Scarecrow

To have become another nation's "most popular film" isn't necessarily a virtue, as audiences for "The Man From Snowy River" will be the first to remember. But "Scarecrow" (Los Feliz Theater), which was the Soviet Union's biggest hit in 1986, is a beauty. Made in 1983 and another of the films dislodged by glasnost from its place on a shelf, "Scarecrow" is all the more interesting as a success story since its theme is staunch personal integrity in the face of mass opposition.

More than 200 entries are beginning to get stuffed in Cambria, where the upcoming Scarecrow Festival is a fall highlight. Residents like to say it's the final straw of the season. The annual event, introduced by the Cambria Historical Society in 2009, features a cast of whimsical scarecrows that spend the month of October decorating Moonstone Beach and the East and West villages of this Central California coastal community.     “This isn't the kind of event that could happen just anywhere,” said Sue Robinson, festival co-chair.

In regard to Henry Carr's letter (Sept. 15), "Nothing Springsteen-esque about John Cougar Mellencamp's music"?! C'mon, open your ears! Just listen to "Small Town" on "Scarecrow." Does it it sound just a little bit like "My Hometown" from "Born in the U.S.A.," which was released one year before "Scarecrow"? Apparently, just like the rest of us Springsteen fans, John "Quick, somebody find me a cool stage name" Cougar has been spinning the Boss's LPs for quite some time and picked up a few pointers to boot.

Join Pierce College in welcoming back Spookley the Square Pumpkin and his hay-stuffed handler Jack the Scarecrow in the pair's live stage show at the college's Woodland Hills campus, newly gussied up in its autumnal finest for the annual Halloween Harvest Festival. This year's festival also boasts a pick-your-own pumpkin patch, hay rides, a corn maze, a haunted house and a haunted trail. Scaredy-cats and fear junkies alike should be advised that, after dark, the festival becomes the FrightFair Scream Park, a souped-up and altogether more terrifying version of itself.

I have to disagree with Mitch Kohn's letter that the WB's "Smallville" kicked off Oct. 16 with a display of homophobia (Saturday Letters, Oct. 20). He addresses two particular points: (1) Clark is quick to defend his heterosexuality to Lana. That's not a homophobic slant; that's a teenage boy trying to make time with a girl! The fact that the reference was included without disparity is open-minded. (2) Clark is hung in a cornfield and branded as a scarecrow. Kohn's analogy was Matthew Shepard.

The Calendar Letters Page on April 14 appealed--in all semi-seriousness--to the reader-masses for fresh, new ideas to help save network television. The generosity of readers has been ample and heartwarming. The least frivolous contributions are segregated in the box at the right. The rest follow. Calendar Babes! Consider these: "Miami Lice"--They're new, they're now, they're wow. Two ex-Louse Angeles detectives fight anthropods in Fun City. "Hill Street Schmooze"--It's 30 years later, and the Hill Street gang reunites to kibbitz about the days of nachis on the Hill.

What is the interest in police/detective shows? Who really wants to see these superficial farces continue? Does the good guy always have to win? I really can't wait for the day when Cagney and Lacey do not get their man or woman. Do Michael Knight and his wonder machine KITT ever just have a nice day? Shows such as "Scarecrow and Mrs. King," "Simon & Simon," "The A-Team" and "Magnum, P.I." are all alike. They are boring! Todd Peterson, Westminster

I don't know what stands out about 1962 in terms of movie history ("Cinema's Best Year? '62 ... Perhaps," by Robert W. Welkos, Sept. 9). My pick for the best year would be 1973. It was incredibly diverse and one of the last years in which originality took precedence over box-office receipts. Some examples are "Don't Look Now," "Scarecrow," "Last Tango in Paris," "Save the Tiger," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Serpico" and "The Exorcist." There was a lot of funny stuff too, such as "Paper Moon," "Sleeper," "American Graffiti," "The Last Detail" and "The Sting."

Join Pierce College in welcoming back Spookley the Square Pumpkin and his hay-stuffed handler Jack the Scarecrow in the pair's live stage show at the college's Woodland Hills campus, newly gussied up in its autumnal finest for the annual Halloween Harvest Festival. This year's festival also boasts a pick-your-own pumpkin patch, hay rides, a corn maze, a haunted house and a haunted trail. Scaredy-cats and fear junkies alike should be advised that, after dark, the festival becomes the FrightFair Scream Park, a souped-up and altogether more terrifying version of itself.

Being a nasty, rasty, shot 'n' a beer, three-chord rock 'n' roll band ain't easy--everybody knows what this shtick is supposed to sound like: the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Mott the Hoople. Putting the Anticlub's PA system to a paint-peeling test Friday, the Little Kings displayed not only the fierce white energy expected, but also the melodic sense that makes the quintet the reigning local contenders for the Stones' three-chord throne.

FAMILY Halloween Harvest Festival: Pierce College welcomes back Spookley the Square Pumpkin and his hay-stuffed handler Jack the Scarecrow in the pair's live stage show at the college's Woodland Hills campus, gussied up in its autumnal finest for the annual Halloween Harvest Festival. Scaredy-cats and fear junkies alike should be advised that, after dark, the festival becomes the FrightFair Scream Park, a souped-up, more terrifying version of itself. Pierce College. 20800 Victory Blvd.

The novels and short stories we conveniently pigeonhole as "genre fiction" often are the tripwires of our literature's social consciousness. It's unsurprising, therefore, that the first fictional work to take the newspaper industry's agonizing decline as its backdrop is a mystery, nor that its author, Michael Connelly, is a onetime crime reporter who spent the last years of his print career at the Los Angeles Times.

It's an apt name for a predator brought in to scare away pests: Chase. Diving and soaring over a southeast Washington blueberry patch, the aplomado falcon chases pesky starlings and sparrows to prevent them from feasting on the ripe fruit. Farmer Jim Lott smiles as he watches the bird work. Lott is one of 17 farmers nationwide who have signed up for a program, approved late last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that allows the use of predator birds to control pest birds that damage or forage on crops.

Mystery AND detection have been popular stage themes since "Oedipus Rex." Hamlet, for instance, took several acts to figure out who murdered his father. In the 19th century, melodramas that featured criminals, crime and the forces of justice flourished in England and America, often based on real cases. In 1863, Tom Taylor's "The Ticket-of -Leave Man" (featuring Hawkshaw the detective) was extremely successful in both countries, followed by adaptations of works of Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

If viewers today remember the work of actor Jackie Coogan (who died in 1984 at the age of 69), odds are that they know him as Uncle Fester, the bald and ghoulish-looking cast member of the 1960s TV series "The Addams Family." Few but film scholars recall Coogan's huge success as an angel-faced child performer in the silent-movie era, star of such films as "Peck's Bad Boy" and "Oliver Twist" (with Lon Chaney as Fagin). At the age of 9, Jackie Coogan was the No.

I don't know what stands out about 1962 in terms of movie history ("Cinema's Best Year? '62 ... Perhaps," by Robert W. Welkos, Sept. 9). My pick for the best year would be 1973. It was incredibly diverse and one of the last years in which originality took precedence over box-office receipts. Some examples are "Don't Look Now," "Scarecrow," "Last Tango in Paris," "Save the Tiger," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Serpico" and "The Exorcist." There was a lot of funny stuff too, such as "Paper Moon," "Sleeper," "American Graffiti," "The Last Detail" and "The Sting."

FAMILY Halloween Harvest Festival: Pierce College welcomes back Spookley the Square Pumpkin and his hay-stuffed handler Jack the Scarecrow in the pair's live stage show at the college's Woodland Hills campus, gussied up in its autumnal finest for the annual Halloween Harvest Festival. Scaredy-cats and fear junkies alike should be advised that, after dark, the festival becomes the FrightFair Scream Park, a souped-up, more terrifying version of itself. Pierce College. 20800 Victory Blvd.

The 1960s and early 1970s were heady times for film criticism. In colleges and universities, in cafes, bars, movie theater lobbies and surrounding sidewalks, movies were the subject of heated debates. Neither moviegoing nor movie reviewing was new, but youthful hordes--uncomfortable with literature and not yet enslaved by television--found something to get excited about in the movies.

Garth Brooks entered the national sales chart at No. 1 for the seventh time Wednesday with what he has described as his last album, but he didn't match his huge Garthian numbers of the past. Brooks' "Scarecrow" sold 466,000 copies during its first week in the stores, which is a big step up from the 262,000 for Brooks' 1999 pop-rock project, "In the Life of Chris Gaines," according to SoundScan. The figure, however, is far behind the 1.