San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
ASK MICK LASALLE
Good Morning Mick: Your review of “Glass” has almost inspired me to go see it. Somehow if it is really that bad, it might almost be good. Have I lost my mind?
Gus Sinks, San Bruno Good Morning Gus: No, but if you’re looking for a so-bad-it’s-good encounter, the thing to see isn’t “Glass,” but “Serenity.” It’s a Matthew McConaughey movie that’s a little like a drug experience, in that, at a certain point in the movie, you’ll wonder if you’re really seeing what you’re seeing or if you’re having a seizure.
Dear Mick LaSalle: What’s your all-time favorite TV movie?
Leo Tsypkin, Belmont Dear Leo Tsypkin: In recent years, I particularly liked “Game Change” (2012) and “Arletty, Une Passion Coupable” (2015), with Laetitia Casta as the French actress who had a romance with a German officer in Nazioccupied Paris. But I see few TV movies, so my frame of reference is more from when I was a kid. The two movies that stood out for me then were “Go Ask Alice” (1973) and the Elizabeth Montgomery-Anthony Hopkins remake of “Dark Victory” (1976), which is better than the 1939 version with Bette Davis.
Dear Mick LaSalle: You list “Vox Lux” as one of the top films since Jan. 1, 2000. Being a Natalie Portman fan, I was looking forward to it but it didn’t stay around long. What happened?
Mike Miller, Muir Beach Dear Mike Miller: It’s not a movie that appeals to huge numbers of people. I just checked Rotten Tomatoes, and half the people who saw it didn’t like it. It’s challenging in a number of ways. Audiences tend to expect movies to be socially liberal and artistically safe, but this one is a total curveball — artistically innovative and almost conservative socially, at least in its opposition to modernity. People also expect movies to be consoling, to chart the path, to say, “We have led you through the confusion, and now we all understand something.” “Vox Lux” doesn’t do that. It leaves you right in the middle of the mess. Also, even people who like “Vox Lux” sometimes don’t understand it. For example, I read someone say that the movie’s ending was an affirmation of the positive force of pop music. “Vox Lux,” in fact, says the opposite, that current pop music is a malign force in modern life, a sort of cross between poison and anesthesia.
The bottom line is that most people look to movies for light entertainment, and even when they’re looking for something deeper — when they want, say, to be confronted by political or social statements — they’re really looking for statements they already agree with, ideas they’ve thought through and digested, sometimes years before walking into the theater. They don’t want to work or think in new ways. They don’t want to wrestle with two hours of artistic and philosophical anarchy. They want to relax. So “Vox Lux” is not for everybody. But for the people it’s for, it’s great.
Hi Mick: What’s with all the smoking in movies, particularly those portraying life in the 1960s and ’70s?
Joseph Elson, Sausalito
Hi Joseph: People did smoke more then than now. Up through the 1980s, whenever I went to a restaurant, I’d look around and try to guess who didn’t smoke and try to sit near them. More than half the time, I’d guess wrong. Not only was there a sense then that you couldn’t get away from smoking, there was also the idea that, if you tried, you were being rude. It wasn’t until 1985 that I saw someone not permit smoking in her house. So 30 and 40 years ago, it was a different world. Yet, that said, recent movies are getting ridiculous. They’re having people smoke who wouldn’t smoke. They’re having everybody smoke, instead of lots of people. They’re having people smoke and eat at the same time (“Green Book”), which was always pretty rare and never acceptable. The thing to remember is that, at the height of smoking, circa 1960, only half the adult population smoked. So half didn’t. It was never everybody.
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.