
cameo) explains, this is pretty generally what the operation does. The
first question to ask is why there are not a bunch of very strong people
running around. Even if, as the doctor suggests, the vast majority of
people who have the operation do not survive, wouldn't the few who do
have the Darkman's strength?

Darkman September 8, 1990 Page 2

Westlake, disfigured, then escapes and hides in sewers with perhaps
more than just a slight tip of the hat to the 1943 _P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f _t_h_e _O_p_e_r_a.
Eventually he finds a place and stocks it with very advanced scientific
equipment. (How does he find such a nice place that is just abandoned?
Where does he get the equipment? Who knows?) He uses his synthetic
flesh to make computer-generated masks that are perfect replicas of
people using only the information in a single photograph. (Bosh--he
could not possibly get all the information he needs from so few
photographs.) When he puts on the mask he can look so much like the
other person as to fool even close associates. (How does he get the
right voice? Assume the right stature?) Apparently after having built
this laboratory with his own hands he suddenly discovers that all along
his hands have been as badly destroyed as his face. (How could he do as
much as he did without realizing the state of his hands?) The logic of
_D_a_r_k_m_a_n is not just bad, it is shockingly bad.

The technical credits are somewhat better. The score by Danny
Elfman is somewhat in his _B_a_t_m_a_n style but stands fairly well on its
own. With his first real budget, Raimi has managed a number of nice
visual effects though at times he almost borders on being pretentious.
One such touch has Hastings watching the death of her lover. First the
background fades to a graveyard, then her clothing fades to a black
mourning dress. A number of visual touches seem to borrow from _A_l_t_e_r_e_d
_S_t_a_t_e_s. But there are also surprising visual gaffes such as shots shown
in mirror image with tell-tale backwards lettering. At one point we see
a truck with a clown smile face on it destroyed and seconds later we see
it miraculously undestroyed. The tone of the film abruptly shifts to
tongue-in-cheek toward the end, damaging the feeling.

_D_a_r_k_m_a_n has been getting some very favorable comment from critics.
And I tried to turn my mind off and just enjoy the film. But I have to
say _D_a_r_k_m_a_n did not do very much for me. I give it a -1 on the -4 to +4
scale.

Capsule review: Jim Henson's last film is a
charming modern fairy tale of a boy foiling a plot by the
witches of England. It captures some of the fun horror
of traditional fairy tales. Unfortunately, it loses some
of its inspiration about mid-film. The story would be
ideally suited to animation and doing it in live action
is an impressive if not altogether necessary feat.
Rating: low +2.

The perfect medium for showing imaginative images visually is
animation. With animation, if you can visualize it, you can put it on a
screen. 1973's _F_a_n_t_a_s_t_i_c _P_l_a_n_e_t, while lacking in story values, may
well be the most visually imaginative science fiction film ever made.
Unfortunately for animated fantasy, _S_t_a_r _W_a_r_s came out four years later
and showed that imaginative live action was coming of age and animated
fantasy became a sideshow. Only the Japanese seem to recognize the
possibilities of animation as a medium for fantasy, and even in Japan
fantastic animation is falling short of the real potential of the
medium. In the United States and Europe audiences want live action even
if it is at the expense of imagination. Films such as _B_a_t_m_a_n and _D_i_c_k
_T_r_a_c_y are trying to impress the world with how well they can overcome
problems that would not even arise with animation. _D_i_c_k _T_r_a_c_y was able
to make some expensive boxoffice stars really look much like the comic
strip characters. _B_a_t_m_a_n was less successful visually in making Jack
Nicholson look like the Joker. Both of these films could have had
better stories and looked absolutely perfect had they been animated, but
they would have died at the boxoffice. Audiences really want live
action and are quite willing to sacrifice story values and imagination
for the thrill of seeing things done in live action.

_T_h_e _W_i_t_c_h_e_s is a fine new live-action fantasy film that almost
matches in imagination and charm what Walt Disney was able to do with
animation back in the 1940s.

Fairy tales are not all sweetness and fun, and they are not just
for children. Most fairy tales are horror stories told on a level that
all ages can appreciate them. And that is just what _T_h_e _W_i_t_c_h_e_s is.
From the very beginning this film lays down some blood-curdling folklore
about witches. Some of it is really the stuff paranoia is made of.
Witches can live right next door, they smell children from great
distances, they have no toes. Take note, those of you who feel children
must be protected from the sort of scary stories that children have been
raised on from time immemorial. The stories are told to young Luke
(played by Jasen Fisher) by his Norwegian grandmother (played by Swedish
actor/director Mai Zettering) and it is a good thing she told him. He

Witches September 9, 1990 Page 2

shortly has to fight a convocation of the witches of England in their
plot to turn all English children into mice. And shortly is how he has
to fight them, since he is one of the first two children turned into
mice.

Jim Henson used his Muppet technology to portray the mouse Luke
when he does something non-mouselike. When a trained mouse can be used,
it is. The problem there is that the Muppet mouse has a cute face that
the real mouse apparently found very difficult to mimic. The combining
of realistic mouse movements with a humanlike personality for the mouse
would be, of course, much simpler for Disney to do in animation than it
was for Henson to do in live action, and the result would have been much
more successful. The makeup for the witches is similarly nicely
executed. Anjelica Huston's Grand High Witch makeup fails to convince
totally that this is really the face of a living being, but it is well-
detailed.

_T_h_e _W_i_t_c_h_e_s is, and is likely to remain, Nicholas Roeg's only
children's film. (He claims he made it for his own newly-born child.)
Allan Scott's script, based on the novel by Roald Dahl, raises some
gooseflesh early on, but loses much of its power to chill once Luke is a
cute mouse and the story concentrates more on his mission than on the
horror of the witches. Scott also manages to throw in some double
entendres clearly not intended for the younger audience. In smaller
roles there is Rowan Atkinson (television's Black Adder) as a hotel
manager clearly of the Basil Fawlty style. Bill Peterson (Dickie Bird
in Bill Forsyte's _C_o_m_f_o_r_t _a_n_d _J_o_y) plays the father of a mouse who once
was a gluttonous child.

It would be unfair to down-rate this film because it is not doing
anything to advance animated film. The film as it stands _i_s charming
and works (at least generally) in live action. It is a nice fantasy and
deserves some credit for not aiming specifically at a youth or teenage
market. It is just a decent fantasy film that is there for whatever
audience it finds. I rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.