San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Were the 2010s a bad decade for comedy?
Dear Mick: My family and I were discussing the viewing options available to us, and we took note that we couldn’t think of a comedy that we really liked that’s come out over the last decade or so. My somewhat depressed mind links it to the general dysfunction that has pervaded our society in recent years.
Berkeley Choate, Oakland
Dear Berkeley: I’ve been saying for a while that we’re in a golden age of comedy. I’m not sure we’re still in it; things may have calmed down a bit recently, but only very recently. We’ve seen some really funny movies in the past decade: “Bridesmaids,” (2011), “Just Go With It” (2011), “This is the End” (2013), “Neighbors” (2014), “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” (2016), “The Little Hours” (2017), “Blockers” (2018) and “Ma” (2019).
I don’t think comedy disappears during difficult times. It just gets harsher, which I actually like.
Dear Mick LaSalle: My wife and I just saw “He Who Gets Slapped,” a 1924 silent with Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer and John Gilbert. Directed by Victor Sjostrom. We thought it was really a superb film.
Dan Scharlin, Oakland
Dear Dan: It’s amazing — the first ever made by MGM. It’s practically avantgarde, about a scientist who has a traumatic crackup so he becomes a circus clown, whose gimmick is to say reasonable things and get slapped in the face.
Lon Chaney was the biggest star of the middle and late 1920s, and this was the beginning of his great period. He’s largely misunderstood in modern times because he’s most remembered for “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” which are dated and grotesque. See him in his MGM films, such as “West of Zanzibar” and “Where East Is East” (available to stream), or “The Unknown,” which you can find on DVD. Because his son became famous as the Wolfman, there’s a tendency to think of Chaney Sr. as a monster movie actor when he was anything but. He was all about psychological torment, and he’s truly among the most distinct and brilliant actors that ever worked in American film.
Dear Mick: I’m not sure I agree with you about the song “Cherish.” I mean, it’s a truly terrible song, but I don’t see any creepy overtones, just vapid sentimentality. Of course, Sting’s “Every Breath You Take” is the classic deeply disturbing and sinister piece of work.
John Levitt, San Francisco
Dear John: But “Every Breath You Take” is intended to be disturbing, though some of the unpublished verses are even more spinetingling: “Every tooth you ache, every cake you bake, every earth you quake, every Jeff you Flake, I’ll be watching you. Every milk you shake, every yard you rake, every drain you snake, every corpse you wake, I’ll be watching you.” Gives you the chills.
“Cherish” is creepy only if you imagine being on the receiving end of the song. This guy wants to mold this woman into someone who could cherish him. He thinks if he finds the right words, she’ll like him, as though this were a linguistic problem, when it’s really that she just can’t stand him. And he’s all upset about these other guys who supposedly want to touch her face and her hair and gaze into her eyes — but that’s not actually what they want to do, and it’s not what he wants to do.
This is the problem with songs. You hear them and immediately identify with the singer’s side of things, when there’s always another side to the story. For example, there’s probably some poor slob somewhere who, for the past 20 years, every time he hears Natalie Imbruglia singing “Torn,” he’s thinking, “What is she talking about? She broke up with me!”
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.