After the Oscar Nods Comes the Fallout

First I was confused, then I was appalled by Calendar’s coverage of the Oscar nominations (“Bubba Gump Oscar Co.,” Feb. 15).

The front-page sidebar listed the nominees for best picture, best actor and actress, best supporting actor and actress, best director and even the most nominated films. Inside there were photos and capsule profiles of the five nominees in the categories of director, actor and actress.

This is where the confusion set in. I thought someone wrote these films! I thought the actors and directors worked from a script!

But, you know, I was right! Buried in the three pages of Oscar-related stories I stumbled upon a listing of the nominees for best original screenplay and best adaptation. That’s when I was appalled (but not surprised) at the contempt shown the writers.

Evidently conceiving the original idea and creating the story platform on which the actors, directors, cinematographers, production designers and special-effects wizards are allowed to perform their specialties isn’t worthy of photos, profiles or even listing in a sidebar. The same goes for those geniuses of adaptation who somehow manage to convert meandering, often obscure novels and magazine articles into vibrant, meaningful, actable stories to which the audience can relate.

It’s too bad The Times didn’t see fit to accord the best of last year’s writers the same honors it gave to actors and directors who would have had nothing to work with except for the prior achievements of those writers.

JESS MONEY

Los Angeles

How can a group of judges evaluate all the documentaries made this year and not select the highly regarded “Hoop Dreams” as a nominee for best documentary? Easy, this group of judges is not qualified to do the job in the first place.

And as for “Hoop Dreams,” it was the finest film released during 1994, period, and should be honored as such.

MARY SHELTON

Riverside

In closing an article about Woody Allen’s Oscar nominations you quote a “powerful agent” as saying “Hollywood tends to write people off. It’s clear that Woody Allen has not lost his talent.”

Disregarding the wild absurdity of an agent being qualified to publicly assess Woody Allen’s talent, I wonder why this agent is unnamed. Was the quote so incendiary, it had to be anonymous? And if the agent insisted on anonymity, was the quote so incisive it had to be printed anyhow?

PETER MEHLMAN

Producer, “Seinfeld”

Studio City