@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 02/21/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 34, Whole Number 2368
Table of Contents
Mini Reviews, Part 5 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper):
Three family films:
BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE (2005): We watched the 2003 film BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE, based on the 2000 novel by Kate DiCamillo. In the film, Opal asks the librarian for a book to read to Gloria Dump, an old African American woman who is going blind. The librarian suggests GONE WITH THE WIND. Really? And Gloria seems to be enjoying it. All of this is from the book.
But for the twentieth anniversary edition, DeCamillo decided/realized that GONE WITH THE WIND was a totally inappropriate book to be read to an African American woman. So she changed the book to DAVID COPPERFIELD, while retaining the reference to her ancestor in the Civil War by making it the book he had carried with him through the war.
One can claim books should be cleaned up of racism, sexism, etc., but when it is the author initiating the changes the question is more complicated. No one seems to object to non-fiction books having a second edition with changes, corrections, and updates. (Indeed, sometimes second editions are almost total rewrites.) And apparently there were not major objections when Larry Niven corrected the error about the Earth's rotation in the first edition of RINGWORLD.
I doubt that even most of those who object to this change would suggest that the Nancy Drew novel featuring the Ku Klux Klan should be reprinted. (That title, "Red Gate Farm", was re-issued, but with an entirely different story.) [-ecl]
Released theatrically 18 February 2005.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317132/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/because_of_winndixie
RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET (2018): The story is "meh", but the references are what you should watch the movie for. I'm a bit surprised Disney let them make fun of the whole "Princess" trope, and all the ways that all the Princesses are alike. (Although there is some attempt to subvert the stereotypes as well.) One definitely hets the feeling that Vanellope is far more interesting than any of the Princesses.
The depiction of the Internet is also interesting, though it is not clear why some entities retain their real names, and other are fictional. Maybe it's that the fictional ones are acting in clearly unscrupulous ways, or serve as competitors to the real entities. [-ecl]
Released theatrically 21 November 2018.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5848272/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ralph_breaks_the_internet
WICKED: PART I (2024): Apparently, multi-part movies have become a thing. I don't mean movies and their sequels: each of the "Godfather" movies had a beginning, a middle, and an end, with no cliffhangers to be resolved in the next film. No, I mean the trend Peter Jackson started with "The Lord of the Rings". This was a movie based on a very long work, and even with three movies, there still had to be things left out.
But then Jackson decided he should do THE HOBBIT as three movies because, well, he could. This was a mistake, and in fact things had to be added. But not all directors got the message, so we have HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (Parts 1 and 2), MISSION IMPOSSIBLE--DEAD RECKONING (Parts 1 and 2), DUNE (Parts 1 and 2), and now WICKED (Part 1).
What makes this even more like THE HOBBIT is that the two parts of WICKED are based on a stage play that is under three hours long, while WICKED PART 1 is already two hours and forty minutes long by itself.
(WICKED the stage musical was in turn based on the book WICKED by Gregory Maguire, which itself spawned an entire sub-genre, with seven more books in the "Wicked" universe, and at least another half dozen revisionist retellings of other fairy stories.)
Of the film itself, I have to say the songs did nothing for me and the dancing seemed far more free-form than what I prefer, but the art direction and set design were pretty amazing. [-ecl]
Released theatrically 22 November 2024.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262426/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wicked_2024
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
I am reading THE TEAM THAT FOREVER CHANGED BASEBALL AND AMERICA: THE 1947 BROOKLYN DODGERS edited by Lyle Spatz (University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 978-0-8032-3992-0), having wondered after seeing "42" how much of it was accurate. THE TEAM THAT FOREVER CHANGED BASEBALL AND AMERICA, however, gave so much detail, that filtering it was almost impossible. There was a biography for every player on the roster, some only a few pages, but the ones for those with longer careers much longer. The problem is that so much of it deals with baseball.
Well, okay, it *is* a book about a baseball team and a baseball season, but I was hoping for more on the "changed America" part. There were interesting tidbits: African Americans were asked not to make too big a thing of Jackie Robinson being the first African American in the major leagues since 1884, to avoid encouraging a white backlash. The Dodgers moved their spring training from their previous base in Florida to Cuba, where Black players were nothing unusual. And so on.
If you are interested in the biographies of the whole team, even people you never heard about before, and a description of every game (in the "Timelines" chapters), this is the book for you. But if you want more commentary on the societal aspects, you probably should look elsewhere. [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Quote of the Week:
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
--Decouvertes
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