Ask Mick: Can we have Quentin Tarantino take on the O.J. Simpson story?

O.J. Simpson (center), with his attorneys, in 1995. Photo: AFP / Getty Images

Dear Mick LaSalle: I love the way Quentin Tarantino rewrites history. If you ever run into him, can you suggest that he take on the Nicole Brown Simpson/O.J. story next?

Kathie Asaro, Foster City

Dear Kathie Asaro: The problem with that story is we don’t really know absolutely for sure who the murderer is. We might have opinions, but we don’t really know. But I do share your enthusiasm for the idea of Nicole Simpson answering the door that night carrying a blowtorch. That would be very satisfying. As for me running into Tarantino, where do you imagine that might happen? At Safeway? Walgreens? Next time I’m pumping gas, I’ll be sure to say hi.

Ralph Fiennes in 2009. Photo: Chris Pizzello / Associated Press

Dear Mick: How does one actor become the focus of scenes the way Ralph Fiennes did in “Official Secrets”? It certainly wasn’t because of physical attraction (he looked owlish and had a really bad haircut). Is there an essence that some actors radiate?

David Elliott, Menlo Park

Dear David: Great actors always show you something true, and because they’re interesting as people (as opposed to trying to be interesting), they show you something unexpected. When you watch Ralph Fiennes in that or any movie, you never get just one thing. His face gives you a constant stream of nuance and information. It’s subtle, as it should be, but it’s present, and it’s always changing. He’s listening and reacting. He gives you more than another actor because he knows how to get out of his own way and just be that.

Dear Mick: Maybe I’m just getting old, but it sure seems to me that the volume level in movie theaters is getting higher and higher.

Brad Hathaway, Sausalito

Dear Brad: No. Twenty-five years ago, when I used to go to the movies Friday afternoons (to review films that weren’t screening), the sound inside the big, empty theaters was almost deafening. Here’s my guess: You say you’re getting old. Are you retired? Are you seeing more matinees these days? The problem is that theaters sometimes will crank up the volume to the same level when there are 10 people there for a Tuesday matinee as when there are 500 there on a Saturday night. Just a handful of people there means fewer bodies to absorb the sound and thus, a greater assault on your eardrums.

Marilyn Monroe — stuck in the wrong decade. Photo: Running Press

Hello Mick: You recently listed Lenny Bruce and Marilyn Monroe as entertainers who were ahead of their time. Bruce I understand. Marilyn not so much.

Berkeley Choate, Oakland

Hello Berkeley: Marilyn Monroe was all about the fun and loving sides of sex, which made her an odd fit for the 1950s, which were thuggish, judgmental and prurient. The climate of the day forced her to play an idiot through most of that decade, and you could just begin to feel that finally lifting with “Some Like It Hot” in 1959 and definitely with “Let’s Make Love” (1960) and “The Misfits” (1961), the two films she made right before she died.

If she were born just 15 years later, she would have been in that half-generation that included Julie Christie, Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton. She could have been funny without ever having to play stupid. She could have worked within a culture that was in line with her social and sexual views. And she could have worked in a Hollywood without censorship. Of course, the late 1960s and ’70s wasn’t a very good period for musicals, and she was a musical star, and that era wasn’t very good for women, in general.

But I can’t imagine someone who has maintained her appeal forever, despite making mostly lousy movies — someone whose every photo looks somehow modern or at least timeless, even 57 years after her death — wouldn’t have found a way to excel. She would have had a range like Diane Keaton’s, from Woody Allen comedies to dark films like “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” only with all the extra power inherent in being Marilyn Monroe. And she would have been safely out of the reach of the Kennedys, who would never have heard of her.


  • Mick LaSalle