THE MT VOID
05/09/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 45, Whole Number 2379
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
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evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.comThe latest issue is at <
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<
http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm>.
Topics:
Correction
MT VOID Archive and Index (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Mini Reviews, Part 11 (ADDRESS UNKNOWN, MACARTHUR)
(film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
The Fibonacci Sequence in Sports (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Opera (letter of comment by Kip Williams)
This Week's Reading (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Correction
Last week's TCM picks were for May, not March. I'm not sure
whether the auto-complete error was the computer's or my brain.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: MT VOID Archive and Index (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I am pleased (and relieved) to announce that I have finished the
job of scanning in all the old MT VOIDs and indexing them. The
index is still <
http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm> as
listed above, but now includes the pre-1985 issues as well. The
format is not consistent over the years; I may try to fix some of
that eventually, but it's not high on my list. Issues will also
be archived at fanac.org; many are already, but much as I hate to
admit it, we are not really a major fanzine. Prolific, yes--I
don't think there is any other with as many issues--but in terms
of fannish historical importance, not so much. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 11 (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Two World War II films, in honor of the anniversary of V-E Day (08
May 1945) (and yes, it's V-E Day, not "Victory Day for WWII",
which was 02 Sep 1945 anyway):
ADDRESS UNKNOWN (1944):
One could argue that Katherine Kressman Taylor's slim epistolary
volume did not need a film made of it. And indeed, given that it
was only about 7000 words, it needed quite a bit of additional
plot and padding to make even a 72-minute movie. Obviously
dialogue needed to be added, but there was also a boyfriend (who
plays a critical role) and a baron as well. The film is okay,
though the additions actually dilute the effect somewhat.
Released theatrically 01 June 1944.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036581/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/address_unknown_1944>
MACARTHUR (1977):
The first scenes (at West Point) show us what West Point looked
like then(*), or rather, what the cadets looked like--entirely
white. And MacArthur refers to the dead soldiers rising up from
their white crosses, implying all Christian as well. However,
there is a scene where we here a chaplain in the background
reciting Kaddish over a dead soldier, an interesting
acknowledgement of Jewish soldiers in the Pacific. One often sees
Jewish soldiers in Europe, where they are commenting on, or
reacting to, Nazi policies towards Jews. Here it has no such
"special justification".
* Well, not then either. The film begins in 1962, after the
military (and West Point) had been integrated in more than a token
fashion. While there were a few African-American cadets at West
Point before that, only four had graduated by 1936, and three of
those were during Reconstruction. And as far as religion, even
now non-Christians often report harassment and abuse at our
military academies.
Released theatrically 15 July 1977.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076342/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/macarthur>
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Fibonacci Sequence in Sports (comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
Mark would have appreciated this sports story:
<
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250425-the-fibonacci-sequence-hidden-in-liverpool-fcs-premier-league-football-title>
"Something remarkable has just happened in English football.
Liverpool FC have been crowned Premier League champions for a
second time. When added to their 18 pre-Premier League titles, it
means they now equal Manchester United's record of being English
champions 20 times. But while fans of the club will no doubt be
celebrating this moment of triumph, another astounding facet of
their achievement has caught the attention of mathematicians.
"Liverpool's title win has completed the opening of an exceptional
set of numbers that has been 33 years in the making. The sequence
emerges when we rank Liverpool alongside the other clubs that have
won the Premier League since it was first formed in 1992, listing
them by the number of titles won, starting with the lowest. As you
can see in the table below, the number of Premier League titles
goes as follows: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13:
1 Blackburn Rovers
1 Leicester City
2 Liverpool
3 Arsenal
5 Chelsea
8 Manchester City
13 Manchester United
"To the untrained eye, this sequence might not seem significant.
But it will be enough to get many maths aficionados excited. They
will recognise this as the Fibonacci sequence, in which each
number (after the first two) is the sum of the previous two in the
sequence." [-bbc]
The rest of the article is devoted to the Fibonacci sequence and
other scientific "coincidences" rather than the usual sports
stuff. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Opera (letter of comment by Kip Williams)
In response to Scott Dorsey's comments on opera in the 05/02/25
issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes:
Talking of mood breakers in opera, we saw a lovely production of
Puccini's MADAME BUTTERFLY, simulcast from the Met, in which the
child (a non-singing part) was portrayed by a puppet manipulated
by mechanicals in black, functionally similar to a marionette.
Its acting was sensitive, and probably worked 100% for the
audience in the seats at the theatre for whom it was designed.
But they kept putting it in closeups, and this was like a flashing
neon sign. Even in a world where conversations take place in
sonata form, this crashed my sense of going along, and knocked me
clean out of the story every time. [-kw]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND by Steven Spielberg (Dell, ISBN
978-0-440-11433-8) was the book and movie choice this month. I
had of course seen the film several times but had never read the
book until now.
The first thing to note is that Leslie Waller actually ghost-wrote
the novel, based on Spielberg's outline. I cannot say I liked the
novel--the film is best at the special effects and "sense of
wonder"rather than characterizations or plot--but still there
should be credit where credit is due.
And while the film has great special effects, it has not aged
well. Or maybe we were so entranced by the visuals that we didn't
notice the flaws.
Such as the fact that the Nearys were a seriously dysfunctional
family even before Neary was contacted and started throwing
shrubbery in through the windows. One son is systematically (and
noisily) destroying his little sister's doll, and neither of the
parents says anything. (In fact, the two sons are two of the most
obnoxious children in movies. The mother is a terrible mother and
totally unsupportive of Roy, and Roy seems mentally challenged
even before everything starts happening.
The time scale is all messed up as well. Lacombe and his team are
in Mongolia, then northern India, and then somewhere else, all in
one day. From the time the military gets the location coordinates
to when the arrival happens cannot be more than a few days, yet
they manage to have an elaborate base set up, evacuate the whole
area, assemble the voyagers and provide them with uniforms (and
somehow happen to have an extra one just in Roy's size), and
figure out a communications protocol--which frankly never made any
sense to me: why would the musical notes, and the human-created
hand signals, be the mode of communication? Especially since they
are of no use in transmitting something like the coordinates.
The bottom line is that the film is visually well-done, but weak
on all the elements that can be put in a novel. Not surprisingly,
the novel adds nothing to the experience. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com Money is like manure. Spread it around and it
does a lot of good, but pile it in one place,
and it stinks like hell.
--Clint Murchison
MT VOID, 05/09/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 45, Whole Number 2379