Greetings Mr. Lasalle: Are you personally acquainted with academy members? If so, do you correspond with them? Is the academy capable of a “snub”? And are the snubs active or passive? Finally, are the Oscars still relevant? If so, to whom, and why?
Mike Reed, Danville
Greetings Mr. Reed: I know some academy members, and I talk to them, but almost never about the Oscars.
Is the academy capable of a snub? For the record, a snub is when someone is expected to be nominated but doesn’t get a nod. I suppose the academy is capable of that, but just as often this snub stuff is invented by the media. I mean, by what stretch of the definition of the word “best” was Greta Gerwig ever supposed to get a best director nomination for “Barbie”?
This is how this kind of nonsense happens: The media speculates, comes up with a set of absurd predictions, and then, when their predictions don’t play out, they don’t say, “Oh, I guess we were wrong.” They call it a snub and get another story out of it.
As for the relevancy of the Oscars, it depends on what you mean by relevant. Yes, in one way, the Oscars are second only to the Nobel Prize. If you win the Nobel, it means that your life amounted to something. If you win the Oscar, it means that people think your life amounted to something, which is almost as good. But as indicators of artistic achievement, the Oscars have never been important. Aside from the glamour and emotion attached to them, the most significant value of the Oscars is to historians. They capture the artistic misconceptions of any given year. That’s not a serious function, but it’s fun.
Dear Mick LaSalle: You have said that of the people you’ve interviewed, Jodie Foster and Richard Gere were the most unpleasant. Foster’s all over the media lately with her movie “Nyad.” Why did she make that short list?
David Sironen, San Francisco
Dear David Sironen: She’s not so bad. It was just a frustrating situation. Years ago, I was interviewing Jodie Foster in connection with her movie, “Nell,” which was awful. Two minutes into the interview, she started imitating me, and not in a friendly way. I was puzzled by this, and she said something like, “I’m memorizing you. One of these days, I’ll use you for a role.”
Now if this were a print interview, I would have just said something pithy, like, “Too bad you couldn’t have used me for ‘Nell’ — you sure needed the help.” But the problem is I was doing a TV interview.
I had just started a once-a-week gig on ABC-7 doing movie reviews on Fridays, but on this rare occasion I had to an interview somebody. The problem with celebrity interviews that are recorded on tape is that the movie publicists’ control the tape. If you say something the star doesn’t like, the publicists will refuse to give you the tape, which means going back to the station empty-handed. And considering that I’d only worked at the station for about five weeks, I could have easily gotten the ax.
So I had a choice: Sit back and keep my mouth shut and hold on to a job (and some money) that I really enjoyed, or tell Jodie Foster what I thought of her lousy movie, not to mention her rudeness. Of course, I did the smart thing, but the smart thing doesn’t always feel good.
Hi Mick: I went back and watched the original “2001: A Space Odyssey.” I’m curious about your take on that film and whether it holds up.
Jay Jordan, Foster City
Hi Jay: I’ve never seen “2001: A Space Odyssey” on anything bigger than an 8-foot screen, or on anything stronger than a glass of wine, so I might not have given the movie the chance to work its magic. I liked a few parts of it, even without hallucinogens. That’s the best I can say about it.
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