Kind of a Review—Death on the Nile

I don't know if I can recommend Death on the Nile. It's a sumptuous movie with beautiful people wearing beautiful clothing in beautiful locations. They were able to film at the location portrayed on the cover of the book by Agatha Christie, Abu Simbel. (But when they show the characters walking between the sculptures or climbing behind them, it may be clever digital compositing.)

 

Gal Gadot looks fantastic in any movie she's in, and there is a standout scene of her as Linnet Doyle walking much of the length of the Karnak, obviously recorded by a drone just outside the ship and keeping pace with her. (The director, Kenneth Branagh, definitely knows how to play around with drones.) There is a similar scene with Branagh as Poirot pacing around on the deck towards the end of the movie, probably also done with a drone. And there are unusual closeups of the pyramids, also probably by drone. 

 

Having said all that, the movie is strikingly different from the book. (I haven't read the book, but I saw the 2004 version with David Suchet, which is supposed to be very accurate.) This new version made significant changes to the plot and the characters, even changing one of the murder victims! 

 

If you really love the book or the 2004 version, you may be puzzled or even disappointed. If you do not care about that, you might enjoy it. However, you will have to click below for my note of caution.

 

Worldcon—Supreme Court, Capitol, and Washington Monument

As I mentioned before, my itinerary for Washington, D.C. was a little different. One of the top two sites I wanted to visit was the Library of Congress. But the top site I wanted to visit was the Supreme Court of the United States!

If you don’t know why this third branch of government has been so important in the past few years, and what is going to happen in the next few months, maybe you should watch some news.

To get some perspective on how large the statues up front are, notice the black railing in back of one. It is waist height. That’s right, they are much bigger than life size.

Here is the statue on the right, looking at the court.

I know there is a lot of symbolism here, but I don’t know how to interpret it.

The one on the left also has a mini-statue.

I wasn’t there at a time when I could get in, but a friend who does tours says the inner chamber looks like a church, complete with wooden pews.

Here are the bronze doors at the front of the Supreme Court.

I was surprised the Supreme Court was across the street from the Capitol, where Congress meets. The back of it faces the Supreme Court.

As usual, I’m not satisfied with the typical tourist shot. Here is a forced perspective view of it.

Trying to get a nice angle, I ended up walking around the whole building. It is gigantic, and I tired myself from the huge walk. I told this to Cass Morris during the Kaffeeklatsch at Worldcon, and she said that on some occasion she decided to just walk up to the Capitol from some other site. She misjudged the distance because she didn’t know how large it was, and ended up doing quite a hike!

                                                          

Now here’s the Washington Monument, across the Tidal Bay on a sunny day.

I visited it on a less sunny day. You know by now I like unusual perspectives. Here it is when I stood three feet away from the base.

Movie Review—Belle

In the anime movie Belle, a teenage girl name Suzu is very repressed. That’s actually a step up for her from elementary school, when she was constantly crying due to an early tragedy. But then she joins U, a virtual reality world with billions of members. Free to assume a new identity, she becomes the glamorous Bell (the meaning of Suzu, later modified to Belle). In her first moments there, she finds she is able to sing again for the first time since the tragedy. Her voice has a great lyric beauty to it, and her songs gain her over two hundred million followers.

As Belle, her fame increases, until she becomes the ultimate pop star. But then the Beast interrupts one of her concerts. Seething with anger, he is able to overcome any of the self-appointed police in U. His back is covered with bruises. Will Belle agree that he is an enemy to be hunted down, or will she reach out to him?

Belle is neither a cautionary tale of immersion into the internet, nor a tale of how virtual reality can solve our problems. The virtual world of U can be used as an escape, for users to revel in fantasy versions of themselves. But the escape is not ultimate, with all the decency and cruelty in the real world being mirrored in the virtual.

Having said that, Belle astonishes with its beauty. From the details on an individual rose to an overwhelming scene with floating whales that can only exist in virtual reality, this movie reaches new heights with its stunning visuals. This visual beauty is surpassed by the singing. I recommend the Japanese language version with subtitles, since the singing in the final concert almost brought this reviewer to tears.

Although rated PG, I do not recommend taking children to this movie, because of the brutality of real life that is portrayed unflinchingly. But teenagers should enjoy a few awkward teen moments that had people in the theater I was in laugh out loud. 

Worldcon—Lincoln Memorial

Here is my tourist photo of the Lincoln Memorial. It is bigger than the back of a penny.

This view of the steps shows how huge the pillars are.

The statue is gigantic. The detail is amazing, down to the folds of the coat and the fingernails.

I managed to get a closeup that shows how lifelike the eyes are.

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Not satisfied with the usual touristy photos, I tried for an unusual angle that no one else in the crowd seemed interested in. This shows Lincoln’s cloak draped over the side of his chair. Notice how much detail the sculptor added, in an area where most people would not look.

That picture and this one showed a detail I had been ignorant of. I had assumed the two hands would be about the same. But the left hand is in a fist.

My next post will be of the building I was most eager to see.

Worldcon—Library of Congress

Believe it or not, one of the two top buildings I wanted to see in my Washington, D.C. trip was the Library of Congress. Here’s a rather typical tourist shot of it.

Note the three alcoves at ground level. They contain bronze statues. Just to warn you, they have some nudity, which is typical of the city’s statues. So let’s take a look.

Wait, these aren’t the statues yet.

And here is the back.

Here is Poseidon. Don’t know who he is? Read a book.

To the left and right of him are sea nymphs, or nereids. A little nudity is okay, right?

Oh, the right one is really . . .

So going inside the Library itself, I was determined not to take pictures. (They prefer having visitors make appointments first.) The visit is different if one is thinking of taking pictures, instead of just experiencing the moment. But they recreated Thomas Jefferson’s library inside the library, including some of his original books.

This is his copy of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith published in 1776. This was the historic book that argued for free market economics. These are the volumes Jefferson actually read.

The Library of Congress has a complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible. These were the first books ever printed on a printing press. The exact date varies, but the first copies could have been printed in 1454.

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They also have the first printed book on astronomy.

As a final shot, here is a view of the Washington Monument and the Capitol from the Library of Congress.

I was tempted to post that photo by itself and let you guess if I were floating in air, but nah.

I can’t begin to tell you what else was in the Library of Congress. It’s like an art museum. I encourage you to visit if you take a trip to Washington, D.C.

Worldcon—Autographs and Kaffeeklatsch

One of the nice features of Worldcon is the opportunity for autographs and Kaffeeklatsches. It took a while to figure out where the autographs were being done—way in the far corner of the main floor, beyond all the booths selling books, necklaces, samurai swords, etc.

Carrie Vaughn was there. She autographed my copy of her young adult Martians Abroad, being careful to ask if my name ended with a c or a k.

I thanked her for a brief conversation some years ago that she probably doesn’t remember, when I asked her if there were many urban fantasies where the female protagonist starts out already married. She couldn’t think of any off the top of her head, but she encouraged me to try. I was already working on my vampire parody with the current working title Dust after Slaying, so that was encouraging.

Mary Robinnette Kowal was also there. She had given me a lot of advice several years before, and had made a point of talking to me at a Worldcon some years ago. I said I didn’t know if she still recognized me, and she said, “Of course!” What was embarrassing was that I had brought The Calculating Stars, and while waiting in line I discovered that she already autographed it.

I told her I have a Victorian fantasy manuscript, and the female protagonist is a fairy who only learned to read as an adult. I use that as a way of explaining some of the Victorianisms she sees around her for the benefit of the reader. I asked if that would be a problem for readers, to have the female protagonist being somewhat ignorant, though observant. Mary Robinnette Kowal said no, so long as her emotions on encountering some new thing are included. Ah. That was a key insight.

The Kaffeeklatsches are small meetings of up to ten people. Attendees are encouraged to bring coffee, tea, soda, etc. Signups are ahead of time, and one must inquire redundantly about where the signup sheets will be, and how far ahead of time one can sign up.

I attended one with Cass Morris, author of From Unseen Fire, an alternate history version of ancient Rome. She told us how laborious the process was for getting it published.

She also specializes in rhetoric, and she was throwing around terms like antanaclasis and anadiplosis quite easily. Her novel has multiple viewpoint characters—a scene in a chapter might be told from one character’s point of view, then after a brief line break the scene shifts to another character’s point of view. She said her publisher did not have a problem with that. That was a relief to me, since my recent science fiction manuscript Alpha Shift has multiple viewpoint characters.

There are good panel discussions at conventions like this, but try to find a way to get personal advice.

Worldcon—Embassies and Jefferson Memorial

I had some time in Washington, D.C. during Worldcon. Instead of taking a guided tour, I decided to go off the beaten path. I discovered this statue of Winston Churchill outside the British Embassy.

The rest of the embassy is so fenced off, any pictures of it would mainly be of black iron fences, so it wouldn’t have been worth it.  

Here is the very modern Embassy of Brazil, with the more traditional Embassy of Bolivia next to it.

To enter, one must walk underneath a great mass of the building.

D.C. was unseasonably warm when I was there. Surprisingly, no one else was there on this side of the Jefferson Memorial.

The flash wasn’t on for Jefferson’s statue, so this is what I call Dark Jefferson.

Here are the initial words of the Declaration of Independence, carved in large letters. 

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This is the front of the Jefferson Memorial, across the Tidal Basin. A couple of pedestrians are on the steps, which gives some idea of the scale of the Memorial.

Next time, I will give a few details of the convention.

Worldcon—Arrival

Worldcon—a large science fiction and fantasy convention that a lot of writers go to—was held in Washington, DC This year. I had never been there before. As we flew in for arrival, I realized we were passing what was obviously the Pentagon. I was astonished we could fly so close to it. Continuing on, I could see the Capitol, then the Washington Monument. It was all coming true.

I arrived in time to see the art show by Maurizio Manzieri, who is from Italy. One of his pieces, of a spaceship, was chosen for this year’s badges:

Please see his art at https://www.artstation.com/manzieri He does marvelous work with faces. 

The big treat for the evening was the showing of the restored 1927 movie Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang. There have been several iterations of this combination of science fiction and social commentary. The 2010 version restored several minutes that were found in a copy in Latin America. More recently, some computer work has helped fill in the gaps, since some scenes were filmed as slowly as 12 frames per second.

This evening’s presentation featured new music by Ryako. She composed and performed all the music herself. She was there to take questions.

In my next post, I may show pics from my sightseeing.

Hey, Hey, We Miss Mike Nesmith

Mike Nesmith passed away yesterday. He was the de facto leader of the pop group The Monkees. Before anyone says anything else, yes, that really was them singing. Because of the group’s origin, and some bad lip-synching in “Daydream Believer,” for instance, the rumor goes around that the four of them weren’t real singers. But yes, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones really were singing.

public domain

They burst onto the scene in 1966 with their TV show The Monkees. It was a show about a fictional musical group. But yes, that was them singing, see above. They went on tour after that first season. Massive crowds of screaming fans showed up. A phenomenon of that magnitude hadn’t been seen since the heyday of The Beatles. After that, they worked hard and became a real band.

Although Micky Dolenz had the voice that was most characteristic of The Monkees’ sound, my favorite singer was Mike Nesmith. My favorite song of theirs is “You Just May Be The One,” written by Nesmith with him as the lead singer. For copyright reasons I won’t put in a link to it, but try to find a version that just shows the band playing, and not goofy scenes with Peter Tork.

Now for a science fiction connection: Walter Koenig was hired to play Chekov in the old Star Trek because the producers wanted to get some of the female audience that liked Davy Jones. Koenig was mistaken for Jones once in a restaurant and asked to sing.