Mick LaSalle is the author of four books about film, COMPLICATED WOMEN (about the women of pre-Code), DANGEROUS MEN (about the men of pre-Code, THE BEAUTY OF THE REAL (about the women of contemporary French cinema) and DREAM STATE: CALIFORNIA IN THE MOVIES. He has been the Chronicle's film critic  since 1985 and has been teaching in Stanford's CONTINUING STUDIES program every quarter since 2004. For four years, he was the on-air film critic for ABC7 in San Francisco.