Letters to the Editor
Baloo.
Published Letters: 223 Editor's Choice: 8
-
Tim Burton is no Addams Family!
[Read the article: "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reason Tim Burton's animated pics work better is due to all the work and detail that goes into the clay/puppet characters and sets. His live-action movies fail because Tim Burton's only inspiration, which he tries to recapture again picture after picture, is really too flimsy. What's the point of having talented actors play wooden, paper-thin characters in kitschy, gloomy roles.
His movies are a variation on the theme of The Adams Family. Except that The Addams Family was far more original and inspired in its attempt to fuse something warm and loving with something lifeless and superfically frigtening. The Addams' are a family of unique and odd individuals who have the courage and confidence to accept themselves and each other despite being odd, macabre and socially 'unacceptable.' The very idea of what society thinks is acceptable is laughed it in the TV series with the array of guest stars it delighted in scaring away from the Addams family home. The TV series was so charming in Black-and-white at a time when Color was still relatively new. It's low production value only added to its intimacy. Wikipedia almost calls the genre "affectionate horror," an exemplary case being Mel Brooks' masterpiece Young Frankenstein.
But Tim Burton doesn't have the comic abilities of a Mel Brooks and can't or doesn't bring the intimate charm of an Addams family to his films. The only one of his pictures that achieves a fusion of something meaningful with something lifeless is Edward Scissorhands. Most of the rest end up being gimmicky, high on production value and low on genuine warmth, without a capacity to grab us and give us something human and satisfying. His films are too often cliched and rely too heavily on a single trick, that of the charming fused with the dead, and peter out of artistic fuel too soon before floundering to an end. Mr. Burton would do well to make shorter films, much shorter. Perhaps 15 minutes would suffice to exhaust his imaginative scope.
-
Say what?
[Read the article: Tom the Dancing Bug]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, but don't black people have bigger dicks?
-
Conason's Compliment to Obama
[Read the article: Obama's European problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, 'Obama is not a good Senator and doesn't shine in that office like Biden once did because he is ambitious and running for president.' First, there is nothing wrong with ambition and no one runs for president who is not ambitious. Second, implicit in Conason's argument is that Obama could or would shine like Biden if only he focused his attention on being a Senator. The compliment veiled in this criticism is stronger than the criticism itself!
David Brooks of the New York times makes the same point much more gracefully but also gives voice to why Obama is better prepared to be president, despite his credentials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/opinion/18brooks.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
-
Chris Dodd - Experienced or Ignorant?
[Read the article: Which Democrat is a winner?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In an ABC World News interview with Charlie Gibson Dodd, in response to being asked how having a child just days after 9/11 changed his life, recounts the story of the two doctors that delivered his baby. 'One doctor was from Afghanistan and the other from Pakistan. Here were two people, from that part of the world that attacked us, holding my baby.' Dodd's story is supposed to show how America not only accepts such immigrants but gives them a place to thrive. Point taken, but 'from that part of the world that attacked us?' That is sheer and astounding ignorance! Not one of the 9/11 hijackers were from either Afghanistan or Pakistan. Not one Afghan or Pakistani has ever attacked the United States to my knowledge. This man is running for president and six years after the fact he still doesn't know who attacked the United States on 9/11? Wawawhaat! It's a good guess that since he doesn't know who attacked us, he doesn't know why and he doesn't know what we ought to do about it.
-
Barack Obama
[Read the article: Obama's double magic]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This man was born to be president of these United States. Enough said!