@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 01/29/21 -- Vol. 39, No. 31, Whole Number 2156
Table of Contents
Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films, Lectures, etc. (NJ):
At the risk of stating the obvious, now that all the meetings are
Zoomed, you don't have to be in Old Bridge or Middletown or even
New Jersey to participate. So if we are discussing one of your
favorites, contact me at
Both the Old Bridge and Middletown groups have (temporarily, we
hope) switched to Zoom meetings. For Middletown meetings,
participants need to watch the film on their own ahead of time as
well as reading the book.
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for February (comments by Mark R. Leeper):
The first adaptation of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There" was
also the first Fifties science fiction film that really still makes
good entertainment. It is not just an artifact but a genuine
thriller. It works in part because it is timeless. Destination
Moon became outdated when the government decided it would put a man
on the moon. But except for references to Truman and the Cold War,
THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD could be set in the current decade.
The plot is simple enough. A flying saucer crashes near the North
Pole. Men from a small military installation nearby accidentally
destroy the saucer but bring back its pilot frozen alive in ice. A
second accident allows the alien to thaw and come to life. The
creature proceeds to lay siege to the base.
What makes this film so watchable is that it takes the time to
create interesting people and has its share of whimsical
characterization. It also is very subtle in its handling of the
alien. The viewer spends the whole film without ever getting a
really clear view of the alien visitor. This makes the alien
considerably more frightening. In fact, the stills of James
Arness, released well after the film had run its course in
theaters, are almost silly-looking. So the film has very little in
the way of special effects and not much monster makeup, just
intelligent characters in an unusual situation. And the film still
stands up forty-three years after it was made.
There is a lesson there that modern filmmakers would do well to
heed, if they still can.
This was also the first science fiction film of the Fifties to
carry an anti-science theme. It was scientists who wanted to push
things too far without thinking of the consequences to humanity.
In this case Prof. Carrington wants to breed cuttings from the
alien, a thinly disguised statement that it was the fault of
scientists rather than the military that nuclear weapons were used.
These days the military and not the scientist would be more likely
to be at fault, as it was in ANDROMEDA STRAIN, but this was less
than six years after the end of World War II and much of the public
still identified itself with the military.
The dialogue is done in a realistic style that was uncommon to
films. Dialogue overlaps so that more than one actor may be
talking at once.
Overlapping dialogue probably makes this a difficult film to dub
into other languages. Of course, the score is by Dmitri Tiomkin
and is a classic. Tiomkin's tones musically evoke images of an
Arctic blizzard with a pounding wind. It is definitely a chilling
score.
The best touch: Finding the shape of the craft to be circular could
have been silly but instead is genuinely thrilling. On the other
hand, the silly "melting-man" climax was a mistake.
This is certainly one of the top three or four science fiction
films of the Fifties and deserves a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, February 4, 6:30 PM]
Also running on TCM is THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1959) (also known as
BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER), the second of Eugene Lourie's "Dino"
trio, following THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953) and preceding
GORGO (1961). These were the first three English-language sound
films to have dinosaurs destroying cities. The film stars
sometimes-cowboy Gene Evans and popular British television actor
Andre Morrell.
For some of the animation effects they used a model built on an
armature which gave the dinosaur from the front the look of a
capital 'A'. It's not clear where that came from but it creates a
different look for this film's beast. The model that was going to
be used for the distance shots in the Thames and elsewhere was
broken when the producer let his son play with it the weekend
before they wanted to film it. As a result, the film does not show
as much of the behemoth as people wanted/expected, and some scenes
are not very good. The film also uses some inexpensive video
effects to portray radiation. Still, it is a film of interest that
not many fans have seen.
[THE GIANT BEHEMOTH, February 4, 12:00 N]
[-mrl]
Online Film Critics Society Annual Movie Awards:
TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS:
SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS:
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS:
Founded is 1997 by film critic Harvey Karten, OFCS is a
professional association that comprises of online film critics,
film journalists, historians and scholars from around the world.
The membership is dedicated to its mission of furthering the growth
of the informed film audience by utilizing the Internet as a
valuable source of news and commentary. OFCS provides a forum for
its members to communicate and discuss ideas about journalism and
cinema and encourage a high standard of journalism across online
media platforms.
[Mark is a member of the OFCS.]
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov Day (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
Tomorrow, January 30, raise a glass to Vasili Alexandrovich
Arkhipov. Without him, chances are that you would not be here.
In July 1961 he was on the nuclear submarine K-19 when its engines
started to melt down, and was instrumental in preventing a nuclear
catastrophe. But that was just a sideshow.
On October 27, 1962, he was the second-in-command on the nuclear
submarine B-59 off Cuba when the United States Navy started
dropping depth charges on it. They were too deep for radio contact
and the captain wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. The political
officer agreed, but they needed Arkhipov's agreement to do so, and
he refused to consent. Apparently his actions during the K-19
crisis helped convince the captain and the political officer to
surface and ask Moscow for instructions--which luckily did not
include firing a nuclear torpedo.
Had they fired that torpedo it might easily have set off a nuclear
war. I don't know about you, but we lived a half mile from a major
military base, and in fact my school's back fence was the base's
fence as well. (We did those "duck-and-cover" drills, but we all
knew that if there was a bomb, it would be close enough that the
school desks was not going to be much help.)
So everyone talks about how President Kennedy saved us, and a few
people point out that Krushchev was also pretty critical to the
process, but no one seems to remember Vasili Alexandrovich
Arkhipov, one of the true heroes of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov was born on January 30, 1926. [-ecl]
"The Ballad of Black Tom" by Victor LaValle (copyright 2016, Macmillan Audio, 3 hours and 9 minutes, ASIN B0161YR0I8, narrated by Kevin R. Free) (audiobook review by Joe Karpierz):
A few years ago, there was a Lovecraft revival of sorts. Writers
of stature were rebelling against the racist Lovecraft, and they
did so by writing stories that invoked the kind of stories he wrote
without the racism and bigotry, or as in the case of "The Ballad of
Black Tom", make that racism and bigotry part of the story in a way
that the reader understands how those things shape the characters
within. Further, the trophy for the World Fantasy Award was change
from being a bust of Lovecraft, recognizing that nominating and
awarding people of color with a bust of a man who was clearly a
bigot was just plain wrong. "The Ballad of Black Tom" won the
Shirley Jackson award for best novella, and was a finalist for--
take a deep breath--the Hugo, Nebula, British Fantasy, Bram Stoker,
Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Award. It is, depending on
how you want to look at it, a retelling, a revisiting, or a
rebuttal of Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook". I mentioned in
my review of "At The Mountains of Madness" that I was interested in
Gothic horror and eventually picked up a copy of THE NECRONOMICON
(no--not the one referenced in Lovecraft's stories, but a giant
collection of his stories) but never read it. Unlike "At The
Mountains of Madness", about halfway through "Black Tom" I decided
to pick up The Necronomicon and read "The Horror at Red Hook". I
discovered a few things: 1) yeah, that racism and bigotry is right
out in front; 2) Lovecraft's writing style was putting me to sleep
(although to be fair I was reading the story late in the evening
with only one light on in the room); and 3) "The Ballad of Black
Tom" is a superior version of the story.
Charles Thomas Tester lives in Harlem with his father, Otis.
Tommy, as he is known, takes odd jobs to earn money to keep the
roof over their heads and feed them the best he can. The story
opens with Tommy delivering a strange book to an odd woman in a
part of town where he clearly doesn't belong. He is Black. The
neighborhood is white. He tries to be inconspicuous, knowing that
carrying a guitar case--after all, Black people are musicians--and
wearing particular clothing can in fact hide him in plain sight.
It certainly doesn't always work, as he is followed and taunted by
white men reminding him of his place, that place being "not here".
Tommy seems to know something about the occult and magical things;
he knows what the book he is delivering contains and is capable of,
for example. This fact lends an air of mystery to Tommy. LaValle
is making the reader wonder why Tommy gets involved in this kind of
stuff in the first place if he knows that odd things can happen.
He gets the attention of a man named Robert Suydam, who,
recognizing Tommy's desire and ability to be hidden, offers him a
large sum of money to play guitar at a party he is throwing two
days later. He goes to the house a day early to essentially
audition in front of Suydam, and enters a house that is very
strange, where things aren't as they appear to be. Tommy is
afraid, but the lure of money, being able to help his father,
overrides his desire to flee. Tommy leaves, but has been followed
by a couple of law enforcement personnel, who are tailing Suydam at
the behest of his family who think he's not the simple old man he
appears to be. What Tommy learns is that Suydam is deep into the
mysteries of the Old Ones, and is looking to awaken things that he
shouldn't. The meeting is attended by "people like you"--
essentially Suydam's words--who will help him perform his unholy
task. This is, of course, a case of the white man having people of
color, people he feels are inferior, doing his work for him.
The second half of the novella is much closer to the story of "The
Horror at Red Hook", as it follows the tale of one of the policemen
from the first half, who is tracking down what's going on with
Suydam and, eventually, the person we now know as Black Tom, who is
Suydam's lieutenant and who has strange powers. This is the part
of the story that contains the horrors that Lovecraft wrote about
in the original. It is frightening, to a degree. While I'm
fascinated by this kind of material, I don't think I've been truly
frightened by anything the way I was frightened by the movie ALIEN
back when it came out.
Kevin R. Free is the perfect narrator for this story. There aren't
a lot of characters for him to try to voice, but those that are
there he distinguished between wonderfully. As I'm writing this, I
realized that other than servers at a club the characters visit,
there are no women in the story. Even the servers are people of
color, fitting terrifically with the setting that LaValle is
portraying. All in all, "The Ballad of Black Tom" is highly
recommended and well worth your time. [-jak]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
I started THE MALACIA TAPESTRY by Brian W. Aldiss (PS Publishing,
ISBN 978-1-84863-792-4) but after about a third I realized I had no
interest in it. I went back and looked at the books I had added to
my "to-read" list from Time Magazine's list of a hundred best
fantasy books, and realized I had little interest in them and they
would be "obligation" reading rather than books I actually wanted
to read.
I find a lot of books end up this way. When I was younger it
almost might have made sense, but at this point I figure I don't
have time to waste reading books I'm not really enjoying. Of
course, this means I am doing more re-reading of books I have
already commented on, which makes it more difficult to fill these
columns.
The big news this month, of course, is that THE GREAT GATSBY by
F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner, 978-0-743-27356-5) passed into
public domain. This is (I think) pretty much a good thing, but it
has its downside. For example, the "Planet Money" podcast people
did a full reading of the book, at slightly longer than four hours.
This is less than ideal--a single four-hour-plus track is hard to
reposition oneself in. But a bigger objection I have is that they
bowdlerized it; at the end they said there were some racial and
ethnic slurs that the readers felt uncomfortable saying, so they
changed them. (They did say what pages they were on in the
Scribner edition, but that's of no use to people who picked up the
free ebook from Project Gutenber.) They should of at least
announced this *before* they did the reading, not at the end.
And, please, Planet Money, don't do HUCKLEBERRY FINN. I'm not
ready for "African-American Jim" and "Native American Joe." [-ecl]
Go to our home page
February 4, 2021 (MTPL), 7:30PM: THE PRESTIGE (2006) & novel
by Christopher Priest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHijGNsQ6TI
rental: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B003QS67F0/
https://tinyurl.com/Priest-The-Prestige-1995
March 4, 2021 (MTPL, 7:30PM: ENEMY MINE (1979) & novella
by Barry B. Longyear
rental: https://www.amazon.com/Enemy-Mine-Dennis-Quaid/dp/B000I9U9ZE/
https://archive.org/stream/Asimovs_v03n09_1979-09/Asimovs_v03n09_1979-09_djvu.txt
reprinted in: REEL FUTURES, THE REEL STUFF
March 25, 2021 (OBPL), 7:00PM: THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Quote of the Week:
I finally found out what font they use for alphabet
soup ... Times New Ramen.
--Dennis Johnson
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