A costly web

SOME of Kenneth Turan’s complaints about “Spider-Man 3” are not only unfair, they also come across as cheap shots [“Can’t Buy Everything,” May 2].

For example, he bemoans the amount of dollars, man-hours and pixels used to create the movie, as if it were evidence of how a film can go wrong. But these statistics, when taken out of context, have little or no meaning. What difference does it make how many hours of effort went into a piece of entertainment, whether it’s Spider-Man’s uniform, costumes for Elizabeth Taylor or the bridge over the River Kwai?

Leave that concern for the accountants; it shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of the movie, which should depend more on the quality of the script, direction and acting.

And while we’re on the topic of gross figures and stats, how many trees, tons of ink and hours of labor at the printing presses does it take for all of us to read Turan’s column in a week? I’d venture to say it doesn’t matter. I would just hope that Turan would take a similar viewpoint when it comes to movies like this.

MATTHEW REYNOLDS

North Hollywood