@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 11/12/93 -- Vol. 12, No. 20 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Holmdel 4N-509 Wednesdays at noon. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 11/17 BRIAR ROSE by Jane Yolen (Nebula Nominee) 12/08 STAND ON ZANZIBAR by John Brunner (Classic SF) 01/05 A MILLION OPEN DOORS by John Barnes (Nebula Nominee) 01/26 Bookswap 02/16 Demo of Electronic Hugo and Nebula Anthology (MT) Outside events: The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-933-2724 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society meets on the third Saturday of every month in Belleville; call 201-432-5965 for details. HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2G-432 908-957-5087 holly!jetzt LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1C-523 908-834-1267 holly!jrrt MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzfs3!leeper HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 homxc!11366ns LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen HO 2C-318 908-949-4156 quartet!lfl MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzfs3!leeper Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgpfs1!ecl All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. In observance of Jewish Heritage Month, the next discussion book will be _B_r_i_a_r _R_o_s_e by Jane Yolen. In _B_r_i_a_r _R_o_s_e a woman tries to find out the secret of her grandmother's past, and why her grandmother was so obsessed with the fairy tale Briar Rose (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty). For as long as Rebecca can remember, her grandmother Gemma has told Rebecca and her sisters the tale of Briar Rose (which we know as Sleeping Beauty). But more than that, she has told them that _s_h_e is Briar Rose. Now that Gemma has died, Rebecca is driven to find out who her grandmother really was and why she told this story. Even from the beginning, Rebecca discovers that much of what she believed about her family history isn't true. Eventually her THE MT VOID Page 2 search takes her to Poland and the truth about the dark time of the Holocaust. Yolen has done a very good job in describing a Jewish family and its history, but what is worth noting is that she has not ignored the other aspects of the Nazi regime during that period. One of the primary sources of information for Rebecca when she travels to Poland is a man who was imprisoned for his homosexuality. And the history involves other groups persecuted as well. Yolen manages this without minimizing anyone's suffering--it is not a contest of what group suffered more, but a look at the people who suffered and how they often worked together against the horror. Marge Piercy's _H_e, _S_h_e, _a_n_d _I_t told a 16th Century legend, both in its own time and then as a re-telling in a near-future time, so that we could see that what seemed like just an old story was still very relevant to the issues that face us today. In _B_r_i_a_r _R_o_s_e, Yolen takes a fairy tale rather than a legend, but then does the same thing: shows us that it would be a mistake to write it off as just another story--shows us that even a fairy tale may have much underlying truth in what it says. [-ecl] =================================================================== 2. Well as of this writing, we are back from India for less than one week (though it will probably be delayed several weeks in publication). India, of course, has a culture that is really very unlike just about anything you can see in this country. You can get little tastes of what India is like, but a small taste is very often misleading. When I was about three years old my father had a bottle of saccharine on the kitchen table. He would put a tablet in his coffee and it would make it sweet, I was told. My mother would occasionally put sugar cubes in coffee for the same purpose and I had eaten those from time to time and liked them so I bided my time and when nobody was around I got the bottle of saccharine . I tasted the dust around the rim and found it tasted sweet. So I took two or three saccharine tablets and prepared to pop them in my mouth. It was nice that I could fit more saccharine tablets in my mouth than sugar cubes. In the next second the three tablets went into my mouth. Blech! Ptooey! Out they came. Concentrated saccharine tastes terrible. It's bitter. It tastes just about the opposite of what a small taste is like. The taste of a foreign county may act the same way. Going to an Indian restaurant may not, in fact does not, give the feel of India but closer to the exact opposite feel. But when people ask why I want to go to such weird places I usually tell them it comes from my reading of _H_u_c_k_l_e_b_e_r_r_y _F_i_n_n. There is an incident in it in which Jim finds out that somebody speaks French. Jim has never heard of there being different languages. THE MT VOID Page 3 "If he's human, why don't he talk like a human?" he asks. Well, gang, you and I know that you don't have to talk English to be human. But what else is there that we assume is true of everybody that may not be? What about kissing? That is something I guess you sort of think is an instinctive behavior. It is not so intrinsic of humans as you might think. For example the Japanese never heard of the practice of kissing until they came in contact with the West. So it isn't so intrinsic to humans as you might think. Another example was our first night in China our National Guide, a very nice man who had never come in contact with many non-Chinese people before wanted to say something nice to his new American guests. He looked at out tour group, which except for about five people were all retirees, and told us "We served you a vegetarian meal because vegetables are very good for old people." The way his mind worked was to assume all people, or at least most people, are proud to have attained a great age. I am sure eleven years later that the National Guides in China know better that Westerners don't like to think of themselves as old, and it is probably a less interesting trip because of it. One of the things we tell ourselves to give ourselves a warm, fuzzy, friendly feeling is that people are all really alike. Don't you believe it. It would be a much less interesting world if they were. The hardware may have similarities, but the software is really, really different. And that is why I travel. =================================================================== 3. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (a film review by Mark R. Leeper): Capsule review: Tim Burton proves himself a creative genius with a film deserving of instant holiday classic status. Just about everything comes together and genuinely works in the best holiday film since Alistair Sim starred in _A _C_h_r_i_s_t_m_a_s _C_a_r_o_l. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4) From the on-again off-again career of Tim Burton comes a film so original and incredibly creative that it genuinely is unlikely to be surpassed as a holiday film for decades. While Burton did not actually direct in this outing (Henry Selick did), Burton produced and wrote the story, creating the characters. And _T_h_e _N_i_g_h_t_m_a_r_e _B_e_f_o_r_e _C_h_r_i_s_t_m_a_s shows an unmistakable Burton style. The entire film is done in beautiful 3-D animation and is the culmination of the poetic fairy tale style we saw some of (but not enough) in _E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s crossed with the tongue-in-cheek horror-spoof style of "Frankenweenie" and "Vincent." This film dazzles the viewer with so many beautiful images that I found just taking my eyes off the screen to make notes meant I was missing something I wanted to see. The style the film kept reminding me of some THE MT VOID Page 4 exceptionally creative Czech films--particularly those of Jiri Trnka--and wishing more films like that could be done elsewhere. Now a visual style every bit as compelling, perhaps more, has found its way into an American film. The fairy tale style that I liked so much in _E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s I attributed to Caroline Thompson, a then first-time screenwriter whose talents I claimed were just what Burton needed. I am very pleased that Burton seems to have had the same insight. Thompson wrote _N_i_g_h_t_m_a_r_e's screenplay also and this time she and Burton have completely fulfilled the promise their pairing showed in that film. The ten musical pieces here are written and scored with the clever style and quality of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. The story takes place in a land where holidays are born. One town makes Halloween each year, another makes Christmas. The artistic genius of Halloweentown is one Jack Skellington, a sort of skeleton with a globular head. But then everyone in Halloweentown is a horror, that is the spirit of Halloween. The town is full of werewolves, vampires, bats, spiders, mad scientists, and things for which there are no names. Jack is dissatisfied with Halloween and stumbles on Christmastown. He is enchanted and puzzled by the idea of Christmas and decides he and his town of horrors can do it all better. Halloweentown starts working on putting on a horror- tinged Christmas. If that seems a silly plot, well you don't expect a holiday film is going to have a Dostoyevsky-level story. Just accept the story and watch how well it is told. Regardless of the plot this is a film that you _w_i_l_l find rewarding. Take it from me you may possibly have seen a film like this before but only rarely, and you have never seen it done so well for 75 minutes. If you thought _T_h_e _W_i_z_a_r_d _o_f _O_z was an impressive children's film, go see _T_h_e _N_i_g_h_t_m_a_r_e _B_e_f_o_r_e _C_h_r_i_s_t_m_a_s. Amazingly to me I give a Christmas film a rating of +3 on the -4 to +4 scale. =================================================================== 4. GETTYSBURG (a film review by Mark R. Leeper): Capsule review: This film of military history contains more authentic military history than any other film I have ever seen. The film itself is more than four hours and very little seems to be fiction. Perhaps a little is speculation, but the highest proportion of time is reenactment of the most important battle in United States history. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4) As usual when I see an historical film, I will go home afterward and pick up many historical accounts of the event and pick holes in what I have seen on the screen. I have not yet read Shelby Foote's account of the battle of Gettysburg (which is about 120 pages), but THE MT VOID Page 5 I have read several shorter accounts. What I have discovered is that the film contradicts no account any more than the accounts contradict each other. And that is not surprising since by all accounts writer/director Ronald F. Maxwell, after basing his script on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, _T_h_e _K_i_l_l_e_r _A_n_g_e_l_s by Michael Shaara, allowed his small army of historical experts to be tyrants over the production of the film. What made it to the screen is what the experts agreed happened. What _S_t_a_r _W_a_r_s was to the special effects film, _G_e_t_t_y_s_b_u_r_g is to the historical film. Nobody who sees the film and later reads account of the battle can come away without the feeling of having witnessed the battle already and without remembering a flood of images from the film. As far as how well the actors look and dress like people of the Civil War the film gets an A+. For the degree to which each major actor looks like the actual person he is portraying the grade is a not-too- shabby B+. (The opening credits show the original and the actor and invite comparison.) Why not higher? Well for example at the time of his most familiar photographs, Lee had a fuller beard than Martin Sheen sports. That is the sort of variation you get. Of course nobody mentions how full Lee's beard was at the time of Gettysburg so perhaps I am underrating the film. But if I can find no less picayune quibble than the length of a beard in a 254-minute historical film, I am not just impressed, I am floored. The actors are often familiar, if you can make them out under the heavy beards typical of the Civil War period. (The presence of women, incidentally, is limited to a count of two and a screentime of about six seconds.) But actors seem to be chosen more for proven acting ability than for marquee value. The players include Tom Berenger as Gen. Longstreet, Martin Sheen as Gen. Lee, Stephen Lang as Maj. Gen. Pickett, the late Richard Jordan as Brig. Gen. Armistead, Jeff Daniels as Col. Chamberlain, Sam Elliot as Brig. Gen. Buford, and Kevin Conway (whom I thought had been dead for at least a couple years) as the what I would guess was an interpolated character, Sgt. Buster Kilrain. Gettysburg was the climax of the Civil War as Midway was the climax of the war in the Pacific. And I found myself comparing this film to the film _M_i_d_w_a_y as I watched it. _M_i_d_w_a_y is only five minutes longer than half of GETTYSBURG's length, yet for that film a whole fictional plot of "human interest" was added about an American commander's son in love with a Japanese-American woman. Apparently the filmmakers thought that so much history was too much for the viewer. In _G_e_t_t_y_s_b_u_r_g with the exception of a few conversations to broaden the characters, and a rhetorical speech added here and there, what we see is all documented history and ironically the film is more and not less compelling as a result. From the point of view of the film five men were responsible for the South going from a winning war to a losing war with this one battle. For the North, Buford created the strategy and Chamberlain THE MT VOID Page 6 defended the weak flank. For the South, Jeb Stuart chose to raid rather then reconnoiter, Ewell failed to attack at a strategic moment, and Lee's ego told him to fight the battle even on the enemy's terms because winning would almost certainly bring the end of the war. Of these the most screen time is devoted to Chamberlain who, torn with self-doubt, shows himself to nonetheless represent both heroism and decency. _G_e_t_t_y_s_b_u_r_g was reportedly made as a television mini-series and at some point was redirected to the big screen. It will certainly lose much of the impact of its huge cast when translated to the small screen. In incredible list of historical reenactment societies apparently volunteered to act as extras and to reenact the battle. The men participating in Pickett's charge form a very long wall that will not be nearly as impressive when the flanks are cut for television's aspect ratio. On the other hand, getting the film on video will allow the stopping of the film and reading from historical sources about the various actions being depicted. My initial reaction to the film was that it must have cut out a lot of what was really happening to concentrate only on Buford's defense of the high ground the first day, Chamberlain's defense of the flank the second day, and Pickett's charge the third day. The first source I saw that described the battle in any detail listed three important actions and they were exactly the ones chosen by the filmmakers. This engaging film is almost a textbook about the battle and because at the same time it is so enthralling, this is one of best and perhaps in some respects is the best historical feature film ever made. Nothing quite like this has ever been done at this length and done this elaborately, so it is all the more impressive. My rating is +3 on the -4 to +4 scale. =================================================================== 5. FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE (a film review by Mark R. Leeper): Capsule review: Suffering for one's art is the theme of this film from three cooperating Chinese countries. The story follows two Beijing Opera singers over a half century. They suffer to learn their art and then each political change in China brings new suffering. This is a film that is well made but which has limited capacity to be enjoyed. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4). How much misery can anyone give to their art is the question asked by _F_a_r_e_w_e_l_l _M_y _C_o_n_c_u_b_i_n_e. It is the story of a poor boy, the son of a prostitute, who becomes a popular opera star and what is required of him. Douzi is groomed for only one role, the loyal concubine of a defeated king who kills herself rather than desert her lover and master. Learning any role requires an incredible THE MT VOID Page 7 regimen of punishing physical training and potentially lethal beatings from the sadistic perfectionist schoolmaster. Douzi's training entails an even worse aspect--to better play a woman he has to offstage and on renounce his gender entirely and think of himself as a woman for the rest of his life. He is paired to go through life with Shitou, the actor groomed for the role of the king. Once they achieve greatness Douzi's problems are still only beginning. Shitou decides to take a wife of his own, an act of chivalry toward a prostitute. But the pairing now turns into a triangle. Douzi is forced to take lovers, but only male ones. Just when this lifestyle looks like it cannot get worse, the Japanese invade China. This brings a new set of hardships, and yet another set of hardships come along when the Nationalists regain China, the Communists bring yet another bad turn that only gets worse with the Cultural Revolution. The film reminds one of a Dickens story except that things do not get better with time. The overall theme seems to be that when you are a man slotted for the Beijing Opera to play a woman in a single role for your whole life, that life is really a bitch and then you die. It is hard to imagine a much more nihilist film. Every good deed that one of our two characters performs results in all the more misery for them or others. If you are Chinese it is quite possible that there is a perceivable nobility in all the pain, but--and I say this as someone who has seen or heard several Beijing operas-- it is very hard for a Westerner tp appreciate the aesthetics of this art form. Even without that there will be some aspects of story that a Westerner will find hard to understand. At 170 minutes _F_a_r_e_w_e_l_l _M_y _C_o_n_c_u_b_i_n_e is a difficult film to watch particularly with its relentlessly downbeat theme. There have been several films this year with Chinese themes and this one is harder to recommend than most. With my limited understanding of Chinese culture I would rate this film a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. =================================================================== 6. To those of you who saw the recent announcement that various Bell Labs locations in New Jersey would start charging for conference rooms, rest assured that (for now, anyway) Bell Labs club activities are exempt, so our meetings will continue. [-ecl] Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all. -- Elbert Hubbard THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK