Letters

A Shot in the Dark
Paul Reidinger's insipid, juvenile review of I Shot Andy Warhol ("Shooting Stars," Film, May 15) certainly missed the mark. He obviously has not only not read Solanas' manifesto but has failed alto-gether to do his homework. Shulamith Firestone, Ti-Grace Atkinson, and Roxanne Dunbar all wrote within the orbit of Solanas' thinking. Solanas for many women of the radical feminist movement had set theory into action. Does your reviewer really believe that the author of SCUM Manifesto could possibly be in-terested in anything as ephemeral as fame?

Characters such as Solanas come along only a few times a century, while the Andy Warhols of this society are a dime a dozen. In fact the best part of this film is how it shows just how much of a sham Andy Warhol truly was. My main complaint about this movie is that Edie Sedgwick was a few pounds lighter, Maurice Girodias was a whole lot creepier, and Gerard Malanga was a hell of a lot sexier than the actors portrayed.

Next time I suggest sending a woman to do a man's job. She would have at least not come to the misogynous conclusion that all this dame needed was a dick!

Ronnie Burk
Lower Haight

Gun Crazy
Regarding Paul Reidinger's simplistic Freudian analysis of I Shot Andy Warhol ("Shooting Stars," Film): "[W]hen she's aiming [the pistol] at Warhol she's the closest she'll ever be to having the dick that's her greatest and most secret desire." Don't flatter yourself, honey!

Serena Makofsky
Oakland

Brutal Force
What is this nonsense in Silke Tudor's preview to the Elvis Costello concert (SF Weekly Picks, May 15) about Brutal Youth being "dismal" and an "unconvincing return" for the Attractions?

For one thing, Brutal Youth is in no way a dismal recording. Now, I know everyone has his favorite and least favorite EC album, but "dismal"? What part of the record drags it down to the level of, say, Mighty Like a Rose (which still casts a foul odor), The Juliet Letters (truly a failed experiment), or Almost Blue? And don't bother putting Goodbye Cruel World into the castoff pile. That record gets a real bad rap, despite its share of strong songs.

As for the "unconvincing" return of the Attractions, I don't think they had any say over which songs they were invited to play on. But they do quite well on "You Tripped at Every Step," "This Is Hell," and others. And Costello is a ways past the phase of his career when his rants required the kind of over-the-top playing you'll find on This Year's Model, Get Happy!!, and others. I predict history will show that Brutal Youth served as the first sign that Elvis was finally emerging from a rather uneven, experimental phase of his career.

As far as comparing Brutal Youth to the new record, All This Useless Beauty, time will tell. But it's not fair to compare UB to any other EC&A album, since the tunes were all written for other artists, over nearly a decade. The record can't be expected to serve as a marker for any period. That being said, it's already growing on me as a real winner.

Allen Dickerson
Noe Valley

Secret Service
In the "Slap Shots" column of May 15 ("The Secret of San Francisco"), on the new movie at Pier 39, there are two corrections. I do not know if the movie is wrong or you wrote the information down wrong. They are: It was James Marshall, not James Marsh, who found the gold. The other one is there were no legal duels in the state as a law against dueling was written into the First Constitution.

George Mallman
Civic Center

Jack Boulware replies: Indeed, the name James Marshall could have been double-checked, instead of relying on my tin ear and frantic scribblings. However, the scene of the supposed last duel in California is described verbatim as it was portrayed in the film. Either the filmmakers were referring to a duel that occurred before the state was formally recognized, or it was another example of poetic license. I hope this clears things up.

Correction
The minireview of Mulholland Falls (Movie Capsules, April 24) misidentified director Lee Tamahori's native country. He is from New Zealand.