@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 02/26/21 -- Vol. 39, No. 35, Whole Number 2160
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 March (comments by Mark R. Leeper):
Martin Gardner once wrote a book about what he called the "Aha!-
experience." That is the instant in problem solving when all the
pieces of the puzzle fit together and everything makes sense.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE was an entire TV series designed to create
"Aha!" experiences. In each episode the main characters knew
exactly what they were doing, but until the end the viewer was
confused. Then at the end everything fit together.
Don't look for that sort of scripting in the current Tom Cruise
"Mission Impossible" series or at least look for it in the current
"Ocean's 11" series, which seems to leave the viewer guessing until
the end of the story.
The Coen Brothers' BLOOD SIMPLE is sort of the dual of TV's MISSION
IMPOSSIBLE. It is a film about the "Huh?" experience. Through
most of the convoluted plot, it is the viewer who knows what is
going on and the characters keep finding out that they only
*thought* they knew what was happening. With the exception of the
moments when the plot twists, it is really easy to keep track of
what is happening. Yet, like RASHOMON, each character has a
different understanding of who is doing what to whom. The plot can
just be described as slow chaos punctuated with moments of
delicious confusion from the characters.
This is a film of very high production values which looks as if it
was printed on cheap film stock. Somehow the film stock gives it a
gritty feel of authenticity that a slick production would lack.
There are some incredible camera shots in this film and it is
amazing that they do not feel contrived. It is like reading Victor
Hugo: the first time you read a paragraph, you are amazed at how
well-written it is, and only secondarily you realize that it really
did advance the plot. Scenes in this film are amazing in the same
way.
One scene toward the end of the film is particularly haunting. We
are in a dark room and someone is shooting holes in the wall from a
well-lit room. The effect is one of columns of light sprouting out
of a dark wall. The scene fits naturally into the plot, but still
is an unforgettable image. The effect was used again in SILVERADO.
In some way I still do not understand, the cameraman is
unobtrusively able to make the viewer notice props that will be
important later. A prop will become important in the plot and the
viewer finds himself thinking, "Yes, I noticed that prop five
minutes ago, but it was in a corner of the screen and I thought
noticing it was my idea."
[BLOOD SIMPLE, March 20, 12 M]
[-mrl]
THE VIGIL (film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper):
THE VIGIL is a horror film in a Jewish Hasidic setting. The
"vigil" of the title is not the sitting shiva after a Jewish
funeral, but sitting with the body before the funeral, as tradition
demands the body never be left alone. THE VIGIL seems to crank up
the supernatural aspect of the "shomer", tying it specifically to
protecting the body from demons.
There are some interesting touches. For example, the main
character is attending an ex-Hasidic support group, and there are
many Jewish references in the set design, which is rich rather than
spare.
The film's style seems inspired by Darren Aronofsky and (less
likely) Guy Maddin. But the story is still basically a ghost
story, and while it is atmospheric and effective, it does not go
much further than other horror films.
One problem is that the subtitles for the Yiddish dialogue are in
fairly small print. Another is the loud and strident score and
sound design.
Released 02/26/21. Rating: low 0 (-4 to +4)
Film Credits:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10793644/reference
What others are saying:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_vigil_2019
[-mrl]
Westerns (letter of comment by Peter Rubinstein):
In response to various comments on Westerns in the 02/19/21 issue
of the MT VOID, Peter Rubinstein writes:
With respect to "Westerns" in space, how about FIREFLY and
SERENITY? And for that matter, wasn't "Star Trek" originally
pitched as "Wagon Train to the Stars"? [-pr]
THE OPPENHEIMER ALTERNATIVE and THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB (letter of comment by Jim Susky):
In response to Joe Karpierz's review of THE OPPENHEIMER ALTERNATIVE
in the 02/19/21 issue of the MT VOID, Jim Susky writes:
Big thanks to Joe Karpierz, who reviewed THE OPPENHEIMER
ALTERNATIVE by Robert J. Sawyer in last week's MT VOID.
Like Joe, I "didn't know much about (Los Alamos, the University of
Chicago, (and) the Manhattan Project."
Further: "(OPPENHEIMER) reads like a who's who of physics."
An excellent companion to this novel would be Richard Rhoades' THE
MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB which has one advantage in that one is
not obligated to read it from beginning to end--or even in toto.
Another advantage--MAKING has an index.
Yet another--Rhoades' door-stopper starts in the 1920's in the
middle of the revolution that formed modern physics. It describes
in considerable detail the discovery of many radioactive elements,
their half-lives, and the chemical determination of their atomic
numbers. It therefore "drops names" like a madman--including that
of Dr. Einstein, who used his fame to trigger the Manhattan
Project.
I'm off now--to order a copy of OPPENHEIMER. [-js]
REALITY IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS and EINSTEIN AND THE QUANTUM (letter of comment by Jim Susky):
In response to Gregory Frederick's review of REALITY IS NOT WHAT IT
SEEMS in the 02/19/21 issue of the MT VOID, Jim Susky writes:
Now that I'm on a roll:
Mr. Frederick's review of REALITY IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS: THE JOURNEY
TO QUANTUM GRAVITY reminds me of one of the best review/histories
of modern physics in my experience: EINSTEIN AND THE QUANTUM: THE
QUEST OF THE VALIANT SWABIAN by Dr. A. Douglas Stone
Unlike many, there is "math" in this book, but no more than
algebra.
This book makes a good case to show that Dr. Einstein was indeed
the "first quantum mechanic"--that his contributions extended far
beyond his famous one--and that "God does not play dice" only
scratches the surface of his QM work.
What causes me to want a re-read is that SWABIAN gives a taste of
how utterly strange the sub-atomic realm is. We BSEE's think of
the electron as free-charge in metallic conductors--which is to say
we have no clue about the electron's actual nature and behavior.
"Weird and Wonderful" does not begin to describe the electron.
Who needs "string theory"? [-js]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
I know you're probably all bored to death seeing me write about THE
MARTIAN by Andy Weir (ISBN 978-0-553-41802-6), but in this case I
will be talking about the major differences between the novel and
the movie. Some I can see the necessity for, but others seem just
arbitrary.
One of the arbitrary ones is that in the film the storm takes place
on Sol 18 rather than Sol 6. Another is that he asks Lewis rather
than Martinez to check on his parents.
Other changes are more understandable. A feature-length film
cannot have the detail of a novel, so some events have to be
deleted. Watney never seems to lose contact with Earth once he
gets Pathfinder working. (Admittedly, we do not see or hear of
much communication after Watney starts on his journey.) A lot of
detail of his journey are omitted, e.g., how he navigates, or how
he designed the "rover train". For that matter, his "rover train"
is very different from the book--the roof hole is in the
(front/only) cab, and the trailer is just a flatbed. The
Johanssen-Beck relationship is barely shown. Most notably, Watney
doesn't drive into a sandstorm and he doesn't roll the rover.
The airlock explosion is quite different. First, the airlock is
much larger in the film than in the book. In the book, the airlock
is the size of a phone booth. In the film, the airlock is large
enough to hold the entire crew with room to spare. As a result,
Watney has plenty of room to move almost everything out of the HAB
to make the farm, and to easily bring in the soil. Oh, and he has
a full size shovel rather than just a sample trowel. After the
farm dies, Watney empties the hab of the dirt rather than leave it
there (obviously easier with a huge airlock, but still ...), and
uses what appears to be plastic sheeting to cover the airlock hole
rather than hab canvas.
The airlock explosion is less critical in the film: he is able to
tape up his helmet fairly easily, has no breaches in the rest of
the suit, doesn't need to roll the airlock, and does not have only
a very brief time to get a new helmet and suit.
In the book, he is clear that he uses only his own "manure" for the
farm, so catching diseases from it is not possible--he already has
all those microbes. In the film, he brings all the night soil in,
including that of the other astronauts, but that has been freeze-
dried, so there is no possibility of contamination.
The hab in the movie is far more luxurious, with more substantial
beds, paper manuals, etc. But he claims nothing is flammable--are
the manuals flame-retardant? It turns out that even in our own
time, NASA has developed a paper from stone that will not burn.
I am still annoyed that Mindy Park is not Korean and Vincent Kapoor
is not Indian. I am also annoyed that someone else tells Mindy to
check the photos of the base, rather than having her discover it on
her own.
And while I'm nitpicking, the second lecture of the Great Courses'
"Birth of the Modern Mind" describes Aristotelian scholasticism.
One aspect is the appeal to the past, as in, "If we have believed
this for centuries, we would have found any flaws by now, so it
must be true." But then Professor Alan Charles Kors says that we
still do this and that it makes sense. His first example is asking
what would happen if a teacher of freshman geometry presented
Euclid's five axioms and some student said, "Wait a minute--how do
we know those are true?" Well, we would say the student was
Riemann or Lobachevsky and was about to discover non-Euclidean
geometry. The other examples (Kepler's laws of planetary motion or
Newton's laws of thermodynamics) may be a bit more secure, but they
also said that about Newtonian physics until Einstein came. [-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
April 1, 2021 (MTPL), 7:00PM: A WRINKLE IN TIME (2018) & novel
by Madeleine L'Engle
rental: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd7UG8-Wwe4
rental: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/A-Wrinkle-in-Time/911864
https://www.bookscool.com/en/A-Wrinkle-in-Time/1
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Quote of the Week:
It is easier to fight for one's principles than
to live up to them.
-- Alfred Adler
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