Mick LaSalle
Encyclopedia
Mick LaSalle is an American
ilm reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-Hays Code Hollywood. Up to March 2008, he had written inmore than 1550 reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle
and he has been podcast
ing them since September 2005.
LaSalle is the author of Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, a history/critical study of the actresses who worked in the film industry between 1929-1934. It was published by Thomas Dunne Books
in 2000. In his review in The New York Times
, Andy Webster called it "an overdue examination of a historic conflict between Hollywood and would-be monitors of morality" and added LaSalle "has an avuncular but informative style, and makes his points with a relaxed economy."
The book served as the basis for the documentary film
Complicated Women, directed by Hugh Munro Neely and narrated by Jane Fonda
, which originally was broadcast by Turner Classic Movies
in May 2003. LaSalle provided commentary for and was associate producer of the project.
LaSalle's follow-up to Complicated Women was Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man, published by Thomas Dunne in 2002.
LaSalle has lectured on film subjects at various film festivals, including those in the Hamptons, Denver, Las Vegas
, and Mill Valley and at New York City
's Film Forum
and San Francisco's Castro Theatre
. For several years he taught a film course at the University of California, Berkeley
, and now teaches film courses at Stanford University
.
In the late 1990s, LaSalle was the on-air film critic for KGO-TV
. He is a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle
, and was a panelist at the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Venice Film Festival
s. He was also a panelist at the 2009 Berlin film festival. In addition to his reviews, he answers film-related questions in the Chronicle column Ask Mick LaSalle.
LaSalle is married to playwright
Amy Freed
.
Blue Valentine
The Ghost Writer
Mademoiselle Chambon
The King's Speech
Hereafter
Toy Story 3
The Social Network
Black Swan
The Kids are All Right
The Runaways
2009
Inglourious Basterds
The Hurt Locker
Up in the Air
Two Lovers
Revanche
Funny People
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Cheri
Summer Hours
Food, Inc.
2008
Revolutionary Road
Milk
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
I've Loved You So Long
The Wrestler
Frost/Nixon
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ilm reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-Hays Code Hollywood. Up to March 2008, he had written inmore than 1550 reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
and he has been podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ing them since September 2005.
LaSalle is the author of Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, a history/critical study of the actresses who worked in the film industry between 1929-1934. It was published by Thomas Dunne Books
Thomas Dunne Books
Thomas Dunne Books, a division of St. Martin's Press, publishes popular trade fiction and nonfiction. Established in 1986 and based in New York City, Thomas Dunne Books publishes approximately 175 titles each year, covering a range of genres including commercial and literary fiction, mysteries,...
in 2000. In his review in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Andy Webster called it "an overdue examination of a historic conflict between Hollywood and would-be monitors of morality" and added LaSalle "has an avuncular but informative style, and makes his points with a relaxed economy."
The book served as the basis for the documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Complicated Women, directed by Hugh Munro Neely and narrated by Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
, which originally was broadcast by Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
in May 2003. LaSalle provided commentary for and was associate producer of the project.
LaSalle's follow-up to Complicated Women was Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man, published by Thomas Dunne in 2002.
LaSalle has lectured on film subjects at various film festivals, including those in the Hamptons, Denver, Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, and Mill Valley and at New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Film Forum
Film Forum
Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater located at 209 West Houston Street in New York City. It began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a US$19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership,...
and San Francisco's Castro Theatre
Castro Theatre
The Castro Theatre is a popular San Francisco movie palace which became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, in the Castro district, it was built in 1922 with a Spanish Colonial Baroque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window...
. For several years he taught a film course at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, and now teaches film courses at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
.
In the late 1990s, LaSalle was the on-air film critic for KGO-TV
KGO-TV
KGO-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, based in San Francisco, California...
. He is a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
The San Francisco Film Critics Circle was founded in 2002 as an organization of film journalists and critics from San Francisco, California based publications....
, and was a panelist at the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
s. He was also a panelist at the 2009 Berlin film festival. In addition to his reviews, he answers film-related questions in the Chronicle column Ask Mick LaSalle.
LaSalle is married to playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Amy Freed
Amy Freed
Amy Freed is an American playwright. She was nominated as a finalist in the drama category of the 1998 Pulitzer Prizes for her play Freedomland. In addition to Freedomland, she is the author of The Beard of Avon , The Psychic Life of Savages, and other plays...
.
Mick LaSalle's top ten lists
2010Blue Valentine
Blue Valentine (film)
Blue Valentine is a 2010 romantic drama film written and directed by Derek Cianfrance. The film premiered in competition at the 26th Sundance Film Festival. Derek Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis wrote the film, and Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling played the lead roles...
The Ghost Writer
Mademoiselle Chambon
The King's Speech
Hereafter
Hereafter (film)
Hereafter is a 2010 American drama film directed by Clint Eastwood, from a screenplay by Peter Morgan and produced by Steven Spielberg. The film tells three parallel stories about three people affected by death in similar ways - all three have issues of communicating with the dead; Matt Damon plays...
Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film, and the third installment in the Toy Story series. It was produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was released worldwide from June through October in Disney Digital...
The Social Network
The Social Network
The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...
Black Swan
Black Swan
The Black Swan is a large waterbird, a species of swan, which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. The species was hunted to extinction in New Zealand, but later reintroduced. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic...
The Kids are All Right
The Kids Are All Right
The Kids Are All Right is a television game show made by Initial, an Endemol UK company, for the BBC. An eight-episode series was ordered by the BBC, and is presented by John Barrowman. The first episode was broadcast on 12 April 2008. It is recorded at BBC Pacific Quay in Glasgow.It shares some...
The Runaways
The Runaways (film)
The Runaways is a 2010 American biographical film about the 1970s all-girl rock band of the same name. The film was written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, who based the screenplay on the book Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by the band's original lead vocalist Cherie Currie...
2009
Inglourious Basterds
The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker is a 2009 American war film about a three-man United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team during the Iraq War. The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and the screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a US bomb...
Up in the Air
Up in the Air
Up in the Air is a 2001 novel by American author Walter Kirn. It was later adapted into the 2009 feature film Up in the Air, starring George Clooney.-Plot summary:...
Two Lovers
Two Lovers (film)
Two Lovers is a 2008 American romantic drama film, taking its inspiration from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story "White Nights". which was already turned into a film by Luchino Visconti: Le Notti Bianche. The movie is directed by James Gray and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Vinessa...
Revanche
Revanche (film)
Revanche is a 2008 Austrian thriller film written and directed by Götz Spielmann. It centers on the ill-fated love story between a Viennese ex-con and a Ukrainian prostitute who get involved in a bank robbery....
Funny People
Funny People
Funny People is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written, co-produced and directed by Judd Apatow, and starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, and Leslie Mann. The film was released on 31 July 2009 in North America, and on 28 August 2009 in the United Kingdom. Funny People uses considerably more...
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Cheri
Cheri (film)
Chéri is a 2009 drama film directed by Stephen Frears. Starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend, it is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by French author Colette...
Summer Hours
Food, Inc.
Food, Inc.
Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy, in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and...
2008
Revolutionary Road
Revolutionary Road
Revolutionary Road, the first novel of author Richard Yates, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1962 along with Catch-22 and The Moviegoer. When it was published by Atlantic-Little, Brown in 1961, it received critical acclaim, and the New York Times reviewed it as "beautifully crafted.....
Milk
Milk (film)
Milk is a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a 2007 Romanian film written and directed by Cristian Mungiu. It won the Palme d'Or and the FIPRESCI Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival....
I've Loved You So Long
I've Loved You So Long
I've Loved You So Long is a 2008 French-language drama film written and directed by Philippe Claudel. It tells the story of a woman struggling to interact with her family and find her place in society after spending fifteen years in prison.-Plot:...
The Wrestler
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon is a 2006 play by British screenwriter and dramatist Peter Morgan. Its subject is the series of televised interviews that former United States President Richard Nixon granted David Frost in 1977 about his administration, including his role in the Watergate scandal.-Performance...
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a 2008 romance comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall...
External links
- Mick LaSalle at the MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
- Mick LaSalle at the San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
- Ask Mick LaSalle at the San Francisco Chronicle