Dear Mick:What an odd time you had, reviewing both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in the same week. I would probably get mental whiplash going between those films. What's the strangest pairing of movies you've ever reviewed around the same time?
Cynthia Cudaback, Oakland
Dear Cynthia:Seeing very different movies on different days is no big deal, any more than it is to watch very different TV shows throughout the week. But double features can be different, especially if the first movie turns out to be great.
As it happened, I saw “Oppenheimer” as the second half of a double feature, after seeing “Haunted Mansion,” which was terrible. Had I seen “Haunted Mansion” second, I might have wondered if my low opinion of it was because my head was still in “Oppenheimer.”
Dear Mick LaSalle:I remember you wrote about Grace Kelly in “The Country Girl.” Not only did she not deserve the Oscar, but she was terrible. Are there any other beloved Hollywood icons that you think are obscenely overrated?
Bob Haus, Oakland
Dear Bob Haus:I think almost no one is overrated, including Grace Kelly. She was terrible in “The Country Girl” — as amateurish as a first-year acting student — but she was good in everything else.
The only Hollywood icon that I can think of that’s genuinely overrated, and this is a lesser icon to begin with, is the silent actress Louise Brooks, who advanced her rather marginal career 20 years after it was over by charming film historians and having sex with one particularly prominent one. (Having sex with a producer to jump-start your career is one thing, but to promote one’s legacy by having sex with a film historian — I can’t imagine anything more low-down.) As a result, more nonsense has been written about her than about any other silent film star, and usually by people who know nothing about silent film besides Louise Brooks.
Dear Mick LaSalle:With movie theaters straining to recover, doesn’t Datebook have an obligation to let its readers know where the movies it reviews are playing?
David Kiobrir, San Francisco
Dear David Kiobrir:I’ve received dozens of emails saying that the Chronicle should bring back the movie listings that used to appear in the daily Datebook section. What people don’t realize is that those listings were paid advertisements.We didn’t abandon the theaters. They abandoned us.
Dear Mick LaSalle:Would you prefer to have dinner with Greta Garbo or Norma Shearer?
Tom Middlemass, Ventura
Dear Tom Middlemass:You’re asking an aging critic which of two dead ladies he’d rather go on a date with, but such is the time-stopping nature of movies that this seems like a romantic question.
I’ll answer you this way: Many years ago, a fan, in a letter to a movie magazine, made this observation about the two most popular actresses of the day. “Garbo is the embodiment of all things glamorous and unreal,” the letter read. “Norma Shearer is the embodiment of all things modern and delightfully real.”
Until I was about 30, I’d have preferred Garbo. But since around 35, I’ve preferred the real versus the “unreal.” I like the real so much that I even wrote a book called“The Beauty of the Real.”So, I’d have to go with the “delightfully real” Shearer — especially in “Private Lives.”
Dear Mick:Do you have a favorite movie that inspires travel?
Former Chronicle travel editor Spud Hilton, San Francisco
Dear Spud:“A Little Romance,” for Venice.
“Paris, je t’aime” for Paris, especially because it’s filmed in 18 differentarrondissements.
“Rome, Open City,” because it captures something in the soul of the place.
Speaking of soul, “San Francisco” (1936), as old and occasionally corny as it is, still evokes the true heart and essence of San Francisco — its reflexive nostalgia, its essentially benign spirit, its romanticism and its self-obsession.
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.