CHICAGO — In your Arts & Entertainment section for Feb. 27, you mention “Stab,” the fictional horror movie being made by the characters in “Scream 3,” and point out that a Web site has furthered the joke by printing “a fictional review facetiously attributed to movie critic Roger Ebert.”
You reprinted the entire review, and it was brought to my attention by one of your remaining readers. Eager to see how well I had been satirized, I read the “fictional” review, and was pleased to find that it was the best-written prose in your section.
Something about it struck me as familiar, however, and I realized that the review of “Stab” is not fictional, but merely lifted word-for-word from two of my own slasher-film reviews.
The first and second paragraphs are lifted from my review of “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.” The third through sixth paragraphs are lifted from the fifth through eighth paragraphs of my review of the original “Scream.” Slight changes have been made so that the review fits “Stab” instead of the other two movies.
I am not sure this is plagiarism, since I am credited as the author, albeit “facetiously.” What the episode does demonstrate is that these films are so similar that a review of one will serve for another.
I am pleased that you recognize great writing when you see it.
— Roger Ebert
FELINE GUILTY
CHICAGO–My friends won’t believe this, but one of my favorites is “Great Balls of Fire” sung by (of course) Jerry Lee Lewis (“Guilty pleasures,” Arts & Entertainment, Feb. 27). It always makes me feel good! I used to sing it to my cats as “Great Balls of Fur.”
— Ann Lee
FONDNESS FOR MICHAEL
DES PLAINES –Guilty pleasures: George Michael, with and without Wham: “Kissing a Fool,” “Careless Whispers,” “Father Figure,” “Wake Me Up before You Go-Go,” “Faith,” all great songs. Despite his personal problems, I still enjoy listening to his music and hope he gets his life together.
— Barbara Hague
DON’T KNOCK IT
WHEELING–I have many songs that I’m embarrassed to admit I like. From America to Sweet. But my current song is Tony Orlando and Dawn’s “Knock Three Times.”
I especially enjoy this part:
“If you look out your window tonight
Pull in the string with the note that’s attached to my heart
Read how many times I saw you
How in my silence I adored you.”
— Diane Kroeckel
STILL MELLOW
HIGHLAND PARK–A song that I continue to love from the ’70s is “Have You Never Been Mellow” by Olivia Newton-John. I have the song on a tape, but I rarely hear it on the radio. I, like so many guys in the early ’70s, was “in love” with ONJ and went to a number of her concerts, and that song has always been a favorite. Still is.
— Jeff Johnson
CHEESY DELIGHT
NAPERVILLE –Guilty pleasure: “Afternoon Delight” by the Starland Vocal Band. “Good Will Hunting” used the song in a couple of scenes, implying it might be the cheesiest song ever made. I’m the one in the back of the theater singing along!
— Gretchen Fritz
ROCK’S IN HIS HEAD
EVANSTON –On your Norman Rockwell piece (“What’s wrong with Rockwell,” Arts & Entertainment, Feb. 20): It is sad to be totally without talent, sterile, and an evolutionary dead end. Only someone who can never have a daughter would think “Girl at Mirror” is too “precious.”
Or maybe you’re just very young.
Being comic or maudlin does not diminish art. And Rockwell was certainly not outsize or “empty”–millions thought otherwise.
He depicted life as it was–you think otherwise because your experience has been very limited. No father of a daughter would see “Girl at Mirror” as a caricature, or overstatement.
“Freedom From Want” is a scene familiar to many people. You are telling us something about yourself when you don’t recognize it.
Nor is “After the Prom” a burlesque. That is just how dopey real teenage boys look.
Charm is not an emotion.
Do you really want to parade your inadequacies in public in this fashion?
— Neil Elliott
