The first section of BC Christian News I turn to every month is the letters page, and I sometimes grumble that people seem to never read my stuff, because they never write letters of complaint.
But at last, my cries for attention have been answered: two letters appear in the newest issue objecting to my review of the new Harry Potter book a couple months ago. Granted, they don’t make any particularly challenging point; they merely reiterate the false claim that the books encourage children to practice witchcraft (which is a little like saying the X-Men movies encourage children to flex their superpowers). But it’s still nice to be noticed.
More significantly, CT Movies posted a few new letters today. One complains that my review of Flightplan gave away “the whole plot and ending”, which I would argue isn’t true, though I did reveal that the film has bad guys and — gosh! — they lose. Since this is a total genre pic, I don’t think that that’s any big giveaway, and I did stay mum on the details of how they lose. Plus, while I haven’t read more than a few other reviews of that film, I believe the National Post went so far as to say, early in its review, that the film gave away who the bad guy was within its first 15 minutes. Nothing I said in my own review puts the reader on that kind of alert.
FWIW, I may be a little sensitive to this charge right now because one of my recent reviews had to be tweaked when my editor said I gave away a major spoiler; I was a bit surprised, since the trailer had given this “spoiler” away long before I saw the film, but apparently my editor had interpreted the trailer differently.
Then there are a couple letters about The Exorcism of Emily Rose — though one complains about the film itself and not my review, per se, while the other thanks us for “a thoughtful, provocative, and in-depth review.” Okay, I’ll accept compliments, too!
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