@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 12/30/94 -- Vol. 13, No. 27 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Middletown 5T-415 Wednesdays at noon. DATE TOPIC 01/04/95 Book: Bruce Sterling's CRYSTAL EXPRESS and GLOBALHEAD 01/26/95 Book: Donald E. McQuinn's WARRIOR (**THURSDAY**) 02/15/95 Book: Franz Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS 03/08/95 Book: a Stanislaw Lem book to be determined 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. MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2G-432 908-957-5087 j.j.jetzt@att.com HO Co-Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 n.j.sauer@att.com HO Co-Librarian: Lance Larsen HO 2C-318 908-949-4156 l.f.larsen@att.com MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell MT 2D-536 908-957-6330 r.l.mitchell@att.com Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-337 908-957-2070 e.c.leeper@att.com All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. Our next discussion book is really two books: Bruce Sterling's CRYSTAL EXPRESS and GLOBALHEAD. (And note that the discussion for this and all 1995 meetings will be in a slightly more accessible room: MT 5T-415.) Of Bruce Sterling, Dale Skran says: "Bruce Sterling's major contribution to SF can be found in a his intensely realized Shaper/Mech series, which chronicles the future history of humanity as a struggle between those who believe in human development via genetic engineering and those who believe in human vastening via mechanical/elecronic means. Although many are familiar with the novel SCHISMATRIX, the apex of the Shaper/Mech series, his excellent collection CRYSTAL EXPRESS contains, I THE MT VOID Page 2 believe, all the short fiction he has written set in the Shaper/Mech world. Of particular note are "Swarm," a parable on the survival value of intelligence, and "Spider Rose," a horrific tale of isolation and the need to belong. "Sunken Gardens," a tale of an ecological competition between "shaped" factions on Mars is both tragic and acute in its vision. A new collection, GLOBALHEAD, contains additional short fiction, but not set in the Shaper/Mech world. Bruce Sterling is one of the most significant, and most interesting, hard SF writers of our time, and he has yet to receive the recognition he deserves. Be warned however, Sterling's vision is not a simple one of heroic scientists solving Analog-type science puzzles; he has been influenced both by modern horror and by hyper-velocity cyberpunk prose. Fasten seat belts before reading." [-dls] =================================================================== 2. In answer to the question I asked about JUNGLE BOOK(S) in my review, Kipling published two books THE JUNGLE BOOK (1894) and THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK (1985). Some people publish the two together as THE JUMGLE BOOKS. The latter is how I had usually seen the book titled. Several people from the net and from the club wrote to explain to me why the multiple titles. Thanks to all. [-mrl] =================================================================== 3. For those of you who surf the Internet, Evelyn and I now have home pages that can be read from anything that reads the World- Wide-Web. However, security makes the pages readable only from within AT&T. Both home pages link to samples of our writings. Also you can use them to find out what Mark and Evelyn *REALLY* look like. (It's no thrill, I can assure you, but you might be curious.) Mark: http://www-gbcs.mt.att.com/~leeper/index.html Evelyn: http://www.mt.att.com/~ecl/index.html Old issues of the MT VOID will also be accessible through these. [-mrl] =================================================================== 4. We are all worried about crime. It is time you knew the Truth. The Clinton Crime Bill failed because it would have been ineffective. The Leeper Plan would eliminate crime 100%. The THE MT VOID Page 3 country would be crime-free. It just sort of came to me how to get rid of all crime in this country. I was listening to a discussion of the "reformation" of voting districts. You know the sort of thing, redefining a district as being 97 miles long and 18 feet wide following some superhighway. In California they might as well make the highway itself a district the way the traffic moves, but that is a different matter. This is supposed to be a way to achieve harmony by creating districts that are racially homogeneous. Rather than have blacks distributed among districts where they will be minorities, you lump them into one shoelace-shaped voting district. If you stand on tiptoe you can see across it from one side to the other, but the two ends are in different time zones. The idea, of course, was to create districts where a black candidate could not lose even if he was crooked and dead. So what happens? The other districts that used to have blacks no longer have them. Representatives from those districts no longer have blacks whom they have to represent. So now they are voting much more right-wing. The whole situation has become a lot more polarized, and more polarization was the one thing that this situation needed like a woodpecker needs an omelette. This whole redistricting thing is, in this country, called "Gerrymandering." Elbridge Gerry, a governor of Massachusetts, did this in 1812 to help preserve his political power. Gilbert Stuart, an artist, thought that the new district Gerry had created was shaped like a salamander. He drew an amusing map of the district to make it look like a salamander and the Boston Sentinel published it, redubbing the salamander as a "Gerrymander." The name stuck. (I wish my jokes stuck like that!) Lots of people didn't like the idea and still don't, so the government tries to make sure that it is carefully controlled ... they use it only when they are sure it is absolutely safe. It sure was this time. But isn't that the way with anti-social behavior? There is sort of a "natural history" of anti-social behavior. First people start doing something nasty. Other people get all upset about it. Eventually laws are passed to say that it should not be done. Then somebody in government starts to think about it. The original practitioners must have been getting something out of doing this nasty thing--maybe the government could also. The first thing you know *only* government can do it, but they can do it because they can perform the crime responsibly and in the public interest. Right. Well thing about it. Nobody in our society can run a lottery for profit, nobody but the government. Nobody can kill someone, but governments wage war and kill criminal. No highly addictive drug can be sold unless you are the government, who sells methadone. Who is exempt from equal opportunity in hiring? Congress. It makes sense, doesn't it? By definition government cannot commit a crime. If government can do it, it is legal. THE MT VOID Page 4 So now the Leeper Plan for ending crime. Very simply, redefine the whole concept of government so that it includes everybody. That way you no longer have any crime, you just have conflict among the branches of government. And you'll always have that. But with one fell swoop we have no more crime. Who says there are no simple solutions? [-mrl] =================================================================== 5. I.Q. (a film review by Mark R. Leeper): Capsule: I.Q. is both better and worse than expectation. Its playful look at some of the greatest minds of the century is not too unbelievable. But the script and the filming show real signs of sloppiness. Tim Robbins never manages to be much of a romantic lead. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4). If you enjoyed seeing a Tyrannosaurus Rex turned into a big purple plush toy named Barney, you have what it takes to appreciate seeing another giant of bygone science, Albert Einstein, turned into a big, lovable, avuncular pushover in I.Q. In fact, you will see not just Einstein, but Godel and Podolsky as lovable old gentlemen who play Cupid for Einstein's mathematician niece Catherine Boyd (played by Meg Ryan) and an auto mechanic Ed Walters (Tim Robbins). Ed is the last side in a love triangle. Boyd is already planning to marry James Morland (Stephen Fry, who currently plays Jeeves on PBS). Morland is a psychologist who performs sadistic experiments on animal and human subjects and his lab is rarely without the sound of some moaning subject of his experimentation. I think the viewer is not supposed to like Morland. Walters falls in love with Boyd in a chance meeting with her. He begins courting her, and as an experiment, Einstein and some of his cronies decide to help him. They decide they have to make an expert in auto mechanics seem on a par with the experts in quantum mechanics. The first step is to convince Boyd that Walters is more intelligent than your average auto repairman. This goes disastrously awry and it is not long before Walters is presenting papers on "cold fusion" and interstellar drives to the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies. Soon the joke has taken on national political significance. Ryan was an interesting choice to play a mathematician and Einstein's niece. While she does not look Jewish as presumably Einstein's niece would, her quirky acting style, somewhat toned down in this performance, could easily be attributable to a sort of nervous energy that someone of high intelligence might have. Robbins, on the other hand, always seems a little snide and at the THE MT VOID Page 5 best of times is never particularly likable in his films. He and Ryan just do not play well off of each other. Surprisingly, Walter Matthau is not too unbelievable as Albert Einstein. Some of his dialogue could be more believable, but the real Einstein apparently did have a child-like, fun-loving nature as exemplified by famous photos of him riding a small bicycle and of him sticking his tongue out to make faces for news cameras. Walter Matthau's brand of sly humor is not an unreasonable depiction. The real problem with I.Q. is that the script was not ready to film. Particularly late in the story, the storytelling becomes a little cryptic. Ryan's character makes a deduction that is supposedly explained by a comment she makes, but it is not clear how. There are notable anachronisms. The film supposedly takes place prior to Einstein's death, making it April 1955 at the latest, yet the dialogue uses terms like "mind-meld," "cold fusion," and "space race" that were not coined while Einstein was alive. In one sequence we see Walters and Boyd looking at a perfectly clear sky full of stars, yet less than three minutes later the script calls for a pouring rain that lasts the rest of the evening. A sequence at the very end of the film is incredibly contrived. These are all very amateurish script problems that seem to indicate a rush job. On the other hand, where one would expect the script to most fall down--its depiction of scientists talking shop--is not as bad as it might have been. It is not easy for a non-genius to write dialogue supposedly spoken by a genius. It could be better here, but some of the dialogue does deal with the right sorts of issues. Godel gives an argument that time does not exist that is easily countered and unworthy of the real Godel. But generally the issues discussed are not too unrealistic. I.Q. is directed by Australian Fred Schepisi, who most recently directed SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION. The film has a nice look with the camera work by Ian Baker, but not a look that bears close examination. Princeton in late March and early April seems unseasonably pleasant. Meg Ryan wears mostly sun dresses at a time of year when most of the rest of us in New Jersey would still be dressing warmly. The cars on the road seem mostly large and with prominent fins. Even if the film is set as late as 1955 this seems unlikely. (As a side note, Fred Schepisi apparently always uses Baker for cinematography. This is their eleventh film together of the eleven that Schepisi has directed and the twelve that Baker has filmed.) In short, this is a film with some pretty sloppy filmmaking, a romance with little chemistry, and a few pieces of reasonable humor. Mostly it is on the level of a TV situation comedy. I rate it a flat 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl] THE MT VOID Page 6 =================================================================== 6. THE LOST WORLD (1992) (a film review by Mark R. Leeper); Capsule: This LOST WORLD starts well, but pulls all the wrong punches and replaces dramatic tension with political correctness. Rent the restoration of the 1925 version. It will have to do until some director makes a serious attempt at a sound adaptation of the Doyle novel. Rating: low 0 (-4 to +4) Arthur Conan Doyle's novel THE LOST WORLD was only fourteen years old when it was first adapted to film in 1925, yet the silent version remains the definitive version. The story concerns an expedition to a high South American plateau isolated and insulated from the effects of evolution, where vicious prehistoric ape-men live together with live dinosaurs. Considering the subject matter- --the dinosaurs, the ape-men, the action and adventure--one would think that in the seventy years since then it would have had much better adaptations, but sadly, with all its faults, the 1925 film remains the only reasonably faithful adaptation. The 1960 version had little respect for the original story and in addition for dinosaurs it used lizards that were a long way from resembling the real thing. I had heard that there was a Canadian version made, but could not find out much about it until it showed up in my local video store. The film was made in 1992 together with RETURN TO THE LOST WORLD, a film with the same director and cast. The director is Timothy Bond who had directed, in Canada, a chilling 1976 TV-movie, DEADLY HARVEST. That film depicted in frightening detail the results of a famine coming to Canada. The intervening sixteen years must not have been good for Bond's directorial style. The realistic style of that film is just what is missing from his new THE LOST WORLD. The film actually starts fairly well with reporter Edward Malone (played by Eric McCormack) looking for a dangerous assignment and being sent to interview the obstreperous Dr. George Edward Challenger (John Rhys-Davies). Sequences here are taken directly from the book and raise hopes for a faithful adaptation. Things start going wrong when the script moves the lost plateau from South America to Central Africa. This was done, no doubt, because the filmmakers got a better deal shooting in Zimbabwe than they could have gotten shooting on the Amazon. The story then replaces Doyle's game-hunting Lord John Roxton with conservationist suffragette and wildlife photographer, Jenny Nielson (Tamara Gorski) and a thirteen-year-old cub reporter Jim (Darren Peter Mercer). Doyle's version of Professor Challenger would absolutely not abide a woman or a child on the expedition, but someone felt the film needed kid-identification value as well as a female role- THE MT VOID Page 7 model. In this version Challenger is impressed by the plucky proto-feminist. In fact, just about everybody turns out to be wonderful in this version. Challenger turns out to be wonderful, his bitter competitor Summerlee turns out to be wonderful. The wildlife of Africa is wonderful. The Africans the expedition runs into are wonderful. The rubbery dinosaurs are wonderful. (Well, the herbivores are and the carnivores never pose much of a threat.) The ape-men on the plateau would never think of throwing their enemies over the sides of the plateau the way Doyle had envisioned them. They aren't really ape-men either, but enlightened primitives who just need to be understood. There is one nasty villain in the film--you'll know him right away because he isn't pretty like the other people. He's a white (albeit Hispanic) male, of course. You can tell just by looking at him that he is a villain. It is amazing that this film can be as faithful to the plot of the novel as it is and at the same time be so lacking in the novel's dramatic tension. The story has the right shape, but every sharp edge has been rounded off and sanded down. The effects work is spotty. A carnivore head at one point is actually fairly good, but a baby pterodactyl that shows up more often is horribly cutsey and looks like something out of a cartoon. At least the 1960 version never got your hopes up that it would be a good film. It is bad from the first scene. The fact that the 1992 film really does have a few good moments only makes the film more frustrating. I rate this version a low 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl] =================================================================== 7. LITTLE WOMEN (a film review by Mark R. Leeper): Capsule: Gillian Armstrong's version of the Alcott novel is an idealized Currier and Ives print of family life in 1860s Massachusetts. The semi-autobiographical novel is very beautifully filmed and at times a real tear- jerker, but is somehow lacking in any real intellectual content. It is a big children's book. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) The most enduring so-called "girls' book" ever written is Lousia May Alcott's 1868 LITTLE WOMEN, based in large part on her childhood experiences growing up in Concord, Massachusetts. The novel has previously been filmed five times, beginning with a 1918 silent version and including a British mini-series. It was even turned into a short-lived television series in 1979. The sixth filming may well rank as the most beautiful and compelling version, though certainly some will still prefer George Cukor's classic 1933 version with Katherine Hepburn as Jo March and Spring Byington as THE MT VOID Page 8 her mother. The newest version is directed by Australian Gillian Armstrong of MY BRILLIANT CAREER and MRS. SOFFEL. The Marches are a very tightly-knit family of four sisters and their ever-perfect mother. The family lives in 1860's Concord, Massachusetts. I have heard about families like this but never actually believed they existed. They share everything with each other and are bound to each other with a love that transcends even the rare imperfections. They do things like give up their Christmas morning dinner, including delicacies like sausage that are almost unavailable during the Civil War, to feed a hungry immigrant family. The girls read poetry, put on little plays written by Jo (played by Winona Ryder), and steal glances out their window at the boy next door, Laurie (Christian Bale), and his stodgy tutor (Eric Stoltz). The girls roll bandages and take care of the sick and hungry while waiting anxiously for letters from their father who is off fighting for the Union cause. The sisters do have their occasional differences, but they always give them up with a sigh of relief when something happens to bind them even closer together. Eventually Laurie becomes like one of the family and there is no doubt that he will eventually court one of the March girls. When he goes off to school the film jumps ahead four years and everyone but young Amy (Kirsten Dunst) looks just the same. Amy (now Samantha Mathis) looks like she has aged about eight years. Each daughter develops into the woman her childhood characteristics made her. Jo writes melodramatic potboilers and goes to New York (following her mothers suggestion, "Embrace your liberty") to make her fortune. And she becomes romantically entangled (big surprise!) with a German philosopher who shares the boarding house where she is staying. There is sad family tragedy, there is warm family love, and there are romantic entanglements. Remarkably, Armstrong makes this story of traditional values (with just a light whisper of feminism) work for a 90s audience, assisted by Geoffrey Simpson's nostalgic camera work. British Columbia stands in for Concord and makes everything look homey and beautiful. The casting of some of the major roles is a bit too Hollywood and not enough Alcott. Trini Alvarado looks more like a young Andie MacDowell than like Alcott's plumpish Meg. Alcott had Jo be tall and awkward, and even the film script calls for her to be plain and to have her long hair be her one nice feature. Does it sound like I am describing Winona Ryder? The casting of beauty in roles that call for plain tends to oversimplify the motivations of the various suitors. Claire Daines as Beth is the only daughter who approaches being homely--in both senses of the word--in this version and the only one for whom we never see a suitor. Susan Sarandon conveys the warmth and wisdom of Alcott's overly-idealized mother. She is always there with just the right insight, with a nursing talent that puts doctors to shame, and with a noble and charitable thought for others. Kirsten Dunst seems far too precocious as the child THE MT VOID Page 9 Amy to grow into the placid Samantha Mathis adult version. Dunst does a good job, but she will be remembered more for her role as the adult vampire trapped in the body of a child from INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. Among other things, the film chronicles how Jo's childhood writing develops into what she writes as an adult. Here her imagination is seen as positive and constructive. But the timing of the release should invite interesting comparisons to Peter Jackson's HEAVENLY CREATURES. And LITTLE WOMEN sorely needs something for the viewer to think about when it is over rather than just being left with a warm feeling. I give LITTLE WOMEN a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl] =================================================================== 8. Montreal Film Festival (film reviews and commentary by Mark R. Leeper) (part 5 of 5): CARL, MY CHILDHOOD SYMPHONY Carl Nielsen is considered the greatest Danish musical composer. The famous post-Romantic composer wrote the story of his youth in his autobiographical MY CHILDHOOD (1927). Erik Clausen has now adapted Nielson's memoir of his youth into the film CARL, MY CHILDHOOD SYMPHONY. As the title implies, we see a set of reminiscences from a poor but not particularly sad childhood. As a set of remembrances we get an episodic montage that is more than the sum of its parts. The film covers Nielsen, who was born in 1865, at three periods of his youth. The 1871 segment has Dog of Flanders feel. We are introduced to young Carl as a boy of only six, but we see the seeds of a budding genius in him. The son of a very poor artist and musician, the boy herds geese. In one sequence the six-year-old leaves his geese, spellbound by the sound of a young piano student playing. When the girl gives up in frustration, he sneaks into the strange house just to see the piano. His father is angry when he hears of his son's trespass, but he appeases his son's curiosity about music by giving him a violin to play with. The boy takes to the violin as a favorite toy and soon is able to make real music with it, preferring to compose his own tunes over playing other people's music. The young Carl makes friends through his music with people of his village including a blind musician and a cobbler. Carl meets a sister whom he never knew he had when she returns home to die of consumption. Carl builds a relationship with an older brother who Carl thinks is even more musically gifted only to have Carl accidentally injure the brother and end what he thinks might have THE MT VOID Page 10 been a brilliant career. Though his family and friends suffer from poverty and disease, the film seen from Carl's eyes never gives in to self-pity. The film does not have the structure of a single directed story, but more that of a lot of little reminiscences that go to form a single piece, much as many themes go to form a symphony. The film develops Carl's character through two more chapters. In 1879 Carl joins the army as a bugle boy. He hides his violin skill and learns the cornet, plays in a military band with near clashes, meets more colorful characters. But in his youthful enthusiasm for his music he remains oblivious to much that goes on around him. By the third chapter in 1883 he has a more mature outlook on life. This section is more introspective with Nielsen falling in love and finally coming toa better understanding of himself and his friends. CARL could easily have made a social or political point like so many other films about people who grew in poverty. CARL seems almost aimless in not sending some similar message. But that was not Clausen's point in making the film. This is a story of a man with a destiny, and it is that destiny that binds the film together, seeing how the mind of Nielsen came together. This is a film of awe, not anger. And as such, it is the best musical biography to come along in years, rating a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. DADDY, COME TO THE FAIR This documentary by Nitza Gonan is an uneasy mix. One documentary combines a tearful visit to the Auschwitz death camp and scenes from the main character's stand-up comedy act. That is as uneasy a mix asI can imagine. Mordechai Vilozny lost both parents of his parents in the Holocaust and a large part of himself, though he managed to survive and emigrate to Israel. He has walled off that part of his life and never discussed it with his children Schmuel and Shoshanna. In 1993 he is returning to Poland to visit the sites of his childhood and to see where his parents were murdered. Schmuel, now an actor and a stand-up comic has resented his father's unwillingness to share Holocaust experiences. The film is about the effect of the journey on the three people and in a broader sense the effect of the Holocaust on the second generation of survivors. Schmuel is really the main focus, rather than his father, which somewhat detracts from the film since he seems a rather unpleasant character. One tends to agree with him when he dismisses skinheads as "idiots" but it seems a tactless comment. However his jibes at the expense of a Polish soldier who will be taking part in a memorial to victims of the Holocaust seems less than fair. Some of his style is reminiscent of Michael Moore, but not as funny. He THE MT VOID Page 11 also expresses some anger at auditioning but not being chosen to act in SCHINDLER'S LIST. He says that he is actually a piece of the Holocaust and many of the actors chosen were not. It would be more accurate to say his father was a piece of the Holocaust. In a later visit to Auschwitz he pockets a standoff insulator from the electronic fence as a souvenir. Some of his shots seem unreasonable. He shows us some skinhead graffiti ("same hatreds, same graffiti") and then shows us a peasant woman who claims there is no anti-Semitism in Poland. Clearly denying the anti-Semitism is factually incorrect, but it seems a very human thing for a peasant woman to try to deny it. She is hardly going to start giving case histories for the camera. The film's best sequence is the visit to Auschwitz, where Mordechai finds records of his father. Even here the camera is more interested in Schmuel than in his father. By this point the viewer is far more interested in the father's experience than the son's. The sequence is certainly touching, but could have been a lot better. The documentary was apparently made for Israeli TV and then poorly subtitled into English. Some subtitles are flashed on the screen for as little as three-quarters of a second. There are long and pointless sequences like Schmuel's "walk to beach like Fellini," which seems like nothing more than showing Schmuel strut and hum a Fellini-esque tune. It seems like three minutes of screentime are wasted on this eminently cuttable sequence. This documentary showed potential, but it could have been handled in a much better way. I would give it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. KILLER Mick (played by Tony LaPaglia) is at the top of his profession. His profession is eliminating people his employers think are inconvenient. He has just finished a big and important job that at first went wrong. An old friend Archie (played by Matt Craven) had been part of the hit and had nearly wrecked everything, but Mick had salvaged things, finishing the job, and for now he deserves a rest. But his boss George (Peter Boyle) comes to him with an emergency. A woman has to be killed that very night and Mick is the only person who can be depended on. But, George mysteriously assures Mick, she knows about the hit and will cooperate. All Mick has to do is pull the trigger. And the odd thing is, he seems to be right. Fiona (Mimi Rogers) is an extremely intelligent and attractive woman who is entirely blase about the fact that she is about to be murdered. And thus begins a very odd few hours in the lives of Mick, Fiona, and Archie. THE MT VOID Page 12 Gordon Melbourne has written the kind of script that keeps the viewer guessing what exactly is happening and where the film is going. While in premise there are similarities to DIARY OF A HITMAN, which may well have been part of the inspiration for KILLER, Melbourne has his own ideas on what to do with the premise. One is never sure what plot details will be important. Fiona gets Mick and Archie talking about the business of murder. Is she looking for something specific or is it natural curiosity? She also seems extremely friendly to Mick, all the while seeming to be walking into her own murder with both eyes open. Why does she do what she is doing? Mick has been successful to this point as a hit man and he even explain to Archie his philosophy of exactly what it takes to do his job right, but in one night he has fallen in love and has developed a conscience about killing. And that puts a whole new twist on the game that it has never had before. While Tony LaPaglia is a generally good actor, his is the most straightforward of the three main characters. Mimi Rogers carries much more of the load of making the film work. She has to be the most desirable woman on the screen since Kathleen Turner in BODY HEAT. Under Mark Malone's direction she manages quite nicely. Matt Craven, as the incompetent hitman wanting so much to succeed does an excellent job of projecting both comic and tragic dimensions of his character. Mark Malone is directing for the first time, though previously he co-wrote DEAD OF WINTER and SIGNS OF LIFE. His KILLER is slickly produced and it works reasonably well. My rating is high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. THE SILENT MOVIE LOVER Pablo Torre's film THE SILENT MOVIE LOVER is an atmospheric melodrama from Argentina that is reminiscent of Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD, but is even stranger. It is the story of a boy coming of age and of a silent film star near the end of his days. Paulito is a fatherless boy living in an apartment with his beautiful mother. Money is always a problem and he has to turn to stealing from neighbors and giving the proceeds to his mother who does not question the "miracle" of money appearing in her drawers. A local girl teases Pailito and abuses him with dark sexual games. Finally Paulito's mother gets work living and working in a mortuary and playing the piano. The mortician is an intense and aging silent film star who cannot let go of the past. He looks and moves as if he were constantly in front of the silent film camera. Even the architecture of his funeral parlor is that of movie palaces of the 1920s and his funeral send-offs, performed in silence except for Schubert on the piano, are spectacular silent film scenes. THE MT VOID Page 13 The old film star, Ralph, who went to Hollywood back in the days when there was demand for Latins following the death of Valentino. By blackmailing Keaton he is able to break into the movies and become a great film star, only to lose everything with the coming of sound. We are told Ralph's story with classic Hollywood documentary and film footage supplemented with antiqued new film footage of Ralph as a young man. In a marvelous way, like the characters, once we are pulled into the claustrophobic film palace mortuary, we get out only through the movies. When suddenly we find ourselves out on a big river reminiscent of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, we are momentarily shocked and it feels very out of place. The characters must feel the same and that too is part of the story. The pacing of THE SILENT MOVIE LOVER is slow, deliberate, and very atmospheric, like a silent film. The style of telling is probably better than the value of the story itself. Pablo Torre, who wrote and directed THE SILENT MOVIE LOVER, is the son of film director Leopaldo Torre Nielson. Until this point Pablo has been a novelist and this is his first film as director. THE SILENT FILM LOVER is heavy with atmosphere, and is enjoyable as a reminder of the early days of cinema, but the plot is dissatisfying. I rate it a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl] Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right and wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. --Oscar Wilde THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK