THE MT VOID
09/29/23 -- Vol. 42, No. 13, Whole Number 2295

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Topics:
Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion
Group
Mark's Picks for Turner Classic Movies in October
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (letter of comment
by Gary McGath)
George Laskowski, Writing, Grammar, TIME'S ARROW,
Imperative Sentences, and HARD TO BE A GOD
(letter of comment by John Hertz)
Godzilla (letters of comment by John Purcell
and Gary McGath)
"To-Read" Stacks (letter of comment by Paul Dormer)
This Week's Reading ("The History of Rome" podcast)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

==================================================================
TOPIC: Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion
Group

The only local meetings left are in Middletown, and they are
in-person. The best way to get the latest information is to be on
the mailing list for it.

Oct 5, 2023: FANTASTIC PLANET (1973) & novel by Stefan Wul
<https://epdf.pub/queue/fantastic-planet-creation-oneiros.html>
Nov 2, 2023: THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1981 TV mini-series) & novel
by John Wyndham
[Note: The Nov 2 meeting will start earlier: 5:00pm.]

==================================================================
TOPIC: Mark's Picks for Turner Classic Movies in October
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)

On June 29 we lost one of cinema's great funny men (though perhaps
not as familiar as a Bill Murray). Alan Arkin only rarely strayed
from comedy genre. He may be best known as the bewildered Russian
navy submarine captain in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE
COMING. In WAIT UNTIL DARK he played a rare non-comedic role as a
creepy psychotic killer. But in THE IN-LAWS he is in his usual
comedic mode, playing a dentist caught up in Peter Falk's bizarre
international spy games. The film started out as a sleeper,
building audience by word-of-mouth and now has almost a cult
following due to home video. (Criterion Films has a DVD release of
it.)

For reasons passing understanding, it was remade in 2003. The
remake was both a box office and a critical failure.

[THE IN-LAWS (1979), Sunday October 22, 2:00 AM]

And don't forget the early Sunday morning GOJIRA/GODZILLA RAIDS
AGAIN double feature described in last month's MT VOID:

[GOJIRA (1954), Sunday, October 1, 2:00 AM]
[GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN (1955), Sunday, October 1, 4:00 AM]

[-mrl]

And some comments on some other films:

CABARET (1972): A great musical with a truly unsettling undertone
of the atmosphere in 1930s Berlin.

DEVI (1960) and THE HOLY MAN (1965): Two Satyajit Ray films with
connections to fantasy. DEVI is Satyajit Ray's greatest film
(according to Francis Ford Coppola), about ayoung women who people
think is a goddess after her father-in-law dreams she is an avatar
of Kali. THE HOLY MAN is another Satyajit Ray film, this time
about a man who claims to be agelss and to have met Buddha, Plato,
Jesus, and Einstein. We haven't seen it, but it sounds like there
are perhaps some similarities to MAN FROM EARTH.

"Return to Glennascaul" (1953): A short Orson Welles film based on
the well-known story of the vanishing hitchhiker.

THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1929): The first film version of the Jules
Verne novel. Well, sort of--Verne's novel did not have dragons or
duck people.

MODERN TIMES (1936),THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940), MONSIEUR VERDOUX
(1947), LIMELIGHT (1952): A Charlie Chaplin mini-festival,
concentrating on his later, more serious films. (This cries out
for clause at the end of the sentence, "rather than his earlier,
funnier ones", but in Chaplin's case, there is no disparagement
intended for his later films--they are just as good, only
different.)

[-ecl]

Other films of interest include:

SUNDAY, October 1
6:00 AM Tom Thumb (1958)
8:00 AM The Time Machine (1960)

MONDAY, October 2
12:00 AM The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
2:00 AM The X from Outer Space (1967)
4:00 AM Genocide (1968)
6:00 AM The Story of Mankind (1957)

TUESDAY, October 3
3:00 AM Cabaret (1972)

WEDNESDAY, October 4
12:00 AM Cat People (1942)
1:30 AM The Hunger (1983)
3:15 AM Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
5:00 AM The Wasp Woman (1960)

SATURDAY, October 7
1:45 AM Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
3:45 AM The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
5:45 AM The Tell-Tale Heart (1941)

SATURDAY, October 7
8:00 PM Harvey (1950)

SUNDAY, October 8
12:15 PM Cabin in the Sky (1943)

MONDAY, October 9
8:00 AM It! (1967)
9:45 AM The Mummy's Shroud (1967)
11:30 AM Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)

TUESDAY, October 10
6:00 AM King Kong (1933)
8:00 AM Son of Kong (1933)
9:15 AM Kongo (1932)
10:45 AM The Death Kiss (1933)
12:15 PM Doctor X (1932)
1:45 PM The Walking Dead (1936)
3:00 PM The Vampire Bat (1933)
4:15 PM I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
5:30 PM Isle of the Dead (1945)
6:45 PM The Leopard Man (1943)
11:45 PM From Beyond the Grave (1973)

WEDNESDAY, October 11
3:15 AM House of Dark Shadows (1970)
5:00 AM The Night Digger (1971)

THURSDAY, October 12
6:00 AM The Cockeyed Miracle (1946)
7:30 AM The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945)
9:00 AM Angel on My Shoulder (1946)
11:00 AM I Married an Angel (1942)
12:30 PM Forever, Darling (1956)
4:00 PM Oh, God! (1977)
6:00 PM Angels in the Outfield (1951)

FRIDAY, October 13
6:00 AM Hausu (1977)
7:45 AM Mark of the Vampire (1935)
9:00 AM Night of Dark Shadows (1971)
10:45 AM Death Curse of Tartu (1966)
1:45 PM The Ghost Ship (1943)
3:00 PM Two on a Guillotine (1965)
5:00 PM Tormented (1960)
6:30 PM The Terror (1963)

MONDAY, October 16
12:30 AM The Magician (1926)
12:30 AM A Trip to the Moon (1902)
2:15 AM Devi (1960)
4:00 AM The Holy Man (1965)

TUESDAY, October 17
3:00 AM King Kong (1933)

WEDNESDAY, October 18
12:30 AM Poltergeist (1982)
4:15 AM Village of the Damned (1960)
5:45 AM Children of the Damned (1964)

THURSDAY, October 19
8:30 AM Return to Glennascaul (1953)
9:00 AM The Unholy Three (1925)
10:45 AM The Unknown (1927)
11:45 AM Miracles for Sale (1939)
1:15 PM West of Zanzibar (1928)
2:30 PM The Show (1927)
4:00 PM Freaks (1932)
5:15 PM The Devil-Doll (1936)
6:45 PM Mark of the Vampire (1935)

SATURDAY, October 21
1:30 AM The Haunting (1963)
3:45 AM The Woman in White (1948)
5:45 AM Sylvia and the Phantom (1946)

MONDAY, October 23
12:30 AM The Mysterious Island (1929)
2:15 AM Orpheus (1950)
4:00 AM Beauty and the Beast (1946)
8:00 PM Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

WEDNESDAY, October 25
3:30 AM House of Wax (1953)
5:15 AM House on Haunted Hill (1958)
6:30 AM The Bat (1959)
8:00 PM Soylent Green (1973)
10:00 PM The Omega Man (1971)

THURSDAY, October 26
12:00 AM The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)
4:00 AM The Awakening (1980)
8:00 PM Modern Times (1936)
9:45 PM The Great Dictator (1940)

FRIDAY, October 27
12:00 AM Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
2:15 AM Limelight (1952)
8:00 PM Frankenstein (1931)
9:30 PM Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

SATURDAY, October 28
2:00 AM Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
3:30 AM The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
5:00 AM Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)
6:45 AM Cat People (1942)
12:00 PM Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982)

SUNDAY, October 29
12:15 PM The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
10:30 PM The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954)

MONDAY, October 30
12:00 AM Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
2:00 AM Cure (1997)
4:15 AM Kuroneko (1968)
6:00 AM Chamber of Horrors (1966)
7:45 AM Freaks (1932)
9:00 AM Mad Love (1935)
10:30 AM White Zombie (1932)
11:45 AM Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
1:45 PM The Body Snatcher (1945)
3:15 PM The Seventh Victim (1943)
6:15 PM The Devil's Bride (1968)
9:45 PM The Devil's Own (1966)

TUESDAY, October 31
4:45 AM The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
6:30 AM Rasputin--The Mad Monk (1966)
8:15 AM Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
10:00 AM The Mummy (1959)
11:45 AM Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
1:15 PM The Invisible Man (1933)
2:30 PM The Black Cat (1934)
3:45 PM Frankenstein (1931)
5:00 PM Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
6:30 PM The Wolf Man (1941)
10:00 PM When a Stranger Calls (1979)