text:
"The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips,"1 so said the Court of Judge Vann on June 7, 1921, honoring him on his passing. Irving G. Vann was born on his parents' farm at Willow Creek in the town of Ulysses, Tompkins County, New York on January 3, 1842. His great-grandfather on his father's side, Samuel Vann, had been a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War. His grandfather on his mother's side, Joseph Goodwin, fought in the War of 1812. He was the only child of his parents, Samuel R. Vann and Catherine H. Goodwin Vann, and spent much of his early life on the family farm under the tutelage of his mother.
Irving Vann received no formal education until he began to attend the Trumansburg Academy in preparation for college. The Academy was located some four miles from the Vann farm and, during the warmer months, Irving walked the distance to and from school unless his father was able to spare a horse from the work of the farm. During the winter, Vann boarded at Trumansburg. He also spent a year of study at Ithaca Academy, which enabled him to enroll at Yale College in 1859. After struggling his first year to catch up with his more formally-schooled classmates, Vann graduated with his class in 1863.
Initially pursuing a career in education, Vann became a high school principal and teacher in Owensboro, Kentucky. Although his employers urged him to continue in that field, he resigned after a year and began to study law at the office of Boardman & Finch in Ithaca, New York. In the fall of 1864, he entered Albany Law School, graduating in the spring of 1865. Although he never returned to a full-time teaching career, later in life Vann shared his knowledge with students, lecturing at Syracuse, Albany, and Cornell law schools.
Upon his graduation, Irving Vann accepted a position at the Department of Treasury in Washington, D.C. In less than a year, however, he returned home to Central New York, joining the law firm of Raynor & Butler in Syracuse. This began an illustrious career in private practice there, with a succession of law firms bearing his name: Vann & Fiske, Raynor & Vann, Fuller & Vann, and Vann, McLennan & Dillaye. Irving Vann became an accomplished appellate lawyer and also served as a referee until his practice prospered to such an extent that it demanded his full attention.
As a lawyer at the bar he was particularly strong as a counselor and advocate. He knew the law and understood the principles. He had a large clientage and his reputation extended far through the State.2
His career well established, Vann married (Julie) Florence Dillaye, the daughter of a prominent Syracuse real estate developer, on October 11, 1870. The couple produced two children: a daughter Florence and a son Irving. Vann was an active member of the Syracuse legal community and was one of the founders of the New York State Bar Association and served as an early president of the Onondaga Bar Association. Judge Vann was president of a number of civic and philanthropic organizations, including the Woodlawn Cemetery Board and the Onondaga Red Cross Society, and was a member of many others, including the New York State Historical Society and the Albany Historical Society. He founded the Onondaga Country Club and was its first president in 1898, and was active in a number of social organizations, including the Century Club, the Fort Orange Club, and the University Club.
A member of the liberal wing of the Republican party, Irving Vann also participated extensively in local political affairs.
He actively engaged in several political campaigns but was not a candidate for office until 1879, when he was unanimously nominated as the Republican candidate for mayor of Syracuse. With three candidates in the field he was elected by a majority of more than a thousand. His administration as mayor was characterized by the lowest taxes that the city had known for many years. Declining a renomination he again took up the practice of his profession.3
Vann's return to work in the private sector after the completion of a one-year term as Syracuse mayor was short-lived. In 1881, his party nominated him to run for Justice of the Supreme Court in the Fifth Judicial District. He handily defeated his opponent, winning by a margin of over 11,000 votes. Justice Vann served on the Supreme Court trial bench until 1889 when he began the first of his two associations with the Court of Appeals. When a Second Division of the Court of Appeals was created in 1889 to address the Court's overwhelming case load, Vann was one of seven Supreme Court Justices from throughout the state who were appointed to decide appeals sitting as a separate body from the original Court.4 Justice Vann served on the Second Division until it was dissolved in 1892, then he returned to the trial bench.
At the conclusion of his first term on Supreme Court in 1895, Justice Vann was endorsed by both parties to run for reelection. As a New York Times journalist explained:
That Justice Vann will succeed himself is beyond the question of a doubt. No more popular Judge sits upon the bench in the district, and he is equally in the favor of both clans. He took the bench Jan. 1, 1882 and, although he has served his fourteen years, he is now but fifty-five years old. He is counted one of the most active and industrious Judges in the Supreme Court of the State, and has never absented himself from his post or duty, either by sickness or long vacation . . . He is a man of absolute and unquestioned fairness, and the satisfaction he has given is evidenced by the great readiness shown by his party to give him the renomination. So far no Democrat has come forward as a candidate for the nomination.5
In fact, no opponent materialized and Justice Vann was unanimously returned to the Supreme Court bench.
Within days of the election, Justice Vann having already proven himself an able appellate jurist, Governor Levi Morton immediately considered nominating him to the newly-created Supreme Court, Appellate Division. Concerned that such an appointment "would be to the detriment of his Circuit" due to the volume of trial work in Syracuse, Justice Vann persuaded the Governor against it.6 However, the next year Governor Morton succeeded in appointing him to the Court of Appeals, filling the vacancy created when Judge Rufus W. Peckham Jr. was elevated to the United States Supreme Court.7 Since a Court of Appeals judgeship was then an elected position, Judge Vann soon found himself running in a statewide election. He again proved his strength as a candidate, winning by a majority of 243,180, which at that time was the largest majority ever achieved by a state officer in a contested election. On the bench, Judge Vann:
showed a vigorous and keen intellect, a mind well stored with law and a sharp sense for the equity of the case before him. His grasp of the merits and the facts [was] comprehensive. He [was] above prejudice, he was never biased by friendship or personal dislike, and he could not be deceived by the sophistry of 'bluffing' lawyers.8
Upon the completion of his 14-year term, Judge Vann was nominated by both parties and succeeded at being reelected to a second term in the fall of 1910. He served on the Court of Appeals until January 1, 1913, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. Following his retirement, Judge Vann continued to serve the people of New York State as the Official Referee appointed to hear claims arising out of the construction of the Barge canal.
During his tenure on the Court of Appeals, Judge Vann authored a number of significant opinions. Perhaps the most well known is In Re Totten (179 NY 112 [1904]), in which the Court articulated the common law rules applicable to what has come to be known as a "Totten Trust." In simple terms no less relevant today than they were when published more than a century ago, Judge Vann explained:
A deposit by one person of his own money in his own name as trustee for another, standing alone, does not establish an irrevocable trust during the lifetime of the depositor. It is a tentative trust merely, revocable at will, until the depositor dies or completes the gift in his lifetime by some unequivocal act or declaration . . . In case the depositor dies before the beneficiary without revocation, or some decisive act or declaration of disaffirmance, the presumption arises that an absolute trust was created as to the balance on hand at the death of the depositor (179 NY at 125).
This cogent statement remains black letter law, Judge Vann's opinion having been cited by the Court of Appeals as recently as 2003 (see Eredics v. Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., 100 NY2d 106, 110 [2003]). Equally significant, though less known, was his decision in Tabor v. Hoffman (118 NY 30 [1889]), where "Vann articulated fundamental principles that have since governed trade secret law, i.e., distinguishing between the free imitation of a competitor's product and the stealing of product secrets through bribery or other wrongdoing."9
But the opinion that best displays Judge Vann's personality and literary skill is Smith v. United States Casualty Co. (197 NY 420 [1910]) in which the Court held that, under the common law, a person has the right to change his or her name at will as long as the alteration is done in good faith and for an honest purpose. In reaching that conclusion, Judge Vann lyrically cited notable historical figures who adopted new names:
The history of literature and art furnishes many examples of men who abandoned the name of their youth and chose the one made illustrious by their writings or paintings. Melanchthon's family name was Schwartzerde, meaning black-earth, but as soon as his literary talents developed and he began to forecast his future he changed it to the classical synonym by which he is known to history.
Rembrandt's father had the surname Gerretz, but the son, when his tastes broadened and his hand gained in cunning, changed it to Van Ryn on account of its greater dignity.
A predecessor of Honore de Balzac was born a Guez, which means beggar, and grew to manhood under that surname. When he became conscious of his powers as a writer he did not wish his works to be published under that humble name, so he selected the surname Balzac from an estate that he owned. He made the name famous, and the later Balzac made it immortal.
Voltaire, Moliere, Dante, Petrarch, Richelieu, Loyola, Erasmus and Linnaeus were assumed names. Napoleon Bonaparte changed his name after his amazing victories had lured him toward a crown and he wanted a grander name to aid his daring aspirations. The Duke of Wellington was not by blood a Wellesley but a Colley, his grandfather, Richard Colley, having assumed the name of a relative named Wesley, which was afterward expanded to Wellesley"(197 NY at 425).
The extensive knowledge of history, art, and literature that Judge Vann displayed in Smith reflected his love of books. His home library contained "more than 10,000 volumes, many of which were rare."10 During his lifetime, he was described as
a most charming man. His culture is broad and thorough and he can discuss with authority most of the questions of the day and many of the scientific and historical topics. His library is one of the finest. He is a genial companion, fond of outdoor sports, and it has been said of him that he has not an enemy in the world.11
In addition to his intellectual pursuits, Judge Vann spent much of his leisure time outdoors. He had a home in Cranberry Lake, St. Lawrence County, which the family still enjoys, including a portrait of the Judge. He also owned property near Baldwinsville, overlooking the Seneca River, described as "one of the ideal spots in Central New York"12 He collected antique firearms and was known as an avid sportsman until advancing years and ill health limited his activity. That he had lost none of his literary deftness was evident when, in 1913, he addressed the University Club in Albany. In a speech entitled Yale Fifty Years Ago, Vann described life as a student in New Haven from 1859-1863. He gave the talk at the end of 1912 — on the last day of his life on the Court — "before becoming disqualified by constitutional softening of the brain," he said. Judge Vann's delivery carried the grace of a consummate after dinner speaker. With self-effacing humor, he gave a hilarious account dealing with his Greek textbook in the college's entrance exam. Next came the travails of a freshman, before he "reached the pride, pomp and dignity of a sophomore." His witty reminiscences painted a lifelike picture of his years at college and are a joy to read. Beyond that, any reader would want to know this charming and erudite man.
Judge Vann died at his home in Syracuse on March 22, 1921, surrounded by his family. He was 79 years old. Upon his death, his colleagues on the bench wrote of him:
His fame rests not on the keen perception of narrow technicalities, but rather on the ability to grasp the body of the law as a whole. When some new phase of legislative action was under consideration his vision was turned not only to a past which knew not such things, but also to the future and to those necessary readjustments of the social structure which the law is at times prone to welcome only after they have become commonplaces outside courts of justice . . . Of the judges who sat in this court with him but two remain on the Bench, yet by tradition or personal contact we all knew him as one of simple life who had dedicated his rare talents to the public service in the administration of justice rather than to the pursuit of gain in the cause of litigants.13
Judge Vann was survived by his wife Florence (1846-1934) and their two children. Their son, Irving Dillaye Vann (1875-1944), never married but followed in his father's footsteps, graduating from Yale University. He went to Harvard Law School and became a prominent Syracuse attorney.14 Judge Vann's daughter Florence (1871-1942) married Albert Perry Fowler (1867-1915), also of Syracuse, in 1899 and had four children who grew to adulthood: Katherine Dillaye Fowler (1902-1956), Albert Vann Fowler, (1904-1968) and twin daughters Elizabeth Fowler (1907-1952) and Ruth Fowler (1907-1982). Another, Florence Janette (1900-1900) died in infancy.
Albert Vann Fowler, who apparently inherited his grandfather's love of books, married a poet, Helen Frances Wose (1907-1968). He and his wife were noted in the literary world as poets, freelance writers, and managing editors of a literary periodical called Approach. They had one child, Albert Wose Fowler (1940- ), a librarian and archivist. He married Anna Smith (1956- ), and they have a son, Benjamin (1992- ).
Katherine Dillaye Fowler married Henry Wilkinson Bragdon (1906-1980). They had two sons, David May Bragdon (1932-1998) and Peter Wilkinson Bragdon (1936- ). Peter married Dorothy Davison (1938- ), and they have three children: William Vann Bragdon (1961- ) of Rosemont, Pennsylvania; Christopher Fowler Bragdon (1963- ) of Brookline, Massachusetts; and Katherine Dillaye Bragdon (1968- ) of Seattle, Washington. William Van Bragdon has three children: Jacob Chandler Bragdon (1996- ), Katherine Zaradic Bragdon (2001- ), and Peter Joseph Bragdon (2005- ).
Of the twin daughters Elizabeth and Ruth Fowler, Elizabeth married Chandler May Bragdon, (1907-1969), and they had one son, Samuel Dillaye Bragdon (1943-1983). Ruth married Richard McFall Martin (1911-1957), and they had three children, Christopher Bruce Martin (1940- ), Sheila Martin Mackintosh (1946- ), and Julie Martin (1948- ).
This biography appears in The Judges of the New York Court of Appeals: A Biographical History, ed. Hon. Albert M. Rosenblatt (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007). It has not been updated since publication.
Sources Consulted
Anxious To Be Justice, New York Times, New York, New York, September 5, 1895, includes a sketch of Justice Vann.
Bonventre, Albany Law School On The High Court, 64 Alb. L. Rev. 1155 (2001).
Diaries of Judge Vann, in possession of family historian Sheila Mackintosh of Little Compton, Rhode Island.
Eminent Members of the Bench and Bar of New York, at 171 (C. W. Taylor, Jr. 1943).
Ex-Judge I. G. Vann Dead, New York Times, New York, New York, March 23, 1921.
Funeral of Judge Vann To Be Held Tomorrow, The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York, March 23, 1921.
In Memoriam, 230 NY 663, 664 (1921).
Irving D. Vann, 68, Syracuse Lawyer, New York Times, New York, New York, August 8, 1944.
Irving Goodwin Vann, Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, New York, August 29, 1900.
Judge Irving G. Vann, Distinguished Citizen, Dies in His 80th Year, Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, New York, March 22, 1921.
Judicial Appointments Made, New York Times, New York, New York, January 1, 1896.
Justice Vann Takes the Oath, New York Times, New York, New York, January 8, 1896.
Kellogg A County Judge, New York Times, New York, New York, November 14, 1895.
Letter from Albert Vann Fowler to Theodore Irving Vann dated August 19, 1962.
Letter from Judge Irving G. Vann to Livingston Vann dated January 23, 1918.
Letter from Judge Irving G. Vann to Preston S. Vann dated October 24, 1913.
Mrs. I. G. Vann Dead, Widow of Bench Leader, The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York, January 20, 1934.
Seven Fortunate Judges, New York Times, New York, New York, January 17, 1889.
Spencer, Judge Irving G. Vann, 22 Green Bag 11 (1910).
Strong, Landmarks of a Lawyer's Lifetime, at 42 (Dodd, Mead & Co. 1914).
The New Supreme Court, New York Times, New York, New York, November 16, 1895.
The Notable Men of Syracuse, The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York, June 9, 1901.
To Dine Retiring Judges, New York Times, New York, New York, December 6, 1912.
Published Writings Include
Irving G. Vann, Contingent Fees: Address in Hubbard Course on Legal Ethics Delivered at Commencement of Albany Law School (1905).
- In Memoriam, 230 NY 663, 664 (1921).
- The Notable Men of Syracuse, The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York, June 9, 1901.
- Judge Irving G. Vann, Distinguished Citizen, Dies in His 80th Year, Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, New York, March 22, 1921.
- Seven Fortunate Judges, New York Times, New York, New York, January 17, 1889.
- Anxious To Be Justice, New York Times, New York, New York, September 5, 1895, includes sketch of Justice Vann.
- The New Supreme Court, New York Times, New York, New York, November 16, 1895; Kellogg A County Judge, New York Times, New York, New York, November 14, 1895.
- Judicial Appointments Made, New York Times, New York, New York, January 1, 1896; Justice Vann Takes the Oath, New York Times, New York, New York, January 8, 1896.
- The Notable Men of Syracuse, supra n 2.
- Bonventre, Albany Law School On The High Court, 64 Alb. L. Rev. 1155 (2001).
- Judge Irving G. Vann, Distinguished Citizen, Dies in His 80th Year, supra n3; see also, the Irving Goodwin Vann Collection, 1778-1887, at the Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives. Other records of Judge Vann include Irving G. Vann Papers, 1865-1914 (nine volumes of scrapbooks and papers at the Onondaga Historical Association in Syracuse) and New York State Literary Manuscript Division, Papers, 1882-1928 (one box of documents including correspondence concerning the defense of New York State Governor William Sulzer).
- The Notable Men of Syracuse, supra n 2.
- Judge Irving G. Vann, Distinguished Citizen, Dies in His 80th Year, supra n 3.
- In Memoriam, supra n 1, 230 NY at 664.
- Irving D. Vann, 68, Syracuse Lawyer, New York Times, New York, New York, August 8, 1944.


text:
Michigan high school student J.T. Gaskins, a leukemia survivor, was recently singled out for perfect behavior. Now he's suspended, caught up in a face-off with his school, Madison Academy, near Flint, Mich., for violating the dress code for boys as he grows out his locks for a cancer charity.
J.T. was inspired to grow his hair after learning that a friend's sister had cancer. Once he's got a 10-inch ponytail, he'll be able to chop it off and donate the hair to Locks of Love, which makes wigs for people fighting cancer. So far, J.T.'s got just 2½ inches, so he's got a ways to go. But Madison Academy says rules are rules: J.T. is running afoul of school policy, which calls for boys' hair to be "off the collar, off the ears and out of the eyes."
J.T. hopes his charter school's board will think twice about the wisdom of suspending students motivated by a noble cause. And, for the record, he's not backing down. "I fought cancer my entire life. I'm going to keep fighting this," he told the Associated Press. "I'm not going to not give back just because my school says no."
A petition on Change.org intended to sway the school's administration and its board members had collected more than 3,100 signatures as of Sunday. It aims to create a "hair donation policy" that would make an exception for charitable reasons. Meanwhile, J.T.'s school suggested that he make liberal use of styling gel or perhaps rock a cornrow style in order to tame his 'do.
But J.T.'s in no mood to start fussing with his coif. "I'm fine with all of their rules," Gaskins told the AP. "I just think that with this, they could try to make a compromise."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
- ELIGIBILITY: Open only to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who have reached the age of majority in the participant's jurisdiction of residence at time of entry. Employees, officers and directors of JP Media LLC ("Sponsor"), its promotional partners, their respective parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and promotion agencies, and immediate family members (spouses and parents, children and siblings and their spouses, regardless of where they live) or members of the same households (whether related or not) of such individuals (collectively, "Sweepstakes Entities") are not eligible. Void where prohibited by law. All federal, provincial, state and local laws and regulations apply.
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text:
The Des Moine Register recently published a piece about a therapy rabbit named Benjamin who helped many people at Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines. He died earlier this month at age 10.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
Ann Bernabe lives in the same apartment building as Toombs. She has a story about Benjamin the Bunny: Bernabe's grandson was admitted to the hospital several years ago with meningitis. His right side was paralyzed. Anderson brought her rabbit into the boy's room, day after day after day, and placed Benjamin on the boy's left side. The boy was told he was allowed to pet Benjamin only with his right arm.
Little by little, the boy started using his right side again.
For the full story, see the Des Moines Register.


text:
vcp (copy files via a curses interface)
vcp copies files and directories in a curses interface, with text only
output available. Its options and output are similar to BSD's cp while
adding some new features. It provides information on:
- files copied and left to copy
- data written and total data size
- data being written every second
- two status bars, one showing current file status, the other total
status (except with 1 file, both show current), and percentage
Maintained by: B. Watson
Keywords: copy,pipemeter,curses,progress
ChangeLog: vcp
Download SlackBuild:
vcp.tar.gz.asc (FAQ)
(the SlackBuild does not include the source)
|Individual Files:
| doinst.sh
| slack-desc
| vcp.SlackBuild
| vcp.info
© 2006-2023 SlackBuilds.org Project. All rights reserved.
Slackware® is a registered trademark of Patrick Volkerding
Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds


text:
How We Tested
- To see how easy each was to cut, each flooring system was cut to a standard size (8" x 8") using the same utility knife.
- To see how easy the flooring was to install, we followed the manufacturer's directions and installed four sample tiles on a floor (2' x 2' wood plank).
- To see how easy it would be if you had to replace a piece or section of the flooring in the event it got stained or worn out, we cut out a single tile and replaced it.
- To see how well they resisted staining, we applied one teaspoon of dirt, cola, wine, syrup and oil to each piece of flooring and immediately attempted to clean them using an all-purpose cleaner and then again after the stains set for one hour.
- To assess water resistance, we poured water on an 8" x 8" sample. 250 ml of distilled water was placed through a funnel to drop on the flooring specimen. After the water filtered completely through the funnel, the specimen was tapped three times to remove excess water. The specimens were then reviewed to determine the amount of wetness left on the specimen face.
- To test durability, we placed each sample on an abrasion tester and ran it for 500 cycles, then assessed how worn it became.
- To see how well each could resist temperature changes, we placed each sample in our climatology room and adjusted the temperature from 70ºF to 35ºF. We then did the opposite and went from 35ºF to 70ºF. Since temperature probes were hooked up to the samples we could then see how resistant the floors were to temperature changes.
- We asked consumer testers to judge the quality of the flooring after it was cut and installed. They looked for things such as: were the cuts smooth, did the flooring align properly, and was the flooring flush against the ground.
- We checked to see if any damage would result from a weight being dropped on the floor from a height of about 40 inches. We also dropped a cast iron pot onto each sample three times from a height of 3 feet and then assessed each sample for physical damage.
- We asked consumers to walk on each installed sample with no shoes on, and rate the comfort level of each.
Before You Buy
Consider the type of flooring you want: Are you looking for vinyl? Laminate? Engineered hardwood? Carpet? Before choosing, decide first how long you plan to keep the floor — natural materials are more durable, but more expensive upfront.
- Vinyl tiles are usually installed using adhesive strips or have adhesive backing right on them so you just peel and stick! Bonuses, there is a ton of variety in the patterns and they have good durability.
- Laminate is an affordable option that is easier to maintain than its counterparts. Laminate flooring is available in a wide array of styles, colors and patterns.
- Engineered hardwood is made up of individual sheets of wood pressed together to form a plank. The product thus has the natural characteristics of the selected wood species as opposed to a photographic layer like laminate. These are usually very natural looking and come in a variety of designs with lifetime warranties. They can scratch though and spilled liquids may damage the finish. Most of this type of flooring system are floating (meaning they aren't physically attached to the subflooring and they usually lock together keeping the adjacent planks in place).
- Carpeting provides a very specific aesthetic — texturally very different from the other options. Cleaning is also a bit more arduous. Very few DIY options are available for this type of flooring.
Keep in mind the room for your flooring when you shop. The kitchen gets lots of traffic so a durable, stain-resistant floor is your best bet; for the bathroom, water resistance should be a key factor in your decision.


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It's not that Event Horizon isn't the kind of movie I would write about. Haunted spaceships and Sam Neill ripping out his own eyeballs is right up my alley. No, the reason isn't the content, but rather, that fact that this is one of those movies that already has a lot of words spent on it from a variety of sources both in the mainstream and in the realm of cult film fandom. Under such circumstances, it's hard to imagine what i might have to add that is new. In some cases, I can come up with something — some tiny, meaningless tidbit that is a throwaway line in a movie that then allows me to write endlessly on some idiotic and obscure point. But upon watching Event Horizon, I was left with a distinct lack of ideas when it came to thinking about how I might approach writing about this film with some degree of originality. And now that I've finished the first paragraph, I still have no idea, so with any luck, something will pop up as I stumble along.
I didn't see Event Horizon when it was released. I'm not sure why. I mean, it's a gory film about a spooky spaceship. I think, however, in 1997, I saw maybe three film the entire year, and that was when I went out on dates with a lovely Southern belle. Somehow we ended up at a screening of Mortal Kombat II: Annihilation. So shamed was I that I just packed up and left North Carolina for New York, hoping to lose myself in the throng and hide my shameful secret. But Teleport City has, in a way, become a curious place for dragging my own horrible secrets into the light for all to see, and on the scale of shameful secrets, "took a date to see Mortal Kombat II: Annihilation" is much worse than "burning passion for Catalina Larranaga" or even "took a date to see Wicked City." It's probably not worse than, "invited a girl over, cooked her a crappy dinner, then made her watch Black Devil Doll from Hell," but it's pretty close.
I was also pretty much broke in 1997. Hell, I was pretty much broke in 2007, but I'd learned to stretch a dollar in those ten years. Whatever the reason, I didn't see many movies that year, and Event Horizon was among the ones I didn't see. Heck, I don't think I knew a thing about it back then, because I didn't even have a TV at the time where I could see important commercials informing of the virtues of films like Event Horizon, B*A*P*S, Kull the Conqueror, or any of the other fine films released that year. In the many years that followed, Event Horizon was off my radar and forgotten about, even though from time to time someone would tell me I should see it. That almost always encourages me not to see a film, as very few people seem to understand the complexities of my taste, and so they assume that I will want to be watching Troma films or other intentionally and ironically crappy movies. People just can't grasp my earnestness. But lately, I've been going back and catching up on a lot of the science fiction I missed in the past ten years or so, and after Screamers, Event Horizon was the next film on the list — though calling it science fiction is sort of like calling Halloween a "coming of age drama."
Despite the starships, hibernation chambers, spacesuits, and other superficial trappings of science fiction, Event Horizon is most definitely a horror film through and through, hewing closely to the classic set-up of a group of people in an isolated location, being preyed upon by a mysterious and murderous force. It just so happens that outer space is a slightly more isolated location than usual. In this regard, Event Horizon draws upon a history of science fiction horror that includes films like Alien and Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires and can be traced back even further to the era of pulp fiction and writers like H.P. Lovecraft. In fact, it's Lovecraft's name that is most often invoked when people attempt to describe this film, even though at no point does Sam Neill yell "Yog Sothoth!" Unfortunately for a lot of people, Lovecraft and horror films were not invoked by the advertising for the film when it was released, which marketed it for the most part as a space adventure with some minor overtones of spookiness. People who went in expecting sci-fi space adventure found themselves confronted by hallucinatory images of demon rape, maggots, people being flayed alive, other people vomiting up their own innards or possibly someone else's arm — at times, the atrocity exhibition is hard to decipher, but the fact remains that it was not what the average sci-fi fan was expecting. I've never quite understood this type of bait and switch marketing, as it only makes people mad. But I suspect that it has less to do with some sinister attempt to trick sci-fi fans into seeing a horror film and more to do with an ad agency that never bothered to watch the movie they were marketing and just assumed that, since it featured a spaceship, it was a science fiction film.
By the time I saw this movie, of course, the cat was out of the bag, so I knew exactly what I was getting into. Even if I hadn't, it would not have mattered much, since I can roll with horror just as easily as I can science fiction. So that's not what bugs me about this movie. What bugs me is that Event Horizon is this close to being a great movie, and that it comes so close but ultimately fails is, fair or not, much worse than if it had just been a crummy movie from beginning to end. At least then, I could have abandoned any care and gone along with things. That's what gets me through The Chronicles of Riddick, Aeon Flux, and the many other two-star science fiction films for which I seem to have an incredible weakness. But Event Horizon was almost so much more, and while I ultimately like the movie quite a lot, I do so well aware of the bitter taste left by great ideas left poorly explored and a resolution that sees the movie collapse in on itself — which I guess is fitting in a way for a movie that features the a black hole propulsion system.
The set-up is not unlike that of a couple other "investigating the mysterious ship" movies. I'm thinking specifically of The Black Hole and 2010. In the year 2047, a group of search and rescue astronauts lead by Lawrence Fishburne when he was allowed to show emotion instead of being an emotionless monotonal Matrix guy, are en route to a secret location known only to aerospace scientist Sam Neill. It is soon revealed that they are on their way to rendezvous with the space ship Event Horizon, an experimental craft with the ability to use a black hole generator to warp space and travel massive distances in the blink of an eye. But the ship went missing seven years ago, and there's been no successful contact with the crew since it suddenly re-appeared near the planet Neptune. Captain Miller (Fishburne), Dr. Weir (Neill), and the crew of the rescue ship Lewis and Clark are to make contact with the crew of the Event Horizon and see what the heck is going on. A rough approach through the stormy space surrounding Neptune results in damage to the Lewis and Clark, meaning that whatever happens on board the Event Horizon, they're going to have to stick around a spell to fix their own ship.
Things are hardly soothing on the nerves once the team boards the massive experimental space ship. The crew is gone, and the only trace of them is a garbled transmission full of screaming — though eventually Miller and company also discover some hideously mutilated remains splayed across the walls. Although the ship's black hole drive is presumably shut down, it still finds time to activate itself and suck a member of Miller's crew into its vortex, returning him in a coma that is only broken long enough for him to babble hysterically about "the darkness inside him" and the nightmarish things he saw on the other side. On top of that, the rest of Miller's crew starts seeing things — specifically, hallucinations of their dead loved ones. And because horror on top of horror isn't enough, scans of the Event Horizon begin returning reports of widespread bio signals, inferring that something else is on the ship with them. When one of Miller's officers decodes the Event Horizon log, they are met with perverse images of the crew being ripped apart, raped by hideous beasts (or possibly by other members of the crew), and suffering untold and unspeakable horrors. Miller decides that the ship can go to hell, and they're leaving it behind. But Weir seems to feel that the ship has already been to hell, and that somewhere along it's universe-warping journey, the Event Horizon passed into another dimension, one of absolute chaos and evil, and in doing so became a sentient and highly malevolent living organism. The scans are picking up life forms; they're picking up the ship itself, and the hallucinations and other problems are a result of the ship's immune system defending itself from invading organisms.
Or the ship could just be a big ol' hunk of Hell-infused evil. Whatever the case, Miller is as keen on leaving as Weir is on keeping everybody there.
As a concept, I think Event Horizon is tremendous. The idea of a ship's experimental drive warping space tot he point where it rips the fabric of the universe and winds up in another dimension humans could best comprehend as Hell is wonderful, and that sort of "horror among the stars" is right out of the old pulp writings of H.P. Lovecraft, who often tinged his horror with elements of science fiction. The universe into which the Event Horizon passed is glimpsed, but only in tiny, tiny portions, and the film relies again on the old Lovecraft trope of a place so completely evil, so thoroughly perverse and malign, that to merely gaze upon it would drive a man insane. Further, the idea that the ship, once returning in some way or another from that universe, would have become a sentient creature as evil as the universe through which it passed is a concept rife with potential. It's also a set of ideas so vast, so complex, that attempting to tackle them in two hours in a sci-fi horror film is almost certainly doomed to failure.
And that's what happens to poor Event Horizon; it is filled with too many good ideas that are too complex, and there's no hope of the film ever being able to satisfactorily unravel it's science, meta-science, philosophy, and religion. In a way, this isn't a bad thing. To present human characters with a situation far beyond their comprehension and thus leave many questions necessarily half-answered or completely unresolved is fine. There is a way to do that. I just don't think Event Horizon hits the mark. It aims. It makes a valiant effort. But int he end, it just can't get it's head around its own central concepts, and the whole thing devolves into an ending that lets the film down.
But make no mistake about it — I like this movie. I like it a lot. I think the things it does right make it more than worth the time it takes to watch. My frustration stems purely from the fact that it was well within the grasp of this film to be even better, and it didn't quite make it. It's like one of those break-aways in basketball where one guy has the ball,sprints the length of the court alone, has everyone cheering and going nuts, but then when he goes up for the slam dunk, he somehow screws it up and misses. You know, if he'd just dribbled down and missed a jumper, no worries. But because there was tremendous emotion and pageantry around the idea of a breakaway and dunk, when the guy blows the dunk, it makes the missed basket way more painful — especially if it comes near the very end and costs them the game. Event Horizon spends most of its running time building up the freak-out and scares (sometimes with cheap jump scares, but usually through the use of genuine atmosphere), but as Roger Ebert said of the movie, "it's all foreboding and never gets to the actual boding."
But let's detach ourselves from disappointment and spend some time talking about what this movie does right. First and foremost is the atmosphere. Although the science fiction setting misled a lot of viewers, it works wonderfully for this type of film. It's basically a slightly more fantastic version of the "old dark house," the remote cabin, or any of the many other locations horror films use to isolate their cast from the outside world — only more so. Millions of miles from home, on a tiny man-made island, surrounded by an environment that will kill you almost instantly if you set foot outside. That's even more claustrophobic and nerve-wracking than being at some rich weirdo's country manor. And Event Horizon never lets you forget how vulnerable these people are. Their air is running out. One guy ends up outside the ship without a spacesuit. You never lose sight of how fragile humans are in this setting — something I think could only be replicated by setting your movie in the middle of the ocean. Much of Event Horizon has to do with the concept of tampering in domains man was not meant to see, but while the specific domain may be the Hell Universe, in general it's obvious that even save travel through space in incredibly dangerous, and a tiny mistake or bit of damage can have colossally negative repercussions.
Adding to the ominous air is the Event Horizon itself, which was apparently designed by someone who thought H.R. Giger's stuff was just too cuddly. I'm not sure how practical it is to have a spaceship with such features as a rotating tunnel of spikes and a room full of crawlspaces that are accessed through thorn-covered black panels, but I suspect that few aerospace engineers, even in Russia, are looking to design anything quite this terrifying. Remember when the interiors of spaceships were all white and well-lit? I wonder when the point will come that we decide to move away from that color scheme, and away from various pads and cushions covering stuff, and finally embrace the style that calls for dim, flickering lighting, exposed ductwork and wires, and lots and lots of razor blades and thorns. Practicality issues aside, though, and taken purely as art design, the Event Horizon is magnificent. Production designer Joseph Bennett and visual effects supervisor Richard Yuricich bring an immense amount of experience to the game. Yurichich cut his teeth on films like 2001: A Space Odyssey before moving on to supervise visual effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, and of course, Ghost Dad. Bennett did design for the cyberpunk cult hit Hardware, and one can see the evidence of all their past work (as well as the ever-present influence of old German expressionism and Giger's work on Alien) in the design of Event Horizon. This isn't a terribly big-budget film, but they do a lot with what they have, giving the entire movie the feel of some twisted, horrific opera.
Another feather in the cap of this film is the cast. None of them inhabit especially well-developed characters. They operate on the level of recognizable stock — Fishburne is the tough but fair captain; Neill is the scientist consumed by his obsessions; Richard Jones is the wise-cracking black guy. But even when the characters are thin, the performers still give it their all. You feel like they believe what's happening around them, and while they sometimes make dumb decisions, they rarely make decisions that aren't understandable given the circumstances. The exception, perhaps, would be that after Miller spends a long time explaining that the ship will pick you brain and create hallucinations of suffering loved ones, and after everyone in the crew understands this is what the ship is doing, Kathleen Quinlan's Peters still falls for the trick. I've mentioned it in other reviews, but it always annoys me enough that I feel like mentioning it again anytime it happens (and it happens a lot). The hoary old "evil entity transforms into a loved one" shtick grates on my nerves. I mean, you're in outer space, for crying out loud. Obviously, when you've been told that the evil spaceship ghoul thing will make you see visions of your loved ones and use them to lure you to your doom, and then all of a sudden your son appears out of nowhere in a location he absolutely could not be in, well why the hell would you fall for that? Why would your son be running around on a haunted space ship that just returned from Dante's Inferno? I guess you could dismiss it as some sort of hypnotic effect, or the result of mental breakdown making a character unable to reason, but mostly it just always strikes me as lazy writing.
Still, no one turns in a bad performance, even though they're sometimes given very little to do. The bulk of the good stuff goes to Sam Neill, since he gets to play the characters who goes completely bonkers. If anyone had seen Neill in In the Mouth of Madness, they wouldn't have followed him into space, because they would know that spooky H.P. Lovecraft entities tend to follow him around and drive people mad. If Event Horizon succeeds with any one character, it's Neill's Dr. Weir, who starts off sympathetic enough before he is consumed by the horrible mysteries contained within the walls of the Event Horizon. However, one gets the feeling that his character never becomes omniscient, never actually knows what these mysteries are despite his enthusiasm about them. No matter the speeches he may give about boundless evil, other dimensions, and forbidden knowledge, his Faust of a doctor is ultimately as clueless about what's going on and what's going to happen as everyone else's. Although this is likely the product of the screenwriter not knowing himself exactly what was going to happen, the end result is effective. Neill becomes the acolyte of an unseen "holy man," one who speaks only in riddles and fools his followers into thinking they possess some profound understanding or insight when, in fact, they have been fed nothing but meaningless phrases and garbled imagery. There's a tragedy surrounding Dr. Weir, who far from becoming one with the ship and grasping the universe from which it has returned, instead becomes nothing more than a pitiable dupe.
Whether or not screenwriter Phil Eisner meant that to be the case, he should take it. Because the rest of his script is where the concept of Event Horizon starts to unravel. Poking fun at the science is ultimately meaningless — this is hardly the sort of film you go to for hard facts, and such an exercise would be as futile as poking holes in the space science of Star Wars. Still, it's kind of fun, so why not, provided we remember that stressing fiction over science never kills a movie for me. Heck, one of my favorite science fiction films is Adieu, Galaxy Express 999, and that's about a steam locomotive traveling through the galaxy while a little kid hangs his head out the window. The science of Event Horizon plays out as if it was conceived by someone who was told about Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time by someone else who hadn't actually read the book, but had been around other people discussing it. A Brief History of Time was, of course, one of those great books that everyone bought and no one read, putting it in the rarefied air occupied by other such books: that gigantic Bill Clinton memoir, the 9/11 Commission Report, Ulysses by James Joyce, and The Bible.
Part of what Hawking's book dealt with in its attempt to bring high physics down to a populist level was the topic of black holes. Now I actually read the book, because I'm a nerd like that, and because I had to as part of one of the classes I was taking. It was one of those science classes set up specifically for people who aren't very good with equations, which meant it was mostly full of journalism students and members of the University of Florida football team who would groan anytime the professor tried to relate a fundamental understanding of physics to the act of making a solid pass. Yeah, sure, physics is involved, but it was highly suspect to suggest that Danny Wuerffel spent his time in the huddle scrawling geometry and physics equations into the dirt to figure out how best to get the ball into the hands of wide receiver Reidel Anthony.
Anyway, I think that class gave me about as sound an understanding as would be needed to be the guy that Eisner's friend talked to about black holes. Meaning that I could remember that Hawking made allusions to Dante's Inferno when speaking of the event horizon of a black hole — that gravitational point of no return from which light itself cannot escape. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Hawking said, paraphrasing Dante and the sign that hung outside the gates of Hell. He meant, of course, that the pull of a black hole is so great, that if you cross the event horizon, you're not coming back, so you best make peace with the fact that you're dead meat. Now pass that sentiment through me passing it on to someone else, who then tells Phil Eisner that he was drunk at a party the other night, talking about some deep shit like black holes. All of a sudden, that simple quote applied to explain how hopeless it is to escape the pull of a black hole is twisted to mean that a black hole actually could be the gateway to Hell. And poof! Event Horizon's concept is born. It's really not a bad concept, regardless of how misconstrued it may be. Black holes are weird, after all, and the idea that they lead somewhere other than to a horrible death in which you are crushed down to microscopic size by the unbelievable gravitational pressure is hardly new to Event Horizon. And even the best minds are still feeble when up against cosmic phenomena of this scale. So why not? And anyway, the use of the term "event horizon" works in a couple different ways, and it refers as much to a black hole as it does to the Event Horizon itself, which proves to be a flashpoint which, once entered, will not allow the humans to escape.
What's more important to the quality of the screenplay is what Eisner does with the concept, and while he starts off strong, he seems to get lost, allowing the movie at times to devolve into a blood and guts horror film (not bad) and a pastiche of other other movies (slightly less forgivable). I've already mentioned some of the films from which Event Horizon draws, but there are plenty of others. In fact, it lifts wholesale the scene of a river of blood gushing forth from an elevator from The Shining. In fact, you could really view this movie as little more than The Shining meets The Black Hole. Sam Neill's character bears a close resemblance to Jack Nicholson's character from The Shining, and the concept of a haunted house (or spaceship) that causes hallucinations and may itself be alive is an idea shared by both films. Many other elements are lifted from the Russian sci-fi film Solaris, yet another "man battles hallucinations" sci-fi tale.
One could also invoke the specter of the old Roger Corman Poe films, especially The Fall of the House of Usher, as it too is about a house infused with evil to the point of becoming a malignant being itself, ending in a fiery collapse much the same as we see at the end of Event Horizon. And the idea of the black hole as a portal to Hell was explored — with equal awkwardness — by The Black Hole, a film which sends one of its robotic villains through a black hole and lands him standing on a pillar surrounded by a lake of fire and the souls of the damned. n fact, Event Horizon reflects The Black Hole in many ways — an exploratory crew finds a long lost ship; that ship' screw has vanished or mostly vanished; things are spooky; and then it all falls apart at the end when the movies both realize that they have ten minutes to explain things that the top scientific minds of the word have been grappling with for decades.
In the case of Event Horizon, all the talk of physics versus metaphysics, of a ship powered by pure evil, of a rip in the fabric of space that leads to a Hellraiser universe, lead to an anti-climatic and predictable fist fight between Miller and Weir. Though it is similar to The Fall of the House of Usher, and though it's a suitably horrific and downbeat ending for the decent guy Miller, it seems ultimately to be a resolution that fails the film's attempts at something more complex. I don't need the questions to be answered. In fact, I prefer that they try and fail, discovering that comprehension of what awaits them is simply beyond the boundaries of the human brain. But a fist fight and an explosion seemed somehow to be less than what should have been delivered. It may not be entirely Eisner's fault, though. Apparently some forty minutes was cut from the movie in order to achieve a manageable running time (1997 was a few years too early for genre films to run three hours or more and still get a wide release) and an R-rating (the 90s represented MPAA judges in a reactionary phase as an answer to the gore and nudity soaked anarchy of the 70s and 80s). Fans hoped that the footage would be restored at some point, and that such restoration would smooth out many of the wrinkles that prevent Event Horizon from achieving its ambitions, but so far such wishes have gone unsatisfied. Even when released to DVD, the film was still the theatrical cut. Whether or not it will ever be fully restored is up in the air, but given that we live in an era when almost everything, no matter how obscure or trashy, is getting lovingly reconstructed by some madman, there's still the possibility that a more complete version will emerge and we can re-assess the film based on that.
Until then, though, we have to work with what we get to watch, and as presented, Event Horizon is an almost great movie that loses its way and relies on too many scenes from other movies and too many cheap jolts. I do wish horror films would retire that bit where someone is scared, and then someone comes up behind them and grabs them on the shoulder, refusing to speak until the other person and the audience have gotten a cheap scare. Really — have you ever approached a person in complete silence, from behind, and grabbed them by the shoulder? Yes, you have, but that's because you were intentionally trying to scare that person. In all other instances, no one does this, and yet horror films feature it like every other scene. What makes it frustrating here is that Event Horizon doesn't need to rely on these weak scares. It has plenty of legitimate scares and an over-arching feeling of doom and eeriness. Falling back on juvenile tactics like the shoulder grab is just gratuitous and sloppy. At least they didn't have a scene where a cat jumped out of a box or something.
And really, perhaps I am being like this movie: searching for something that isn't attained, being more serious than I should. Taken as nothing more than a horror film with sci-fi dressing, I really think Event Horizon is a success. It definitely has the feel of an old pulp — right down to losing track of itself over the course of its running time. Director Paul W.S. Anderson is no stranger to fans of pulpy movies, having directed Mortal Kombat before this (but not Mortal Kombat II), and Resident Evil after, among other things. I have a curious love-hate relationship with Anderson's films in that I love some, hate others, but rarely find myself somewhere in between. Flaws aside, I love Event Horizon. And even more flaws aside, I love the Resident Evil movies, and Mortal Kombat, even (though not Mortal Kombat II). I guess I'm lukewarm on Soldier, so there's one middle ground movie.
But I hate with a passion the Alien vs. Predator films, even more than I hate Mortal Kombat II. Still that's a lot of hits any only one real miss for me (granted, I'm not a discriminating viewer), so I guess I like Anderson as a director, and I think Event Horizon is probably the best film he's made and will likely make. At its worst, it is grade-A horror hokum, full of mumbo jumbo and ideas that don't really pan out. And I can deal with that just fine. Heck, like I said, I probably would have preferred if the film was that way from beginning to end instead of flirting with brilliance in spots, only to fold at the last second. But regardless, this is good, gruesome pulp fiction, full of the creeping unknown and vague talk about dimensions of madness and torture that only Cthulhu, Pinhead, and the makers of the Ilsa films can imagine. Anderson's direction is sure-handed, and he and cinematographer Adrian Biddle make wonderful use of the warped madhouse the production team has created for them.
So, huh. I guess I did have a lot to say about Event Horizon. Funny the things you learn about yourself when faced with writing about a movie where Sam Neill digs out his own eyeballs. I was pleasantly surprised by it. I didn't expect it to be as good as it was, and even though it's a shame it wasn't as good as it could have been, at the end of the day, I'm happy enough. I'm also happy I didn't see it in 1997, because even though I would have liked it then, perhaps even more than I do now, the fact of the matter is that Southern belle was actually willing to still enter into a relationship with me even after I made her see things like Mortal Kombat II: Annihilation, City of Darkness, and Alien 4. I don't know if that tenuous, early romance could have survived Event Horizon as well, especially considering the fact that she never made me go see Titanic, like every other girlfriend did in 1997. I guess I could have sold Event Horizon with no more or less deception than the original marketing team if I positioned it as "kind of like Titanic, in that it is about people on a doomed ship."
Release Year: 1997 | Country: United States | Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones, Jack Noseworthy, Jason Isaacs, Sean Pertwee | Writer: Phil Eisner | Director: Paul W.S. Anderson | Cinematographer: Adrian Biddle | Music: Michael Kamen | Producer: Jeremy Bolt, Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin