Feedback: ‘The Wiz Live’ should ease on down to less belting

Mary McNamara and I must have seen different “Wizes.” [“Gee ‘Wiz,’ This Was a Blast,” Dec. 5]. What she saw as “utterly sincere” I saw as totally missing the heart and soul of the show. Belting was the order of the day. And some of the tempos were so exaggerated that “Ease on Down the Road” became “easeondowntheroad.”

Bob Klein

Festival of New American Musicals

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David Alan Grier as Lion, from left, Ne-Yo as Tin-Man, Shanice Williams as Dorothy, Elijah Kelley as Scarecrow and Common as the Bouncer during a dress rehearsal of “The Wiz Live!” in New York.

  (Virginia Sherwood/NBC via AP)

A perfect model for Tinseltown?

I strongly disagree with Christopher Hawthorne’s review of the Petersen Automotive Museum and the Broad Museum [“Grid-shock in L.A.,” Dec. 3]. We have many beautiful buildings in Los Angeles, but the unusual, stimulating and unique is limited.

Grace Blavin

Los Angeles

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Mr. Hawthorne, your viewpoint is that of an Edsel in a Tesla world.

Joe Grauman

Culver City

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Much as I like the Petersen’s shiny ribbons that flow like wind tunnel smoke trails over a car model gone berserk, they do bring to mind Oscar Levant’s quip, “Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood, and you will find the real tinsel underneath.”

Tom Egan

Costa Mesa

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Christina House’s photo in Thursday’s Calendar section beautifully captures the auto motif of the Petersen Automotive Museum. The previously published bits and pieces you’d shown had left me bewildered, but now “I can see it.”

Allan Burns

Anaheim

Turn spotlight on Hollywood

Critics are praising “Spotlight” [“Local Critics Cite Sex Abuse Film,” Dec. 7] as an exposé on abuse in the Catholic Church.

Now, how about a filmmaker or news organization show courage and take on the sexual abuse of children in the entertainment industry? It’s long overdue, hypocrites.

Stan Evans

Valley Village

Hype is strong with this one

Have we not endured enough “Star Wars” frenzy? The Dec. 6 Calendar section was a marketing hype for Disney.

And reading about building a road in preserved sands because “it’s ‘Star Wars’”? Please. It’s just an overrated movie franchise.

Gerald Kopchinski

Laguna Beach

FULL COVERAGE: ‘Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens’

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As we sat around the dinner table one evening when our children were in their preteen years, my husband asked each of us to name our favorite person from history, adding that his own was Leonardo da Vinci.

Two of the children replied, “Abraham Lincoln.” The other one said, “Theodore Roosevelt.”

Then it was my turn. Without hesitation and with a straight face I said, “Luke Skywalker.”

Crista Worthy

Boise, Idaho

On the edge of hypocrisy

How good and brave of U2’s the Edge to play at the Bataclan theater in Paris [“U2’s Big Surprise in Paris,” Dec. 8].

However, I find it extremely disingenuous that this same human being is fighting to level the irreplaceable top of a mountain in Malibu for his own amusement.

If he is truly a caring person, the reality must be obvious. Leave the mountain alone.

Lynn Leatart

Sherman Oaks

Fox hand-slap? Oh, $#%@*&!

If Fox News’ response to foul language [“Salty Language on of Fox News,” Dec. 8] by contributors Stacey Dash and Ralph Peters won’t teach a lasting, thorough and defining lesson, what will?

Both have been suspended for a full two weeks. Forget that the former is employed only a single week each month, and the later sporadically.

Michael E. White

Burbank

An argument against AA

“Scott Weiland and Addiction in the Music Business” [Dec. 5, online] is quite possibly the most offensive piece of pro-Alcoholics Anonymous propaganda I have read — next to “The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous” itself.

It is hard to believe that the L.A. Times could not be aware of the growing controversy surrounding the organization, specifically the growing anti-AA movement.

If The Times is going to discuss the group in a thorough manner, it should point out that anti-AA activists, such as myself, argue that the 12-step ideology contributed to the death of Weiland.

Instead, The Times allows the culture of AA to make an appeal for new members on the absolutely insane grounds that 12-step wasn’t able to help Weiland, so more people should try and support it.

Silver Camsen

Champaign, Ill.