No need to bash Chris Columbus

Ilove Patrick Goldstein’s Big Picture column. I look forward to it avidly. But I must object to his joining a current trend among entertainment journalists: bashing Chris Columbus [“Warners’ ‘Wild’ Child,” July 12].

Chris Columbus is a wildly successful and imaginative writer-director with a track record including some of the most beloved (especially by children) movies in history: “Gremlins,” “Home Alone,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and the first two Harry Potter films.

Suddenly Chris Columbus has turned into the whipping boy of the industry. If Columbus had directed “Where the Wild Things Are,” it might not have been quite so unique, but it would have been in release and charming, and would have racked up a couple of hundred million dollars for Warner Bros. at the box office by now. This is a bad thing?

Bob Shayne

Los Angeles

Lyrical moment

IN the article about “VH1 Rock Honors: The Who” [“Top of the Pops,” by Geoff Boucher and Randy Lewis, July 14], Supergrass singer Gaz Coombs was criticized for flubbing the lyrics to “Bargain,” which he sang with the Foo Fighters.

As one of the producers, I feel it needs to be told that Gaz was, in fact, only asked to sing the song that afternoon after Dave Grohl’s voice gave out. He very graciously agreed to fill in even though he had a gig later that night. We actually had to hold the doors of the event to allow him to get a single run-through with the Foo Fighters before the show.

Under the circumstances, we felt he gave it a great shot and helped us keep the song – and Dave Grohl and the Foos’ amazing performance playing it – in the show.

Paul Flattery

Studio City

Lobby power

Iam the author of “Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics.” Judging by your review [“Cartooning Obama’s Economics,” by Rick Wartzman, July 16], I have written one of the worst books ever and if that is the case, I owe your readers an apology.

But it was not lost on me that your reviewer appeared very angry throughout the review, and for good reason. I found fault with the Bush policies of deregulation of business and Wall Street causing many of our problems today and tried to show they were a direct result of lobbying and campaign contributions on behalf of our biggest corporations. Name a problem in America today and I can tell you the lobbying force preventing a solution.

Your reviewer is the director of the Peter Drucker Institute (I know, I can’t believe Peter Drucker has an institute either), a big business advocate. Maybe you could have found someone less biased to review a book that argues that we will not solve our biggest national problems until big business gets out of the business of bribing our elected officials.

John R. Talbott

Bardstown, Ky.