San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
ASK MICK LASALLE
Dear Mick: Why do movie critics seem compelled to give lengthy movie reviews? You wrote recently about movies in 2023 you considered worthwhile watching, and those paragraph-or-two reviews were excellent. Your condensed versions were more than adequate to decide if I wanted to see the movie.
Pat Kearns, San Rafael
Dear Pat: I know you mean that in a nice way, but how do you think Tolstoy would feel if you told him that “War and Peace” was better in the CliffNotes edition?
To me, a movie review is not a consumer guide, though you’re free to use it in that way. I see a review as a separate work of art, parasitic almost by definition, but one that can often be better than the host organism. In fact, I prefer thinking of the movies I review as pretexts for my invention, as though studios are investing tens of millions of dollars just to come up with a product for me to work on. That’s not exactly true, but it’s a healthy way for me to go about the job.
Hello Mr. LaSalle: If you had to watch a dozen movies over and over again, what would they be?
Michael Driver, Ichihara City, Japan Hello Mr. Driver: I’m going to assume you don’t mean that they’re on a loop and I’m getting tortured, but rather that my selection is limited to only 12.
Today I’d choose “Private Lives” (1931), “Queen Christina” (1933), “Gold Diggers of 1933,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939), “To Be or Not to Be” (1942), “The Godfather” (1972), “Day for Night” (1973), “Annie Hall” (1977), “Revanche” (2008), “Inglourious Basterds” (2009), “One Day” (2011) and “A Most Violent Year” (2014). But I could
change my mind tomorrow.
Dear Mick: I’ve been looking forward to seeing “The Taste of Things.” I am a member of the Bay Area Culinary Historians — in other words, a self-admitted “foodie,” and I knew I would love the film. Au contraire, I found it boring! When I got home, I looked up the film on Rotten Tomatoes and was astounded to see its 98% approval rating by the professional reviewers and felt the mere 52% approval of audience reviews was far more accurate.
Pam Elder, Orinda Dear Pam: I noticed that, too. I have to assume that my fellow critics really did love it, and yet I can’t resist noting that the path of least resistance for a movie like that is to call it a celebration of food and life, praise the actors, praise the food and get out. There’s a template for these reviews as much as there’s a template for the movies themselves. Panning it, on the other hand, requires a strenuous minute or two of extra thinking.
Dear Mick: You describe young Jodie Foster as having an appealing “precocious intelligence.” Absolutely. What other actors come to mind that possess that same quality? I vote Carey Mulligan.
Whit Manley, Woodland Dear Whit: Carey Mulligan seemed precocious in her first movie, “An Education,” but that’s probably because she was 23 and playing a teenager. However, she could be considered precocious in another sense: She has been 40 years old for almost 20 years now, and she’s still only 38.
In 2013, when she played Daisy in “The Great Gatsby,” she didn’t make sense in the role, because she felt old for it even though she was the right age. But now, finally, Mulligan is approaching her own spiritual age, and as a consequence, she’s hitting a whole new level. For some people, it’s an indignity to be young. They’re sort of born middle-aged and are just waiting to get there.