亲爱的拉塞尔先生:The Smith/Rockevent has raised discussion for weeks — all about Will Smith’s bad behavior. No one has expressed concern aboutChris Rock’s “joke.”I find his wisecrack about Ms. Pinkett appalling, an abuse of his position. What do you think?
Doris Howard, San Francisco
Dear Ms. Howard:Actually, notallthe discussion has been about Will Smith’s bad behavior. Some celebrities have even sided with him. But this is what I think: The worst part of going bald — a friend told me this; I have it on good authority — is the early stage, where it’s happening and you’re hoping nobody notices, but of course they do. This is not fun if you’re a man. It has to be exponentially worse for a woman. Had Jada Pinkett been inthatsituation, and he’d have made a bald joke,thatwould have been cruel and appalling. But she had shaved her head, and all Rock did was compare her to the most badass woman with a shaved head of the last generation. So, no, I’m not appalled. I’m not even fazed. The only thing I’m bothered by is that the joke wasn’t funny.
Ricky Gervais had the right response: “I wouldn’t have told a joke about his wife’s hair,” he said. “I’d have told a joke about her boyfriend.”
米y Dear Mr. LaSalle:“The Help” — five Oscar-winning women in the same cast. Sure, if you leave out Sissy Spacek! Make thatsix. No wait! Mary Steenburgen! Make thatseven. No wait! If you count honorary Oscars,CicelyTyson！米ake that eight.
Les Millett, Berkeley
米y Dear Mr. Millett:You’re referring toDavid King’s letter, in which he noted that five Oscar-winning women in the same cast had to be a record. I don’t think it occurred to either of us that that movie actually hadeight.Now I guess the pressure is really on Aunjanue Ellis and Bryce Dallas Howard to make it 10.
Dear Mick:As a SAG/AFTRA voting member, I was thrilled to get the screener of “West Side Story.” But the song “Somewhere” was changed to that of Rita Moreno. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was not to hear that beautiful song sung by Maria and Tony.
Erick Vinther, Alameda
Dear Erick:Every so often I’ll be watching a movie that’s going well, and then something amazing will happen that kicks it into greatness. It was good before, maybe even exceptional, but now, suddenly, it’s great, and there’s no going back. A good example of that kind of moment comes in the 2011 movie “One Day.” Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess are running down a hill in 1988 and they pass Sturgess playing the same guy, some 20 years later, walking up the same hill with his young daughter. The whole movie is contained in those seconds — love and loss and the mystery of time.
Likewise, in “Before Sunrise” (1995), Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke say goodbye on the train platform, and you think, “OK, that’s fine, good ending.” But no. Richard Linklater tops that by going back to all the locations they’d visited the previous afternoon and evening, to show what those places look like in normal daylight — minus the enchantment of young love. It’s a beautiful, devastating ending.
Well, the moment you’re complaining about in “West Side Story” is something similar. It’s not only the best scene in the movie, it’s the best scene inanymovie from 2021. It takes the idea of someday there being a place for Tony and Maria and universalizes it. And the fact that it was sung by an actress in her late 80s, who went through a lot in her early career and has a whole previous history with this story, gives the song an additional resonance. It’s like she’s saying, “I started out young with this. Now I’m old. When will this story stop being relevant?”
I can see how, if you expect one thing and you get another, it can throw you off, but one of these days watch the movie again. Let let me know what you think.
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