Letters to the Editor
DurianJoe
Published Letters: 1508 Editor's Choice: 69
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Thanks guys, but I have a bone to gnaw with you.
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex: Here come the zombies!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks, Andrew and Matt, for giving George Romero his due, but I have to disagree with some things you said:
Andrew, you called NOTLD, essentially, a student film. It might have been low budget, but Mr. Romero and his primary crew were all accomplished commercial filmmakers who had proficient filmmaking skills, especially in editing. Given the budgetary and other constraints of making NOTLD, I do not think that film would have been the masterpiece it is were it not for their seasoned skills as filmmakers. A student film? Nah.
Matt, "Slither" was an okay film, good for a drunken hoot, but it was not a zombie film. The monsters were not the ressurected dead, but gross-out mutants due to being infested by alien slugs. Have some respect for the undead, man.
Also, Andrew, you're a good man for citing the original Romero trilogy, but your clip used the poster from Tom Savini's 1990 remake of NOTLD. This matters greatly to those of us who dwell too much on such things.
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The candidates were very good. CNN & Blitzer were awful.
[Read the article: And then there were two]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having lost my candidate, Edwards, I watched this debate with great interest. I can honestly say that I'm still undecided for whom to vote, despite my primary being only 12 days away.
Anyway, CNN was godawful. First, could they have plastered the CNN logo any more frequently in the background? I'm surprised they didn't tattoo it onto Clinton's and Obama's foreheads. Second, I found the constantly changing copy on the bottom of the screen to be very distracting. It changed from "CNN" to "Politico" to "Los Angeles Times" in one area, with frequently changing captions along the entire bottom which often referred us to CNN's website.
On that last point, why was Wolf Blitzer constantly telling viewers that we could follow the debate on CNN's website? Earth to Blitzer: we viewers are watching the debate now, on television. If we wanted to watch it on our computers, we'd already be doing that.
Lastly, Blitzer reminded me of the obnoxious little kid on the playground who tries to goad two other kids into fighting. "He took a swipe at you!" "Weren't you naive?" And so on. Wolf Blitzer, the debate is not about you! Check your ego somewhere behind your beard and do your job, which is not to boost ratings or inspire controversy, but to elicit thougtful responses from the candidates so that the American public can be better informed in its decision-making process.
We need to bring back the League of Women Voters debates. CNN and its ilk are simply too obnoxious.
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McCain=War
[Read the article: And then there were two]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another bombing at a pet market in Baghdad, 67 people killed, many more injured, who knows how many animals killed and maimed.
Last week our Air Force dropped 100,000 pounds of bombs on a Sunni farming village. That's the same amount of bombs that were dropped on Guernica, which became synonymous with slaughter.
McCain says we'll stay in Iraq another 100 years if we have to. For what? So more of those brown skinned Muslims can die or be torn apart to make us safer from a threat that never was.
No thanks. Vote Democratic, or vote Republican and have blood on your hands.
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Pin-up art is misogynistic?
[Read the article: The veil meets American pinup art]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I disagree that the classic American pin-up models were cases of misogyny. Instead, they were highly popular erotica.
Men like looking at sexy women, as everybody knows. A beautiful woman is pleasing to the eye. Why is a pin-up painting or photo any worse than a painting of a beautiful sunset, or an Ansel Adams photograph of Yosemite. Cute kittens and puppies are pleasing to the eye, and no one criticizes calendars of them. Women like looking at pictures of hunky men in swimsuits, or steotypical manly poses, e.g., lanky cowboy. I don't think beefcake photos are sexist.
What's sexist is expecting all women to look like pin-up models or to dress like them, or all men to look like those hunks on the beach. The line may between enjoying the sight of a sexy person, and generalizing that to all women/men is thin, but it's there.
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Mister Marker...
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex: Here come the zombies!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Normally such an insult would require a bullet in the brain, or decapitation by a helicopter blade, but you make a valid point, of sorts.
Back in the day the original "Frankenstein" scared audiences. Now it only scares 4 year-olds, maybe. The envelope keeps getting pushed, and Mr. Romero's slow zombies have been around long enough to lose their shock appeal. The new generation wanted something more threatening, so they got the speeded up zombies of the "Dawn" remake.
Still, a scary film always has its moments. Personally, though I'd seen all the slasher films of the 80's, one of the scariest movie experiences I ever had was watching "Rosemary's Baby" in the late '80's. It's all about the mood you get yourself in, and I was in the perfect mood to be terrified by the satanic rape scene.
Okay, I was stoned, but it was still scary!
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P.S. Mister Marker
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex: Here come the zombies!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Two months ago the missus and I had our 19 year-old niece visiting. We was up for the original Dawn of the Dead, which she'd never scene, so we all piled into the dark home theater in the basement, with all the lights in the house turned off, and watched it together. I'm pleased to report that my niece was terrified of the movie, and ripe for even more terrifying as we scurried upstairs. So, I suppose just as with tolerance for chile peppers, some like it hot, and some flee from bell peppers.