From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.fandom
THE MT VOID
09/18/26 -- Vol. 45, No. 12, Whole Number 2450
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
All material is the opinion of the author and is copyrighted by
the author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent or posted will be assumed authorized for
inclusion unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
The latest issue is at <
http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/latest.htm>.
An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at <
http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm>.
Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 25 (Christopher Guest mockumentaries)
(film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
EDGE OF TOMORROW / LIVE, DIE, REPEAT (letter of comment
by Kip Williams)
THE FLY (1986) (letters of comment by Dan Kimmel,
Peter Trei, and Gary McGath)
This Week's Reading (Cadfael, Jessica Fletcher,
and other detective series) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 25 (Christopher Guest mockumentaries)
(film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I love Christopher Guest's mockumentaries but I also sometimes
find them too painful to watch. And often that is due to one actor
who is to me like nails on a blackboard--Fred Willard.
For example, the last time I tried to watch WAITING FOR GUFFMAN
(1996), I had to give up. BEST IN SHOW (2000) is mostly highly
watchable, though I often fast-forward through Fred Willard's
scenes. (I also fast-forward through Dogberry's speeches in MUCH
ADO ABOUT NOTHING.)
I last saw FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION (2006) three years ago, and I
don't recall if I found any parts painful.
This was all triggered by Channel Thirteen running A MIGHTY WIND
(2003), which I was able to watch without cringing, but again, I
did fast-forward through Fred Willard.
And while not a mockumentary, THE BIG PICTURE (1989) skewers
trying to make an independent film in the way his later
mockumentaries would look at other show business aspects. It was
actually Guest's directorial debut, and obviously a harbinger of
things to come (an ur-mockumentary, if you will), and is not as
well known as his later films, but it is wonderful, and I highly
recommend it.
And I discovered that there is one I hadn't seen (yet!): MASCOTS
(2016). And at $150 for the DVD on eBay, I was so happy that it's
on Netflix!
One "problem" with MASCOTS is that Guest does not have the two
actors that many considered the "anchors" of his stable (to mix a
metaphor). Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy were working on
SCHITT'S CREEK and not available. And of the rest, many were
unrecognizable to me after seeing them in A MIGHTY WIND, made two
decades earlier.
(I am reminded of showing FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE to a teenage Sean
Connery fan in 2008. At one point she asked us when we would see
him, and we had to tell her that he was the person in the center
of the screen in that scene, and that he had been heavily featured
up to that point.)
Guest's characters are familiar, as I said: Catherine O'Hara as
the woman who keeps referring to her "slutty" past and Eugene Levy
as her husband who seems sometimes oblivious to and sometimes
uncomfortable with this, Jane Lynch as the woman with the strange
business sense (in BEST IN SHOW she starts a magazine for lesbian
dog owners), and of course, the Fred Willard character, who is
always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. (Actually, for
most of what he says, there wouldn't ever be a right time.)
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: EDGE OF TOMORROW / LIVE, DIE, REPEAT (letter of comment by
Kip Williams)
In response to Evelyn's comments on EDGE OF TOMORROW / LIVE, DIE,
REPEAT in the 09/11/26 issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes:
Sounds like people have figured out the plot of ROGUE MOON by
Algis Budrys, which more or less predicted the experience
undergone by the lead character in a first-person shooter, and
then thought about it a little more. [-kw]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE FLY (1986) (letters of comment by Dan Kimmel, Peter
Trei, and Gary McGath)
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE FLY (1986) in the 09/11/26
issue of the MT VOID, Dan Kimmel writes:
You make some interesting points about THE FLY but on one of them
I strongly disagree. You write "David Cronenberg's 1986 remake
doesn't have that romantic element..."
Well, not in the same way as the '58 potboiler, but the romance
between Seth and Veronica is absolutely crucial to the plot. One
gets the sense that he hasn't had much of a social life and here
is this beautiful, intelligent woman who is fascinated by him and
his work. When he misunderstands her relationship with her ex [it]
is the jealousy he's not mature enough to handle that leads him to
the fatal experiment. And his feelings for her provide most of the
motivation for him thereafter.
I consider this one of the outstanding films of the '80s (not
*just* among SF films). If you have a copy of my book JAR JAR
BINKS MUST DIE, you can check out my essay on the film, "Nerds in
Love." [-dk]
Evelyn responds:
I guess I am using "romantic" in a more sentimental sense, as
opposed to a (possibly sexual, possibly intellectual) attraction.
[-ecl]
Peter Trei addresses a different aspect:
[Evelyn wrote,] "In the 1986 version, there is only one resultant
creature, which starts out as overwhelmingly Seth, but gradually
is taken over by the fly, or at at rate, the fly becomes a much
more important component. One interesting result is that the voice
recognition security that Seth used on his computer no longer
recognizes his voice--a warning that biometric security has its
own drawbacks. (As an aside, I would suggest pre-adolescent boys
*not* use voice recognition as their only security into their
computers. And for that matter, accidents can damage your
fingerprint, or your retina.)" [-ecl]
There's another reason not to place valuables behind voice
recognition security.
A few days ago, in a call with one of my brokerages, I was asked
if I wanted to switch to voice recognition for use authentication.
I demurred. AI voice cloning has reached the point where a small
sample of recorded speech will allow your whole voice to be
copied. Per-site security questions are more secure.
Similarly, when answering the phone to an unknown number, never
use the word 'Yes', since you're just making their work easier.
[-pt]
Gary McGath asks:
Is there anything special about "yes" as opposed to, for instance,
"hello"?
The idea that someone can paste a recording of you saying "yes" to
create a binding contract is a myth. But I agree that deepfaking
people's voices is a growing problem. [-gmg]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I've been listening to the audiobooks of Ellis Peters's "Cadfael"
series. Hoopla (from my library) has the first fifteen on
unabridged audiobook read by Patrick Tull. After that it gets a
bit dodgy: there are several "abridged" books read by Derek
Jacobi, but this run starts with number seventeen, and skips
another three of the later books as well.
After the unabridged versions, the abridgments seem a little
insubstantial, and Jacobi's voice is not as engaging as it is in
THE DAUGHTER OF TIME (his other audiobook I am familiar with).
Peters has apparently done her research on church hierarchy,
rules, etc., but she makes at least one common mistake about
medieval life: she has rooms lit by torches. Medieval historians
has pointed out that torches were too difficult and time-consuming
to make to use dozens every night to light rooms, too smoky to use
indoors, and lasted too short a time to be used for room lighting
for an entire evening. (The historians also point this out as an
error everyone makes, especially in movies.) What were used were
candles, mostly from tallow, with beeswax saved for churches and
special occasions.
But the real "problem" is the same problem all detective series
have: if they're successful enough, pretty soon the reader finds
themselves thinking, "I wouldn't want to live in *their* town."
This is a real problem when the detective lives in a small town.
As Wikipedia notes, "Fletcher lives ... in the town of Cabot Cove,
Maine, 03041. Based on the number of murders that occur in a given
season of the series, the town seems to have probably one of the
highest murder rates of any town or city.This has even been
remarked on in the series by the town sheriff, ..., who notes to
Jessica Fletcher that in his first year in Cabot Cove, he had to
deal with five murders and nicknames the town the 'death capital
of Maine.'" (Cabot Cove is said to have a population of 3,560;
estimates of the number of murders that took place in Cabot Cove
in the twelve years of the series was sixty.)
Sherlock Holmes worked in London, a very large city, and a lot of
his cases were elsewhere in England, or even outside England.
Hercule Poirot was also in London, again with some cases
elsewhere. Even Miss Marple investigated murders outside of St.
Mary Mead--well, having them all in a really small town would have
been stretching credulity.
So when Brother Cadfael has to investigate all the murders within
a couple of day's walk of the abbey, it's a problem. The twenty
books cover a decade during The Anarchy (1135-1145), but very few
of the murders are caused by the warfare of the time, except
peripherally. Shrewsbury is probably larger than Cabot Cove, with
a estimated population of "several thousand". But since there seem
to be a couple of murders per book, that makes Shrewsbury a murder
capital as well.
I'm sure there is a term for something that seems fine in the
close-up, but fails in the big picture. Detective series set in
small towns sound like a great idea at the beginning, but if
they're successful, they can't sustain a long series without
expanding the geographic range. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
--W. C. Fields
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2