San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Ask Mick LaSalle:
Anna Kendrick a seriously hilarious actress.
Hey Mick: I find myself drawn to Anna Kendrick as I would to Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett and Jennifer Saunders. Are you feeling this? Who else?
PJ Fowler, San Francisco
Hey PJ: She’s not exclusively a comedian, so I haven’t thought of her in that way. But, given the right material, Kendrick is seriously, seriously hilarious. She’s hysterical in “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” which I’ve seen four times already and could stand to see again.
Dear Man Mountain Mick: Who is your all-time favorite movie critic and why?
Robert Freud Bastin, Petaluma
Dear Man Mountain Robert: The name escapes me, but I guess it would have to be the one I agree with 100 percent of the time, who thinks everything is funny that I think is funny, and is particularly interested in the kinds of movies that I’m particularly interested in. But leaving that one aside, I’d say Otis Ferguson and Andrew Sarris, as much for their writing as for their opinions.
What I like about Ferguson is his ability to go from silly to deeply emotional, sometimes from one sentence to the next, without it ever being jarring. He wasn’t trying to be funny. He wasn’t trying to be anything. He was just being himself, and by being himself, all those seeming contradictions were harmonized into a coherent and immediately comprehensible voice. And Sarris had a big personality and was full of insights I always wished I could steal. He’s the critic in my lifetime that I’ve most admired, though I have genuine respect for others. Among the living, I think Mark Kermode, in Britain, is very smart.
Dear Mr. LaSalle: Your comments simplified and misrepresented the history of film noir. The remarkable French films of the 1930s like “Le Jour se Leve” and “Port of Shadows,” are correctly classified as “poetic realism.” These were clearly only precursors to American film noir. I would add that you also misrepresented the film criticism of Truffaut and Godard. They did not disown or disrespect all French cinema of the postwar period as “a wasteland,” but they did severely condemn certain dominant tendencies of many French studio films of the postwar period.
Ira Rothstein, Berkeley
Dear Mr. Rothstein: Those are fair points. But, in fact, as Don Malcolm (the curator of the Roxie’s “The French Had a Name for It” festivals) has pointed out, poetic realism films were actually called “film noir” in the French press of the late 1930s. Recognizing that they were indeed called “film noir” at the time invites us to look at these films, not as precursors, but as early examples. “Le Jour se Leve,” in particular, couldn’t be more noirish, and were it made in 1952 instead of 1939, it would have been recognized as noir without anyone having to change a frame of it. This strikes me as useful, because, by looking at it in that way, we can see that the French didn’t copy American noir but arrived there on their own. As for your point about Truffaut and Godard, you’re right. They didn’t dislike everything. But Truffaut, especially, was such a harsh critic that that’s pretty much the general (or simplistic) impression that I came away with regarding postwar French films. Thanks to these festivals, I now know better.
Dear Mick LaSalle: Which is better for you? To see a film and then read the book or read a book and then see the film? Does it matter?
Madeline Moore, El Cerrito
Dear Madeline Moore: For me, it’s better to see the movie first, because it’s my responsibility to have an unencumbered experience of the movie. I’m the only one who cares what I think about the book. Generally speaking, if you’re worried about preserving the purity of the reading experience, read the book first. And if you’re worried about preserving the purity of the movie experience, see the movie first. Often it doesn’t matter either way. I’ve loved movies whose book I read first (“One Day”) and books whose movie I saw first (“Revolutionary Road”). But just to be careful, save for last whichever experience you care least about.