Hello Mick: What would you say is the change in relevance of critics from main newspapers now versus if you began out on the Chronicle?
David Sironen, San Francisco
Expensive David: A few of my finest reminiscences as a critic — and my finest occasions in a movie show — return to the Nineteen Nineties and the fantastic repertory exhibits that the Roxie Cinema (now Roxie Theater) placed on and that I wrote about: the Norma Shearer tribute, the Lon Chaney competition, the Monta Bell competition, the Hong Kong Cinema showcases and the assorted pre-Code festivals.
The power within the room was fantastic, the audiences superb and the homes had been at all times packed. And what made it even higher is that I used to be the one who packed them. In these days, I might write about one thing that no person had heard of after which, that afternoon, I’d drive by and see a line exterior the field workplace going all the best way down the block.
Right this moment, I can nonetheless pack a home, but it surely takes a multipronged effort involving the bodily paper, the web site and numerous social media platforms, and it could in all probability take greater than a day to make it occur. In order that’s not a great change. However you requested about relevance, and that’s completely different.
There was a really restricted nationwide dialogue about motion pictures. Newspapers within the Eighties had been like particular person kingdoms that decided opinion inside their designated areas. Right this moment, there are combination websites that put movie critics in dialog with one another, and our web site is accessible to anybody with a pc or smartphone, so it’s potential that one thing I write in San Francisco can have an affect on the opposite aspect of the world. That’s a change I do like.
Expensive Mick: When interviewing actors, people extremely educated within the artwork of beguilement, do you could have issue judging their veracity? How do you untangle their true essence from their public persona?
Ralph Mateo, Fairfield
Expensive Ralph: I can’t, and it’s but one more reason why interviewing film stars is a soul-killing, degrading expertise. Stars get interviewed solely in connection to some film they’ve made, they usually have one aim: to feed the very same pretested data to each media entity.
If I love them, I’ll be extra inclined to a snow job or at the least much less passionate about confronting them. If I don’t admire them, it’s worse, as a result of then I’m wondering what I did improper in life, as a result of in the event that they’re an fool, and I’m writing down all the things they are saying, I have to be a good larger fool.
I ought to add that interviewing a film star for a guide is completely different, as a result of it’s a unique form of interview, and interviewing every other form of particular person — equivalent to a director or Al Gore or Willie Brown — is okay. It’s simply the film star publicity tour factor that I discover so ghastly.
Expensive Mick LaSalle: You wrote, “I assumed (Marni) Nixon appeared like Shrek. In reality, she was fairly presentable.” Significantly, Mick, did you revisit that assertion earlier than submitting? The notion {that a} girl (or a person) needs to be enticing to the male gaze to be appropriate as an actor or singer is a part of the issue.
Kathy Hartzell, Inverness
Expensive Kathy Hartzell: I perceive what you’re saying, however you’re mentioning the “male gaze” when Shrek is a common customary for male unattractiveness, nearly as a basis of the character. All I did in that column was go manner out on a limb to counsel {that a} girl who appeared like Shrek could be equally unattractive to basic audiences.
There are every kind of magnificence, and generally requirements of magnificence and handsomeness have been too slender. However acknowledging this doesn’t obligate us to consider, or fake, that it’s some form of injustice that the winner of the Shrek lookalike contest doesn’t get to sing “I May Have Danced All Night time.” Not each function is for everyone.
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