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THE MT VOID
08/14/26 -- Vol. 45, No. 7, Whole Number 2445
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 23 (GOSFORD PARK; CLOUD; THE BIG
LEBOWSKI (1998); O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?)
(film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Harry Potter Fans, Dobby's 'Grave', and the Undersea Cable
(pointer and comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES and SOME LIKE IT HOT (letter of comment
by Jo Paltin)
This Week's Reading (Federalist Papers) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: 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]
===================================================================
TOPIC: 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
<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/10/harry-potter- fans-force-relocation-of-430m-undersea-cable-to-avoid-dobbys-grave>
However, a comment by John Mark Ockerbloom in FILE 770 (<
https://file770.com/pixel-scroll-8-10-26-abandon-scrolls/>)
says, "Dan Davies calls into question the story about 'Dobby's
grave' being the cause of a cable diversion in Wales, not finding
evidence of such outcry or change in routing in any of the various
planning documents and petitions created before the cable was laid
last year. 'It seems most likely to me that what we've got here is
a pub anecdote that's grown in the telling.' I'm not familiar
enough with the situation to say he's definitely right, but folks
responding to the story might want to take a look:
<
https://backofmind.substack.com/p/chortle-on-a-chortle>
[-jmo]
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: 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]
===================================================================
TOPIC: 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
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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