Ask Mick LaSalle: A good person but not boring
Ask Mick LaSalle: A good person but not boring
In your review of “Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed,” you wrote, “It’s rare in movies and in narrative art to find a character who’s deeply and completely good, yet comical, endlessly surprising and idiosyncratic.”
Do any more characters like this come to mind now?
The movie came and went, but it should turn up soon on home video.
Thoughts on Edmond O’Brien? I’ve never seen an actor with such negative charisma — he’s been a charmless schlub in everything I’ve seen him in.
By the end, everyone in the audience preferred the murdering psychopath, which was probably intentional.
[...] because critics can’t escape seeing almost everything, they tend to be more enthusiastic about that which is merely good simply because they see so much that is truly awful.
The one thing a critic should not want to become is a bitter crank, and certain kinds of critics are particularly susceptible to that fate.
After about 10 years of lugging all that baggage around, they realize no one is listening to them, that nothing is changing, and they end up getting angry.
Whereas other critics, who think of themselves as writers who just happen to be writing about an area of particular interest, tend to stay fresh, because, in a sense, their subject is themselves, even if they don’t admit it or even think of it in that way.
The movies are just pretexts for the critic’s own invention.
Dear Mick: I can’t quite get over the rumor than Daniel Craig in real life is the half brother of Vladimir Putin.
Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification.
Letters may be edited for clarity and length.