Their own lists

It is people like Peter Rainer who give film critics a bad name. His list of 129 must-have DVDs was the worst kind of elitist crap I’ve ever read. Clearly, he is a snob -- a snob who has completely lost touch with his readership.

Americans aren’t into all this art house garbage. He had far too many foreign films on his list for its own good.

I dislike the way he favors acting over story (“Last Tango in Paris” is a bore!). Audiences want to be entertained! He doesn’t have one John Ford movie on his list. How can he make a list of must-own DVDs without a single John Ford movie? Is he high?!

He’s like one of those stuffed shirts in “Finding Neverland” watching the premiere of “Peter Pan.” He needs an innocent, unpretentious orphan to teach him how to loosen up and enjoy the simple joys again.

Marc Derden

Tarzana

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I have always enjoyed Peter Rainer’s participation in KPCC’s “Film Week,” especially because, unlike certain more visible critics, he and his fellows on that show do it without ego, and his deep appreciation and love for the movies just shows through.

That is why I really enjoyed his article explaining his selections of “must have” DVDs. It wasn’t put out with the attitude of “if you don’t have or like these films, you’re nuts,” but, instead, “this is my list; what would yours be?” That is such a breath of fresh air.

While my own list would include almost anything by Hitchcock, Lean or Wilder, I would also add “The Train,” “Day of the Jackal” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”

Ken Marcus

Los Angeles

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I was pleased to see a sprinkling of favorite and relatively obscure gems like Ray’s Apu trilogy, Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast,” Dreyer’s “Day of Wrath” and Laughton’s “Night of the Hunter.”

But what about Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries”? How do “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Citizen Kane” not live in the “top of [one’s] head” if that head belongs to a film critic? And in choosing the opus of a given auteur, for me it’s Eisenstein’s “October” over “Alexander Nevsky” (great score notwithstanding), Disney’s “Snow White” replacing “Pinocchio” (only by a nose) and Spielberg’s vastly more entertaining “Raiders of the Lost Ark” instead of the overrated “E.T.”

Ivan Dryer

Van Nuys