Mick LaSalle

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San Francisco Chronicle
For 3,800 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 4.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Mick LaSalle's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 61
Highest review score: 100 Sound and Fury
Lowest review score: 0 Nightbreed
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,063 out of 3800
  2. Mixed: 1,037 out of 3800
  3. Negative: 700 out of 3800
3800 movie reviews
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per page
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    Get Out
    Get Out reveals an underlying unease. It diffuses tension, even as it points to its source. It may be somewhat rough and unrefined and even ill-considered in some of its particulars. Yet it may stand as a kind of pop culture document of this historical moment, a moment that’s not nearly as funny as this movie.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    West Side Story
    The big news about Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is that it’s a magnificent movie, even by Spielberg standards and even by “West Side Story” standards.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    The Edge of Heaven
    The experience of seeing this film is cumulative, sober and profound.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    The Savages
    The right mix of humor and horror and with not even a shred of sentimentality.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 25 Mick LaSalle
    Birds of Passage
    The movie’s failure to engage is illustrated by directors Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s approach to the climactic scene. They shoot it almost entirely in long shot, as if inviting the audience not to care — or worse, as if admitting there was nothing to care about, after all.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    An Education
    Hornby's humane and humorous screenplay is true to the film's title: In short order, young Jenny finds out important truths about identity, glamour and how adults really think and live.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    The Endurance
    A remarkable documentary about an almost unfathomable ordeal.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    Out of the Past
    Out of the Past is cinematic perfection, a Hollywood classic that's as great and as enjoyable as its reputation has promised.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    Knocked Up
    Knocked Up has some rough edges, but it's a noteworthy film by a significant and blossoming talent.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    The Departed
    There's no attempt at greatness here, just a fabulously successful attempt at a good crime movie. The Oscar-bait self-consciousness of "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator" is gone. In its place is a buoyancy, an impish delight in telling a harsh urban story in the most effective terms possible.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 50 Mick LaSalle
    Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
    Snake Eyes collapses in a crosscurrent of conflicting character motives, joyless plot twists and who-cares violence.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    Vincere
    What this uncaring man is doing to her (Ida), he's about to do to a nation of 50 million people. And all of them will hate themselves in the morning.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Mick LaSalle
    The Fabulous Baker Boys
    All over this movie there are cliches that are just plain embarrassing, and unsettling moments in which it's obvious Kloves is writing about stuff he doesn't know a thing about. [13 Oct 1989, p.E1]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    The Insider
    Pacino and Crowe are at their best, but the supporting cast also shines.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    About Schmidt
    A seriously good movie, a challenge to viewers, a rebuke of the way many Americans live their lives.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Mick LaSalle
    The Taste of Things
    If you have to watch someone cooking or eating, Juliette Binoche is as good a choice as any, but even she can’t make scintillating entertainment out of chewing, stirring a pot and putting on oven mitts.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    Passing
    It’s a sophisticated piece of work, slightly haunted, with an underlying sorrow that can’t be resolved or remedied.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    Holy Motors
    You will look in vain for some definite logic to Holy Motors. You could see it as a metaphor for the actor's life, or a story about the desire to transcend the self. Anything you decide is fine.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Mick LaSalle
    Unforgiven
    Though the movie is riddled with memorable scenes of violence, its pace is slow -- too slow. It has an epic sprawl, but it's not an epic. It's more like a bloated fairy tale. [7 Aug 1992]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    The Dark Knight
    An action blockbuster extravaganza that's sadder than sad and never pretends otherwise.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    The Pursuit of Happyness
    Will Smith has the right quality for the role -- he's an easy man to root for -- but he augments this by channeling some inner quality of desperation and need.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    Everybody Wants Some!!
    It’s a good, not great, movie, but it has some of the elements that make Linklater’s work special. Few filmmakers are quite as keyed into the passing of time, as the source of all sweetness and heartache in the human experience.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    The Past
    The Past makes conventional movies feel artificial. Watching the characters interact in this movie feels like "Here is real life," and real life just happens to be strangely compelling.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 25 Mick LaSalle
    Taking Care of Business
    Belushi is profoundly unfunny. Opportunities are provided for him to do shtick -- running amok in the jacuzzi, drooling over a pretty girl -- and it's like watching a form of communication from an alien civilization. What is he doing up there? [17 Aug 1990, p.E11]
    • San Francisco Chronicle
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    Atonement
    An unforgettable examination of a host of dark impulses.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Mick LaSalle
    The Tree of Life
    At times trying and perplexing, but it also contains some of the most psychologically insightful and ecstatic filmmaking imaginable.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    The Fabelmans
    So The Fabelmans is entertaining enough, but perhaps what’s best about it is that Spielberg got it out of his system. After this, he won’t ever need to make a film about himself or his parents again.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    Restrepo
    Watching the film one comes away feeling the bond that links these guys.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Mick LaSalle
    Fruitvale Station
    The movie is modest in its ambition and powerful in its reverberations.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Mick LaSalle
    Rachel Getting Married
    A fine ensemble piece, but a maddening and unjustified length.
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