Letters

Support Your Local Production
Why is it that no one in the media is willing to support local productions? Randall Patterson's article on Entry Level Male ["Dr. Schlock's Adventures in the Cineplex of Doom," October 10] did well to explain the difficulties of independent film production, but putting it down on an artistic basis was uncalled-for. Surely there are methods in journalism to remain somewhat neutral in judgment. Perhaps high praise wasn't deserved, but neither was a putdown.

The cast of E*L*M was hardly an "amateur" group. Many of us have been working in TV, stage and screen for more years than it pays to tell. Even if stardom has avoided us, our years of experience put us well above the level of "amateur." Rick Harrington has, for more than 30 years, been dreaming of producing a feature film -- 30 years and more in film, screen and TV hardly denotes an "amateur."

That constant media putdown has got to be one of the main causes behind the lack of audience participation and the absence of financial backing for many local show-biz endeavors.

If the Houston media would extol the effort involved and soften the derogatory comments, then perhaps Houston could become the production center that I firmly believed it could become when I first arrived here 35 years ago.

Luke Leonard
Kemah

Zontar: One More Reason We're Proud to Be from Texas
Your story on Entry Level Male made me wish I had gone to the premiere. I'll try to catch it at a midnight movie or when it comes out on video.

From the article, Rick Harrington sounded more like another Texas filmmaker, Larry Buchanan (Mars Needs Women, Zontar, The Thing from Venus, Creature of Destruction, etc.) than Ed Wood. Either way, both of those guys have cult followings (and there's a magazine named Zontar that refers to Buchanan as "the master").

With a little luck, Harrington's movie could be picked up on video by some big chain like Blockbuster, and he would be on to his next movie. Also, you have your overseas markets.

One thing's for sure -- he took his dream and, with the help of his friend, turned it into reality. That, in itself, is a lot.

Robert Walters Jr.
Baytown

Arise, Oppressed People of Kingwood!
I take such exception to your picture in the October 17 issue of "a Kingwood community barbecue" ["Strange Bedfellows, Strange Sheets?" The Insider, by Tim Fleck]. This could not be further from the truth!

I find no humor in your selection of "an attention-getting photo" to go with the story on Kingwood annexation. The picture represents a most despicable act that sadly does occur in our world; however, to suggest that a Ku Klux Klan cross burning would occur in Kingwood is downright appalling! Kingwood is made up of, to use the words in your article, "worldly types whose ranks include a high percentage of corporate nomads who have lived in more than one city, and, frequently, more than one country." And yes, we probably are more "cosmopolitan" than most Houstonians, but your definition of cosmopolitan is totally wrong. Kingwood is made up of educated, caring people with pride. Just come and see for yourself. The people in your picture, I doubt sincerely, are "educated, cosmopolitan, worldly types."

The only irony involved here is that Kingwood residents, like black Americans once were, are fighting for the right to vote on an issue that affects each and every one of us. We have no voice, until after the fact of annexation occurs, to determine the fate of the community that we have built and love living in.

Eileen Howell
via Internet

No Defense
Please exclude me and my Kingwood friends from the "Bigot Defense" -- the public portrayal of Kingwood as biased against minorities -- currently being advanced by the Kingwood annexation opponents.

History shows us some shameful examples of the use of bigotry to advance political goals. There is no political or economic consequence to our community as great as the harm done by bigotry. Let us all disown and decry the "bigot defense."

Joe Synan
Kingwood

No Pimpin' in the Heights, Either
Please let Scott Palmer [Letters, "No Pimpin' in Kingwood," October 31] know that me and my Heights neighbors are highly educated, culturally enlightened professionals (many single and childless). We count ourselves fortunate to have each other. We are civic-minded, as we pay to educate others' children. We consider it preferable that Mr. Palmer survives in his close-minded cultural wasteland. Surely his income is derived from a Kingwood-based company, whose employees were all educated in the Kingwood school system and who never drive on anything but Kingwood roads or venture to anything but Kingwood-produced (mall) entertainment. What kind of music, dance and art is known for being produced and funded solely in and by Kingwood?

We don't vote for crime, filth and poverty pimps, and we are not mentally slow. All he is doing is diverting the attention away from the real issue. There is nothing worse than a bunch of "good ol' boys" whining when they don't get their way.