Pauline Kael

what failed actors who were held back by a negative kael review are you thinking of

How would I know? She skewered Kevin Costner pretty thoroughly, and look at him now...

Redford has a sort of spark in The Candidate, but I guess Peter Boyle is Mr Fun in that?

yeah. i've never seen the way we were, how is he in that. possibility exists in my mind he might not measure up to ryan o'neal.

what failed actors who were held back by a negative kael review are you thinking of

― da croupier, Monday, April 29, 2013 9:10 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

morbs was saying your comment was colored by selection bias

I've liked Redford in The Candidate, ATPM, Brubaker, and (lol) Legal Eagles, where he kinda loosened up and said fuck it I'm a movie star goddamnit (same with Sneakers).

Legal Eagles? Really?

the character is kind of a zero (unless yer a nice Jewish girl who adores WASPs maybe). It's centered on Barbra.

xxxp

morbs was saying your comment was colored by selection bias
dacroupier's fallacy

I liked Legal Eagles too! didn't Winger loosen him up?

I think you guys are underestimatiing him a little. Imagine 3 Days of the Condor with Tom Cruise instead.

(very low whisper) I remember him being kind of amusing in Barefoot in the Park.

LE is fun trash.

Quiz Show preserves his WASP-ish conflicts better than his acting choices.

Brad Pitt's becoming more interesting to watch now that he's not so damn hung up on perceptions about his looks (which like Redford's are nothing special to me).

I thought Redford was fun in The Sting, but I've never gotten particularly attached to him in any way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NVf-9cgrAE

i mean yeah people who still get interviewed are more likely to get to give their two cents about a critic who didn't like them, but I don't think the degree of their desire to not just dismiss but disqualify her opinion of them is any less ironic for it. I've read a lot of anecdotes about Pauline Kael positive and negative and theirs really stand out.

I don't think it's a coincidence that these are two people who haven't really had to deal with a lot of slings and arrows

clem i repped for barefoot in the park above sorta. never saw legal eagles, daryl hannah repelled more than debra winger could attract me. HUGE sneakers fan but man talk about more talented, fun costars. i probably am underrating him (may be working out something, butch and sundance is my dad's favorite movie)(redford's a better actor than katharine ross fwiw), he's better than gregory peck not as good as say brad pitt. i'd put him slightly over cruise but no way in hell am i watching that iraq war movie they made to test my ranking.

xpost

i always thought redford had more going for him than PK let on. not an all-time great but the guy's likable

I could be wrong but Kael was the only critic who consistently held her nose while watching Streep's Oscar nom-affirmed eighties work (A Cry in the Dark the exception). And tbh Roger Ebert fell for most of Streep perfs without thinking twice.

surprise!

If Redford has a role as fun as Gregory Peck's in Duel In The Sun I haven't seen it.

Always liked PK's "radio performance" dis of Streep's Sophie.

what about Redford as Death on The Twilight Zone?

he was good on twilight zone but yknow not shatner good

Daryl Hannah as performance artist in LE really needs to be seen

what about Hannah as artist below?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knVbfhmME1g

Redford's way stiff for my tastes but he's never really hurt or helped a movie that I've seen

Was wondering when the Twilight Zone card was gonna get played.

tbh when I think Eighties Film "Meryl Streep" is the first name to knock me to sleep.

Kael retired just before Defending Your Life, I think. I wonder if she would have come around some there--I think Streep's really sweet and funny in that.

I liked her in the Carrie Fisher movie, Postcards From the Edge.

never got the feeling she thought Streep lacked talent, but that those films were constructed as deadly Great Acting Vehicles for her. And she was right about A Cry in the Dark.

She left the scenery chewing to the sister of PK's onetime best friend.

no doubt Streep loved reading how her weaknesses were precisely what made her A Cry in the Dark so effective.

i have more time for 80s streep than soto and kael but postcards from the edge and esp defending yr life represent a turn for her toward her much better work in adaptation, devil wears prada, etc

this is my fav Twilight Zone performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY2OE6vBxQM

lol is that what prompted this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgOWNQgeAuE

HUGE sneakers fan but man talk about more talented, fun costars.

Totally. One of the few movies I ever saw twice in the theaters, but the thing I remember most about him is how wooden his reading of "you're the one who's going to have to pull the trigger" was at the end.

hell I loved Streep playing lovelorn pastafazoola The Bridges of Madison County.

the success of Sneakers coincided with the period in pop music when old people (i.e. fortysomethings) scored top five hits.

haha im p sure it is balls

(just as it crested too)

I think Redford suffered from his post 70s work being a lot less interesting than his contemps, like Nicholson, deniro, pacino. Maybe even Hoffman. He's not a dude who has a lot of onscreen fire, pretty slow burn kinda guy.

I forgot about Spy Games! He wasn't at all bad in that one.

man, my mom LOVED the electric horseman

and basically anything with robert redford in it

Postcards from the Edge is kinda fun, but has any movie about addiction ever made addiction look LESS horrifying?

Spy game! I've heard that's kind of awesome.

well yeah she fucks Dennis Quaid.

xpost

He's not a dude who has a lot of onscreen fire, pretty slow burn kinda guy.

like Alain Delon? who gets credit for being French and nonblond.

Delon is better at though. Although yeah he is both of those things

OMG is that John Williams as Shakespeare in that Burt Reynolds Twilight Zone?

redford's pretty great in a lot of movies though don't get me wrong.