The way it was

RE “A Slow Hand” [Aug. 14]: This piece brings to mind the lack of history background most blockbusters have come to entertain.

What can possibly lack character richness and development in telling history the way it was? Although history can never be stagnant, the possibility of offering another point of view, one with an “outsider’s” eye, should be interesting. Films such as “Alexander” and “K-19: The Widowmaker” take a slice of history and mold it around “bigger than life” situations only to climax at a flat line -- the same good guy always wins and justice/heroism/morality prevails. All else comes to a sad pass.

From the artist’s standpoint this is typically not the case, and if it wasn’t for Jim Jarmusch, Wong Kar-Wai, David Fincher, Werner Herzog and others who side with the underdog, we’d really have no cinema at all.

RICHARD LAGUNA

Monrovia

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WE can only hope that there will be more slow hands helming films in the offing, now that the methodical sojourn of a group of penguins is gobbling up box office faster than stealth fighters and islands of clones. But how did we get here anyway?

Is Hollywood simply supplying our microscopic attention spans’ demands for instant gratification, or is there a furtive campaign afoot to hoodwink us into thinking this is what we want in our entertainment? Hopefully, the box office numbers will continue to reflect that moviegoers have awoken from their trance and are ready to march to the beat of a different drum: a slower one.

RAY KELSEY

Studio City