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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 11/01/91 -- Vol. 10, No. 18

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

11/13/91 MT: THE RED MAGICIAN by Lisa Goldstein (Jewish SF)
11/20/91 LZ: THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert A. Heinlein (Alien
Parasites)
12/11/91 LZ: MIRKHEIM by Poul Anderson (Novels with Names of
Scandinavian Mythological Places in Them)
12/18/91 MT: "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke (Christian SF)
01/08/92 LZ: EXPECTING SOMEONE TALLER by Tom Holt (Operatic SF)
01/29/92 LZ: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess (Dystopias)

_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.
11/09/91 Autographing: Ellen Datlow, Janet Kagan, Ellen Kushner,
Melissa Scott, Jack Womack (B. Dalton, Willowbrook
Mall, Wayne, 1-5 PM) (Sat)
11/09/91 Autographing: S. N. Lewitt (Science Fiction Shop, NYC)
(4-6 PM) (Sat)
11/09/91 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Bob
Eggleton, space artist (phone 201-933-2724 for
details) (Saturday)
11/16/91 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)

HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 908-576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Rebecca Schoenfeld HO 2K-430 908-949-6122 homxb!btfsd
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 908-576-3346 mtunq!lfl
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

1. The Leeperhouse film festival by now must have films of every
genre but one. I cannot think of any war movie we have ever shown-
--at least no film set in World War II. Well, I had a request to
have a film festival with _T_h_e _G_u_n_s _o_f _N_a_v_a_r_o_n_e as the second film.

THE MT VOID Page 2

It was not easy to find a second film to pair it with, but I had
just gotten another reasonably enjoyable film also set in World War
II. So that is it then, I guess. On Thursday, Novemebr 7, at 7PM,
we will show:

Airplanes and Artillery
MEMPHIS BELLE (1990) dir. by Michael Caton-Jones
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1960) dir. by J. Lee Thompson

MEMPHIS BELLE is a fictional story based on a true incident (in
spite of people saying that the story is true). The Memphis Belle
was the first B-17 to complete twenty-five bombing missions over
Germany. That meant that the crew had earned the right to go home.
The media made it a big event. This film about the twenty-fifth
mission becomes an essay on what it felt like to fly the big one
and all the different ways a flight could end in disaster. It is
hard to believe all this action would take place in a single
mission but it still makes for an exciting--if cliche-ridden--
story. John Lithgow and Matthew Modine star.

Well, what do I have to say about THE GUNS OF NAVARONE? This is a
legendary adventure film. This has a superb cast, solid suspense,
Oscar-winning special effects, and a classic score by Dimitri
Tiomkin. Based on an Alistair MacLean novel, the film stars
Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Stanley Baker, Anthony
Quayle, and Irene Pappas.

Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper

If a man possesses no knowledge of reasoning, he is
incapable of expressing truth.
-- Avicenna (Ibn Sina)

TWO EVIL EYES
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: Two famous horror directors
tell two stories that are said to be based on Edgar
Allan Poe stories. Poe would not have recognized the
stories and certainly would not have liked them. If
you want to see it, do so quickly. It will disappear
soon. And that's just fine. Rating: -1 (-4 to +4).

Poor Edgar Allan Poe. For the longest time he has been the
acknowledged master of the horror story. How often have films
claimed to be his stories. Yet I can honestly say that I cannot
think of a single film that was a faithful adaptation of a Poe
story. Roger Corman came a little closer than usual in a 1961
quickie called _T_a_l_e_s _o_f _T_e_r_r_o_r in which Richard Matheson adapted
three stories: "Morella," "The Black Cat," and "Facts in the Case of
M. Valdemar." "The Black Cat" had "The Cask of Amontillado" mixed
in but it was clear that Matheson had at least read the Poe. Now
two of these stories have been re-done in _T_w_o _E_v_i_l _E_y_e_s.

_T_w_o _E_v_i_l _E_y_e_s is not so much an anthology film as two one-hour
films, each possibly made for cable, stitched together to make a
feature film. In each case the films borrow from Poe--or from other
Poe films--but these can hardly be said to be adaptations. Both are
updated to the present, since as long as the writers are inventing
they might as well save money doing it. George Romero wrote and
directed "Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"; Dario Argento wrote and
directed "The Black Cat."

In "Valdemar" Poe told the story of a man who dies while under
hypnotic trance and, though the body is dead, the trance remains, so
the body has become a sort of obedient zombie. This telling throws
in an unfaithful wife (played by Adrienne Barbeau, of course)
impatient for her husband to die. In her scheme to inherit hubby's
fortune she has a doctor hypnotize her husband. When the husband
dies she pops him in the deep freeze, not knowing that while the
body is dead, the mind is alive and still in a trance. The story
gets muddled with doorways to other worlds and omnipresent gore,
both of which would have surprised and shocked Poe.

Dario Argento's "Black Cat" is a long, complicated, uninvolving
bore. But then rare is the Argento film that is not a long,
complicated, uninvolving bore. Harvey Keitel plays an art
photographer who likes to get scenes of urban violence. As comes as
no surprise to anyone, this guy is also pretty much a twisted
cookie. He drinks too much and abuses his live-in girlfriend, an
irritating violinist. The friend adopts a stray black cat who runs

Two Evil Eyes October 26, 1991 Page 2

around the house making more like a puma than a house cat. The
piece drags incredibly and, while the story is not entirely
predictable, the twists do not seem to be to any valuable purpose.
There is a lot of blood spilt, but other than that there isn't much
to laugh at at all.

_T_w_o _E_v_i_l _E_y_e_s is two wasted hours. My rating is -1 on the -4
to +4 scale.

Capsule review: Good acting, good direction,
but a really bad screenplay and story trying to make
us all thank our lucky stars that we are not
geniuses. This film insults the viewer's
intelligence in specific and intelligence in general.
This is the most paranoid view of the highly
intelligence since _S_i_m_o_n. Rating: -1 (-4 to +4).

Poor Pinocchio! He was a wonderful magical puppet, but he knew
it was much better to be a real live boy. Then there was Mr. Spock.
He seemed to pride himself on his logical Vulcan side. But every
chance the writers get they showed how much better it was to be
human. Kirk's eulogy also said that of all souls Kirk had met,
Spock's was the most human. Being a normal human must be the best
thing in the whole universe. And look. We're all human. There are
so many humans around, this just has to be Best of All Possible
Worlds. And you and I are the best things to be. Just normal
everyday people. Oh boy!

Fred Tate (played by Adam Hann-Byrd) is like one of the child
geniuses in _C_h_i_l_d_r_e_n _o_f _t_h_e _D_a_m_n_e_d. Daddy is nowhere to be found
and Fred clearly does not get his genius from his mother's side.
But at what looks like age two he is already reading labels on
dinnerware, much to the amazement of his mother, Dede (played by
Jodie Foster, who also directs). By age seven he is already
brilliant in eight or nine different ways, including painting,
poetry, mathematics, and music. When he is given a math problem he
and the audience see the numbers float by in a pretty blue stream.

Fred is discovered by Jane Grierson (played by Dianne Wiest).
Grierson heads a sort of institute that is funded in some way we
never find out. Its opulence surely cannot all come from tuition.
Her institute seems to collect dossiers on emerging child geniuses,
screen them, and choose a select few to be given all the resources
they need to develop to their full potential. It seems to work sort
of like the similar organization in _T_h_e _F_u_r_y. One of the children
from this sort of environment seriously tells an interviewer, "I'm
working on an experiment involving lasers, sulphuric acid, and
butterflies." Oh, buy, that sure doesn't sound like much fun for
the butterflies, does it, boys and girls? But then, we all knew
that geniuses develop things like H-bombs because they have lost the
human touch. Lucky you and I still have it, huh?

Well, as it turns out, Jane Grierson has her problems too. She
is a genius, which means of course she eats funny things. She likes

Little Man Tate October 27, 1991 Page 2

macrobiotic foods that make the normal side of Fred vomit. She
listens to genius music by Mozart (but by the end credits we are
back to people-oriented music like Cole Porter). And she does not
know how to deal with people at all. Fred becomes the object of a
tug-of-war between Dr. Grierson, who wants to develop his genius,
and his mother, who wants him to be more average.

Oddly enough, just about everything I did not like was the
script. Except for her choice of material, Jodie Foster did a good
job with the film. Dianne Wiest turned in a very good performance,
as usual. Like Kathleen Quinlan, another actress I admire, Wiest
seems to have an aura of both vulnerability and courage. It is as
if she has been badly hurt but has picked herself up and is carrying
on.

Adam Hann-Byrd really plays a young genius very well. In spite
of the script not knowing how geniuses behave, Hann-Byrd really does
seem bright. Both Hann-Byrd and Wiest are more engaging than
Foster. Foster seems satisfied to be the hero of the film and does
not do much to steal scenes from the other two. Foster maintains
our interest in the characters in spite of the weak script.

Overall I give this film a low -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.