TRICKLE-DOWN

I can’t understand why so many moviegoers are hung up on high feature film budgets. Don’t they realize that more money going into a movie means more employment for the people who make movies? Everyone from the director to the person who sells the popcorn benefits. And those people go to the market, buy cars, buy homes, go to restaurants, buy clothes and take them to the cleaners, and the people who own restaurants, car dealerships, dry cleaning establishments and real estate agencies will buy cars, go to restaurants . . . and on and on.

A well-scripted, beautifully acted low-budget art film is a thing of joy. However, if they only made low-budget movies, the people who work in the industry and the many companies that feed off of it would go the way of aerospace . . . downsized, downsized, downsized. Keep those high-budget movies coming.

And besides, it doesn’t cost any more to buy a ticket to a high-budget movie than it does to the low-budget one.

LLOYD THAXTON

Studio City