@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 08/14/26 -- Vol. 45, No. 7, Whole Number 2445
Table of Contents
Mini Reviews, Part 23 (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper):
GOSFORD PARK (2001): The first scene is a gem. It shows not only how little the upper class thought of the comfort of their servants, but also how little the supposedly more egalitarian Americans did as well. Not only does Lady Constance Trentham make her maid Mary Maceachran get out in the pouring rain to unscrew a thermos, she then keeps her standing there when another car pulls up and she has a conversation with its occupant. And no one in the other car, including the American, seems concerned that Mary is still kept standing there unnecessarily.
And then we find out that the servants don't even have their own names. While they are visiting, below stairs they are referred to by their employers' names rather than their own. (And Mary is doubly renamed: Lady Constance can't be bothered to call her by her last name, as a lady's maid should be, but calls her "Mary".)
And then she tells Mary she wants to wear the same blouse the next day, knowing that means Mary will have to stay up and wash and iron it. But then in the morning, after Mary has stayed up late to get the blouse ready, Lady Constance decides to wear something else.
What is well done (script-wise) is that there are a lot of things Lady Constance does and says in which she is intentionally cruel, but in these cases (and others) she is not intentionally cruel--she is just totally oblivious to other people's feelings.
CLOUD (2024): I have been a fan of Kiyoshi Kurosawa since back when he made CURE and PULSE. His second-to-latest is CLOUD, a psychological horror thriller about eBay. (His latest, THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER, is just being released to theaters now.)
Well, it's not called eBay--it's some unnamed online marketplace. Yoshii is a reseller, but definitely on the shaky side. He starts by buying some goods at a fraction of their value by taking advantage of their current owner. Then he acquires some fake designer handbags, Then he's back to fast-talking a supplier. And so it goes.
But all this shady dealing has created some enemies, and his assistant may be one of them.
One complaint I have is that a lot is being conveyed by screen shots of computers, sometimes scrolling, and most of it is not subtitled.
Full disclosure: I sell (and re-sell) on eBay, but in an entirely honest way. (My reselling consists of buying bags of DVDs and books on Bag Days at book sales, and hoping to find something valuable. And Yoshii has a much cooler camera set-up than my little Android phone.)
THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) and O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000):
I watched these two basically back-to-back, which reminded how much the Coen Brothers must like the old Busby Berkeley routines, with their aerial shots of dancers in synchronized patterns. For those of you slightly younger with memories of 1960s television, these may remind you more of the June Taylor dancers on "The Jackie Gleason Show". (I always wondered what the studio audience made of the dancing, given that they were looking at it horizontally rather than from above.)
I watched these when I ended up watching a string of John Goodman movies: KONG SKULL ISLAND, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?, and MATINEE (which I keep thinking of as MANT!). I am considering watching TRUMBO (the 2015 narrative film, not the 2007 documentary), although possibly just the Goodman scenes. And of course there's ARGO...
[-ecl]
Harry Potter Fans, Dobby's 'Grave', and the Undersea Cable (pointer and comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
The Guardian reports:
"Harry Potter fans have forced a new multimillion-pound power cable between the UK and Ireland to be relocated after complaining it would desecrate the 'grave' of Dobby, a fictional elf.
"The character was laid to rest on Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, in the film HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. Fans of the wizard series come to leave stones reading 'Here Lies Dobby' despite being asked not to by the land owner, the National Trust, because the beach is an ecologically sensitive site."
After getting "hundreds of calls", the firm found a new route. "In the end, [Simon Ludlam] said, 'we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby's grave'. The Bronze Age remains include urns associated with human burial.
Full article at
However, a comment by John Mark Ockerbloom in FILE 770
(
https://backofmind.substack.com/p/chortle-on-a-chortle
[-jmo]
[-ecl]
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES and SOME LIKE IT HOT (letter of comment by Jo Paltin):
In response to Evelyn's comments on LA CAGE AUX FOLLES and SOME LIKE IT HOT in the08/07/26 issue of the MT VOID, Jo Paltin writes:
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES the original movie and SOME LIKE IT HOT are two all-time favorites. I saw LA CAGE AUX FOLLES in NYC when it first came out, when I used to keep up with new releases and there were lots of art theaters in Manhattan to find them; and stumbled across SOME LIKE IT HOT on TV. Both are LOL funny regardless of the subtext, except for the very drunk Marilyn, sad to say. [-jp]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
I am watching the Teaching Company/Great Courses "Origins and Ideologies of the American Revolution" with Professor Peter C. Mancall. In a couple of lectures he talks about how when the Constitution was being written, the anti-Federalists raised a lot of objections, some of which the Federalists (in what are known as "The Federalist Papers") attempted to counter. (Some, such as the omission of a Bill of Rights, they conceded.)
As Mancall says, "Many of the anti-Federalists in particular singled out the powers given to the President in Article II. Without a council to advise him, they argued, he would surround himself with sycophants who might shield him from information he needed to know. They believed that the pardoning power in Article II would allow the President himself by exonerating individuals with whom he had committed a crime."
Sound familiar?
(They also feared factionalism, which the Federalists addressed in Federalist Paper #10, which I discussed in the 04/10/26 issue of the MT VOID.)
[Note: Some of the anti-Federalist arguments were published as essays or pamphlets; other were reconstructed from the notes on the debates of the Constitutional Convention written up by James Madison, though probably not as the debates were happening, and not published until after his death.]
Of the power to pardon, in his opposition to the New Jersey Plan (June 19, 1787) James Madison pointed out that in their respective constitutions, many of the states already give their executives the right of pardon.
In a general opposition to the Constitution in September 1787, Edmund Randolph decried the "unqualified power of the President to pardon treasons".
In "Centinel" (Number 1, October 5, 1787) Samuel Bryan worried, "And from his power of granting pardons, [the President] might skreen [sic] from punishment the most treasonable attempts on the liberties of the people, when instigated by the Senate."
The author of "The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of Pennsylvania to Their Constituents" (December 18, 1787) (believed to also be Samuel Bryan) wrote of the President, "having the power of pardoning without the concurrence of a council, he may screen from punishment the most treasonable attempts that may be made on the liberties of the people when instigated by his coadjutors in the senate."
Hamilton's response to all this (in Federalist #69: To the People of the State of New York) is to claim that because the New York governor can pardon even in cases of impeachment, while the President cannot, this is protection enough. He writes, "A President of the Union, on the other hand, though he may even pardon treason, when prosecuted in the ordinary course of law, could shelter no offender, in any degree, from the effects of impeachment and conviction." Hamilton seems to assume that the only people who would perform treasonous acts are those who are susceptible to impeachment. He also seems to assume that because the governor of New York can pardon people, that is a the target to aim for, without asking whether this unlimited pardoning power is really a good thing to start with.
He returns to this in Federalist #74: The Command of the Military and Naval Forces, and the Pardoning Power of the Executive (From the New York Packet. Tuesday, March 25, 1788) saying, "Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel. As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance. ... The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind." I think we've clearly seen recently that Hamilton had a far too optimistic view of humanity, shown further by his claim that "a single man of prudence and good sense is better fitted, in delicate conjunctures, to balance the motives which may plead for and against the remission of the punishment, than any numerous body whatever." Clearly Hamilton assumes the single man will be a man of prudence and good sense.
The anti-Federalists also objected to the lack of a Privy Council for the President. We ended up with the Cabinet, which Madison compared to the Privy Council. Though initially the Cabinet had an advisory and administrative function, it has gradually acquired the ability to issue legal orders in the same way as the Privy Council in Britain. But this article is long enough already, so I will say that the Federalist arguments about the lack of a privy council can be found in Federalist Papers 38, 69, 70, 77, and 85. [-ecl]
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Quote of the Week:
I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake
of claiming that I have never made one.
--James Gordon Bennett
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