Hi Mick: If you please, I'd like your take on James Mason, one of my favorites.
Len Bakker, Berkeley
Hi Len: Good actor, handsome as a thomas Young man, only I like him best as an old guy, charming only rarely trusty - and also as a teller. He was hands downward the topper documentary narrator of all time. So much came through in that voice.
Dear Mick: I read with horror in your editorial that thither is a remake of "The Women." I shudder to think of the outcome. Can't Hollywood leave a successful movie unparalleled?
Robert L. McMahon, Oakland
Dear Robert: I've heard similar sentiments from other readers, only I get to say I don't share them. A bad remake does no hurt to the original. It simply disappears. (Today cypher talks about "The Opposite Sex," the musical remaking of "The Women," because it was lousy.) And if a remake is good, even better. Either way, this remake will incite interest group in the original 1939 movie, which - hard as it is for hard-core classic movie fans to trust - to the highest degree people have never heard of. There are folk who ar going to be beholding Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Norma Shearer wHO might never have otherwise.
Beyond that, there ar reasons why this account, in finicky, is a good prospect for a remake. For the net 70 days, there experience repeatedly been stage revivals of the Clare Boothe Luce play, "The Women," showing the property still has life in it. And the 1939 version cut extinct an entire character and some of the edges from the play - there ar things you could do onscreen today that you couldn't do in 1939. Finally, on a strictly subjective annotation, I don't see the 1939 film as remotely sacrosanct. For one thing, it's the movie nigh responsible for distorting Norma Shearer's bequest in the eyes of posterity. For decades, at least until 2000, when things started turning around, she was recalled as a angelic milquetoast, thanks to "The Women," when she'd been the example of intimate sophistication in the immense majority of her films. In fact, she thought twice about taking the role of the devastated wife, and I cogitate she should have thought process three times.
Hello Mick: What movie sold the most tickets ever (yes, ever!)? Not highest grosses, since every time ticket prices go up, there's a new winner in that category.
Mary Ann Lahann, Newcastle
Hello Mary: Even before I checked, I knew the answer to this one: "Gone With the Wind."
Dear Mr. LaSalle: I would appreciate learning any thoughts you may have on the camera work of Michelangelo Antonioni. I commend seeing some of his films when I was in graduate school. I found them engrossing, nigh hypnotizing! Was I exactly an well impressed whitney Moore Young Jr. person so, or was there genuinely something there? And if so, what was it?
Tom Johnson, San Francisco
Dear Mr. Johnson: It's a cryptical thing. When you determine a guess in an Antonioni photographic film, a awareness comes through, one probing for knockout, connection and meaning. Yet if someone were to imitate Antonioni, the shot would be cold and sterile, kinda than inquisitory and quiet despairing. I'd say that, in appreciating the photographic camera work in an Antonioni film, you're really picking up on what was special more or less him: his way of seeing and his compositional originality. Antonioni was non a particularly good narrator. Even his best movies have boring patches, and in his worst movies those patches are as long as the linear time. But he saw things others didn't, and after eyesight an Antonioni film, you start to see Antonioni aspects in daily life. That in itself constitutes a significant contribution to cinema and civilization.
Hey Mick: A circle of foreign films have American music in them. Do they change the music for U.S. distribution to make it more palatable for us?
Chuck Shaw, Berkeley
Hey Chuck: No. They just like our pop music. They just know that we're as honest at pop music as they are at opera, so they leave it to the experts. {sbox}
To hear Ask Mick LaSalle with commentary, small beer and lots of extras, download his podcast at sfgate.com/podcasts.
Have a question? Ask Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification. Letters crataegus oxycantha be edited for clearness and length.
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