THE MT VOID
06/09/23 -- Vol. 41, No. 50, Whole Number 2279

Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 24 (HOLLYWOOD DREAMS & NIGHTMARES:
THE ROBERT ENGLUND STORY, THE ACT OF READING,
TRUMAN & TENNESSEE) (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper
and Evelyn C. Leeper)
The MT VOID, THE RISE AND THE REIGN OF THE MAMMALS, and
UNTHINKING THINKING (letter of comment
by Garth Spencer)
THE TRUMAN SHOW (letter of comment by John Purcell)
This Week's Reading (random reading) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)

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

TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 24 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)

This is the twenty-fourth batch of mini-reviews, all documentaries:

HOLLYWOOD DREAMS & NIGHTMARES: THE ROBERT ENGLUND STORY (2023): A
lot of people these days on the Internet and elsewhere seem to have
an unquenchable thirst for celebrity biographies. A large number
of DVDs come with special features that are biographies of the
actors in the film. One most often sees these celebrity
documentaries about actors such as Henry Fonda or Audrey Hepburn.

In this regard, HOLLYWOOD DREAMS & NIGHTMARES is just feeding that
appetite. Here the biographer is telling the history of Robert
Englund, who in his fifty-year career is best known for the role of
Freddy Krueger. Englund is not so glamorous a star as Fonda or
Hepburn, but he comes from an impressive background of horror
films, and his hand with knives has become an icon of the horror
genre. (Although, as Peter Atkins observes, a monster character is
made iconic not by the writer or the director or even the make-up
artist, but by the actor themself.)

In telling the story of Englund's long acting career, one sees not
just him but dozens of actors who are much better known to us
today. Also included is a collection of anecdotes about how it is
to work with Englund and to be in the community of actors about the
same age, as well as a lot about advice and praise he got early on.
(There is maybe a bit too much of the "everyone is wonderful" sort
of clips.) We get both Englund's reactions to other people and
other people's reactions to him. And there are people from the
horror film genre discussing the dynamics of the stories in the
films as well.

Three-dimensional monsters have been done very little since
Universal Studios, but Englund manages to bring this depth to his
characters (not just Freddy, but all of them). [-mrl/ecl]

Released streaming on Screambox 6 June 2023. Rating: high +1 (-4
to +4), or 6/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10172168/reference>

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

THE ACT OF READING (2021): THE ACT OF READING is a documentary
about MOBY-DICK. Director Mark Blumberg flunked his high school
English class junior year because he didn't read MOBY-DICK or do
any of the papers assigned. The monologue/dialogue seems to imply
he had not yet read it when he started this project, but does that
mean he never passed English and never graduated from high school?

Blumberg observes and talks to several teachers about MOBY-DICK,
including Janet Werner, the teacher who flunked him. The teacher
whose class seems to have the most screen time, Vicki Hebert, I
found the most annoying: she addresses her students as "my babies"
and "my sweeties", and teaches class one day with her face marked
up in South-Seas-style tattoos. (Her students are ... unimpressed.)

I *love* MOBY-DICK, and certainly some of the ideas expressed and
discussed are worthwhile. I'm not sure a tour of Melville's Great
Barrington home with his middle-aged great-great-grandson Peter
Whittemore in shorts really conveys much (except perhaps how
different everything is now from them--and I suppose that is worth
something).

In my opinion, this is a movie for people who already love
MOBY-DICK. Showing it to a group of uninterested students is *not*
going to *get* them interested. [-ecl]

Released streaming 22 February 2021. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4), or
6/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10813062/reference>

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

TRUMAN & TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION (2020): TRUMAN &
TENNESSEE is a documentary about/by Truman Capote and Tennessee
Williams. It consists of readings from letters, diaries,
interviews, and articles by the two authors. They were
contemporaries and close friends, but most of the documentary
focuses on one or the other, with only a few points of intersection
when they talk about each other. They both shed a lot of light on
their lives, their work, and their reputations. I suspect that
director Lisa Immordino Vreeland thought that their connection
would provide a way to take two relatively short documentaries and
create a feature-length film, possibly with a stronger merging than
was actually achieved.

The result is a bit choppy, but for people who want more insight
into the work of these two authors, it provides such a view. [-ecl]

Released theatrically 18 June 2021. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4), or 7/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13016030/reference>

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

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

TOPIC: The MT VOID, THE RISE AND THE REIGN OF THE MAMMALS, and
UNTHINKING THINKING (letter of comment by Garth Spencer)

In response to various reviews in the MT VOID, Garth Spencer writes:

Apart from presenting club meetings, film nights, and some
interesting reviews of fiction and nonfiction, I see MT VOID has
started running an interesting loc column. I was amused and
engrossed by your review of THE RISE AND THE REIGN OF THE MAMMALS
in the April 21st issue, the review of UNTHINKING THINKING in the
April 28th issue, and the things I learned from letters you
received. Evidently you are well aware of past art in film and in
literature alike. [-gs]

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

TOPIC: THE TRUMAN SHOW (letter of comment by John Purcell)

In response to Mark's review of THE TRUMAN SHOW in the 06/02/23
issue of the MT VOID, John Purcell writes:

Mark's review of THE TRUMAN SHOW was very good, reminding me how
much I enjoyed that movie. I agree that knowing the premise before
watching was not exactly smart marketing, but the movie is
definitely worth watching. To me, it's definitely an allegory
about our media-drenched and media-controlled society. The film
makes a very good point about the human condition and how we use
and abuse technology for a specific goal.

Is THE TRUMAN SHOW entertainment or an eerie self referential
mock-documentary about American society, or is this movie a warning
about where we are heading? Looking back at THE TRUMAN SHOW
twenty-five years later, I see many of these issues coalescing
around us. This is a movie worth rewatching.

All in all, we here in SouthCentralEastern Texas are dealing with
life fairly well. It's hot, of course, with still hotter weather
forthcoming. Summer is basically Easter to Thanksgiving here. So
it goes. [-jp]

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

TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

I skipped both major used book sales this spring (Bryn Mawr and
East Brunswick Friends of the Library) because I have concluded
that my book buying philosophy has changed. In part this is a
by-product of no used book sales for a couple of years during the
pandemic, and in part a by-product of the $5-a-bag sales at my own
library.

During the pandemic, I started buying more books on-line. Not a
lot, but where in the past I would often see a book on-line I was
interested in, reasonably priced, but decide it was too
extravagant, because it would be cheaper at a used book sale.
Somehow the used book sale price was fixed in my head as the
"proper" price. A couple of years of not having books available at
that price ($2 a book, or even less), made me adjust my perceptions.

The other change is realizing that having my reading determined by
what was randomly available at used book sales might have been okay
twenty years ago, but increasingly made less sense. Twenty years
ago, I might have expected to be able to read another five or six
thousand books. But now that number has decreased considerably and
I need to be more selective in my reading.