No, Not Everybody’s Laughing at the Movies

I am absolutely appalled at the glowing review Peter Rainer gives “Serial Mom” (“ ‘Serial Mom’ Good at Being Naughty,” April 13).

In a time when violence, random killings and genocide are a part of everyday life in almost every corner of the world, the portrayal of such clinically cold and calculating murders by a “ ‘60s-era Mom” left me a physical, sobbing wreck.

To defend this film glibly as a “pro-family values film” and to say that “part of the fun in ‘Serial Mom’ is seeing what sets Beverly off” seems to me a totally unfeeling position on Rainer’s part. Please don’t try to tell me that John Waters can be excused this film noir under the guise of a spoof of our real world. Our real world is anything but funny.

HOPE C. CLAPP

Burbank

*

I was sick when I came out of the movie “Serial Mom.” No, I did not think the movie was funny. No, I did not think it was violence that had been turned into comedy. I guess the movie was supposed to satirize life today. I admit it does tend to give a rap on today’s trend of glamorizing criminals and wrongdoers. And it is funny in parts. But that was about it.

When the movie started with Beverly making obscene phone calls, I thought I was going to have a very good time. With the first killing, I was skeptical. By the time Carlos was impaled with a poker, I was shocked to the core.

But, more than seeing Carlos’ liver dangling at the end of the poker and Beverly trying to pry it off, it was the crowd’s reaction that upset me. Whenever I was squeamish, the crowd seemed to be cheering and whistling. When Beverly got the evil glint in her eye, they seemed excited. When one victim was squirming on the floor, his back on fire, the man sitting next to me was nearly hysterical with laughter.

Was it something wrong with me, that I was not able to enjoy “Serial Mom”? What did the audience see in a mad woman’s killing rampage that they found so uproariously funny . . . and I didn’t? Why is killing taken so lightly?

Your review advised viewers to expect “graphic, though comic, murders.” Comic murders?

RUPA JOSHI

Los Angeles

*

In Terry Pristin’s article on “Four Weddings and a Funeral” (“ ‘Four Weddings’: No Bridesmaid at the Box Office,” April 20), film historian Stephen Farber is quoted as saying, “There is a hunger for sophisticated, witty romantic comedy in the tradition of some of the Hollywood movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s.” I wonder if Farber ever saw any of these earlier movies. I did, and I don’t recall hearing the “f” word even once, much less 30 or 40 times. It is the first word spoken in “Four Weddings,” and it is repeated so often during the first two minutes that I lost count.

Then again, I may be losing my sense of humor. Everyone else in the theater laughed uproariously every time the “f” word was used, just as they did for “My Cousin Vinny” and “A Fish Called Wanda.” I have difficulty coming to grips with the notion that two people shouting the “f” word at each other is high comedy.

DAVID A. KENNEY

Palos Verdes Estates

*

Kenneth Turan recently wrote a review of Martin Lawrence as a performer who supports quite solid family values (“Martin Lawrence’s Family Values,” April 27). Anyone with any common sense knows that this is an absurd assumption.

I am a teacher for the Los Angeles City Schools, and I can assure you that teachers all over the city would be quite horrified to know that one of your movie critics praised Lawrence as a role model.

KAREN LORENZEN

La Canada

*

I feel a little silly complaining about the decadence of the movies. After all, I am a grown man, and there are few nasty words I haven’t heard and occasionally spoken. But my wife and I went to see (and hear) “The Paper.” The most obnoxious four-letter word was spoken so many times that I lost track and the word lost meaning. The next most obnoxious and functional four-letter word also was spoken repeatedly. Some viewers left with their children. To put it bluntly, the movie stunk.

So we decided to try the other ballyhooed movie, “The House of the Spirits.” Now there was something for everybody. We got to see a corpse cut up, with the camera moving in close on the gore. Then there was the sister hinting about the joys of life with her brother, a touch of possible incest. Then there was flogging, lash after lash, with the appropriate sound effects. And naked sex scenes, several of them. There was a close-up of a man trying to invade a very young girl, pedophilia de luxe. All in all, it was an exhilarating experience, educational, titillating and rotgut nauseating. Are you listening, Hollywood?

CHARLES NEAL

Temecula