Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________ HOLLYWOOD SWINGERS BY RAY SAWHILL (04/22/98)

Ray Sawhill's skepticism about the recent spate of nostalgia for Hollywood's 1967-75 golden age is right on target. Not every American film made during that period was "Bonnie and Clyde" or "Nashville," and not every film made in the 1990s is "Tommy Boy" or "Batman Forever."
Those who dismiss all contemporary American cinema as brain-dead swill just aren't looking hard enough. There are plenty of accomplished filmmakers managing to make intelligent films on a fairly regular basis within (or at least on the fringes of) the mainstream Hollywood system today: Spike Lee, Hal Hartley, David Lynch, the Coen brothers, Wayne Wang, Bill Duke, Quentin Tarantino, David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sant, Richard Linklater, Jim Jarmusch, Tim Burton, Paul Thomas Anderson, probably others I'm forgetting.
Among the old guard, Robert Altman, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese are still going strong and have each made some of their best films in the 1990s. The influx of foreign directors like John Woo, Baz Luhrmann and Ang Lee has resulted in interesting stylistic hybrids (a longstanding Hollywood tradition dating back to Lubitsch and Murnau). Even the oft-disparaged action blockbusters occasionally produce wonderful examples of classical Hollywood filmmaking: "Speed," "Die Hard," "The Hunt for Red October," "Heat," "Seven" and, dare I say, "Titanic." The straight-to-cable/video area of the industry occasionally produces quirky little gems like "The Last Seduction."
The rise of the so-called "independents" has been overhyped -- I find most of these Sundance films insufferably talky and precious -- but many provocative, literate films get made on small budgets and somehow find distribution these days (e.g. "Eve's Bayou," "In the Company of Men").
This is not to claim that the present-day American industry is a mecca for stylish, intelligent filmmaking. However, things aren't as bad as many cranky old boomers would have us believe, and there was no golden age in the recent past when things were appreciably better.
-- Doug Riblet
_______________ GUN MAD BY ANDREW LEONARD (04/20/98)

Thanks a lot, Andrew Leonard. In your April 20 Salon article you complain that there is an imbalance in the Internet gun debate; the problem is, your article contributes to that imbalance.
One gun advocate insists in your article that "people who deal with factual information and make rational choices on the basis of real information tend to come down on our side of the issue." Another says that "there is a wealth of information supporting the idea of private gun ownership." A third asserts that "letting people legally carry pistols helps to drive violent crime rates down." Pro-gun academic work and a pro-gun op-ed piece are cited in detail. You allude to rebuttals of these points, but you don't quote any. Gun-control advocates are left to mumble helplessly about the debate itself.
I've participated in message boards about Jonesboro and I know the gun nuts can be both articulate and relentless, but gun-control advocates are far from silent. They can sling statistics and question assumptions just as the gun lovers can. Why didn't you give them a chance?
-- Steve Messina
New York
_______________ A DEATH IN THE FAMILY BY JOYCE MILLMAN (04/21/98)

Joyce Millman's poignant article hit home for me, a Beatles fan who really believed James Paul McCartney was created exclusively for me. From the time I was 12, I thought all those love songs were mine.
A Beatles essay I wrote at 13 about my own British heritage through my father won second prize and two free tickets to Shea Stadium, where I came face to face with Paul for a moment. I hated all the older fainting/screaming girls. I plain and simple loved the Beatles. Every night their music would put me to sleep and I'd drift in and out of the sweetest dreams about me and Paul.
Linda was an interruption of those dreams, a wake-up call, and in a way, her marriage to him a rite of passage for a lot of us teenagers. So, when my husband proposed to me, I had to say yes because the love of my life was already married with children.
I've since grown up and recently wrote a short story called "Wedding Plans" about Paul McCartney and me at Shea Stadium. Since Linda's death, I can't shake the tune, "Lovely Linda with the lovely flowers in her hair." Indeed.
-- Alison Bullock-Kagamaster
SALON | April 28, 1998

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_______________ HOLLYWOOD SWINGERS BY RAY SAWHILL (04/22/98)
	Ray Sawhill's skepticism about the recent spate of nostalgia for Hollywood's 1967-75 golden age is right on target. Not every American film made during that period was "Bonnie and Clyde" or "Nashville," and not every film made in the 1990s is "Tommy Boy" or "Batman Forever." Those who dismiss all contemporary American cinema as brain-dead swill just aren't looking hard enough. There are plenty of accomplished filmmakers managing to make intelligent films on a fairly regular basis within (or at least on the fringes of) the mainstream Hollywood system today: Spike Lee, Hal Hartley, David Lynch, the Coen brothers, Wayne Wang, Bill Duke, Quentin Tarantino, David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sant, Richard Linklater, Jim Jarmusch, Tim Burton, Paul Thomas Anderson, probably others I'm forgetting. Among the old guard, Robert Altman, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese are still going strong and have each made some of their best films in the 1990s. The influx of foreign directors like John Woo, Baz Luhrmann and Ang Lee has resulted in interesting stylistic hybrids (a longstanding Hollywood tradition dating back to Lubitsch and Murnau). Even the oft-disparaged action blockbusters occasionally produce wonderful examples of classical Hollywood filmmaking: "Speed," "Die Hard," "The Hunt for Red October," "Heat," "Seven" and, dare I say, "Titanic." The straight-to-cable/video area of the industry occasionally produces quirky little gems like "The Last Seduction." The rise of the so-called "independents" has been overhyped -- I find most of these Sundance films insufferably talky and precious -- but many provocative, literate films get made on small budgets and somehow find distribution these days (e.g. "Eve's Bayou," "In the Company of Men"). This is not to claim that the present-day American industry is a mecca for stylish, intelligent filmmaking. However, things aren't as bad as many cranky old boomers would have us believe, and there was no golden age in the recent past when things were appreciably better. -- Doug Riblet
_______________ GUN MAD BY ANDREW LEONARD (04/20/98)
	Thanks a lot, Andrew Leonard. In your April 20 Salon article you complain that there is an imbalance in the Internet gun debate; the problem is, your article contributes to that imbalance. One gun advocate insists in your article that "people who deal with factual information and make rational choices on the basis of real information tend to come down on our side of the issue." Another says that "there is a wealth of information supporting the idea of private gun ownership." A third asserts that "letting people legally carry pistols helps to drive violent crime rates down." Pro-gun academic work and a pro-gun op-ed piece are cited in detail. You allude to rebuttals of these points, but you don't quote any. Gun-control advocates are left to mumble helplessly about the debate itself. I've participated in message boards about Jonesboro and I know the gun nuts can be both articulate and relentless, but gun-control advocates are far from silent. They can sling statistics and question assumptions just as the gun lovers can. Why didn't you give them a chance? -- Steve Messina New York
_______________ A DEATH IN THE FAMILY BY JOYCE MILLMAN (04/21/98)
	Joyce Millman's poignant article hit home for me, a Beatles fan who really believed James Paul McCartney was created exclusively for me. From the time I was 12, I thought all those love songs were mine. A Beatles essay I wrote at 13 about my own British heritage through my father won second prize and two free tickets to Shea Stadium, where I came face to face with Paul for a moment. I hated all the older fainting/screaming girls. I plain and simple loved the Beatles. Every night their music would put me to sleep and I'd drift in and out of the sweetest dreams about me and Paul. Linda was an interruption of those dreams, a wake-up call, and in a way, her marriage to him a rite of passage for a lot of us teenagers. So, when my husband proposed to me, I had to say yes because the love of my life was already married with children. I've since grown up and recently wrote a short story called "Wedding Plans" about Paul McCartney and me at Shea Stadium. Since Linda's death, I can't shake the tune, "Lovely Linda with the lovely flowers in her hair." Indeed. -- Alison Bullock-Kagamaster SALON \| April 28, 1998