The Love Letter

"Film making is not about the tiny details. It’s about the big picture...haven’t you heard of suspension of disbelief?" So says inept filmmaker Ed Wood in a scene from the film bearing his name as to how he makes bad movies.

Ed Wood must have been directing The Love Letter in spirit. Consider the ways the film goes about in a state of suspended disbelief:

1. That the residents in the postcard perfect sea coast town of Loblolly always meddle in each others’ personal affairs.

2. That the quaint town bookshop maintains a staff of four people despite the fact that not one customer shows up in the store during the entire movie. Oh, that, and the fact that none of the town’s residents act like they can read.

3. That Blythe Danner can pass herself off as Kate Capshaw’s mother, when there appears to be at best a five years age difference between the two.

4. That Tom Selleck, fresh off his televised pillow fight with Rosie O’Donnell, can pass himself off to be the town’s fire fighter with a love for, get this, opera. Magnum! We hardly knew ye.

5. That 87 year-old Gloria Stuart (Titanic) can wolf down a half-gallon of ice cream and announce, "Well, I’m off to bed." Sweet dreams, sister. You’ve had enough sugar to light up Loblolly!

6. That 45 year old Kate Capshaw falls for a 20 year old male college student when she reads a love letter addressed to nobody in particular stuck between the cushions of a couch in her bookshop.

7. That Capshaw’s husband (Steven Spielberg), whose company distributes this movie, didn’t get antsy when his wife did nude love scenes with male hunk Tom Everett Scott.

8. That Capshaw’s response to her mother’s coming out of the proverbial closet would be, "Oh. All this time I thought you didn’t like me."

9. That the bumbling town cop would tear up Capshaw’s speeding ticket for doing 60 in a 30 when all she does is cry. Shenandoah! Oak Ridge North! Are you reading this?

10. That Dreamworks SKG didn’t offer this embarrassment of a film as a sacrificial lamb on the weekend that Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace was released. smoke screen n. 1. dense smoke used to conceal