Letters to the Editor
aveutter
Published Letters: 198 Editor's Choice: 32
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SD County a test case
[Read the article: A primer in plug-in hybrid economics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is already much opposition to new power lines here is San Diego County, where they are being blamed for the devastating wildfires last year. Some groups believe new power plants can be built within the county, but that too will face considerable opposition. Already there is a move afoot to move the two power plants built on the coast further inland. These plants used crude oil at one time, and the oil was transferred by ship, from offshore terminals.
At issue most people believe solar will come to the rescue, and that consumers will be selling as much electricity as they use in just a few years.
These hybrid chargers would have an electronic sensor which only allows them to charge during off hours, which is one way of controlling the number of miles people drive. The real issue is growth, and probably number one on the list of problems is a new airport, which while it would relieve airport traffic would encourage more development, and the need for more electric power.
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You go to the movies with the movies you've got
[Read the article: Indie box office: Near-zero Oscar bounce]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My gut feeling going into this (which was wrong) was that this year the Academy would avoid the ultra violent content. Among the other offerings, "Into the Wild" was a film project doomed from the beginning, being 'quirky' and dark. This would have been a fine year for a film like Ordinary People, (we probably would have rather seen the curmugeonly psychologist turn the troubled outdoorsman in Into the Wild, into a well adjusted young man, if we had our druthers), or a year when something like Kramer vs Kramer wins, ( How would they do that picture now? Would they have the child before they are married, and avoid the messy divorce when they decide to split).
Bottom line is viewers are tired of 'quirky", with or without the violence, which is like pouring salt on nouveau cuisine. This might have been the year we took a U-turn, back to simpler times. But you go to the movies with the movies you have. You know Out of Africa isn't really all that bad, but they remade that already as the English Patient? Next year the producer who makes a simple family drama will win something, and people will flock to see it after it wins, because they didn't see it before, which is one way to measure these things.
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Raising your Film IQ?
[Read the article: The bull market for forgotten films]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As someone who went through film school in the early 80's these new issues are more than nostalgic, they provide material that simply wasn't available. Scorcese's documentary on the Neorealists is worth at least one semester. $25 bucks?! The criterion version of Hiroshima Mon Amor will boost your grade on the final, assuming you bother to look at the directors notes. Let's not stop with the films themselves, what about the anthologies of articles in Cahiers Du Cinema by Harvard Press? I still have the xerox copies of the handouts my profs gave me.
I can hardly contain my delight watching the Pasolini collection. Certainly some things are going to be less interesting than others, and your point about the oversaturation of current films, when taken against the lack of exposure many earlier pictures received, implies a period of adjustment, or how many times have you seen Fargo? Once things attain some balance, we might want to revisit the overviewed pictures, with new ideas.
My only hope is that film viewers don't simply take cinema for granted, like a packaged consumer product. There is a lot more to say about this, because film is a corporate art form, which disdains the same critical elitism that bothers literature. We should remain hopeful that the void will be filled, to the benefit of everyone.
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DVD vs Film
[Read the article: The bull market for forgotten films]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem here is many many good films have not been transferred yet, (Magnificent Obsession), and others are transferred so poorly I returned them after fifteen minutes (Ran). DVD, even with full screen capability is not going to replace the theatre. Access to these films is better than no access, but Netflix sucks. I would not bother with them, you will quickly run out of material.
The only real solution is to part with some cash, (still much cheaper than a semester at Film U.), and tape whenever TCM runs something you can't otherwise get your hands on. Bob Osborne runs their movie channel, and his insights and guests are the best. They also run interesting documentaries, recently a piece on Budd Boetticher.
TCm does an excellent job of retrospecting forgotten films. I can't say enough about them.
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Why not just let Bush run again?
[Read the article: Bush, reluctant to give up the spotlight, endorses McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having left his bootprints all over McCain's ass in 2000, you wonder why John didn't show W one of those clenched fists. Certainly you need a massive ego to play this game, and when only 1/4 of your employees trust the job you are doing, you need even greater self inflating qualities. Its not that people don't like Bush, they don't like the job he is doing. McCain is about half as likable, twice as competent. I agree with the other post, why not just let Bush run again?
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Why didn't you mention Hank Paulson?
[Read the article: Countrywide and the "left-wing anti-business press"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Of course Countrywide and the entire pantheon of subprime lenders would have never prospered without the GSE's, Fannie and Freddie,(left wing socialist agencies) who took the toxic mortgages off the lenders books and buried them where the auditors would never find them. But for sheer unmitigated, sleezy behavior, Goldman Sachs takes it all, having underwritten a ton of subrpime debt, they made money in the last quarter by shorting the market in these things, which does not exist on any listed exchange. That action surely drove the value of that paper lower, and put the borrowers further in arrears, but hey, Goldman made their number. Why didn't you mention Hank Paulson? Part of the NeoCon Robber Barron fraternity.