THE MT VOID
12/23/22 -- Vol. 41, No. 26, Whole Number 2255
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Boy, Did I Screw the Pooch! (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Mini Reviews, Part 8 (FOUR SAMOSAS, CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY,
HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL) (film reviews
by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH (letter of comment by Fred Lerner
and Sam Long))
Baggage (letters of comment by Hal Heydt and Jeff Jonas)
GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO (letter of comment
by Gary McGath)
DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS (letter of comment by Jay E. Morris)
This Week's Reading (THE BOOK OF BOOKS) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Boy, Did I Screw the Pooch! (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I seem to have mis-attributed several comments in the last issue
(12/16/22). Damn you, cut and paste!
Anyway, I have reprinted them in this issue with the correct
attributions, with apologies to Gary McGath, Jay E. Morris, and
Scott Dorsey. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 8 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)
This is the eighth batch of mini-reviews, all comedies set in
different cultures.
FOUR SAMOSAS: FOUR SAMOSAS starts with the odd image of four
Indians running around in contemporary Indian clothing, but also
clearly in disguise. It proceeds to a battle of insults, a satire
on Bollywood productions, and many take-offs on heist films with a
far larger budget. (Its budget was $300,000, which these days is
basically nothing.) But it is also as funny as many action
comedies which have much larger budgets, and definitely worth
watching.
Released on streaming 2 December 2022. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or
7/10
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15327014/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/four_samosas>
CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY: CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY takes a medieval
setting and populates it with modern people. Well, that is not
quite fair. But while the attitudes of most of the people around
Birdy are (mostly) accurate to the period, Birdy's own attitudes an
actions are modern, and the language everyone speaks is definitely
modern. (They're not using slang like "hashtag" or "women's lib",
but there are no "thee"s or "thou"s, no "Yield, you varlet!") And
the director went for color-blind casting, which makes it look more
modern or urban or something. The whole idea is that the
screenwriter uses the film to draw a connection between our modern
life and the medieval life in the castle. The only problem is that
the attitudes of some of the people are modernized in order to
produce the desired ending. Still, it's amusing enough for its
comedic elements.
Released 23 September 2022. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Film Credits: <
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11727866/reference>
What others are saying: <
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/catherine_called_birdy>
HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL: HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL is
billed as a "mockumentary" about a fallen pastor of a megachurch
and his attempt to get his congregation back. The "humor" is that
the pastor and his wife ("First Lady") are not repentant (big
surprise!) but concerned about their image, position, and money.
One major stumbling block is that it is not a true
mockumentary--there are scenes that clearly could not have been
filmed by the documentary crew (e.g., scenes of the couple in bad),
and other scenes that are shot from multiple angles, or even show
the filming crew in the shot. Another is that HONK FOR JESUS SAVE
YOUR SOUL does not really go anywhere; it just sort of peters out.
Released 02 September 2022. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12655436/reference>
What others are saying: <
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/honk_for_jesus_save_your_soul>
[-mrl/ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH (letters of comment by Fred Lerner and
Sam Long)
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH in the
12/16/22 issue of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes:
You wrote about the Epic of Gilgamesh. My favorite version is that
offered by John Myers Myers, who summarises it in the form of a
six-stanza drinking song ("Orpheus' Song" in SILVERLOCK). [-fl]
And Sam Long writes:
Whenever I run across a reference to Gilgamesh, I can't help but be
reminded of Jimmy Durante's popular song "Inka Dinka Doo". [-sl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Baggage (letters of comment by Hal Heydt and Jeff Jonas)
In response to Peter Trei's comments on baggage in the 12/09/22
issue of the MT VOID, Hal Heydt writes:
[Peter Trei writes,] "Does your 'baggage' rejoice in the name
Hilda, by any chance?" [-pt]
Shades of Flanders & Swann description of their tour of Canada.
"Coming back, he had 120 lbs. of excess baggage.In the end, he had
to leave her behind." [-hh]
And Jeff Jonas adds:
There's a "Twilight Zone" episode with that punchline: a prisoner
on a far away asteroid cannot take his robot companion back home.
[-jj]
Evelyn notes:
Its title is "The Lonely". [-ecl]
<P><A NAME=rights><B>What Are Your Passenger Rights in
Space?</B></A> (letter of comment by Hal Heydt):
In response to <A HREF=VOID1202.htm#rights>Scott Dorsey's comments
on baggage</A> in the 12/02/22 issue of the MT VOID, Hal Heydt
writes:
Shades of Flanders & Swann description of their tour of Canada.
"Coming back, he had 120 lbs. of excess baggage. In the end, he
had to leave her behind." [-hh]
===================================================================
TOPIC: GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO (letter of comment by Gary
McGath)
In response to Mark and Evelyn's review of GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S
PINOCCHIO in the 12/09/22 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
Given the massive-sounding changes, they should have called it
"Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio," in the spirit of "Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula." [-sd]
===================================================================
TOPIC: DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS (letter of comment by Jay E. Morris)
In response to Mark and Evelyn's review of DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS
in the 12/09/22 issue of the MT VOID, Jay R. Morris writes:
It's a DC project, not Marvel, and in the MCU the Deadpool movies
did receive R ratings. [-jem]
Evelyn responds:
Mea maxima culpa. I wrote that in what was either a brain fart or
a senior moment. But then again, I don't know which characters are
in which universe anyway (even if the title does give it away). :-)
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE BOOK OF BOOKS by Jessica Allen (Black Dog & Leventhal, ISBN 978-0-316-41755-6) is the companion book to the PBS series "The
Great American Read". As such it is more designed as a
"read-once", or even a "just-flip-through-once", book rather than
an on-going reference (unless you count using the list of books as
a reading "bucket list." So I will give comments on a couple of
individual articles, rather than trying to review the book as a
whole.
Allen lists ten "famous first lines". I'm clearly not as well-read
as I thought: I recognized only four of them.
In the write-up about Mark Twain for THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER,
Allen doesn't even mention his role in getting General Ulysses S.
Grant's memoirs, though he does cover Twain's financial troubles.
(And why TOM SAWYER instead of HUCKLEBERRY FINN?)
Of James Patterson, Allen says, "Patterson has had more than 50
'New York Times' bestsellers, a world record. So he doesn't just
write fast, he writes well." Maybe, but the "New York Times" best
seller list reports popularity, not quality. Erich Segal's LOVE
STORY was on the list for 41 weeks, and is not considered a paragon
of quality.
In the description of Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE,
Allen gives the original title of the book, TEN LITTLE N*****S",
explaining that Was how the rhyme was known at the time, but does
not mention the interim title, TEN LITTLE INDIANS.
Prince Edward Island in Canada is known for two things, potatoes
and ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. The former does not draw nearly as many
tourists as the latter.
In contrast to the large numbers of novels by some writers (such as
Agatha Christie or James Patterson, we have others, such as J. D.
Salinger or Margaret Mitchell, who had but a single novel to their
name. (Mitchell was killed in a car accident relatively early, but
had already decided that she could never match the success of GONE
WITH THE WIND and determined never to write another book. And John
Kennedy Toole committed suicide when he couldn't manage to sell his
first novel, A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. Salinger continued to write,
just not novels.)
Of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME, Allen writes,
that author Mark Haddon is "demonstrating sensitivity toward those
with mental and physical disorders." The protagonist is
universally accepted as being autistic (or "being on the spectrum",
if you prefer), yet Allen never uses either term, and there is much
debate about whether autism is a disorder or disability.
Allen claims that by the conclusion of Isaac Asimov's complete
"Foundation" series, "he was widely recognized as perhaps the
greatest sci-fi writer ever to pick up a pen." Hardly, and it's
statements such as this that made this book irritating.
Since this is a 2018 book, the chapter on THE GREAT GATSBY has no
mention of Nghi Vo's THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL.
And the decision to print some pages with white print on blue
background means this is aimed at the "Wired" generation rather
than people with vision problems. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word
we do not all mean the same thing.
--Abraham Lincoln
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