San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Ask Mick LaSalle:
When critics say “the best,” do they really mean “my favorite”?
So Look, Mick: I love that you think George Harrison’s “Long, Long, Long” is the best song on the Beatles’ White Album, because it is one of my very favorites on that album and seems overlooked. But why must critics proclaim something is “the best” when most people know perfectly well that it’s the critic’s favorite, and that “the best” is a vain declaration?
Matt Humphreys, Walnut Creek So Look, Matt: That’s a good point. If I’m talking about pop music, it’s true, “the best” is just a pushy way of saying “my favorite.” But that’s because I know nothing about pop music besides what I like. However, if I’m talking about movies, I really do mean “the best.” It doesn’t mean I’m right, but it does mean that I have lots of reasons that go beyond “Eh, I liked it.” Hello Mick: The other day you said that in 2009 the academy changed the way it picked best picture. Could you elaborate?
Alan Schroeder, Alameda Hello Alan: There used to be five nominees, and whoever got the most votes won. That meant that it was theoretically possible for a movie to win with as little as 21 percent of the vote. This gave a huge advantage to big movies with enormous casts and scores of people working in the technical categories. If everyone affiliated with such a big movie voted for it, it would be halfway to a best picture prize. But now the academy nominates eight to 10 movies for best picture, and the contest is settled through ranked voting, which counts second-, third- and sometimes even fourth-place votes to avoid the need for a runoff. This gives smaller movies an advantage, and since then, we’ve seen mostly small, intelligent movies winning best picture. The thing is, the big movies have their fans but also enemies. Thus, unobnoxious good movies like “The Artist” — a movie that some people love and almost no one hates — can sneak in and win best picture.
My Esteemed Mr. LaSalle: What is your modus operandi on Oscar day/ night? Also, have you ever attended the ceremonies, and if so, what were your impressions?
Alan Drucker, Los Osos, San Luis Obispo County
My Esteemed Mr. Drucker: Oscar night is always stressful, not an object of months-in-advance dread (like, say, the Sundance Film Festival), but nothing to look forward to. The article is usually due a half hour after the show ends. That means I have to write it throughout the evening, from the bottom up. But because the awards that people care about all come in a rush at the finish, it’s hard to know, until very late, what the overall point of the story will be. What I sometimes do — before the Oscars even start — is write three paragraphs for each category, so that if one of those three wins, I can just drop that paragraph into the article and then shape it, so that it follows what went before and flows into what comes next. That helps — some years it helps a lot — but usually there are surprises.
The worst is when the winner of best director doesn’t win best picture, because, most of the time, I can rely on best director to give me the all-clear to write the article’s lead sentence. But when those two awards diverge, whole paragraphs (“The juggernaut that was ‘La La Land’ was the big winner ...”) have to be thrown out. I’m happy to say I’ve never been to the Academy Awards, but once I was at the Golden Globes, and it was horrible. The press is put into a tiny room, and each reporter is given a little chair. We sat elbow to elbow as a bigscreen TV played the ceremony that was going on about 100 feet away, and we had to write a deadline story like that. It was the writing equivalent of an Army bathroom situation — no privacy, and everybody is jammed next to everyone else. The conditions are appalling and would seem impossible, but when you really have no choice, it’s surprising how well you can function.
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.