This is the best moving ending of the decade
Dear Mick: For me, the end of a movie is what makes it memorable or forgettable. Some powerful endings that come to mind for me are 'Chinatown' and 'Body Heat,' neo-noirs that were allowed to have authentic endings as opposed to the moralistic ones required under the Production Code. What are your picks?
Catherine Bator, San Francisco
Dear Catherine: The best ending of a movie in the last decade is the ending of ' Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.' (Spoilers ahead, if you haven't seen the film.)
Writer-director Quentin Tarantino teases you for over two hours, making you dread that you're about to witness the Manson murders. Then he diverts from the true history and has the Manson family killed by two fictional characters, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. The audience is exhilarated, but Tarantino doesn't stop there.
Tarantino lets the energy settle back down. He has Sharon Tate invite the DiCaprio character to her house, and he makes the pace relaxed enough that we go back to remembering that this is just a movie, and that in real life Tate and her friends were murdered in the most horrific ways imaginable. So we experience a complicated mix of emotions, in which we're happy for the people in the movie, but sad about the real world — and sad that we have to live in that real world, even as we appreciate that movies can make it a little better.
In this, Tarantino celebrates cinema in a brand-new way, and touches on an essential sadness in the disconnect between art and life.
Hi Mick: You wouldn't include Stanley Kubrick as one of the greatest of American directors? 'Dr. Strangelove,' 'Lolita,' 'The Shining,' 'A Clockwork Orange,' '2001: A Space Odyssey.'
Steve Ventrello, Napa
Hi Steve: He might very well be great, but to make my Mount Rushmore, I'd have to love his work, and I just don't. He's too cold for me.
Dear Mick: Your obsession with Gene Hackman's personality is starting to sound a bit peculiar. Is his friendliness, or lack of, really relevant to his work as an actor? If being a nice guy were a qualification for creative achievement, there would be many fewer actors, painters, musicians, etc.
Thomas Wood, Nicasio
Dear Thomas: I think the two of us need to track down this peculiar fellow who is obsessed with Gene Hackman's personality, who thinks his friendliness or lack thereof is relevant to his work as an actor, and who thinks that being a nice guy is a qualification for creative achievement. Then we can both disagree with him!
In the meantime, you haven't found that peculiar fellow, and I have no idea why you're sending me his mail.
For the record, I didn't give any thought to Gene Hackman or his personality since I wrote his obituary 10 years ago (we write them in advance); don't think his friendliness to strangers in art galleries is of any importance; and I'm the guy who's ready to welcome back Kevin Spacey — though Bill Cosby is a bridge too far.
Dear Mick LaSalle: I read your piece in the Chronicle and wonder why ' The Penguin Lessons ' didn't come to mind as a good movie about animal-human friendship.
Suzanne Cross, San Francisco
But thank you for bringing up penguins, because I'd totally forgotten about ' My Penguin Friend ' (2024), which is a wonderful, fact-based movie about an old fisherman (Jean Reno) and his friendship with a penguin who comes to visit him every year. That made my top 10 list in 2024.
Dear Mick LaSalle: ' The deft Lepard '? Ouch!
Larry Schorr, San Francisco
Dear Larry Schorr: You're referring to my praise of Nick Lepard, who wrote the movie ' Dangerous Animals.' I thought of it this way: Since the guy did a deft job, why, just because his name is Lepard, should I hesitate pouring some sugar on him? If I held back, I'd be f-f-f-fooling, or, even worse, I'd be bringing on the heartbreak.
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