Chris Todd

Jeffry Wells printed some correspondence I wrote (scroll way down, under the heading "Choices") in response to this column over on Hollywood Elsewhere, though he edited out the bit where I responded to some other letter writers in the same column who were taking Peter Jackson and John Landis to task for not making "low-budget, independent, Harold Pinter" films. I pointed out that considering both men had started out making low-budget genre films, it was most likely that they were doing what they enjoyed -- complaining that they weren't making different kinds of movies was akin to complaining that Peter Greenaway wasn't chomping at the bit to direct the next Die Hard. Besides which, the whole high culture/low culture dichotomy that assumes low-budget indie films are automatically superior (or inferior) to big tentpole movies always rubs me the wrong way. A good movie is a good movie, regardless of budget or popularity.

But check out more of Hollywood Elsewhere. I don't always agree with Jeffry -- he sometimes gets a real, inexplicable hate-on for movies like Lord of the Rings or Mr. & Mrs. Smith -- but he's got a real passion for film, and an interesting perspective on the industry.