Dear Mick:I was surprised at your dismissive take on Rami Malek’s performance in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I thought his acting and stage performing were great, and without his interpretation of the role, the movie would have been entertaining but very ordinary.
Jon Hyde, San Rafael
Dear John:Malek was everything he needed to be in that movie, and more, but I just can’t see giving the best actor Oscar to a performance that depended so much on someone else’s singing. A great degree of that performance’s impact had to do withFreddie Mercury’s voice seeming to come out of Malek’s body.Even when he wasn’t singing, our memory and anticipation of that voice automatically gave Malek an aura of grandeur and importance – one that he needed to do nothing to achieve. We think we’re loving Malek as Mercury, but half of what we’re loving is Mercury as Mercury. Best actor isn’t a collaborative award.
Dear Micko:Every blue moon I watch a film and want to immediately watch it again. When is the last time, if ever, that this happened to you?
Robert Freud Bastin, Petaluma
Dear Roberto:It’s happened a lot, but it’s happened in different ways over the years. When I was first seeing movies, my desire to see movies again was made more intense by the fact that there was no such thing as home video. So I couldn’t know for sure when I’d ever see them again. I remember that when I was 7 or 8, I started crying after seeing the musical “Lili” (1953) on TV. I didn’t want to leave that world. In the years since, I’ve gone through various obsessions, occasioning multiple viewings of films by Greta Garbo,pre-Codes,Norma Shearer,James Cagney,Fred Astaire,Nathalie Baye,Sandrine Bonnaire — with Bonnaire, I saw “Intimate Strangers” every time some unlucky person made the mistake of telling me they’d never seen it. In 2018, there were several movies I made sure I saw again, most notably “Disobedience” and“Vox Lux.”But since you asked for thelasttime this happened, it was just a few weeks ago. There’s a 1986 movie called “Modern Girls,” a very obscure film and not a masterpiece by any stretch, but there’s something about it that I really like. A month or two ago, I noticed that it had been released on Blu-ray. I got it, saw it, enjoyed it as much as ever, and I started looking forward to seeing it again, so I did. For the record, “Modern Girls” stars Cynthia Gibb, Virginia Madsen, Daphne Zuniga and Clayton Rohner, and I’m probably the only one who sees any magic in it.
Dear Mr. L:Do critics have a place where they gather to let down their hair? Like do you andDavid Thomsonget together and slam down some shots to discuss Kenneth Turan’s latest offering?
John Hutchinson, Oakland
Dear Mr. H.:First of all, I can’t let down my hair because my hair letmedown years ago. But the answer is no, there is no such place, and if there were, I would avoid it. As you can imagine, I have no frustrated need to talk about movies, because I get so much of that just in daily life. For example, every time I meet somebody, they confess to me every movie they’ve ever seen. (They even ask, “You know what I saw last night?” I’ve never been able to guess.) I don’t mind this — I totally get it, because I do the same thing: Seriously, every time I meet a therapist, I practically lie down on the couch. But I find that critics whoare entirely movie obsessed are boring, in print and in person. Of course, when I run into film critic acquaintances, we do a minute or two of the obligatory “Did you see this?” and “Did you like that?” That’s fine, even informative. But if the conversation goes any longer than that, we’ll move on to something else. The world is too interesting, and people are too interesting, to get stuck on one thing. There’s other stuff to talk about, especially these days.
有问题吗?问Mick LaSalle atmlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.