Jeannie Berlin is forever Lila in The Heartbreak Kid to me, so I can't get my head around her--Lila was simpering and needy and not very Kael-like.
Film starts in the '40s, covers right up till her retirement in 1991, plus the Wes Anderson lead-in a few years later. So two or three Kaels might be required, like with the Apu Trilogy.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 03:00 (ten years ago) link
Or do a Palindromes/I'm Not There thing with a revolving cast of six or seven Paulines.
― Inside Lewellyn Sinclair (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 4 February 2014 03:04 (ten years ago) link
I'm Not There, yes. With Robert Downey, Jr. as the mid-'70s cultural superstar.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 03:13 (ten years ago) link
Surprisingly difficult to think of anyone besides Streep for this.
Like clemenza, thinking of Streep in Adaptation... also thinking that a movie like this perhaps calls for Charlie Kaufman.
To do a film about an iconic film critic seems to call for a meta-film.
― drash, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 03:15 (ten years ago) link
surprisingly easy to think of anyone but Streep playing Robert Downey, Jr.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 February 2014 03:33 (ten years ago) link
Nicole Kidman as RDJ
― drash, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 03:44 (ten years ago) link
OK, Mia Wasikowska as a young PK
― drash, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 03:47 (ten years ago) link
again
http://www.wnyc.org/i/620/372/c/80/photologue/photos/April%202012_Rachel%20Dratch.jpg
― da croupier, Tuesday, 4 February 2014 08:33 (ten years ago) link
This may have already been posted here, but I love this interview (circa 1979, I'm guessing) that Scott recently posted to Rock Critics. Her discussion of Catholic filmmakers is particularly interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SUmUnLMWYQ
― You know something? He *did* say "well, yeah" a lot. (cryptosicko), Friday, 27 June 2014 17:48 (ten years ago) link
1982, it says. This is wonderful. First new Pauline footage I've seen in years.
― jmm, Friday, 27 June 2014 18:35 (ten years ago) link
show all messages (1194 of them)
Reasons why I'll probably never leave ILX.
― Cronk's Not Cronk (Eric H.), Friday, 27 June 2014 18:46 (ten years ago) link
there are a great many critics who are just trying to get through the day: who know they're second-rate, and are scared of their editors, and scared of their readers, and scared of the movie companies--and with some justification--but are never good enough to conquer their fears ... if you're not good enough, then you're at the mercy of everybody. and you have to give in.
^^^ intensely otm
lol @ her awesome umbrage when she's called "impressionistic"
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 27 June 2014 20:55 (ten years ago) link
"women would say to me, your review was like a legal brief ... and i would wince at that. but men would always say how impressionistic it was."
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 27 June 2014 20:56 (ten years ago) link
Googling Kael-Kiarostami led me to this, something I'd never read before:
http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/the-cordial-enmity-of-joan-didion-and-pauline-kael
― clemenza, Saturday, 4 April 2015 22:11 (nine years ago) link
Quick writeup and trailer for upcoming Kael doc, What She Said:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/watch-trailer-for-pauline-kael-documentary-what-she-said-20150515
― The New Gay Sadness (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 20 May 2015 14:52 (nine years ago) link
How many film critics are going to get their own docs?
― Norse Jung (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 May 2015 14:58 (nine years ago) link
Doorman: The Legend of Armond White
― The New Gay Sadness (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 20 May 2015 15:03 (nine years ago) link
inversely proportional to the number of critics getting daily newspaper gigs
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 May 2015 15:04 (nine years ago) link
Odd that 2001 and The Birds show up in the trailer--every other clip seems to be a film she loved, or something close to that.
― clemenza, Thursday, 21 May 2015 05:24 (nine years ago) link
shes the type of critic i think id rather see a biopic of some sort for... like a film based wholly on the critic in birdman.
― StillAdvance, Thursday, 21 May 2015 10:10 (nine years ago) link
Ditto, as I mentioned in another thread--I think it'd potentially make a great film.
― clemenza, Thursday, 21 May 2015 14:43 (nine years ago) link
preview of Cineaste article on her "provincialism"
Being Polish myself, and recognizing the fact that Kael’s parents were both Polish Jews who immigrated to the United States from Warsaw in the first decade of twentieth century, there is one particular absence in her writing that I find particularly glaring: namely, the films of Central and Eastern Europe.
It is almost shocking to discover that, in her quarter-century as a film reviewer for The New Yorker, Kael had only once reviewed a film that can even remotely be deemed Eastern European, since, although it was nominally a West German production, it was made by a Hungarian director and produced by a Hungarian studio: namely, István Szabó’s Oscar-winning Mephisto (1981), which she had mixed feelings about. As far as we know (and I base my knowledge on several interviews I did with Kael’s acquaintances and friends, as well as on Kellow’s book), she never traveled anywhere behind the Iron Curtain and one would be hard-pressed to detect so much as a tiny bit of interest in this part of the world in her writing. In fact, whatever mentions of Eastern Europe do appear in her reviews, they are usually derogatory and anxiety-driven, as if Eastern Europe represented something shriveled, dry, and vaguely repugnant: definitely not a place one would identify with, even though one was not even a full generation distant from the geographical heart of it.
http://www.cineaste.com/hooked-and-gridlocked-michal-oleszczyk
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, 1 June 2015 19:30 (nine years ago) link
She didn't review Fassbinder, Ozu, or Wadja either.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 1 June 2015 19:32 (nine years ago) link
nope
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, 1 June 2015 19:32 (nine years ago) link
It doesn't particularly bother me. I don't see travel as requisites for good writing. The better point to make is why she remains a good film writer despite her weaknesses.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 1 June 2015 19:34 (nine years ago) link
I started to suspect that the reason my subject’s prose can feel tiresome after a while stems from the fact that it contains a paradoxical quality: vibrancy verging on closed-mindedness.
― Monstrous Moonshine Matinee (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 June 2015 20:36 (nine years ago) link
It is true that I can only really read Kael in pretty small doses these days.
― Norse Jung (Eric H.), Monday, 1 June 2015 20:37 (nine years ago) link
I really want this--a friend has a chapter, along with Paul Schrader, Joan Tewkesbury, Allen Barra, and another 20 or so people--but the price is crazy: $75 on Amazon, before shipping and exchange. Even if I bought e-books, which I don't, that cost almost as much.
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/kael_zpsajk9uvdz.jpg
http://www.amazon.com/Talking-about-Pauline-Kael-Filmmakers/dp/1442254599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442637816&sr=8-1&keywords=talking+about+pauline+kael
― clemenza, Saturday, 19 September 2015 04:56 (nine years ago) link
someone has made a short film about the arthouse she co-created (in Berkeley, right?):
http://www.docnyc.net/film/ed-pauline/#.VkS697erR9M
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 12 November 2015 16:17 (eight years ago) link
Twitter site, seemingly related to an upcoming documentary (What She Said).
http://twitter.com/WhatSheSaid_Doc
― clemenza, Thursday, 26 May 2016 23:25 (eight years ago) link
Funny, in a sideways way; the almost-50th anniversary of a review of a film getting some 50th-anniversary attention.
http://flavorwire.com/609140/bonnie-and-clyde-pauline-kael-and-the-essay-that-changed-film-criticism/amp
― clemenza, Monday, 14 August 2017 12:02 (seven years ago) link
In the middle of a move and trying to downsize my book collection somewhat. But For Keeps, Conversations with Pauline Kael, A Life in the Dark and Sontag & Kael are all coming with me.
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Monday, 14 August 2017 14:02 (seven years ago) link
dump em all for The American Cinema :D
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 August 2017 14:13 (seven years ago) link
It seems weird now that Bosley Crowther's original B&C pan came out four months before the film did
― Josefa, Monday, 14 August 2017 14:20 (seven years ago) link
Have you read that thing recently? Zzzzzzz.
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Monday, 14 August 2017 14:25 (seven years ago) link
Kael: stimulating and so frequently wrong.
Josefa:
B&C played the Monreal fest in April; Crowther's last line in his review was "This is the film that opened the Montreal International Festival!" So either he went or had it sneaked for him.
It was regularly released in August. Kael's piece was published in October (apparently it had been turned down by the New Republic before the New Yorker ran it).
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 August 2017 14:52 (seven years ago) link
PK did not go fulltime at TNY til '68.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 August 2017 14:53 (seven years ago) link
Don't know if you have Reeling, Eric, but that's the one regular collection I'd keep.
― clemenza, Monday, 14 August 2017 15:00 (seven years ago) link
Her collections were hard to find even used on Amazon until a couple years ago; I guess a proto-Eric dumped his load. I bought , Reeling, Taking it All In, and State of the Art.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 14 August 2017 15:05 (seven years ago) link
They're expensive now. I had an extra hardcover of State of the Art, one I bought a few a years ago, relatively cheap and in perfect condition, that I gave to a friend recently. "If you find out you already have it, I want it back--it's worth something."
― clemenza, Monday, 14 August 2017 15:11 (seven years ago) link
I have all the original hardcovers up to Reeling, mostly bought a long time ago. Was wondering if all her stuff came out in HC; if State of the Art did I guess they all did
― Josefa, Monday, 14 August 2017 15:18 (seven years ago) link
I still have State of the Art and Taking it All In, and will likely keep them too.
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Monday, 14 August 2017 15:31 (seven years ago) link
Sarris: boring and right only about as often as average for film critics (and somewhat responsible for lists)
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Monday, 14 August 2017 15:32 (seven years ago) link
tsk tsk
How much (pre-1984) Sarris have you read that's not in TAC? He hasn't been collected like Kael.
(Also, he was especially good on silent and screwball comedy, so I'm probably barking up the wrong tree...)
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 August 2017 15:35 (seven years ago) link
To be fair, I haven't read a lot of Sarris' Voice stuff that hasn't been collected in other anthologies.
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Monday, 14 August 2017 15:41 (seven years ago) link
I love Sarris' You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 14 August 2017 15:49 (seven years ago) link
Doesn't Confessions of a Cultist have most of his 1960s stuff?
― Josefa, Monday, 14 August 2017 15:50 (seven years ago) link
I found a remaindered copy of the Renata Adler collection After the Tall Timber the other day and re-read her Kael piece. It's something...many posts about it above.
I've gotta quote this from Michael Wolff's preface, though:
But the rightness of Adler's view of Kael as nasty, self-promoting gasbag only became more obvious as Kael's reputation disappeared after she lost her New Yorker post and power. She was unreadable, said Adler; and indeed, Kael is unread now.
He wrote that in 2015.
Whatever you think of her, "Kael is unread now" is a truly bizarre assertion. Only four years removed from the biography and The Age of Movies, no less.
― clemenza, Friday, 18 August 2017 13:49 (seven years ago) link
"How could Kael be read? - nobody I know reads her."
― jmm, Friday, 18 August 2017 14:04 (seven years ago) link
lol michael wolff
― mark s, Friday, 18 August 2017 14:06 (seven years ago) link