Don’t Count Out Clint Eastwood Yet

Can “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” be in release for at least two weeks before we draw conclusions that director Clint Eastwood has lost his way and we start comparing the film to the likes of “Popeye” and “A Chorus Line” (“When a Director Strays . . . and Gets Lost,” by Steven Smith, Nov. 29)?

Kenneth Turan and Janet Maslin aren’t the only two critics in this country.

GREGORY PHELAN

Los Angeles

So what if Clint Eastwood’s direction does not result in an Academy Award nomination. Neither will the directors of “Men in Black” and “Starship Troopers” be so nominated, but they made money for the investors!

Like “The Full Monty,” “Midnight” was designed to be pure entertainment. It was well thought out and orderly presented and worth the price of admission to people like me who go to the movies to be entertained.

MARSHALL KLINE

Los Angeles

Steven Smith’s first example of a director “straying” from his genre is Alfred Hitchcock’s 1933 film “Waltzes From Vienna.” Only after this film did Hitchcock make the famous septet of thrillers that closed his English period and established his reputation as the premier maker of suspense movies. But “Waltzes From Vienna” shows many stylistic similarities, both visually and musically, to the first of these.

J.L. KUHNS

Woodland Hills