THE MT VOID
10/21/22 -- Vol. 41, No. 17, Whole Number 2246
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
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Topics:
TCM'S October Programming
GATTACA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
PRINCE OF DARKNESS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER by Peter F. Hamilton
(audio book review by Joe Karpierz)
This Week's Reading (THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: TCM'S October Programming
Turner Classic Movies has a couple of articles about their
programming in October:
Star of the Month: Robots
<
https://www.tcm.com/articles/Programming%20Article/021674/ star-of-the-month-robots?lid=srfvuhjd1wxh>
Screamin' Shelley Winters
<
https://www.tcm.com/articles/Programming%20Article/021679/ screamin-shelley-winters?lid=a7r0l0ige2fe>
===================================================================
TOPIC: GATTACA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
[In honor of GATTACA's 25th anniversary on October 24, here is
Mark's original review of that film.]
Capsule: GATTACA is a cold film that frequently stretches
credibility, but still it stands as one of the more intelligent
science fiction films of the 90s. Anatomy truly is destiny in a
world where almost everything about you can be determined quickly
from a DNA sample. One man with a dream of traveling in space
carries out a long identity deception in a world where it should be
impossible, by using another man's DNA to fool all the detectors.
This is also a philosophical detective story a well as a science
fiction film that looks deeply at the implications of too much
genetic knowledge. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4), 8 (0 to 10)
While some pairs of identical twins lead surprisingly similar
lives, frequently they do not and frequently they show different
interests and potential. So there are limitations on the
information about the adult that can be augured by a DNA
examination. That makes it seem to be unlikely that we would ever
get to the world as it is shown in GATTACA where everything anyone
wants to know about you is encoded into your DNA. However, GATTACA
assumes that the world has decided that DNA is the most reliable
way of judging a person in spite of counter-examples like Vincent
(played by Ethan Hawke) the main character of this story. Vincent
has been delegated to the labor class based on his DNA. He looks
wistfully at the rockets blasting off from the Gattaca Corporation
and dreams of going off into space. He is highly motivated, but
nobody notices because his DNA says that he just does not have the
potential to be much more than a floor sweeper, permanently a part
of the under-class. One wonders how so inaccurate a test could be
accepted without question by a society, particularly after age of
civil rights and civil liberties advances.
Vincent knows he does not have a chance of being chosen by the
Gattaca Corporation for one of their probes into space, so he
decides to literally reinvent himself. There is a criminal element
who are willing to match him up with a human with a much better DNA
structure who can supply him with hairs, urine samples, blood
samples and any other kind of sample so that all the samples that
Gattaca takes from him will really be from Jerome (Jude Law).
Jerome agrees to live with Vincent, providing him with sufficient
biological specimens to give to the company and letting Vincent
take on Jerome's name. This is a tricky process involving things
like false finger tips filled with Jerome's blood form the ID
machine that takes a sample. We see how Vincent is occasionally
able to substitute Jerome's specimens for his own, but it is never
really convincing that he could do that whenever the need arises.
Vincent romances a fellow employee Irene Cassini (Uma Thurman) who
gets pulled into this web of deception.
The story moves at a languorous pace showing how the world has
changed since the conversion to the DNA standard. Andrew M. Niccol
who wrote and directed has given us a "not too distant future" that
is not entirely convincing, but is still worth seeing. Loose ends
abound, but that may be part of the point. For example, Vincent
has taken over for Jerome and is telling the world that he is the
same person, but Jerome has a "toffee-nosed" British accent and so
presumably comes from an environment that would produce such an
accent. Vincent does not have a British accent at all. Yet nobody
seems to even care to compare Vincent to his claimed background. It
is hard to place how far this world is in the future. Women and
men at Gattaca dress in almost identical uniforms and women wear
their hair in almost masculine styles. Cars make the whining sound
of turbines, but still look a lot like the cars of today.
The photography by Slawomir Idziak is just a bit showy, bathing
some scenes in yellow or blue light. Particularly in the first
half of the film it is often his camerawork that creates the mood
in scenes devoid of any music. It gives the world a repressive,
sterile, dry feel. Michael Nyman's score when it does kick in is
repetitive almost to the point of being minimalist.
GATTACA has a few places where it could have had the details better
developed, but it is a complex story, perhaps of the complexity of
a novel. It is told without the too common problems of science
fiction of too much special effects replacing careful thought. If
anything, GATTACA is a film that substitutes intelligence for
explosions. This is about people caught up in a sort of cautionary
dystopic world. It may not be a likely world, but it has
well-developed character in this world. Overall I would rate
GATTACA a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
[And because it is Halloween and in honor of PRINCE OF DARKNESS's
35th anniversary on October 23, here is Mark's original review of
that film.]
Capsule: A very demanding and very rewarding horror film. Horror
and science fiction combine together to make a film for real
long-standing horror film fans only. Lots of old stuff but a lot
that even the long-time fans have not seen before. The last
half-hour is a let-down, but it is hard to imagine an ending
fitting the buildup. Rating: +2
A lot of horror films are coming out about now. Released in one
weekend are both PRINCE OF DARKNESS and NIGHT FLYERS. Earlier this
year Clive Barker directed and wrote HELLRAISER. BELIEVERS, based
on a respected horror novel, came out this year. Then there were a
number of minor pieces of the NEAR DARK ilk. Horror, I understand,
sells well on videocassette, so it is pretty tough for a horror
film to lose money. I was vaguely aware that the aforementioned
PRINCE OF DARKNESS was from John Carpenter, but he has had a spotty
career. I like his DARK STAR, HALLOWEEN, THE THING, and maybe a
few others. His most recent, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, was a
good idea that went amazingly bad. But then things are not always
what we expect. PRINCE OF DARKNESS, for example, turns out to be
the best thing that Carpenter has ever done. It may well be the
fantasy film I will want to remember from 1987.
For 2000 years the Brotherhood of Sleep have kept secret what
Christianity was *really* about--have kept secret the true nature
of evil and of the Devil, a secret with roots far older than
humanity. Now, 2000 years after they discovered the secret, it is
becoming important to understand it once more. The laws of physics
are changing and the focus of all that is happening is one small
rundown church in Los Angeles. There a group of scientists, their
graduate students, and a priest are trying to unravel the mystery
of what is happening. And what is happening will tie together
particle physics, mathematics, and orthodox Christianity.
PRINCE OF DARKNESS has everything it needs but the payoff. The
final third of the film is good Carpenter-style suspense, but it
fails to live up to the promise of the first two thirds of the
movie. If it had, this would have been an excellent science
fiction film as well as a good horror film. As it is, PRINCE OF
DARKNESS is rich in ideas and has some good suspense to boot, but
doesn't quite deliver.
I really enjoyed the film, but have to give this film a qualified recommendation. It takes a lot of effort just to understand as
much of what is going on as the director wants to show you. There
are many scenes that are deliberately disturbing and a lot more
that are violent, though it has been pointed out to me that there
is very little actual blood. If you haven't seen many horror
films, you may not find this one worth your effort; there are a lot
of other good films out there. If you have seen a lot of horror
films, you will recognize little ideas here and there from (are you
ready?) DRACULA, THE EXORCIST, THE THING, THE QUIET EARTH, THE
LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, ESCAPE FROM NEW
YORK, FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH, THE KEEP, and THE TERMINATOR.
Yes, there are recognizable ideas inspired by each of these, yet
there are so many new ideas in this horror film that the familiar
ones are outnumbered.
The name of the man who crafted all these ideas into a single
screenplay is Martin Quatermass. Perhaps that is a pseudonym and
even a film reference. Since some of the images, like the marauding
street schizophrenics, are reminiscent of images out of Carpenter's
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, it is at least
conceivable that the film was written by Carpenter himself. In any
case, it is often hard to follow exactly what is happening; the
film makes the audience work a little. And a little knowledge of
paradoxical 20th Century physics helps to set the atmosphere
(that's a remarkable statement all by itself!).
If you are tired of seeing old ideas rehashed in horror films,
PRINCE OF DARKNESS will show you a lot you haven't seen before.
You people (and me) who wanted to see a horror film of power in
Clive Barker's HELLRAISER: sorry, Barker didn't deliver, but PRINCE
OF DARKNESS is what you were expecting. I'd give it a high +2 on
the -4 to +4 scale.
DISCLAIMER: As might be obvious, a film that audaciously plays
with ideas will appeal to me more than to the viewing public at
large. A prime example is LIFEFORCE, itself a film that gave a
science fictional alternate interpretation to traditional beliefs.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER by Peter F. Hamilton (copyright 2022,
Tantor Audio, ASIN B09P9SS761, 9 hours and 32 minutes, narrated by
Elizabeth Klett) (audio book review by Joe Karpierz)
THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER, second book in the audio-only YA Arkship
Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton, picks up where the first audio book
in the series, A HOLE IN THE SKY, left off. Hazel and her band of
friends, have sealed the hole in the hull of the Daedalus, through
which air was leaking out and giving people headaches because of
the low pressure. This act, in turn, has angered the Yi, the
creatures that have taken over control of the Daedalus. The Yi, if
you remember, essentially put the members of the colony ship into a
sort of agrarian society, and have perpetrated the story that
things are the way they are because of a mutiny that happened
several hundred years ago. But now Hazel knows better, and is
trying to give that information to the rest of the colonists. This
knowledge, and much more, was given to her by a command AI she
encountered at the front of the ship; what's more, it turns out
she's actually the Captain's Daughter--well, she's the descendant
of the Captain, which makes her the Captain of the Daedalus. It is
a role she neither wants nor is ready for. But now, it's time to
go find another command AI--at the behest of the first one--that
can tell her more of what happened during the mutiny.
Unfortunately, what she finds out is not very pleasant--as if what
she's already found out isn't unpleasant enough as it is. So now,
she must find a way to take back the ship, and with the help of
friends and family she sets off to do just that.
THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER suffers from being the second book in a
trilogy. It is a bridge between the setup and the finale, and
while the information the reader learns about the Yi and the
history of the Daedalus is important and useful, there really isn't
that much advancement of the plot of the narrative. What Hamilton
does in this installment is make us intensely dislike the Yi, to
the point of being disgusted with them. If there is an advancement
in the plot, it's to make things worse for the band of heroes that
is out to save the colonists and the mission of getting to a colony
planet.
That's not to say that THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER is a bad book; it is
not. But it really doesn't do much to advance the characters from
when we first met them. If there is a fault with what goes on here,
it's that Hazel--the titular character of the book--is continually
bailed about by her whip-smart younger brother. If one of the
points of the exercise in the Arkship Trilogy is to show the
independence and leadership of its female lead character, it's not
doing too good of a job.
What it does do well is showcase Hamilton's skills at writing alien
creatures, battle scenes, and inter-character dynamics. And while,
like the first book, the storytelling is linear and more
constrained--in a colony ship rather than out in the vastness of
space--we see the same techniques that Hamilton uses in his
standard "wide screen space operas". They are just muted, as the
story dictates that they need to be.
Readers need to remember that the Arkship Trilogy is YA, and in the
confines of that space Hamilton does a pretty good job. No, it's
not like his other works, but it's not intended to be. It needs to
be read and enjoyed--or not--on its own merits for what it is.
I see that in my review of A HOLE IN THE SKY I say that the name of
the narrator is Elizabeth Katt. Her correct name is Elizabeth
Klett, and my apologies go out to her. She is doing a fine job of
narrating the Arkship Trilogy novels. I'm sure she'll do just as
fine a job on the third one. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I recently re-watched THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, which prompted
me to read (re-read?) the book by Muriel Spark (Penguin, ISBN 978-0-141-18142-4). The film has a timeless theme: the charismatic
leader who is more concerned with their own power than with what is
right or beneficial for their followers. Miss Brodie idolizes
Franco, Mussolini, and her own opinions, and transmits these
beliefs to some of her students that she has picked out as "Miss
Brodie's set". (This obviously now reminds one of "Jerry's Kids".
perhaps a not-inapt comparison.) One suspects she chooses "her"
girls as the ones most suggestible, or useful to her.
And of course, she sees herself, and her girls, as not constrained
by societal rules or morality. (Of one, she says, "She is above
the common moral code, it does not apply to her." Miss Brodie has
had a sequence of lovers, and sees no problem with trying to get
one of them to take a sixteen(?)-year-old girl as his next lover.
But they have to follow her rules; for example, she criticizes one
girl for opening the window more than the six inches she deems
appropriate, and another for having her sleeves rolled up.
And of course the theme is timeless--throughout history charismatic
egotists have manipulated people to their own ends (which made just
be to gain a feeling of power). One might argue that the notion of
teachers inculcating their ideas and beliefs into their students,
independent of what the government or school administration might
want, but the idea go back as far as Socrates, tried and executing
for corrupting his students, the youth of Athens.
Spark has an unusual writing style. Her narrative jumps around in
time, not just be having flashbacks in an otherwise straight
timeline, but by jumping forward as well as backward, and having
these jump not in their own chronological order. She also uses a
technique reminiscent of Homeric poetry, where she has a
descriptive phrase that is frequently (but not always) attached to
the various girls. For example, one girl is frequently described
as "famous for sex" even when that is irrelevant. Another has her
mathematical ability cited. One is a gymnast, and at one point
Miss Brodie orders her to perform some somersaults to entertain the
other girls--yet another example of Miss Brodie's dictatorial bent.
(Significantly, in the book it is not any immorality on Miss
Brodie's part that causes her downfall, but her politics.)
The book is good (and was named one of the "Top 100
English-Language Novels of the 20th Century" by the Modern
Library), but the 1969 film is great. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
--Oscar Wilde
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