One thing I am glad they did with Robin was let him be more than "the Boy
Hostage"... not that he doesn't get used as one, anyway. But when
Two-Face pops up, says something smart (what was it... oh yeah... "Looking
for us?") and Robin immediately beats the hell out of him, I cheered. And
so did a lot of others.
Tommy Lee Jones does a really great job as Two-Face. He actually stands
up to Jim Carrey as the Riddler. The aura of boiling insanity covered by
a thin veneer of absolute psychosis works well. (I loved that one scene
during the attack on Wayne Manor... Two-Face flipping the coin, over and
over, exasperated because it keeps coming up heads.)
Carrey does a good job, but I had a slight problem with his character.
Does it seem to anyone else that he played the Riddler in some other movie?
I dunno... but his Riddler, as written, seems awefully similar to several
other characters he's played in the past. Frenetic, not all there, and
absolutely intent on pulling some of the wierdest bodily contortions
possible. Wait, I recognize it now. Carrey's stand-up act. Anyway, I
still liked what he did with the character; just as obsessive as Bruce Wayne,
but in an entirely different manner about an entirely different subject.
Let's see, what else. Can we say "choppy editing", boys and girls?
One second, Batman is rescuing Dick from being turned into dog food by a
street gang, the next he's walking away from Dick in the Batcave. Oops!
One last thing: what the heck is up with this "kill the supervillain"
nonsense! First, the Joker, then the Penguin, then Two-Face! Hello, McFly!
Ever consider that you may want to bring one or two of them back for a
sequel?
Well, those are all the comments I have. See the movie if you haven't.
See it again if you have. This one, more than the other two, was a comic
book on film.
Jack Butler
... "Riddle me this, riddle me that. Who's afraid of the big black bat?"
--- FMail 0.98a
* Origin: Forethought BBS -=- Orlando FL -=- 407-277-7530 (1:363/309)
Д [17] SFFAN (2:463/2.5) ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД SFFAN Д
Msg : 273 of 322
From : Gary Tincher 1:372/57 .cк 18 .юн 95 09:34
To : Jason Cathcart
Subj : MMPR : The Movie
ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
-=> Quoting Jason Cathcart to All <=-
JC> @MSGID: 1:134/134.0 2fe1b63c
JC> Any one else think that it will be totally crappy?
I'm not a fan but from what I saw on TV.. it looks as if they got
a buget this time.
Gary
... Catch the Blue Wave!
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
--- QScan/PCB v1.17b / 01-0389
* Origin: Dazed & Confused BBS - 8 Nodes/24 CD's - 803-873-5797 (1:372/57)
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Msg : 274 of 322
From : Gary Tincher 1:372/57 .cк 18 .юн 95 09:34
To : Bruce Baugh
Subj : Roger Zelazny, 1937-1995
ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
Yea, I'll miss him too.. loved the amber series..
Did you read his Delvish the Damned series?
Gary
... Catch the Blue Wave!
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
--- QScan/PCB v1.17b / 01-0389
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Msg : 275 of 322
From : Cameron Macdonald 1:229/436 .cк 18 .юн 95 09:59
To : Daniel Renaud
Subj : Re: X-Files
ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
On Thu 15-Jun-1995 23:38 , Daniel Renaud wrote:
DR> Hi everybody,
DR> I'm looking for the complete first 2 seasons of X-files. So
DR> does anyone have them and be willing to copy them for me.
DR> I'm from Hull, Quebec Canada (near Ottawa), but would be willing to paid
DR> for postage if I have to get the tapes from someone out of town/country.
DR> Thanks
I have just about every one of them on tape... I live just a bit east of
Toronto. Let me double check what I have here again...
Cameron...
--- CNet/3
* Origin: Daily Planet BBS 10 Lines o' Fun (905)436-6509 (1:229/436)
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Msg : 276 of 322
From : Bruce Baugh 1:105/290.50 .cк 18 .юн 95 10:48
To : All
Subj : Wormholes in Reality?
ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД
On (16 Jun 95) David Johnston wrote to Rumble...
DJ> No--he--hasn't! If we had a workable FTL theory that would be
DJ> the biggest news since the atomic bomb. Oh, I suppose you
DJ> could explain transporters as a macrocosmic extension of
DJ> quantum tunneling, but just because Hawking is a Star Trek
DJ> fan doesn't mean that it is solidly, or even shakily related
DJ> to our best understanding of the concepts of physics. He just
DJ> does what everyone else does and suspends disbelief.
Just to blow your mind, check the following out from GEnie. And note
that Landis, Benford, and Cramer are all practicing physicists as
well as sf writers. This is their "day job", as it were.
First Science Fiction & Fantasy
Category 27, Topic 11
Message 608 Thu Mar 30, 1995
G.LANDIS1 [Geoffrey] at 21:58 EST
The following press-release is from UC Irvine.
SEARCHING FOR A `SUBWAY TO THE STARS'
In an article published March 15, 1995 in the scientific journal Physical
Review, science fiction writers Gregory Benford, Geoffrey A. Landis, Robert L.
Forward and John G. Cramer, with co-authors Matt Visser and Michael Morris,
argue that the search for dark matter in the universe could be expanded to
include exotic forms of dark matter such as wormholes, topological connections
between separated regions of space-time that might be described as "subways to
the stars."
The article, "Natural Wormholes as Gravitational Lenses," explains one theory
underlying the possible existence of such objects and describes the
gravitational lensing "signature" that might enable us to detect them. The
proposal stems from a workshop on relativity and quantum mechanics sponsored
by NASA.
"A 'wormhole' is a theoretical object permitted by Einstein's theory of
general relativity, where distant regions of space are connected by a
shortcut," says Landis, a scientist at NASA's Lewis Research Center in
Cleveland, OH, as well as an award-winning science-fiction author. "Such
wormholes could have been created in the distant past, in the time just
following the 'big bang' that created the universe. What we discovered at the
workshop was that if such wormholes did exist, they could be detected by the
bending of light due to gravity, an effect known as the 'gravitational lens.'"
"Several research groups currently are using telescopes to monitor
gravitational lensing events to search for massive compact halo objects
(MACHOs) that have positive mass. They want to count these objects because
they could explain the vast amount of dark matter in our galaxy, or perhaps
the whole universe," Benford explains. Gregory Benford is a professor of
physics at the University of California Irvine, and also a highly-regarded
science fiction writer.
"So far, these experiments are not surprising anyone. They're turning up a
reasonable amount of possible dark matter, but nothing that's going to solve
the dark matter problem. But we believe that by paying just a little more
attention, by analyzing the MACHO search data for evidence of what we like to
call GNACHOs (Gravitationally Negative Anomalous Compact Halo Objects),
there's a chance to make a really profound discovery."
Wormholes provide one possible way to create astronomical objects of negative
mass, according to theoretical calculations by Matt Visser, professor of
physics at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and a co- author of the
article. "Wormholes, although allowed by the theory of relativity, are
theoretically unstable," says Landis. "However, at the time of the formation
of the universe in the big-bang, wormholes could have been stabilized by loops
of negative mass cosmic string. If so, they would still be here, and it is be
worthwhile to look for them. If we find one, the implications are enormous."
"According to theory, either end of a wormhole can swallow mass, ejecting it
out the other end," said Benford. "But a wormhole mouth in a dense region of
matter swallows mass faster than its other end, if that end is in a sparse
region. Mass emerging from an end curves space-time oppositely. it's as
though the end loses mass, finally reducing to zero mass and then to negative.
Gravitationally, that negative end looks like a negative mass, maybe even a
large, stable one."
Expanding the current Optical Gravitation Lensing Experiment (OGLE) a
collaborative project between the Warsaw University Observatory, Carnegie
Observatory and Princeton University Observatory to search for these and other
possible negative mass objects would be relatively simple, said Benford. This
is because GNACHOs, if they exist, provide a distinctive light enhancement
profile when passing between us and distant stars. This resembles the
twinkling of starlight in the Earth's atmosphere.
"Ordinary mass causes the sudden brightening of a star image, exerting a
gravitational refraction on the light, like a focusing lens," said Benford.
"Ordinary mass causes a single peak in brightness because it focuses the
light, but negative matter deflects the light rays, creating a shadowed umbra
region where light from the source is extinguished. At the edges of the umbra
the light rays accumulate to form what's called a caustic, giving a very large
increase in light intensity in two visible peaks of brightness."
All but one of the microlensing events observed by the OGLE project thus far
exhibited the single brightness peak associated with ordinary matter. However,
one event, OGLE #7, has exhibited very unusual light variations.
"So far this event which shows a double hump brightness peak has been
attributed to a binary star, which are common," said Benford.
"While it very well may be a binary star, the double peak also is similar to
the signature we've predicted for a GNACHO. Therefore, I don't think we
should just assume it's got to be binary and brush it off. If we look in
greater detail, we just might find that it's an entirely different object."
What would it mean if we were to discover a wormhole?
"A wormhole is like a subway to the stars; a method of going places that are
spatially very distant instantaneously, and without contradicting the theory
of relativity. You go in one end and you pop out somewhere else in the
galaxy, or maybe in another galaxy," said Benford.
"Finding one would completely change our view of how galaxies form, because it
would mean that wormhole transport of mass from one part of the universe to
another has been a significant evolutionary factor. It would mean that space-
time is intimately connected in a way we didn't know; that the whole universe
is knitted together and that's a profound result."
But whether or not we find a wormhole, it's the search that's important, said
Benford.
"The chances of negative mass wormholes being common are slim and nobody's
going to get funded to go out and look for wormholes but the chance to find
one as a bonus with data from existing dark matter experiments is enticing,"
he said.
"Our goal is to say `Let's see if we can make an observation.' Because there
are still lots of mysteries in the universe, and we shouldn't take for granted
