While I usually appreciate Ms. Zacharek's reviews, I think she's dead wrong about most musicals, and is especially wrong in her rehash of Dreamgirls. I would argue that the very lack of the motown sound makes Dreamgirls a more powerful musical and picture. One of the main points of the musical is the whitening of the fictional Supremes with the replacement of the powerful "black"-er singer with the prettier "white"-er singer. Now, if both singers sang with a motown sound backing band, it would undercut the message of the film. The thing about the Detroit-era Motown sound was that the band was always "black", even if it was backing up a singer emulating white artists. Motown was successful because the "blackness" of the backup band was subtle, but it was definitely there.

And while I agree that the sound of Dreamgirls misses the musicality of Motown, the lack of such a sound clarifies the difference between the Jennifer Hudson character and the Beyonce character. That is, we are not distracted by a good soul sound softening the "whiteness" of Effie's replacmenet. Of course, it is unlikely that this failure to pick up the Motown sound was an intentional choice on the part of the writers of Dreamgirls, in fact, I believe it is probable and likely that they thought they were achieving a Motown sound (and to give them some credit, they do avoid the awful belting blandness of most Broadway productions). Nevertheless, even if it was unintentional I think removing the true soul sound from the film creates a greater focus on the central message.

I like this time of month. It's a safe way for us Salon.com readers to feel righteous superiority without actually having to turn on Fox News. I like how she pretends to be a Democrat. Oh, of course, she opposes the Iraq War, but those damn Dems better get their acts together "on the cardinal issue of geopolitics." Funny how she does not articulate how exactly the Democrat candidates are missing the mark. Does she suppose we should be invading Iran or Syria or another country who has not yet attacked us? After all, those limp-wristed Dems only want to attack Al Qaeda in Pakistan and withdraw from Iraq.

I also love how every two or three years some doddering old fool who has lost touch with cultural changes declares that rock and roll is dead, art is dead, and intelligent cinema is dead. I was quite amused when after declaring that there has been no film of the past 35 years that matches Bergman's "philosophical weight or virtuosity of execution" other than George Lucas's six-film Star Wars epic. I am nearly rolling on the floor laughing at this point. On some level, as a voracious consumer of cinema, I want to tell her that she's managed to ignore the off-beat and dangerous Coen Brothers, the lyric beauty of Wong Kar Wai, the nightmare vissions of David Lynch, and the stunning advent of Central and South American films. But back to the George Lucas issue... She's really praising a director who uses the video game approach to scene staging, the saturday afternoon serial approach to dialogue, and the 1920s vaudeville (all racial stereotypes included) approach to humor?

The reason why movie-going has failed to remain a mystical experience is solely due to the degradation and corporatization of our theatres. The film product is there. Those of us who have not lost touch with contemporary cinema have been wowed by Pan's Labyrinth and 2046 and City of God. Ms. Paglia suffers from a common affliction--the assumption that all culture died after one finishes one's college years. Perhaps she would do herself well by avoiding the multiplex and attending the art cinemas in the nearest large city of her choice.

I could match her series of film memories with those of my own, but I refuse to engage in the exercise. The doddering old fool has already decided that culture died in 1972.

There's so much more to mine on her inane commentary on the decline of cinema, but for the sake of brevity, I will move on to rock and roll.

She opines that the reason rock music is on the decline (an argument I would seriously disagree with after having attended Lollapalooza last weekend) is because artists have ignored the R&B roots of the genre. When she talks about young artists she discusses the pop artists whose media coverage and corporate sponsorship is so saturated that it reaches into the cave she has been living in since the sixties. Mariah Carey and Kelly Clarkson -- pfft. She also praises a online guitar virtuoso who plays a mean Howling Wolf; how about praising the successful R&B influenced bands the Black Keys, the White Stripes, the Hives, for instance? They do not exist?

If she aspires to be a contemporary culture critic she needs to get off the E! channel and start attending the art-house cinemas of New York and start attending the wonderful concerts and festivals that the rest of us are mystically experiencing.

I apologize for the glaring grammatical errors in the letter I just published.

Thank you. I am so tired of columnists calling black players charged with crimes "thugs", and it is always so refreshing to read your nuanced and thoughtful perspective on off-the-field issues.

I read part of the New Yorker lottery article, and not only was it unfunny, it was extremely mysogenistic. It's hard to believe they actually published it.