Movies - June 20, 1999

Re “The Birds and the Bees and the Movies They Go See,” June 4.

Don’t know if you would call me a “liberated” male or “different,” but I watched “Notting Hill” and laughed and cried and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Count me among those men who detest the current Hollywood mentality that the gorier a movie the better. Count me among those men who do not believe that violence and body count are great entertainment. Movies that make me laugh, make me think and at times make me cry suit me just fine. If that makes me different so be it, but my wife and I have laughed and cried together at the movies for 47 years, and I don’t go just to satisfy her. . . . Rest assured there are many others like myself who don’t give a damn about “chase scenes, a drive-by shooting or the blowing up of an ammunition dump.”

LEO WEILMANN

Woodland Hills

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It is a shame when we must label everything. Starting with “chick flick,” we lose everything else about the movie. Consider a wonderful script, some pretty good acting and a cast of newcomers who are wonderfully British. Once labeled, you know that the men run and hide and must be dragged by wives to see an otherwise wonderful movie.

People like all kinds of films, and I do not think that this genre is discounted as much as you think. Just look at the box office dollars for “Notting Hill.”

LOTTI VAN EMDEN

Granada Hills