Mick LaSalle’s favorite movies of 2016

The other day it occurred to me that it might be interesting and instructive if critics, in addition to issuing a top ten list, also made a list of their FAVORITE movies. That is, movies they simply enjoyed the most, irrespective of whether they though…

The Mickies 2016 — The Nominations

Most of the critics awards have already been announced, and SAG and THE GOLDEN GLOBES have published their slate of nominees. And so the movie world has waited for the final shoe to drop . . . and now, consider it dropped. Here are the nominations for …

Daniele Parisi wins the Primo Nuovo Imae award at Venice

The thing about film festivals — the interesting thing — the thing that puts a charge in the air — is that they change people’s lives. Not every life. Just a few lives, and everyone hopes, at the start of each festival, that it’s their life t…

Venice Film Fest and “Une Vie”

In the above video I talk a little bit about the difference between being at Venice vs. other film festivals. (Spoiler alert: Being at Venice is better.) I also talk about how this year I didn’t walk out of a single movie . . . although that ceases t…

Biennale College at the Venice Film Festival

  One of the best things about the Venice Film Festival has very little to do with red carpets or the sight of George Clooney riding up the Grand Canal in a motor boat. It’s the festival’s investment in the future, in the form of the Biennale Coll…

“Nocturnal Animals” at the Venice Film Festival

Above is a picture of Amy Adams, sitting at the front of the balcony, visible to all, about to watch herself in “Nocturnal Animals,” the latest from Tom Ford. The stars sit and watch their own films and gauge crowd reaction, and I think Adams proba…

“Hacksaw Ridge” at the Venice Film Festival

“Hacksaw Ridge” is Mel Gibson’s Hollywood redemption, and on his own weird, twisted, neurotic, bloody, gory, violence-obsessed terms. I saw it this morning at the Venice Film Festival, and it’s a terrific movie — in every sense of the word te…

“Nocturnal Animals” at the Venice Film Festival

I shot a video of this last night, and I’ll attach it soon.  Liev Schreiber won the Persol Award for visionary talent, at the Sala Grande, the most glamorous of movie houses at the Venice Film Festival. After the presentation, they showed his latest…