Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder2.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Evelyn C. Leeper" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom Subject: MT VOID, 11/22/24 -- Vol. 43, No. 21, Whole Number 2355 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2024 10:20:54 -0500 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 244 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2024 16:20:58 +0100 (CET) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="5dca9ef02f04609a313c108d3dd6eb38"; logging-data="2410071"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/5n63AJFgigfidIBBr+ufk" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:wxQd78LKzVT+kkUiUi6LMCguKnM= Content-Language: en-US Bytes: 12467 THE MT VOID 11/22/24 -- Vol. 43, No. 21, Whole Number 2355 Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net Sending Address: 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 eleeper@optonline.net The latest issue is at . An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at . Topics: Mini Reviews, Part 7 (EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982), 2010: MOBY DICK, THE ACID HOUSE) (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper) Short Film about Quatermass (link sent by Rob Mitchell) This Week's Reading (CAESAR'S CALENDAR) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper) =================================================================== TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 7 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper) This is the seventh batch of mini-reviews: EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982): There were a lot of changes in this version, and not just dropping characters, etc., to make it fit in the time slot. The setting was moved from England to the Balkans, the Jolly Roger is now a yacht rather than a hotel, the hotel manager is Daphne Castle, an amalgam of Mrs. Castle and Miss Darnley, and so on. Given all that, it wasn't terrible, with all the plot problems imported from the novel. (The whole business with Linda Marshall's watch makes a lot of assumptions of when Linda will and will not look at her watch. But at least they dropped the witchcraft.) It was more common back then to change plots rom the book to the movie, but it is true that this continues even now, especially with the later Poirot and Marple adaptations for the BBC. (Several of the later "adaptations" add Miss marple to stories she was never in. To my knowledge they never did this with Poirot, possibly because they had so many more Poirot books to adapt--39 versus 13 for Miss Marple. [-ecl] Released theatrically 05 March 1982. Film Credits: What others are saying: 2010: MOBY DICK (2010): Unless you are a "Moby-Dick" completist, you can skip this. Even if you *are* a "Moby-Dick" completist, you can probably skip this. Yes, it copies the basic plot, sort of, and it uses a lot of the names of people and ships from Melville's novel, but many are just the names with none of the characteristics. Queequeg and Pip, for example, have no similarity to the originals (well, okay, Pip is black). One character is even named after a ship from the book. I will agree that having the U.S.S. Essex is a nice reference. And it does have a gigantic prehistoric whale. But these bits do not redeem the film. [-ecl] Released on video 23 November 2010. Film Credits: What others are saying: THE ACID HOUSE (1998): THE ACID HOUSE is an anthology film based on three stories by Irvine Welsh (collected in the book of the same name with nineteen other stories). Welsh is best known as the author of TRAINSPOTTING, but these stories preceded that book. However, this movie came after the movie TRAINSPOTTING. Such are the rewards of success. The story I was most interested in (and the only one I watched) was "The Granton Star Cause", which has been compared to or borrowing ideas from Franz Kafka's THE METAMORPHOSIS. I would say it has taken its inspiration from BEDAZZLED (the original 1967 Peter Cook and Dudley Moore version)--in particular, the episode in which Stanley Moon is turned into a fly. In "The Granton Star Cause" Boab Coyle is turned into a fly by God (who is disgusted with what people in general and Boab in particular have done with their lives). There is also a bit of "The Court of Tartary" by T. P. Caravan (F&SF December 1963, and THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION: 14TH SERIES). (That I remember the story, even though its only reprint was sixty years ago says something, though I will admit I had to Google to find the name and author.) As far as the movie, if you did not like TRAINSPOTTING because there was too much profanity, sex, drugs, and general grossness, then you probably won't like THE ACID HOUSE either. (On the other hand, if you did like TRAINSPOTTING--and a lot of people did--you might want to give this a try. I watched it on Tubi, where you can see it for free.) [-ecl] Released theatrically 06 August 1999. Film Credits: What others are saying: =================================================================== TOPIC: Short Film about Quatermass (link sent by Rob Mitchell) =================================================================== TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper) I had expected a more mathematical approach in CAESAR'S CALENDAR: ANCIENT TIME AND THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY by Denis Feeney (University of California, ISBN 978-0-520-25801-3), discussing the lunar calendars in use at the time of Julius Caesar, as well as the Roman year which had gotten completely out of sync with the seasons. Instead, for a great part of the book Feeney discusses the concept of time, not in an Einsteinian sense, but in the sense of how historians (and ordinary people) fixed events in time. For example, the common use of B.C./A.D. did not arise until the eighteenth century. (However, the year of Jesus's birth was "determined" by Dionysus Exiguus in the sixth century, and clearly the worry about "the Millennium" indicates that people did have some idea of fixing the date based on Jesus's birth.) Even dating from the founding of Rome was not widely used. Another "surprise" Feeney reveals is that the use of "decade" and "century" was originally limited to lengths of time, and only in the eighteenth century for centuries and the twentieth century for decades did they become periods of time, as in "the seventeenth century" or "the 1920s". (For what it's worth, there is a similar notion of five years in other languages; I know Spanish has one, but I cannot recall it.) This has not, to the best of my knowledge, been used to specify a period of time rather than a length of time. Instead of having a fixed point from which an event is dated, the Romans used a variety of methods, the most common being saying who were the consuls in that year. The Greeks used battles and other major events (e.g., "three years after the Battle of Salamis"), and the Romans copied this as well. As for the placement of the start of the year. the Romans initially placed it at March 1 (in the sense that the consuls took office that day). But they moved it to January 1 when the empire expanded to include Spain. Why? Well, when the empire was more compact, the consuls could take office on March 1 and be in the field in time for the "battle season". But when the empire got larger, the consuls needed more time to get to the far reaches, and so moved the date back to January 1. (And then it was moved to March 25 in 1155 and it wasn't changed back in the British Empire until to 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted. However, January 1 was often celebrated as the start of some new year as early as the 13th century.) Ironically, this reason for the Roman change in the start of the new year is strongly tied to the reason that the inauguration of President of the United States was moved from March 4 to January 20, but in reverse. The original date was to allow for travel to the capital, particularly difficult during the winter. January 20 became a viable date that eliminated a long lame-duck period, and it was changed in 1937, after roads and railroads improved and even air travel was possible. ========== REMAINDER OF ARTICLE TRUNCATED ==========