Playing With Our Minds and Emotions

Patrick Goldstein does a disservice to himself by acting as an apologist for the egregious factual inaccuracies in “A Beautiful Mind” (“Playing ‘Mind’ Games,” Jan. 22). He writes, “I don’t hear anyone complaining that ‘Black Hawk Down’ has recast the military’s 1993 debacle in Somalia as a triumph of soldierly fortitude.”

“Black Hawk Down” is very accurate and faithfully adapted from Mark Bowden’s nonfiction book. Almost every major and minor incident that occurs in the movie occurs in the book. The same cannot be said for “A Beautiful Mind.”

While I enjoyed “A Beautiful Mind” in strictly aesthetic terms, almost everything about that movie is a fraud, from the disingenuous ad campaign to the movie itself. The makers of “A Beautiful Mind” have foisted a canard upon the American public under the guise of a “true story” and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so.

JEFF JOHNSON

Culver City

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So “A Beautiful Mind’s” screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman, admits “most of the things that happen in the movie didn’t happen in John’s life.” And biographer Sylvia Nasar’s book is, as she admits, secondhand accounts and no direct interviews with John Nash himself.

I hope that Goldsman and Nasar are available to tackle my life story--they’d no doubt make it more interesting than it really is.

Maybe the film should have been called “A Beautiful Snow Job.”

MICHAEL ROUSH

Woodland Hills

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There will never be a film that runs for two hours, give or take, that can cover everything in the life of a 73-year-old man. I think Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman are to be applauded for knowing what was important and what wasn’t.

I have talked to about 10 people who have seen the film and all came away moved and inspired. What was particularly touching to me was that at both showings that I attended, men were crying. The filmmakers got to the heart of the story--the journey from genius to madness and back, with the help of friends, family and personal will.

LOIS STEINBERG

Washington, D.C.

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I was intrigued by the conclusion Goldstein reached in his recent article: “After all this country has been through in the last few months, we’ve got a serious craving for heroes.”

I couldn’t agree more, but there are lots of heroes to make films about. The list of heroes increased appreciably, unfortunately, in the wake of the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Why, then, must Hollywood cobble together a story that makes a hero of someone whose life has been, evidenced by the film’s omissions and American ideals concerning heroism, decidedly unheroic?

CHRISTOPHER STUART

Paradise Valley, Ariz.

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The subtext of Ron Howard’s comment that Nash’s implied homosexuality “wasn’t central to his life” as a reason for its exclusion in “A Beautiful Mind” is troublesome.

Sorry, but only a heterosexual would say that. How about turning it around and having some powerful director state that his main character’s “implied heterosexuality” is not central to his life. People would be scratching their heads thinking it was a non sequitur.

LARI PITTMAN

Los Angeles

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I, for one, don’t find anything wrong in Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s decision to omit John Forbes Nash’s alleged homosexuality in Hollywood’s film version of his life.

First and foremost, Patrick Goldstein indicates Nash adamantly denies his homosexuality. For once, isn’t it great that Hollywood decided to respect the feelings of the person whose life experiences are being exploited for money and the possibility of Oscar glory?

Secondly, as many of us in the gay community know, gay men of Nash’s generation lived in a time when being gay might have been worse than being a Communist. Why push the subject on a 73-year-old survivor of schizophrenia? Hasn’t he paid his dues already?

And finally, let’s be honest on the reasons for making this film. Was it really to pay tribute to Nash’s accomplishments? Maybe. Was it to better inform the public about the lives of schizophrenics? Probably not. More likely, this seemed like the perfect vehicle for Ron Howard to finally get his long-desired Oscar glory. And you know what? There is nothing wrong with tailor-making a film simply to win best picture of the year.

OMAR A. SANDOVAL

Sun Valley

Globe Dissatisfaction

Regarding the Golden Globe Awards, who was responsible for counting the votes for the Hollywood Foreign Press--Arthur Andersen? Particularly in the television categories, something went wrong somewhere. I think some funny shredding happened with the “real” ballots!

It doesn’t seem at all possible that people like Rachel Griffiths won over Allison Janney or Megan Mullally. Charlie Sheen beat out such fine acting talents as Eric McCormick, Kelsey Grammer or Tom Cavanagh? Jennifer Garner won instead of Sela Ward or Amy Brenneman? There must be a mistake!

BARBARA KAYE

Los Angeles

I watched the Golden Globes ceremony on Sunday, and I was most disappointed. Considering the tragedy in New York on Sept. 11, don’t you think it would have been in good taste to mention the relief efforts, clean-ups of the site or the heroes? Taking out five minutes of the air-kissing or self-congratulations would not have hurt the ratings!

MARILYN LEE

North Hollywood

Steppling’s Vision Needed

The typical dead-end workshop treatment of the sort accorded playwright John Steppling by the Mark Taper Forum’s New Works Festival (“All Bite, Wherever He Is,” by Don Shirley, Jan. 13) is particularly pitiful when weighed against Gordon Davidson’s lackluster record of late in taking real risks on any new work.

Even more insulting is producing director Robert Egan’s gratuitous fear of Steppling’s work getting “swallowed or damaged by an 800-seat venue like the Taper.”

I recall Steppling’s somewhat difficult, prickly and rather haunting “The Dream Coast” when presented by Taper, Too in 1986. For a writer of such stark, uncompromising vision, the indifference he faces in his hometown is a shame. Maybe Steppling should turn his attention to deconstructing Golden Age musicals.

DAVID LEWIS

Piedmont

Punch Counterpunch

Nancy Snow’s Jan. 21 Counterpunch article (“No C-SPAN Is Bad News for L.A. Viewers”) bemoaning Adelphia Cable’s decision to stop airing the C-SPAN channel during prime time is understandable if you are a C-SPAN fan. But to also claim that Adelphia Cable is partners in a Los Angeles-wide conspiracy that threatens a “well-informed citizenry” is nothing short of ludicrous.

Those of us who are able to receive Adelphia Cable know first-hand that no broadcaster throughout the Southern California media market (and most likely throughout California) airs more public-service programs than Adelphia. Ask any candidate who has ever run for public office within the viewership of Adelphia, be it for city council, district attorney or governor of the state, and they will tell you that Adelphia was the sole TV channel to sponsor a candidates debate, then repeatedly broadcast the individual debates to achieve maximum viewership.

I hope Adelphia Cable will be able in the near future to again show the C-SPAN channel in prime time, but meanwhile I’ll be thankful for the outstanding public-service programs it is currently delivering to my home.

ALLAN HOFFENBLUM

West Hollywood

Radio Repeats

In regard to the Jan. 21 article about female rock artists and KROQ-FM (“It’s a Man’s World at KROQ”), I think Kathleen Craughwell missed the boat entirely in that radio stations are guilty of a far greater travesty: playing endless repeats.

At any given time, one can tune into KLOS, KRTH, Arrow 93.1, KIIS, KOST, KROQ, etc., and hear the same awful repeats over and over and over and over and over and over again. The real shame of this madness is that there is so much good music to be played from the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s that is not ever played. What we hear continually from major L.A. radio stations is a tired, sickening playlist prepared by corporate executives whose No. 1 priority is revenue from advertisements and Top 40 playlists from years ago.

BRIAN HUNTING

Tujunga

L.A. Behind on Hip

Glenn Gaslin’s “Where the Fringe Is the Middle of the Road” (Jan. 24) would have been more aptly titled “Where the Middle of the Road Is Fringe.” Once again, we are all subjected to arrogant, ignorant, boring rhetoric on L.A.’s avant-garbage.

“Melrose in its heyday, the ‘80s, when punk rock and cheap thrifting were new ... “ and “Now the rest of the world has finally caught up to Melrose” are perfect examples of L.A.’s folly. Even “That ‘80s Show” was quick to point out that in the ‘80s, not only was punk dead, it was retro. Cheap thrifting new in the ‘80s? Perhaps if the rest of the world in this case excludes anything outside of U.S. borders, with NYC as the exception (heck, even Akron, Ohio, beat L.A. to the new scene), then Gaslin may have had a point.

If outdated, outmoded, trying-far-too-hard teenagers airing their bums to passing traffic is what passes for hip these days, then perhaps the rest of us do, in fact, have a lot of catching up to do. To compare Melrose to Kings Road in London is so laughable that we who buried punk before Melrose sported its first Mohican will forgive Gaslin his ignorance, in exchange for a hearty guffaw and perhaps an old pair of Vivienne Westwood’s Bondage Pants (circa ‘70s).

SUSANNE LEAR-WHITTOCK

Lake Arrowhead