Sunday, March 17, 2013

Sunday Print Staple in the Chron Pinkie: 'Ask Mick LaSalle'

A Sunday staple: The Pink section, the Sporting Green...all in the Chronicle. Mind you the Chron, like just about everything else in the print world is barely surviving. Ditto the vaunted NY Times, still good enough even for 7 bucks on Sunday.

My favorite part of Sunday's pinkie is "Ask Mick Lasalle." It's nothing splashy nor invigorating and that's what makes it so good.

In fact, it's rather mundane: a simple collection of questions LaSalle answers from readers. Often, the questions are rather ordinary but display a unique blend of subject matter mostly movie-driven, but LaSalle has a rather charming manner in the way he answers each question. Sometimes fairly pithy, other times just basic and to the point. "Ask Mick" has become a very popular feature in the Pink to the degree that it was a recent cover story. Its charm and popularity is due in large part to its simplicity. In today's print-deprived world, that, in and of itself, is special.

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11 comments:

  1. The NY times really runs $7 on Sundays? Just wow.

    How bad is the Chronicle doing? I wonder how the Mercury News is doing? Being in the South Bay I've always been a Mercury News reader/subscriber. The only time I've ever purchased a Chronicle was when the Giants won the series in 2010.

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  2. Many of Micks old reviews can be read on Rotten Tomato.com. I just think its funny that RT.com is Wiki's last word for every movie review .
    S

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  3. You catch the guy who does the weekend news for KTVU? It had to happen sooner or later I suppose.He's a Will Ferell double. He even gets the grin and sideways glance like Ferrell.
    And can Heather Holmes tone down the blond superiority looks?. Besides, the name Heather is so 80's. She could lose her job to a Madison,Olivia or Emily any day now..

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    1. This post made me laugh. I still laugh when they talk about "Madison" Nguyen, the San Jose City Councilwoman. Please.

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  4. Mick LaSalle is one of few good things worth reading in the Chron.
    And yes the "Ask Mick" feature is a favorite over here as well.
    If not for Mick, I may never have rented a movie from the silent era or the 30s.


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  5. I'm baffled by the love for LaSalle. He's not a very good film critic; not because I disagree with many of his opinions (tho' I do) but because he makes many factual errors -- and this is a guy who has written books and fancies himself a film historian. But when he writes about things other than film on his blog, well, it just gets embarrassing. Mick on music: "Why are the Ronettes in the the Rock'n'Roll hall of fame? They only had one hit." (Er, actually, Mick they had five. And there was this guy named Phil Spector, maybe you've heard of him.) Oy.

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    1. I agree whole-heartedly. I've never found his reviews insightful or well thought through. It's not that he's an especially bad critic, it's that I just didn't find his work very compelling.

      However, when I was a chronicle subscriber, LaSalle's ratings could be a useful tool, since I have basically the opposite taste: when he would recommend a film I would tend to avoid it, when he would roast a film, I would usually check it out.

      I stopped reading LaSalle altogether, however, when he published an opinion piece advocating Roman Polanski's pardon. LaSalle defended his position by basically proclaiming that since Polanski was a great artist and a celebrity, he should judged and treated differently:

      http://www.motherjones.com/riff/2009/10/sf-chrons-polanski-apologist

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    2. i've never liked LaSalle. he is a snarky self-aggrandizing journalist and really took the pink section to new lows when he started writing there years ago. i stopped reading film reviews literally because of this guy.

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  6. Has Mick been a guest on your show? I would enjoy listening to you interview him.

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    1. Yes, go to the podcasts: http://www.ksco.com/lieberman-live

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  7. Mick LaSalle always sounded like a sleazy pseudonym. His reviews are poorly written and what's worse is that he has no consistency when it comes to his thinking.

    Years ago there were a number of critics at the Chron, and now you get Mick reviewing 7 films.

    The sunday column isn't quite as bad, though there are few things more annoying than a mediocrity parading as an expert.

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