Whatever about Perfume's chances of success in the States, it has already earned about $100 million in Europe alone, so on those terms, it is already an astounding and noteworthy success. It opens in here in London on St Stephen's Day and I can't wait - I saw Whitlaw do Hamlet and he was incredible. I have full faith in this ability to pull off an impossible role

Unusually, most of the new shows from the States this year have yet to make it over here - we are still waiting for Studio 60 (though I am not holding my breath), 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, Heroes etc. Despite this, I still avidly read Heather every week, just because she is one of the few guarantees of genuine laughs on Salon (not necessarily a criticism, but the last truly funny article from another writer was Andrew's description of Fox News on election night). I laughed loud enough at this article to wake my roomate and her girlfriend - one of your funniest pieces in ages!

By the way, you guys should give the Tsunami mini-series a go - its got some absolutely superb acting in it (Toni Collette, Gina McKeee, Chiwetel Eljiofar and Sophe Okenedo are brilliant) and despite some corney dialogue, especially in the second half, its largely well paced, complex and sensitive.

George Rafael gives the impression that the Republic of Ireland's impartiality during WW2 was compromised by Sinn Fein's favouratism to the Axis. I would just like to point out that the position of the Government of the Irish Free State during World War 2 was one of neutrality. However much discreet help was given to the Allies in the background (weather reports, their soldiers not detained while Axis ones were etc). Large numbers of Irish men fought in the British Army, and there was virtually nobody in the island apart from a few die-hard anti-British elements (ie the remnants of Sinn Fen and the IRA which were a shadow of their former strength) who ever took the view that the Axis powers should be engaged with or negotiated with. George would need to go back to WW1 when Ireland was still occupied to find more solid evidence and even then the picture was far more complex. It may be a minor point in the article but it's not pleasant to have your country tarred with that kind of careless historical slander at 9.ooam in the morning

I usually enjoy Stephanie's reviews - even when I disagree vehemently with them (as I did, for example with Superman Returns) I respect her reasoning.

However, one particular line in this review stopped me short -

"But if movies about 9/11 have to be made at all -- and no one has yet answered the question, for me, at least, of why we should need or want them just yet"

You know what, I haven't heard a convincing argument why movies about 9/11 should NOT be made, that doesn't sound like hypocritical American insularism. It was five years ago - there were films made about other 20th century disasters and wars while they were going on, or in the immediate aftermath. Why should 9/11 get special treatment? To me, its just another example of American chauvinism - their culture will happily leech off the tragedies of other countries but agonise over their own. Either grow a spine about the whole thing or don't watch.

so I think I did a little of all three - really inspiring!

I have to admit to having a problem with this letter. I am currently locked in an argument with a friend of mine who is a writer. He has written a drama script in which the main action of the first episode takes place in the house of a gay couple. The party scene is dripping with stereotypes, many of them of the longest running kind about gay men (immature, sex and looks crazed, predatory). It is for Irish television which has virtually no representations of modern gay Irish life (it has imports of Will and Grace and British soap operas to boost is gay quota). He sees no problem in this, yet I read it with horror.

And yet, this letter, which plays on all sorts of 'tragic gay' melodramatics, doesn't make me any happier. I am a 24 year old gay man - hugely lucky to be living in a time and a city (London) which is more accepting than at any other time in modern history. I have had a glass bottle smashed over my head for being gay, but have also experienced the amazing sense of family and community from gay men and women who have learned long ago to construct and re-interpret family.

I loathe using the term, but gay people will never move from being largelt tolerated to true acceptance until there is a plurality of representations of them in pop media. There is a place for the comedy of Leno and the tragedy of Brokeback Mountain but too often these two poles have come to represent that community in the media. Being gay is about more than Folsom and Judy, more than Kylie and Joe Orton and all the other camp/tragic touchstones.

When I think of gay people, I don't just think of those I know who have died of AIDS, or who have been driven to suicide. I think of my wonderful friends, my rich life and heritage which I am only now beginning to explore.

I would just like to add for those who are attacking Greengrass’ intentions, I believe that he is about as far away from a rabid Fox News yokel as you can get. His film based on Bloody Sunday is just as good as Stephanie says it is. It’s enormously powerful and brilliantly made. In all of his interviews, he has come across as calm, rigorous in his attempts at fairness and clear-sighted about the events and his interpretation of them. This isn’t something I would say about a lot of filmmakers, but I believe him to have honourable intentions.