ASK MICK LASALLE
Dear Mick: What, if anything, do you make of Leonardo DiCaprio’s being allowed to make his political agenda known during his acceptance speech ... without being interrupted by the walk-off music?
Mark Mathias, Castro Valley
Dear Mark: As a point of personal privilege, any actor or actress who wins the top award should be allowed to talk as long as they like. They’re the most interesting people at the ceremony — or at least the people other people are most interested in. As for DiCaprio, I think it’s a little silly that he used the speech as an occasion to express his environmental concerns. On the other hand, I suspect that he’s just a really nice guy who felt that the moment should be about more than him, that he should use it for the public good. In that way, I think he’s a lot less ridiculous than Matthew McConaughey, who actually stood up there and talked about how he was his own hero. (It’s hard to look at a guy in quite the same way after a thing like that.) Still, I wonder if we’ll ever see an Oscar acceptance to rival Dustin Hoffman’s in 1980. Go on YouTube and check out how accepting an award should be done. Dear Mick LaSalle: TCM is showing movies condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency. I watched “Babyface” and “The Story of Temple Drake” last night — very fine.
Sabella Moreno, San Francisco
Dear Sabella Moreno: You’re referring to the organization created by Catholic bishops in 1934 that told Catholics they’d go to hell if they saw certain movies. The studios were terrified of the Legion, though they found out a few months later that Catholics were taking the “Condemned” list as suggestions for further viewing, and so the box office for condemned films went up instead of down in heavily Catholic areas. The bishops should have remembered the tendency that goes back at least as far as Genesis: If you tell people they absolutely must not do something, that becomes the only thing they want to do. Dear Mick: (1.) Do you think Hilary Swank could be called the Luise Rainer of the new millennium? Meaning — she’s won two Oscars, yet most of her other work seems already forgotten. (2.) What do you think of Lauren Bacall as an actress?
Jim Forgione, Oakland
Dear Jim: (1.) Rainer was Austrian, and her career lasted only a few years, and her essence was nothing like Swank’s. I suppose there’s a similarity in that they’re not the most likely candidates to have been singled out for special honors, but they’re both good enough, and it’s too early to say whether Swank will be forgotten. Rainer’s heyday was 80 years ago. We’ll have to wait and see what people think of Swank in 2096. (2.) Lauren Bacall was Lauren Bacall, which was just right for the Lauren Bacall movies she appeared in. She lived to be almost 90, and yet her contribution to cinema was pretty much over by age 25. Still, by some combination of luck and look, and attitude and ability, she became part of the permanent iconography of the late 1940s. She wasn’t a great actress, but still, the world would be less without her. Dear Mick: Who is a better actor, Robert De Niro or Al Pacino? Whose body of work is more impressive?
Chuck Morgenstern, San Rafael
Dear Chuck: They’re both great, and they both have indelible bodies of work. I’d give the edge to Pacino, in that, while they’re both admirable, Pacino is lovable. Also few actors have ever had the run of performances that Pacino had in the 1970s. I also like that Pacino has a tendency to overact and scream and carry on, which I consider to be a form of emotional generosity in an actor. He’s not waiting for you to come to him, and he never phones it in. This makes him easier to imitate.
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