To the editor: This can be a fantastic record of films which have captured the American expertise (“10 must-watch movies that capture America in times of profound change,” June 29). Let me humbly add the Robert Redford-starring “Sneakers.”
This deceptively easy heist comedy got here out in 1992, after the Soviet Union collapsed and all of us thought it will usher in an excellent age of liberal values taking maintain of the world and main it, and us, to prosperity and peace eternally. The movie’s ostensible villain, Cosmo (performed by Ben Kingsley), doesn’t purchase it. Within the film’s climax, he says, “There’s a battle on the market, outdated good friend. A world battle. And it’s not about who’s acquired probably the most bullets. It’s about who controls the data. What we see and listen to, how we work, what we expect. It’s all in regards to the data.”
This, after all, is strictly what occurred within the following many years. Folks stopped trusting credible sources of authority and experience, and began believing their very own information, ones bought to them by bad-actor media moguls who cared nothing for the frequent good. It’s how Individuals turned extraordinarily partisan, and the way we acquired Donald Trump elected twice.
And but “Sneakers” is hopeful and exhibits one of the best of this nation and its folks, too. Our gang of heroes is a various lot in race, gender and sophistication who work along with joie de vivre and many charming American-style banter to save lots of the day. It exhibits that now we have to deal with one another. The film, in the end, is a delight, as America might be and infrequently is.
Zareh Delanchian, Tujunga
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To the editor: Whereas raving about “bug-eyed house invaders [masquerading] as yuppies” (“They Stay”) and “a squadron of puppet commandos [blowing] up the planet” (“Staff America: World Police”), this record one way or the other managed not a single reference to “Chinatown,” which many contemplate one of the best movie about America ever made. Huh?
William D. Wolff, La Cañada Flintridge
