Emilio Estevez

In response to "The Mystical Isabel Allende," by Blaise Simpson (March 27): Rationalizing his decision to eliminate the "magic elements" in his film version of Allende's "The House of the Spirits," director Bille August says that "supernatural effects in a movie can look ridiculous." Yet such effects were used wonderfully well in "Like Water for Chocolate," a commercial hit. But that's minor compared to producer Bernd Eichinger's disingenuous explanation for using a nearly all-white, all-star cast: "You need stars in this movie because the characters are bigger than life."

"Villainy," said Mick Jagger, in the voice that has launched hundreds of Rolling Stones concerts, "could also be called wasted life. A well-organized society would make good use of all the talents within it, rather than letting so many go to waste."

CALLUSED palms and bandaged fingers; broken fingernails stained black with dirt -- Hollywood actor and director Emilio Estevez proudly shows off his vineyard worker hands as he walks the vine rows. Four years ago, Estevez planted this half-acre Pinot Noir vineyard around his Malibu home.

The death of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968 marked the end of a certain type of idealism in American politics. In trying to translate the power of what Kennedy meant to so many people into a compelling film, writer-director Emilio Estevez has exceeded his reach with the historical drama "Bobby."

Iggy Pop was living in an efficiency apartment near the Whisky a Go Go when a gangly Brit visited him, seeking a theme song for his first movie. The filmmaker was Alex Cox, a graduate of UCLA film school, and the movie was "Repo Man," which would, after a brief initial release, achieve cult status for its punk bona fides and its comic sci-fi vision of Ronald Reagan-era Los Angeles. In an interview that's one of the welcome extras in a new, high-definition restoration of the feature (available Tuesday from Criterion Collection)

The 25 best L.A. films of the last 25 years "Los ANGELES isn't a real city," people have said, "it just plays one on camera." It was a clever line once upon a time, but all that has changed. Los Angeles is the most complicated community in America -- make no mistake, it is a community -- and over the last 25 years, it has been both celebrated and savaged on the big screen with amazing efficacy. Damaged souls and flawless weather, canyon love and beach city menace, homeboys and credit card girls, freeways and fedoras, power lines and palm trees . . . again and again, moviegoers all over the world have sat in the dark and stared up at our Los Angeles, even if it was one populated by corrupt cops or a jabbering cartoon rabbit.

Rob Lowe's "The West Wing" character became so scarce this season the actor finally distributed a milk carton with his picture on it, instructing anyone who sees Sam Seaborn to contact his manager. Next week, Seaborn leaves Washington for good, with a plot line that apparently makes the White House aide an even more rarely sighted species: an office-holding Orange County Democrat.

As fake psychic Shawn Spencer on USA's hit comic procedural "Psych," James Roday uses his keen powers of observation to solve crimes in scenic Santa Barbara, nickname his long-suffering partner, Gus (Dulé Hill), and riff on '80s pop culture. Off screen, the Texas-born Roday acts, directs and writes for Red Dog Squadron, the theater company he founded with fellow New York University alum Brad Raider. Red Dog gave us last year's not-so-tender love story "Extinction" and now serves up "Greedy," a dark comedy about marriage, black market babies and Nazi paraphernalia.

Rob Lowe notes that his two sons, Matthew, 17, and Johnowen, 14, have read his breezy autobiography, "Stories I Only Tell My Friends," but adds with a laugh, only "under duress. " "They read it as an assignment when it became clear that the Oprah Winfrey show wanted to talk to them about it," Lowe said in a recent interview. "Only then did they decide to read dad's book. " Their reaction? "They were like, 'Oh, Dad. Come on.' I am lucky if I can get them interested in anything that I am doing at this point.