Dear Kevin,

How are you? What are you up to these days? Have they offered you a sitcom yet?

I'll bet that right now you're just lounging by the pool, humming "I Will Always Love You" and wistfully recalling those candlelight dinners with success. It isn't necessarily over for you: I say the moviegoing public still has enough good-will stored up for you that you could avoid the pilot for "Kevin!" a little while longer. Begin by scribbling "the star that burns twice as bright burns half as long" somewhere you'll always see it--any shiny surface will do.

You had a heck of a thing going there until you agreed to star in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, where you were upstaged not only by powerhouses Morgan Freeman and Alan Rickman, but also Christian Slater, several dozen tall trees, bows, arrows, a length of rope, and a canoe, too. After Dances With Wolves and JFK, you decided to take out a policy on three-hour movies--expensive three hour movies--and so you starred in and produced Wyatt Earp; Wyatt Earp the man owes his place in the history books to a general lack of Wyatts. So dull a cowboy was he that Wyatt Earp died of natural causes. Tombstone was a vastly superior movie based on the same legend, and it was from the director of Rambo: First Blood Part II--and co-starred Dana Delaney! (Her character was played by Joanna Going in your movie--you know, the gal referred to more often than not in Wyatt Earp as "Jew Whore." What were you and Lawrence Kasdan thinking?)

Now you're suffering the demise of yet another of your epics, The Postman, a film so financially ruinous that it all but eradicated the memory of Tin Cup's redeeming box-office take. The Postman is not the worst movie ever made--people in Hollywood are quick to forget Howard the Duck whenever the next bomb comes along. But it is of few redeeming qualities. I suspect you thought you had another Braveheart on your hands; why else line up two armies on horesback, all prepared for battle, for the climax of your film? "Mailheart" The Postman is not. (I do have some suggestions for alternative titles, however: Post Encounters of the Worst Kind; Farewell, My Salary; Howard the Postman; The Postman's Never Watched Twice...)

What a brown movie The Postman is. I hate brown. You love brown. Dances With Wolves was golden and brown--it looked like an Eggo commercial. No, it looked like an Eggo itself. What was the exact evolution of this desert world, anyway? Why didn't we immediately begin to rebuild homes, restaurants, shopping malls after the oft-mentioned "war"? We still have electricity; we still have Tom Petty. (See below.) Why is it that only the terrorists carry ammunition? What are the terrorists after that they cannot or do not have? Was it really appropriate to cast your DAUGHTER as a girl who has a sweet crush on you, the drifter-cum-postman? Why cast English actress Olivia Williams as an American? Don't you know that European women can only deliver their big emotional scenes in their native accent? (Take a look at the less-than-stellar performances of an American-ized Nicole Kidman or an American-ized Minnie Driver.)

Why cast Will Patton as your bad guy? Because you worked with him in No Way Out? Sure, he's a suitably creepy villain; know why? Because he's creepy by nature. Look at him in Armageddon, where he plays a heroic astronaut who practically slithers in and out of his space suit. Why heroize the most demonic institution in America, the U.S. Postal System? Was Tom Petty supposed to be playing Tom Petty? If so, why didn't he look more skeletal? (He would be around 70 years old.) Why, oh why, do I have so many questions? (I could ask plenty more--fine, fine, not all of them are pointed.) Shouldn't a three-hour running time have provided you enough space in which to answer everything? You have one great line in this film, and you deliver it to a mule: "The things I like about my ass..." I had to wonder if the mule was added later, for you continue checking that list for the film's remainder until you've finally erected a statue of yourself--easier than contorting yourself in front of a mirror, I suppose.

At any rate, Warners produced a suitably mediocre DVD to match. There is an overall softness to the image that reminds me of the studio's LaserDiscs. Occasional shots jitter--others are grainy. The image is letterboxed at 2.35:1, 16x9-enhanced, and the disc is RSDL. The layer switch occurs about 90 minutes into your film, if memory serves. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is good, punchy. The subtitles defaulted to ON when I first inserted the disc, a problem with either Warner's mastering or my Pioneer DVL-700. Included after the 178 minutes of excess is a brief documentary on the creation of "the bridge sequence," featuring commentary by your effects designers. Additionally, there is the usual Warner helping of production notes, among them a feeble paragraph or two by David Brin about his novel.

I'm ultimately saying relax. There is no motion picture quota for actors of your caliber. Really second-guess future screenplays before committing.

Feel free to write back. I know how much you like to send letters.-Bill Chambers