Mick LaSalle Articles

My Week with Marilyn: actress Michelle Williams, director Simon Curtis The Artist topped the Top Ten Movies of 2011 list compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle. Michel Hazanavicius' French-made comedy-drama set in Hollywood at the dawn of the sound era has been a critical favorite. The Artist, which stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, is also a front-runner for the 2012 Academy Awards. [...]

Barbara Stanwyck, John Wayne in Alfred E. Green's Baby Face (top); Sandro Panseri in Ermanno Olmi's Il Posto (bottom) In the next few hours, Turner Classic Movies will present one of MGM's last silent films (with synchronized score), one of the best movies of the 1960s, one of the most outrageous pre-Code releases of the early 1930s, and a documentary about the portrayal of women [...]

Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer in Ernst Lubitsch's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (top); Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, second husband Martin Arrouge (bottom) Norma Shearer may not be a household name today, but back in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s all the way to the early 1940s, Shearer's star shone brighter than most. Turner Classic Movies is dedicating Thursday, Aug. 12, to the [...]

Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning in The Runaways Kristen Stewart appears to have been luckier than Robert Pattinson in her choice of non-Twilight Saga vehicle. Written and directed by Floria Sigismondi from singer Cherie Currie's autobiography, The Runaways has received mostly positive notices from US critics. Even those who weren't all that enthusiastic about the film praised the performances, particularly those of Stewart as rocker Joan [...]