Ask Mick LaSalle: Have critics lowered their standards?
Dear Mick LaSalle: Hollywood’s corporate, bottom-line mentality means that superhero movies are now pretty much the only game in town. Still, it’s sad to see that critics have lowered their standards to such a degree.
Brian Carr, San Jose Dear Brian Carr: As a genre, I don’t like superhero movies, but what I’m doing here is reviewing individual films, not entire genres. “Wonder Woman” is a good movie. There’s no lowering of standards going on here. It is simply a good movie that transcends the limitations of its form. The lowering of standards comes when you see garbage like “John Wick: Chapter 2” getting strong reviews. When critics start comparing Buster Keaton’s work to scenes of Keanu Reeves going around shooting people in the head, then you know that some standards-lowering Kool-Aid is being drunk in fantastic quantities. Dear Mick LaSalle: Dakin Matthews would have been a better choice to star in “Churchill.” What do you think?
Richard Pedemonte, Fairfax Dear Richard Pedemonte: I agree. Matthews is the right general size and shape. He is in the right ballpark as to age. He’s very smart, and he has the right combination of innate authority and wit. There was a twinkle about Churchill that other actors miss but that he would get. I know Matthews, who starred in one of my wife’s plays off-Broadway in the late 1990s. He’s one of the best stage actors I’ve ever seen. The public might know him best as the judge giving Tom Hanks a hard time in “Bridge of Spies.” By the way, he has already played Churchill onstage — in “The Audience,” on Broadway, opposite Helen Mirren in 2015. Dear Mr. LaSalle: I enjoyed your great review of “Scarlet Street.” My question is why was it remade with the same director and same cast only a year later as “Woman in the Window”?
Alan Keene, Alameda Dear Mr. Keene: I like to think that they came so close to making a great
movie with Fritz Lang’s 1944 “Woman in the Window” — starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea — that they tried again the following year and really hit it with the similar but not identical “Scarlet Street.” Hi Mick: Have you ever misremembered a key element of a favorite movie?
Marty Bauer, Mill Valley Hi Marty: Yes. On a few occasions, I have gone so far as to imagine entire scenes that weren’t really there. Everyone eventually does this, but here’s the interesting part: Almost invariably, people do this only with movies that they like. Think of it as a weird form of audience participation. Hi Mick: I heard a recent interview with Giles Martin where he said, “Recordings don’t grow old; we do.” Do you think it’s the same with movies?
Dan Powers, San Jose Hi Dan: Yes, and it’s one of the wonderful things about movies, even more than with music. Many of us have certain movies that we return to over many years, and one of the interesting and rewarding things doing so is that the experience changes as we do. The other day I watched “Grand Hotel” for the first time in five or 10 years. This is a movie I’ve seen about 40 times, maybe 50, but I saw aspects of it that I hadn’t noticed. This makes returning to familiar movies an unceasing pleasure, but it’s also a phenomenon that should give us some humility. After all, if there are things you’re still discovering the 50th time you’re seeing it, it means there are lots of things you’re missing every day, as life flies by you. This means — good news! — that you don’t really have the burden of being the only person who is right about everything. Maybe running the world from inside your head isn’t actually your job after all. Now, isn’t that a relief ?
Have a question? Ask Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.