Letters

Tustin Ranch

DEAR EDITOR:

Thanks for having the guts and good sense to stand up for Martin Guerre. Excellent article, excellent show.

—Marcia Berris

Santa Monica

don’treadme.text

DEAR EDITOR:

It’s bad enough that in the last year reviewers have taken it upon themselves to warn audiences about plot twists and surprise endings without actually giving them away (cf. the reviews of both Arlington Roadand The Sixth Sense). Now the L.A. Weekly has gone one step further. I’m sitting in a theater, innocently reading Ernest Hardy’s review of the picture I’ve come to see, Ghost Dog [“Howl,” March 17–23], when all of a sudden I realize that I’ve just been told how the film is going to end! It would be one thing if this were some “rich kid loses bet so that he has to date and clean up the unwashed rebel girl so he can take her to the prom” film, or anything else with Freddie Prinze Jr., where obviously the two are going to fall in love, The End. But Ghost Dog was not such a film.

There is no excuse for this type of irresponsible film reviewing. Or if there’s a good reason to tell us what happens to the lead character in the last five minutes of a movie, I’d like to know what it is. Call me crazy, but I’d rather go into a movie not knowing the fate of the two main characters, or even knowing which two characters are left for the big final showdown. Maybe it’s just me.

Twenty years ago, I threw a basketball at a friend for coming over, after reading the Marvel Comics adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back, and blurting out why Luke Skywalker was at the top of Darth Vader’s kidney-donation list. Smack! I hit him right in the face. And he deserved it.

—Mitch Galane

Pasadena

THANKS, WE NEEDED THAT

DEAR EDITOR:

I would like to commend Peter Braunstein on his excellent story on the Buffy copyright issue [“Vampire Slayers Arise!,” March 17–23]. I myself am a participant in the Bringers and Blackout, and appreciate the publicity you’ve given to the cause. While in the vicinity, I surfed around the rest of the articles, and, in general, thoroughly enjoyed your site. (Pats editors and authors on back.)

—Patricia Gongal

Duchess, Alberta, Canada