novaBBS - rec.arts.sf.fandom - Re: MT VOID, 11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196

THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196

Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 1 (PLAYING WITH SHARKS, BECOMING COUSTEAU)
(film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE RESCUE (film review by Mark R. Leeper
and Evelyn C. Leeper)
Wolfgang Puck (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)
ENTANGLED LIFE by Merlin Sheldrake (book review
by Gregory Frederick)
Halloween Binge Watching (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Wolfgang Puck (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)
Oysters, CASINO ROYALE and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, Latin,
and the Eastern Roman Empire (letter of comment
by John Hertz)
This Week's Reading (SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT,
THE FALL OF ARTHUR, THE HISTORY OF COINED WORDS,
SEVEN CONVERSATIONS WITH JORGE LUIS BORGES)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

===================================================================

TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 1 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)

It is that time of year again when I vote on awards for films.
This is one very nice perq of my hobby of writing film reviews and
being a member of the Online Film Critic Society. Filmmakers and
publicists *want* me to see their films in the hopes that they (the
films, not the people) will be considered for awards. I get to see
new films either on-line or I get discs (or used to--these seem to
be on the way out).

I cannot write my usual format for every film I see, but I can
write brief reviews for many. I do not know where these films will
play. These films may play in local theaters or in Manhattan art
houses. But I can let people know what to look for on Amazon Prime
and/or NetFlix.

This year is a bit closer to a standard year, though the releases
did get started later than usual. Far fewer films were released to
theaters, and they split the difference on the Academy Awards (the
focus of the awards season) by having it at the end of March 2022
(they used to be at the end of February; in 2021 they were at the
end of April).

But here is the first batch, two documentaries about the oceans
and the people who study them.

PLAYING WITH SHARKS--THE VALERIE TAYLOR STORY: This National
Geographic film tells the story of Valerie Taylor, who has worked
to educate the world about sharks, and to promote conservation
efforts for them. It (and Taylor) are saying that the activity of
the title is not nearly as dangerous as it suggests. (Taylor at
one point says, "It's more dangerous to have a backyard pool" than
to go swimming in the ocean.) One problem, of course, is that the
world wants its monsters even if they are not true monsters.

Valerie Taylor has studied sharks since the 1950s. (She is now 85
years old and still diving.) The camera's eye shows you scenes
from the early days of profligate hunting of sharks and one knows
that the anti-shark attitude will be coming along soon.

Fueled by curiosity, Valerie Taylor and a group of other divers
went searching to film a great white shark under water, something
that had never been done before due to the lack of cameras and
camera operators who could dive. Some of this footage was used for
the film BLUE WATER, WHITE DEATH. Taylor was also involved in the
making of JAWS, and there is some information on that as well.
(When he realized that JAWS resulted in a massive increase in shark
hunting, Benchley regretted writing it. Taylor does not say she
regrets her involvement, but rather emphasizes that the film is
fiction.) In general, between the divers portrayed and the sharks
the attitude now seems to be pretty much live and let live.

[I hope there are subtitles, because many of the interviewees had
fairly strong Australian accents.]

Released on Disney+ 07/23/21. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4), or 8/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11226258/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/playing_with_sharks>

BECOMING COUSTEAU: This is a biography of Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
Just like Valerie Taylor in PLAYING WITH SHARKS, Cousteau started
with spear fishing and dynamiting to count fish, but ended as a
strong environmentalist. Cousteau describes being underwater like
being in heaven, where you have no gravity; it is utterly
fantastic. His earliest interests were in flying (also in a sense
a realm of decreased gravity), but a bad accident convinced him to
change track to deep-sea diving and brought him to a fascination
that would obviously last his whole life.

Although the photography is in monochrome at the beginning (due to
the constraints of early underwater photography), some shots or
parts of them are then colorized, either realistically or in a more
psychedelic fashion. Interviews with Stuart Paton (20,000 LEAGUES
UNDER THE SEA (1916)), and Louis Malle discussed some of the
constraints. Malle's film with Cousteau, THE SILENT WORLD, won the
Oscar for Best Documentary, though Cousteau says, "Our films are
not documentaries. They are true adventure films."

The demands of the environment under the sea suggested to Cousteau
technical inventions for better exploring and understanding that
environment, including the aqualung. World War II interrupted his
diving but when it was over, new opportunities with the Navy came
along in terms of exploring sunken ships and planes. When diving
using the aqualung, he could see much more under the water, but
there were dangers from "Rapture of the Deeps". His dedicated
ship, Calypso, a refurbished mine sweeper, first sailed in 1951.
In 1953 he was offered a job in oil research, and found (among
other things) Abu Dhabi's oil. Later he found himself regretting
some of these choices.

Cousteau made many films and television shows. The first episode
of "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" was about sharks;
Cousteau was far less sanguine than Valerie Taylor about sharks'
natures, though his attitude was never that there should be a mass
slaughter of them. Cousteau also once foresaw a time when people
would live in cities under the sea, but came to reject that idea.
BECOMING COUSTEAU goes into how Cousteau's views evolved and how he
got involved in saving the ecologies of the seas and oceans. These
days nearly every documentary about nature will contain a downbeat
note that the world we see is being destroyed by the selfishness of
people, and this film is no different.

Caveat: The subtitles for French-speakers are very badly done, with
white-on-white making them hard to read.

Released theatrically 10/22/21. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4), or 6/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10334438/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/becoming_cousteau>

[-mrl/ecl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: THE RESCUE (film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn
C. Leeper)

THE RESCUE is a documentary about the rescue of a Thai boys' soccer
team trapped in Tham Luang Cave in June 2018, when an early monsoon
rainfall blocked many of the entrances and would soon flood the
cave. The team was trapped behind lower passages that had filled
with water. The main "narrator" is Vern Unsworth, a British cave
diver who had mapped a lot of the cave.

The first step was to assemble a rescue team. These were not
professionals, but men whose hobby was cave diving, and they were
acknowledged to be the best in the world. They were also
introverts, did not play team sports when they were young, and
often had been bullied as children. Even though they were experts,
few cave divers have experienced conditions like this where the
only path out includes extensive underwater navigation in a very
strong current of murky water.

Their first dive found three additional trapped workers, men who
had been working the pumps but had been caught by the rising
waters. Their rescue gave the cave divers valuable information
about how to accomplish their main goal.

The Thai Navy SEALS did some of the original rescue work including
exploring the cave, then they turned it over to the British cave
divers. At one point, the British felt it was hopeless--they had
had great difficulty in bringing the pump workers out in thirty
seconds under water, and could not see how they could bring
children out in what would be a multi-hour trip. However, the
SEALs refused to give up and took back the job until one died. At
that point, the British realized they could not give up, and
resumed their task. On Day 10 the dozen soccer players were found
deep within the cave. Food was brought in, but the oxygen level in
their section of the cave was down to 15%, below what would sustain
life for long.

Click here to read the complete article

Subject	Author
MT VOID, 11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196	eleeper@optonline.net
Re: MT VOID, 11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196	Keith F. Lynch
Re: MT VOID, 11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196	Kevrob
Re: MT VOID, 11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196	Tim Merrigan

Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average.

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