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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 05/22/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 47

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

06/03 HO: THRICE UPON A TIME by James Hogan (Time Travel) (HO 1N-310)
06/24 HO: RAFT by Stephen Baxter (Gravity) (HO 1N-410)
07/15 MT: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SCIENCE FICTION by David Pringle (SF
reference books) (MT 1P-364)
08/05 HO: THE SILMARILLION by J.R.R. Tolkien (Alternate Mythologies)
(HO 1N-410)
08/26 HO: BONE DANCE by Emma Bull (Hugo nominee) (HO 1N-410)

_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.
05/16 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
06/13 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Trip
to Library of NASA in Manhattan (phone
201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)

HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1D-505A 908-834-1267 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 homxc!11366ns
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 908-576-3346 mtfme!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. Well, it's spring. Trees and bushes are in bloom. The warm
clothes go up to the attic; the electric fans come down. The bees
are buzzing. And on television your choice of eight different
baseball games. Each one more boring than the others. Blecchh! I
hate baseball. What do you expect from a sport whose greatest
virtue is that it does not suck pond water as badly as football
does. Not quite. However, in spite of my regard for baseball I
have to admit there are actually three good baseball films. No,
not _T_h_e _P_r_i_d_e _o_f _t_h_e _Y_a_n_k_e_e_s. Yug. Not _B_u_l_l _D_u_r_h_a_m either. That
was just okay. No, all three good baseball films are fantasy films

THE MT VOID Page 2

first and baseball films second. One of the good ones is _I_t
_H_a_p_p_e_n_s _E_v_e_r_y _S_p_r_i_n_g with Ray Milland. I don't think I have a good
copy of that anyway. On Thursday, May 28, at 7 PM we will show:

The Other Two
THE NATURAL (1984) dir. by Barry Levinson
FIELD OF DREAMS (1989) dir. by Phil Alden Robinson

THE NATURAL is an epic fantasy of good against evil told as a
baseball story. It starts to tell the Bernard Malamud story of a
natural baseball player but goes off in its own direction so that
it becomes that rarest of all films, the horribly inaccurate
adaptation of a novel that tells a much better story than the
novel. Randy Newman's score is terrific and the all-star cast is
used without wasting a star: Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn
Close, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley, Richard Farnsworth, Barbara
Hershey, Robert Prosky, Darren McGavin, and Joe Don Baker.

FIELD OF DREAMS is a gentle baseball-related fantasy about an Iowa
farmer who one day starts hearing voices telling him to build a
baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield. Before he knows
it, the voices are making even nuttier demands. The film made a
name for fantasy writer W. P. Kinsella, on whose book _S_h_o_e_l_e_s_s _J_o_e
it was based. (Curiously, the character in the book _T_h_e _N_a_t_u_r_a_l is
based on Shoeless Joe Jackson, so there is a certain completeness
in showing these films together.) Now it is a common misconception
that FIELD OF DREAMS was actually better than THE NATURAL. That's
nonsense, since THE NATURAL was the best baseball film ever made.
It is just that between 1984 and 1989 people's standards dropped.
It will be obvious showing these films back to back that FIELD OF
DREAMS, good as it is, is out-classed by THE NATURAL. Correct me
if you think I'm wrong. A review of FIELD OF DREAMS appears
elsewhere in this issue. The film stars Kevin Costner, Amy
Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta, and Burt Lancaster.

2. Note that all meetings have been moved to Holmdel or
Middletown. This is because none of the attendees at recent
Lincroft meetings have actually been from Lincroft. Since the
majority are from Holmdel, we will try meeting there for a while.
Since the 7/15 book will be written up by a Middletown person, we
will have that meeting there. (So now you know that the way to
have meetings convenient to you is to offer to lead them. :-) )

Room numbers (and location changes) will be announced as they
become known. [-ecl]

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

Self-knowledge is always bad news.
-- John Barth

A MIDNIGHT CLEAR
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: Black comedy and tragedy about
a German and an American squad who want to make a
separate peace during the Battle of the Bulge. The
film tries to emulate Heller's _C_a_t_c_h-_2_2 and black
comedies such as _C_a_s_t_l_e _K_e_e_p. Rating: low +2 (-4 to
+4).

_A _M_i_d_n_i_g_h_t _C_l_e_a_r is a World War II story on the insanity and
stupidity of war in general told with bitter humor and irony. It
begs comparison with _C_a_s_t_l_e _K_e_e_p and especially _C_a_t_c_h-_2_2 It pretty
well had to be an angry film, being directed by Keith Gordon (who
had previously made _T_h_e _C_h_o_c_o_l_a_t_e _W_a_r), and being based on a novel
by William Wharton (the author of the book _B_i_r_d_y). And there is a
lot of rage let out in _A _M_i_d_n_i_g_h_t _C_l_e_a_r, sometimes eloquently,
sometimes muddled.

The story is set in mid-December, 1944, in the Ardennes Forest.
Somewhere, in another part of the forest, the Battle of the Bulge--
the last great German offensive of the war--is raging. (Curiously,
they never mention that this is the Battle of the Bulge, even in the
narration. It might have helped some viewers place the action in
perspective.) The story concerns a squad of six very war-weary
Americans sent to act as sentinels where the Germans are expected to
break through. Basically they are to report, then save themselves
if they can. It does not help their odds that one of their number
is already nearly insane. No reasonable commander would give such
an order, but their Major Griffin (played by John McGinley) is every
soldier's worst nightmare--stupid, officious, and without a touch of
sympathy for the men he commands.

Then things start getting stranger for the squad. They find
the corpses of a German and an American soldier frozen in a tableau
of dancing together. They have several encounters with Germans that
should have gotten them killed and the Germans refuse to throw
anything at them worse than snowballs. In fact, they have run into
a squad of Germans who apparently wants to play one of the most
dangerous games of wartime--they seem to want to make a separate
peace.

This is a slow, deliberate, and very introspective film--an odd
choice to start the summer fluff season. It reaches its climax a
good half-hour before the end of the film and then just sort of
smolders out. There are many bizarre touches in the photography,
not the least of which is the bizarre statuary in the area the squad
is trying to secure. One statue holds its decapitated head in

Midnight Clear May 17, 1992 Page 2

front of it like a ghost. Mark Isham's score depicts the weirdness
of the situation, but certainly not the period. The film is sad,
angry, and anti-war straight through. Even the flashback sex scene
turns out to be sad, angry, and anti-war. The film is much more
anxious to attain a literary style than to be an accurate portrayal
of how war is fought, but it makes its point. I give it a low +2 on
the -4 to +4 scale.

FAR AND AWAY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: A really big film with
impressive historical sweep. The sort of epic
storytelling that films do so well and just have not
done very often in recent years. Tom Cruise and
Nicole Kidman star in a story of Irish immigrants
coming to the Irish slums of Boston and then to the
Oklahoma land rush just about one century ago. This
is the most enjoyable film I have seen in 1992.
Rating: +3 (-4 to +4).

(Spoiler warning: This film could not be adequately described
without telling more of the plot than I usually like to tell. It is
clear early on where this film is going. However, if you prefer not
to read details of the plot, be warned.)

The summer is off to a roaring start with the return of a type
of film we have not seen in a while, a big sprawling spectacular
historical novel in cinematic form. This is a film in the grand
tradition of epics like _T_h_e _U_n_t_a_m_e_d, which took Tyrone Power and
Susan Howard from Ireland to a trek across South Africa with the
Boers. It is rare enough these days to see an historical film set
in another century. _F_a_r _a_n_d _A_w_a_y sweeps the audience from the
tenant unrest in Ireland in 1892 to the Irish slums of Boston to a
brief sequence in the Ozarks and finally to the Oklahoma land rush.
The land rush race of 1893 is eye-poppingly brought to the screen on
a scale rarely seen on films any more. Along the way the viewer
gets a pleasurable history lesson about conditions in Ireland,
Boston, and Oklahoma of a century ago. _F_a_r _a_n_d _A_w_a_y is _a _l_o_t of
film. It is 140 minutes of story.

The story opens in western Ireland. There tenant farmers live
and die in abject poverty, owing everything they have to absentee
landlords. Many of these landlords never even saw the properties
that made them rich. Joseph Donelly (played surprisingly well by
Tom Cruise) has dreams of escaping his poverty and owning his own
lands. His dreams change when the rent collector indirectly kills
Donelly's father and then intentionally burns Donelly's home.
Donelly leaves home, intending to find and murder his landlord
Daniel Christie (played by Robert Prosky). Christie turns out to be
a likable fellow and Donelly a completely incompetent assassin.
Soon Donelly is a patient being cared for by Christie's family in
Christie's own house. Donelly particularly is interested in Shannon
Christie (played by Nicole Kidman--Cruise's real-life wife).
Shannon fancies herself a very modern woman and has dreams of
running away to America, where they are giving away free land in

Far and Away May 17, 1992 Page 2

Oklahoma and where she can be the equal of any man. It is no
surprise to the audience that she is eventually off to America with
part of the family treasure and with Donelly in tow as a sort of
servant--at least that is what she thinks he is.

The longest chapter of the story is set in the Irish immigrant
slums of Boston, where the couple go from riches to rags to riches
and back to rags. The historical re-creation here is beautifully
done. We see the immigrant population and the brothels. Donelly
and Shannon are forced to pose as brother and sister and share a
room in a brothel. Shannon plucks chickens and barely makes enough
money to cover the rent, while Donelly is adopted by a local bully
(played by Colm Meany of _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) and groomed
as a bare-knuckle boxer. Donelly has a meteoric career as a boxer-
-reminiscent of too many other of Cruise's films. Eventually the
couple is dragged apart by poverty. Donelly tries a minor stint
laying railroad track in the Ozarks before he decides to head west
and find his land in Oklahoma. They once again meet up for the
largest and most famous of the Oklahoma land rushes, the Cherokee
Strip race. (Ever wonder what Cherokee Strip Day commemorated?)
The Cherokee Strip was a six-million-acre strip of land between
Kansas and Oklahoma bought from the Cherokee Nation for $8,500,000.
It was partitioned into plots of land, and at noon on Saturday,
September 16, 1893, the race for land began. The first person to
get to one of the plots and replace the marker flag in it with his
own flag owned it. One to a customer. This was the best known of
the Oklahoma land rushes, attracting 100,000 settlers ("boomers").
A settler could be shot for being a "sooner," cheating and going to
a plot of land sooner than noon. Sooners are, however, commemorated
in the state nickname: The Sooner State. The Cherokee Strip land
rush has been depicted in films several times before--most notably
in the 1931 film _C_i_m_a_r_r_o_n, based on the novel by Edna Ferber and
which won the Oscar for best picture. However, for once budget
constraints seem to have been a small issue. Aerial shots of the
rushing boomers indicate the land rush was recreated for _F_a_r _a_n_d
_A_w_a_y on a massive scale.

While the film has the feel of a novel, it was in fact based on
an original screenplay. The screenplay was done by co-producer Bob
Dolman. It was based on a story by Dolman and by director Ron
Howard. This is purely a Hollywood product, story and screenplay,
which makes it all the more surprising that the result is so
pleasing. There are a few false moves, the worst coming in the
final seconds of the film, but general the writing is quite good.

Tom Cruise does well with a script that involves many of his
talents. Both his boxing and his horse-riding are surprisingly good
and done in large part apparently without doubles. The Irish accent
at first seems strange coming from Cruise, but only because his own
inflection is familiar. Had I not seen him before, I would probably
accept the Irish accent as his own. Kidman's talents also seem more

Far and Away May 17, 1992 Page 3

than sufficient for her role. Robert Prosky never turns in a bad
performance, of course.

Because there is so much to see in this film, it was shot on
extra-wide 65mm film stock. That would not be uncommon for a
special-effects-oriented film but is most unusual for a film with
few or no visual effects. Just one more reason _F_a_r _a_n_d _A_w_a_y is a
good buy in a movie ticket.

Kudos to Ron Howard for the best and most entertaining film I
have seen so far this year. I give it a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
It's nice to be enthusiastic about a Hollywood studio film once in a
while.

Capsule review: A complex and witty fantasy film
that features great performances by James Earl Jones and
Kevin Costner. Even if you do not like our (stupid)
national pastime, this film about ghosts of the White Sox
and a quest is a solidly entertaining fantasy. Rating:
low +3.

I do not like baseball. And because I do not like baseball,
baseball films do not work on me as well as they do on other people.
Most baseball movies assume that there is something somehow noble about
playing baseball. I don't buy that. A good baseball for me is one that
would still be good if you substituted professional wrestling as the
game. _P_r_i_d_e _o_f _t_h_e _Y_a_n_k_e_e_s just does not stack up very well under this
criterion. You have to consider baseball important to respect Gehrig.
_B_u_l_l _D_u_r_h_a_m is an okay but not great character comedy. _B_a_n_g _t_h_e _D_r_u_m
_S_l_o_w_l_y would still be a good study of the relationship of two men. I
find that even with no respect for baseball, _T_h_e _N_a_t_u_r_a_l remains a fine
fantasy allegory of talent and treachery, of darkness and light. Now
another baseball fantasy has come along with enough human values, enough
fine acting, and a good enough script that it is well worth seeing even
if (like me) you hate baseball. _F_i_e_l_d _o_f _D_r_e_a_m_s is a real surprise: a
(usually) genuine piece of quality writing for the screen.

Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella: a would-be ball player's son, a
college activist in the late 1960s, and now an Iowa farmer. One day
while working in the field he hears a disembodied voice tell him, "If
you build it, he will come." After days of puzzling over hearing the
message repeated, he has a vision that the "he" is Shoeless Joe Jackson
of the White Sox (and, incidentally, of _E_i_g_h_t _M_e_n _O_u_t), a personal hero
of Ray's dead father. "It" seems to refer to a baseball diamond to be
placed in Ray's cornfield. In time, the eight convicted White Sox have
been wished out of the cornfield and are playing baseball in the field.
Then another message comes and Ray finds himself on a mysterious mission
to Boston to find controversial 1960s writer Terence Mann, supremely
played by James Earl Jones. Jones's performance is quirky and brilliant.
Mann's first meeting with Ray is worth the ticket price all by itself.
Ray continues his ridiculous set of tasks and quests until at the end it
all comes together and makes sense.

Faults? Well, over the rest of the story there is superimposed a
rather prosaic "save the farm" plot that gets into the way of some of
the better story-telling. Then toward the end of the film there is a
rather gratuitous piece of cheap suspense. It is needed for the larger
plot--almost every shot in this film is--but the actual cause of the
suspense seems forced. Universal has taken a chance on an intelligent
fantasy film with a complex script and has made one of the best films of
the year. I would give it a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale. Pity it was
about baseball.