Reader to Reader

I cannot let Brian Floyd’s letter about Family Filmgoer stand unchallenged (Saturday Letters, April 14).

First of all, I don’t find Jane Horwitz “prudish” but simply factual, listing those features of films that parents might wish to know before taking their children to see them. If there is prudery involved, it would be that of parents who restrict children’s viewing for prudish reasons or disproportionately to their maturity. Further, if I were the parent of a daughter who reacted to loneliness by overeating, I might well want to know that a film portrayed someone as charming and prone to be a role model as Renee Zellweger doing so.

I certainly don’t find Horwitz’s reviews “inane.” I see her ability to encapsulate the cinematic quality of a film in a cogent phrase as brilliantly incisive. My wife and I have no children under age 39 but I still read her column regularly, not to know if the films are naughty but to find out how well made they are.

DONALD SCHWARTZ

Santa Ana

*

To me, Jane Horwitz’s movie capsules are little masterpieces. In 50 words or less, she gives us: a plot outline (“medieval knight and peasant slave, accidentally zapped to present-day Chicago by bumbling wizard, where they encounter modern appliances and Christina Applegate”), the name stars (“Whoopi Goldberg, LL Cool J, Jada Pinkett Smith”), what might scare kids (“huge threatening mechanized thumbs”), what might trouble kids (“parents in danger”), what might trouble parents (“drug use without side effects”) and, indispensably, a sharp adjective or two that nails the movie (“incoherent,” “enjoyable if earthbound,” “chilling,” “flat-footed”). She tells me exactly what I need to know. I don’t want to read a long Kenneth Turan review until after I’ve seen the movie.

“Bridget guzzles liquor, smokes, eats when dateless” made Floyd “crack up.” Me too! Maybe, unknowingly, he was savoring Horwitz’s rhythm, economy and wit.

ROB THAIS

Los Angeles

*

In his letter last Saturday regarding the many movies shot at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, John Gregory mentioned “Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington.” After much discussion, my friend Pflimlin and I decided he must have meant “Mr. Smith Goes to Town.”

BURT PRELUTSKY

North Hills

*

Actually, he meant “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” which both filmed scenes at the Arboretum.

At least the sound editors of movies get recognition (Saturday Letters, April 14). There is a group of us in show biz who will never be recognized on any award show ever, even though the movies can’t be made without us. We are the actors who play the policemen, nurses, murder victims et al in all the movies ever made and there will never be an envelope opened to give an award to “The Best Two-Line Part in a Major Motion Picture.”

This hurts the most when I watch the SAG Awards (a union that is composed almost solely of small-time working Joes and Janes like myself) fill up the mantelpieces of yet the same group of big-name players. Bulletin: “Life is not fair. Get over it.”

MELANIE MacQUEEN

Los Angeles