Mick LaSalle

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Mick LaSalle (born May 7, 1959) is the film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of two books on pre-code Hollywood. As of August 2006, he's written over 1370 reviews^[1]; he has been podcasting his film reviews since September 2005.^[2]

He is the author of Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, a history/critical study of the actresses who worked during the pre-censorship "pre-Code" era of 1929-1934. Entertainment Weekly called it "sophisticated and provocative" and Liz Smith called it "a brilliant work." It was lauded by film historians David Thomson and Molly Haskell, and Scott Eyman called it "a breakthrough work of film scholarship." The book was "Book of the Month" on Turner Classic Movies in October 2000, and was the subject of a film series on that station. A Timeline Films documentary, Complicated Women,^[3], based on the book and narrated by Jane Fonda, aired on TCM in May of 2003. LaSalle served as Associate Producer. That same month, LaSalle's follow-up book, Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man, also was named TCM's "Book of the Month."

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'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 ABC-7 KGO-TV in San Francisco and is a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle^[4]. He was a panelist at the 2006 Venice Film Festival.

[edit] Publications

"Ask Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic", San Francisco Chronicle, Hearst Communications, Inc.
Movies with Mick LaSalle. San Francisco Chronicle Podcasts. Retrieved on 2006-09-13.
(2000-09-28) Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, 1st. (Hardcover), New York City: Thomas Dunne, 304. ISBN 0-312-25207-2.
[2000-09-28] (2001-12-19) Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, Rpt. (Paperback), New York City: St. Martin's Griffin, 304. ISBN 0-312-28431-4, LCC PN1995.9.W6 L37 2000.
(2002-11-01) Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man, 1st. (Hardcover), New York City: Thomas Dunne, 272. ISBN 0-312-28311-3, LCC PN1995.9.M46 L37 2002.