Dear Mick:I was on a flight last week and I watched “Living.” In spite of myself, tears were streaming down my face during numerous scenes. I was wondering if there are films throughout the decades known for being true tearjerkers and if it’s the sign of a good movie.
Ryan Baker, San Francisco
Dear Ryan:No, it’s the sign you’re on an airplane. I don’t know why it is, but people cry easily on airplanes. I once started weeping on a planerememberinga scene from a movie — the scene where Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess have their first kiss at the end of “One Day.”
“Living” and “One Day” are both excellent, emotional films, but I think we’d have both been able to hold it together had we been on the ground.
Dear Mick LaSalle:Did anyone comment on your witty thought for Gary Oldman in the “Oppenheimer” review: “(Oldman), who played Winston Churchill in ‘The Darkest Hour,’ is President Harry Truman here. If Oldman ever plays Stalin, he could do the Potsdam Conference as a one-man show.”
Arnie Hoffman, Sunnyvale
Dear Arnie Hoffman:To my surprise, yes. I got lots of positive comments, which rarely happens with a wisecrack. I knewIthought it was funny, but I didn’t expect that there’d be a market for Potsdam Conference jokes.
By the way, if Oldman wanted to do the one-man show, he’d also have to develop a Clement Atlee impression, because after Churchill lost the 1945 election, Atlee replaced him. But that’s how it is with humor. If you explain it, you wreck it.
Dear Mick LaSalle:Regarding the discussion of the “no place like home” line in “The Wizard of Oz.” You seem to see it as the most important “message” in the film. Instead, the most important message is spoken by the wizard when he tells the scarecrow, tin man and lion that what they are searching for has been inside them all along — a brain, a heart and courage, respectively.
Ken Ross, Oakland
Dear Ken Ross:But that’s not what he says. That’s what everybodysayshe says. Actually, he gives a Ph.D. to a brainless man, a testimonial to a no-hearted man and a medal to a coward. The wizard, as the movie reveals, is a total fraud, and so, he pretty much tells these guys that the most important thing is being able to fake it. To that end, he gives them each proof that they possess something they don’t. He teaches them how to be as phony as he is.
Dear Mr. LaSalle:Your “Ask Mick” column now appears only every other week. Why? I think your longer articles are less interesting than your answers to random questions.
Michael Biehl, San Francisco
Dear Mr. Biehl:The longer column gives me a way to weigh in on things without being asked, and I especially valued having that chance during the height of the pandemic. I used to write songs in my teens and 20s, and writing a column is very much like writing a song: There’s an idea for content (what you’re going to say) and then there’s an idea for form (how you’re going to say it). Unless you have a good idea for both, you got nothing.
Also, with both songs and columns, it’s usually best to enter through a side door. You don’t define the viewpoint with the first sentence; you state your point with the chorus or in the fourth or fifth paragraph. This is unlike reviews. Reviews require a certain sledgehammer relentlessness — that’s their charm. A column requires nimbleness, a martial arts-like gracefulness, so I’d never give it up. But I’d never (willingly) give up “Ask Mick LaSalle,” either. I like doing both.
By the way, I’m going to be celebrating 20 years of the column with an “Ask Mick Live” event hosted by my esteemed editorMariecar Mendozaat Manny’s on Wednesday, Aug. 16.Check it out.
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.