Something’s Wrong

The summer heat has obviously gotten to Kenneth Turan. The same man who endlessly and obsessively castigated “Titanic” and, especially, James Cameron’s winsome script now dares praise the Farrelly brothers for the anemic “There’s Something About Mary” (“Go Ahead, Try Not to Laugh,” Calendar, July 15).

So, developing an old-fashioned corny romance amid the greatest spectacle in movie history is somehow underachieving compared to the sight of a man’s testicles caught in a zipper and a small dog electrocuted and set aflame in a lengthy torture scene Turan extols as “benefiting from how laughs are structured to build and build on each other.”

I guess Alan Alda’s description of comedy in Woody Allen’s “Crimes & Misdemeanors” must now be amended. “If it breaks, it’s funny. If it bends, it’s not funny.”

SCOTT SCHALIN

Woodland Hills