Critiquing The Times’ Critics

Brian Lowry asserts in his Dec. 19 column (“One Man’s TV Reject Is Another’s Top Film”) that praise for “Mulholland Dr.” “reflects the ultimate example of intellectual hubris--the assumption if you don’t understand it, it must be brilliant.” Far worse is the assumption that if you don’t understand it, it cannot be brilliant.

Lowry may rationalize his limitations by projecting them onto others, but my appreciation of films is no more impeded by their incomprehensibility to him than by their incomprehensibility to dogs. Not that incomprehensibility itself is necessarily a problem. Flowers can be enjoyed without knowing what they are “about.”

JIM JOHNSON

Whittier

*

Once again an L.A. Times music critic shows himself to be out of step (“Trans-Siberian Orchestra Cranks Up Holiday Schmaltz,” by Marc Weingarten, Dec. 17). I presume the reviewer and I were at the same Universal Amphitheater show, along with the thousands of others who responded with three standing ovations.

It’s amazing that Weingarten omitted the entire second half of the show from his review. Paul O’Neill’s interpretation of what Beethoven might have done had he had an electric guitar is truly an astounding bit of musical vision. Could it be that Weingarten simply dismissed this as just a Christmas show and left long before it ended?

A.D. WILLIAMS

West Hollywood

*

I took my 8-year-old daughter to see “The Magic Flute” at the Odyssey Theatre. She was enthralled with the singing, the music and the story. She came away interested in learning more about the real opera and in listening to more of Mozart’s music.

It would be a pity if the review by Jana J. Monji (“Not Quite Mozart’s Vision of ‘Flute,’” Dec. 13) discouraged families from bringing their children to this energetic, entertaining and educational show. This reviewer truly missed the point of the show--it is not to be seen as serious opera, but as a fairy-tale musical for children and families based on the opera by Mozart.

RACHEL ARTENIAN

Santa Monica

*

Your critic pointed out the limitations of Patrick Stewart’s one-man version of “A Christmas Carol” (“Voices Would Add Depth to Solo ‘Christmas Carol,’” by Don Shirley, Dec. 17). To me it did not seem to be a one-man show. At curtain call, I kept looking all over the stage for other people and found myself wondering why just one person was taking a bow, so skillful was his performance.

WILLIAM BERGFELDT

Hollywood

*

Hollywood tends to honor those who push the limits. Especially those involving gender and sexuality. An increasing number of films centers on the virtue of being true to one’s own desires in contrast to the repressive “moral majority.” In Calendar, I have read many reviews of films that spotlight a range of sexual and gender variations, most aimed at humanizing the players involved.

Fair enough. But when I read Kevin Thomas’ review of “Eban and Charley,” (“A Discreet ‘Eban and Charley,’” Dec. 14), a “discreet” tale of sexual molestation framed as romance in which the writer-director asserts that what a man and a boy “do with their own lives and with each other is nobody else’s business,” I draw the line.

There is very little as cruel and narcissistic as cloaking one’s predatory instincts under the guise of personal rights. In our quest for understanding, let us not frame evil as good. To make a case for the sexual invasion of a child should be off limits for every filmmaker. Period.

ANDREW COMISKEY

Anaheim

*

I was very disappointed in Kenneth Turan’s review of “Vanilla Sky,” (“From Paella to Pot Roast,” Dec. 14), which I found quite unprofessional. Saying Tom Cruise acts with “his usual strained intensity” is to flippantly discard and discredit a body of work which has been marked by excellent performances, be it in “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Magnolia,” “Rain Man” or “Jerry Maguire,” to name a few.

L. KING

Pacific Palisades

*

... On a Positive Note

I’d like to thank Kenneth Turan for seeing through the hype and writing honest reviews. Hollywood can sell Wes Anderson as a wunderkind but I am grateful there is someone out there who can see that is only a very well-applied mask (“Their Particular Brand of Dysfunction,” Dec. 14). Turan’s sincerity and experienced taste is not lost to the world.

ADAM WHITE

Burbank

*

More on LACMA

There were so many letters condemning plans for a new LACMA building (Letters, Dec. 15) that I felt compelled to respond. For those who insist that the funds necessary to realize Rem Koolhaas’ spellbinding design would be put to better use beefing up the extant collection, I, for one, would much rather have a space that shows that collection off to its best advantage than buy new works and slot them on the existing buildings’ drab walls.

While acknowledging a lamentable tendency in L.A. to raze the old in favor of the new when it serves no purpose--the Schubert Theatre complex comes to mind--LACMA in its present form is, quite frankly, a mess. The Perreira buildings were never very wonderful, and the Anderson building seems to have been thrown up to hide them, almost as if out of embarrassment.

So if the folks at LACMA are able to raise the money needed to build Koolhaas’ beautiful floating aerie, then full steam ahead!

BEN VANAMAN

Los Angeles

*

In Alan Katz’s letter of Dec. 15 about LACMA, he is under the misimpression that Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and his fellow board members are not committed to improving arts education in the region. In fact, through its Arts Commission, the Board of Supervisors funds more than 100 nonprofit arts organizations to provide arts education services and has commissioned the first comprehensive study on the state of arts education in the 82 school districts in the county, Arts in Focus.

In addition, the board has created an Arts Education Hub, jointly staffed by the Arts Commission and the Los Angeles Office of Education, to strategically address the reintroduction of sequential arts education into the curriculum.

The choice cannot, and need not, be limited to only one activity in support of the arts: wonderful facilities, innovative programming or arts education. A healthy and balanced arts ecology demands that we support all three. The members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors understand this, and they do.

LAURA ZUCKER

Executive Director

L.A. County Arts Commission

Los Angeles

*

Tell It to the Brownies

To all of the people involved in the creation and advertising of the movies “Shallow Hal” (where beauty, even inner beauty, is skinny) and “How High” (where women are shown being called “ho’s” and liking it--because it was meant in a “good way”), I want to make a suggestion: Bring the clips you’ve chosen for your advertising and come watch them with my Brownie troop. Tell that group of 6- to 8-year-old girls what message you wanted to send. Better yet, tell it to the middle-school-age girls who are trying to figure out what it means to be a woman in our culture.

It’s time for you to come out of your pretty offices where you’re surrounded by people who tell you every stupid thing you do is OK because you become famous and make money doing it. Come justify your work to a group of young girls and see how big you feel then.

TIFFANIE HEBEN

Reseda

*

Comedian’s Not a Victim

To say that Paula Poundstone’s arrest shattered the somewhat quiet life that she had built for herself trivializes the innocent lives that were shattered by her acts (“Staging Her Return,” by Paul Brownfield, Dec. 17). As a former judicial intern, I sat through many custody hearings. People don’t lose their children over drinking cheap white wine and going for ice cream. Judges don’t order supervised visitation where the children are not in danger. Just because three counts of lewd acts were dropped and a gag order imposed doesn’t make Poundstone a victim. How horrible for the real victims to see their ordeal trivialized and dismissed by a fan posing as a reporter.

TERRI HATTAWAY

Altamonte Springs, Fla.

*

A Skimpy Sampling

I read Nancy Rommelmann’s piece evaluating coffeehouses (“Cafe Society,” Dec. 20) and had to laugh. I expected to find that she went on a mission to dig up the best. Instead, I see that she drove all over town and managed to visit what--a Peet’s, two Starbucks and three Coffee Bean & Tea Leafs.

How many Starbucks do you need to visit before the phrase “mediocre, at best” enters your mind? How many Coffee Beans do you have to visit before you realize that Mrs. Olsen makes a better brew?

No matter that she gave them average scores, why did she bother?

In half an hour, an out-of-towner on foot could have found better coffee than they serve at Starbucks and the Coffee Bean.

BILL COURTNEY

Long Beach

*

‘Town’ Without Writers?

I was very interested to read the article about the CBS television movie “A Town Without Christmas” (“‘Town Without Christmas’ Crew Doesn’t Sweat the Dark Stuff,’” by Susan King, Dec. 14.). The film is “mystical” and “complex” and, of course, “Capra- esque.” It is, in the words of star Patricia Heaton, not “your average Christmas movie.” I can’t wait to see it.

However, strangely, nowhere in this article is there any mention of who wrote the material that inspired all of this acclaim.

Susan King wrote an otherwise fine article. She properly received her byline at the top. The writer or writers of “A Town Without Christmas” deserve no less.

LEN UHLEY

Los Angeles

*

No Age of Innocence

I always find it ironic when artists and others refer to “the innocence of pre-AIDS times” (“Celebrating Human Resilience,” by Steve Hochman, Dec. 14). I imagine they refer to a time when people thought they could use illicit drugs and have any kind of sex they wanted with multiple partners with no adverse consequences.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines innocence as “the state, quality or virtue of being innocent, as: freedom from sin, moral wrong or guilt through lack of knowledge of evil.” The pursuit of hedonistic behavior pre-AIDS might be called stupid, selfish, immoral or foolhardy. Innocent? I think not.

LESLIE RYLAND

San Marcos