From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.fandom
THE MT VOID
07/04/25 -- Vol. 44, No. 1, Whole Number 2387
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
An Old Dog Can Learn New Tricks (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
BACK TO THE FUTURE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
FRAU IM MOND (WOMAN IN THE MOON) (comments by Gary McGath)
PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF
(TV series review by Paul S. R. Chisholm)
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and Charles Laughton
(letter of comment by Kip Williams)
This Week's Reading (DEVIL'S CONTRACT) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: An Old Dog Can Learn New Tricks (comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
As proof that an old dog can learn new tricks, I am finally
getting around to adopting the 21st century style rules and
putting only a single period after a sentence, rather than two.
This will only be noticeable in the text version of the MT VOID
and in my emails, though I expect to slip up occasionally there
for a while, sort of like writing the old year on checks. That I
talk about writing checks indicates that in some ways I am still
an old dog with old tricks.
[And even in typing this, I found myself putting two spaces after
a sentence.]
Of course, the fact that "vi" still puts two spaces (when you join
two lines together and the first ends with a period) may trip me
up occasionally. :-( For that matter, I have to watch that it
doesn't do that when the first line ends in an abbreviation. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: BACK TO THE FUTURE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
[For the 40th anniversary of BACK TO THE FUTURE, I am reprinting
Mark's review from 1985.]
The last film that came out with Stephen Spielberg's name on it
was GOONIES. After seeing that I decided that these
Spielberg-produced films were on a downward spiral. I told myself
that I would avoid them in the future. Then a local theater had a
sneak preview of BACK TO THE FUTURE and hope sprang eternal. For
the first ten minutes of the film I was asking myself why I didn't
listen to my advice to myself and stay away. After all, why do I
need a film about a cute kid on a skateboard and a horribly
over-acted mad scientist? The remaining 106 minutes answered that
question rather nicely.
In fact, BACK TO THE FUTURE has few or none of the script problems
that I saw in GOONIES Instead, we have a tightly written science
fiction story with likable characters, a fair amount of wit that
really *is* funny, and a great collection of time paradoxes
presented in a witty fashion. Nobody who has read the basics of
science fiction or seen much of science fiction cinema will find
much in the way of real ideas, but the old ideas are tied together
in a way as entertaining as they have ever been in the past.
The story deals with Marty McFly, whose father is a life-long nerd
and whose life is in a shambles. Marty has somehow acquired the
friendship of a really weird scientist (Christopher Lloyd), who
one night reveals that he has made a few special modifications to
a DeLorean car. When it is powered with plutonium and is moving at
precisely 88mph, it becomes a time machine. It isn't too long
before our hero finds himself trapped in 1955 and madly trying to
repair changes he has made in history.
The script (by director Robert Zemeckis and producer Bob Gale),
after a shaky start, is remarkable for clever lines and for
attention to technical detail. In spite of a few bizarre touches,
this film works as a piece of science fiction.
The cast is made up almost exclusively of unknowns. The minor
exceptions are Lloyd, whose face is familiar from ONE FLEW OVER
THE CUCKOO'S NEST--he played a belligerent inmate--and from TO BE
OR NOT TO BE. Also familiar-looking is James Tolkan as the
vice-principal of the local high school.
This is a +2 film (on the -4 to +4 scale) and I consider it to be
the best thing with Spielberg's name on it since E. T.: THE
EXTRATERRESTRIAL. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: FRAU IM MOND (WOMAN IN THE MOON) (comments by Gary McGath)
Gary McGath posted in rec.arts.sf.fandom:
In 1929, Fritz Lang's silent movie FRAU IM MOND (WOMAN IN THE
MOON) came out. It depicts a trip to the Moon which gets an
amazing amount right, considering it was released 40 years before
Apollo 11. It includes a countdown, a multi-stage rocket, G-force
stress, retro-rockets for landing, and more.
I've written a blog post discussing the points it got right, along
with a few errors and some translation problems.
<
https://garymcgath.com/wp/fritz-lang-woman-in-the-moon/>
Also, I've posted this part of the film, with my accompaniment, on
YouTube. I'm less impressed with the rest of it, and 2 3/4 hours
of music was more than I wanted to do. The part in the video is
about 40 minutes long, from 50 minutes before launch to opening
the hatch on the lunar surface.
<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVSXSEGXV2c>
If you want to see the whole movie, which is now in the public
domain, it's easy to find on YouTube. [-gmg]
===================================================================
TOPIC: PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF (TV
series review by Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Rick Riordan's first fantasy novel, PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS:
THE LIGHTNING THIEF, was adapted into a Disney+ series. I think
the series was, unusually, better than the original source
material.
Context: Riordan's children's novels are part of the second
best-selling fantasy series, for any age group, of all time. The
first seven Percy Jackson books form the heart of the series. The
first novel was made into a forgettable 2010 feature film; a
sequel movie was released in 2013, but no third film was made. The
2023 Disney+ adaptation, with considerable input from the author,
is much better.
Percy Jackson is a twelve-year-old with ADHD, dyslexia, and a
tendency to see impossible things. He discovers these are all
symptoms of being a demigod a.k.a. "half-blood," a child conceived
by a mortal and a Greek god. From Aphrodite to Zeus, these deities
are as powerful, petty, and irresponsible as the myths portray
them. They are, to put it mildly, not protective of their
children, who tend to die young.
Percy discovers he's a half-blood. He's attacked and chased by
monsters, and finds refuge in a summer camp for young demigods.
Once Percy is claimed by his immortal father, he's accused of
stealing Zeus's "master bolt." Percy, another demigod (Annabeth
Chase), and a satyr (Grover Underwood, who's been entrusted to
protect young half-bloods) are sent on a quest to retrieve the
missing bolt. Monsters pursue them at every step. They travel
across the country before returning, by way of Hades's Underworld,
to Olympus (the 600th floor of the Empire State Building). The
novel is a good adventure story with a quirky sense of humor.
Chapter 1 is titled, "I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra
Teacher."
Riordan, along with producers and writers of the Disney+ show,
have carefully adapted the novel into an eight episode series. As
with THE PRINCESS BRIDE, the original author trimmed what was
unnecessary and expanded what could helpfully be fleshed out. For
example, the book's quick trip through a theme park became a
longer and much more interesting sequence.
Again like THE PRINCESS BRIDE, THE LIGHTNING THIEF was improved by
giving the creator a second bite at the apple. I watched the
series, then read the book. I preferred the series.
An adaptation of the second novel, SEA OF MONSTERS, will appear in
December 2025. Disney has announced a third series, THE TITAN'S
CURSE.
Recommended for fans of kid-friendly fantasy. [-psrc]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and Charles Laughton (letter of
comment by Kip Williams)
In response to Evelyn and Mark's comments on THE NIGHT OF THE
HUNTER in the 06/30/25 issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes:
Laughton also directed and starred in a radio play, the "Don Juan
in Hell", a stand-alone excerpt from MAN AND SUPERMAN by George
Bernard Shaw, with Charles Boyer, Agnes Moorehead, and Cedric
Hardwicke rounding out the foursome. I happened upon the LPs, but
it's available at Archive.
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is one of the most literal translations
from text to screen since they pasted up printed pages of THE
MALTESE FALCON. I saw the movie first, and the book and movie feel
like two prints from the same negative in many ways, though James
Agee's adaptation achieved the effect in ways that, like Raymond
Chandler's script for DOUBLE INDEMNITY, worked in the intended
medium--and so well, it feels like a clone.
And the atmosphere! Like you say. To me, it feels like a silent
movie because the visuals are so very rich.
I sure would like to know why he didn't direct another movie! [-kw]
Evelyn responds:
Mark really liked the radio play of "Don Juan in hell"; we even
bought a copy on LP on eBay before it became available on-line.
Apparently THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER initially got negative reviews
and was a financial failure, which discouraged Laughton from ever
directing another. (And, of course, it also probably made it
harder to find backers for another.) [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I had thought that DEVIL'S CONTRACT: THE HISTORY OF THE FAUSTIAN
BARGAIN by Ed Simon (Melville House Publishing, ISBN
978-1-68589-104-6) would be about the Faust legend in literature
and the arts through the ages. Instead, it is more a political
tract on how people have through the ages made their own "pacts
with the Devil" to gain their own ends. So he cites the
Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact as not just a Faustian bargain, but a
mutual Faustian bargain at that.
This in itself would not be a problem, just not what I expected.
But the copy editing at Melville House is terrible:
- Simon loves sentence fragments ("A biography that was at
least rumored to be replete with espionage, torture, sodomy, and
blasphemy.") and uses them to excess.
- He sometimes uses the wrong word ("the young Christ fastens a
number of clay statues of birds which he then endows with life"
when he means "the young Christ fashions a number of clay statues
of birds ...").
- He will re-use the same phrase too soon, not for effect, but
apparently out of carelessness ("the vagaries of class and gender"
appears twice within a page of each other).
- He ignores punctuation rules, leading to confusion. Are
"Dido, the Queen of Carthage, The Jew of Malta, Edward the Second,
the two parts of Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, and the Massacre at
Paris" six plays, seven plays, or eight plays? Only the
lower-case "the" in the first title gives a [partial] clue.
- It has no index.
There is a hint of where Arthur C. Clarke may have gotten
Clarkes's Law. Clarke's law is "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic." Simon quotes Roger
Bacon as saying, "... many secrets of nature and art are thought
magical by the unlearned, and the magicians trust foolishly in
symbols and incantations to bring them power; pursuing them, they
leave behind the work of nature and of art for the sake of the
error of incantations and symbols."
I'll close with Simon's description of the "Faustian bargain" the
German conservatives made with Hitler, as true now as it was then:
"Hitler's rise can be told as a tale of various coinciding
Faustian bargains. To begin with, there were the capitulations and
concessions given to Hitler and his National Socialists by the
mainstream political parties of Weimar Germany, men who believed
that Der Fuehrer could be constrained and used to further their
own political aims. Like most conventional conservatives, they
were elitists, nationalists, chauvinists, and racists, though not
necessarily genocidal. As elitists, they found the buffoonery of a
little man like Hitler contemptible, but they felt that his
histrionics could be bottled, that he could be deployed as a
creature capable of granting them power, but whom they'd
steadfastly control. As distasteful as Hitler may have been to
them, he was a tool for bashing liberals and labor unions,
socialists and communists. They were felled by not taking Hitler
seriously, by not understanding the demonic import of his claims.
Nobody signs a contract with Satan and avoids hell."
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Show me a congenital eavesdropper with the instincts
of a Peeping Tom and I will show you the makings
of a dramatist.
--Kenneth Tynan
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