http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20091026174320/http://geocities.com/paulinekaelreviews/
― zvookster, Friday, 17 December 2010 16:33 (thirteen years ago) link
thx, but there's a new non-Wayback site.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 December 2010 16:41 (thirteen years ago) link
cant find it, but i turned this up
http://thisrecording.com/film/2008/8/18/in-which-wes-anderson-tries-to-game-pauline-kael.html
my reaction to rushmore was similar to hers when i first saw it
― Pussy v. Sperguson (Princess TamTam), Friday, 17 December 2010 16:59 (thirteen years ago) link
It was included as the intro to the published Rushmore script eight or nine years ago.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 17:03 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, but Edelstein mentions that she was mortified when it appeared in the New York Times too.
― Pussy v. Sperguson (Princess TamTam), Friday, 17 December 2010 17:04 (thirteen years ago) link
OOH. I didn't know about this squabble.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 17:07 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm sure I've made it more than clear how much I love Kael, but I think she was completely wrong about Rushmore (to the extent that I can piece together her reaction from interviews, which seemed to be one of puzzlement). Just in general, I found I agreed with her less and less often towards the end. The quality of her writing was still great, but I found in terms of what she liked, she veered way in the direction of junk; it was almost like she discounted films that had any pretense towards seriousness. Her critics would probably say that that was always a problem with her, but at her best during the '70s, I think gave everything a fair look. I didn't feel that was true her last couple of years and in the interviews she gave after retiring. Obviously, there are exceptions--just a general observation.
― clemenza, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:04 (thirteen years ago) link
I disagree. While it's true she reviewed more junk, the eighties and early nineties also produced more and more of it. Also, those 1500-word essays on forgotten junk like Club Paradise and About Last Night feature some of her best writing ever; it's as if she accepted the terms of the debate and relaxed.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:06 (thirteen years ago) link
'70s >>> '80 for movies, but State of the Art and Hooked are my favorites of her collections.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:07 (thirteen years ago) link
A bunch of junk from the '80s has aged a little bit better than many of the serious movies from the same decade.
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:08 (thirteen years ago) link
Fat keeps.
I dont think you can say someone's 'wrong' to be puzzled by a movie - i sure as shit didn't know what to make of it (rushmore) at the time.
― Pussy v. Sperguson (Princess TamTam), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:08 (thirteen years ago) link
wasn't she famously a champion of de sica (as opposed to sariss' "male weepies") and rosellini? i didn't get the impression she eschewed seriousness
― zvookster, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:09 (thirteen years ago) link
She had her blind spots (Bresson, Ozu, Mizoguchi), but so does every critic.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:11 (thirteen years ago) link
De Sica is sort of trash compared to Rossellini.
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh wait, she liked Rossellini too? Color me surprised.
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:13 (thirteen years ago) link
i thought i recalled several admiring bresson reviews...l'argent & ... joan of arc maybe?
i love all those guys
― zvookster, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:13 (thirteen years ago) link
i didn't get the impression she eschewed seriousness
Early on, no--that was the point I was making. Being puzzled by Rushmore is fine; I think she's wrong not to think "Wow, that's an amazing film," but puzzlement is totally valid. I'm not a big fan of the '80s, so our thoughts on Kael are undoubtedly tied in to how we feel about the decade to begin with. At times, I thought she was amazing; her Casualties of War review ranks with anything she ever wrote.
― clemenza, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh no way. The only one with which she (barely) connected was ...Country Priest. She despised Mouchette, Lancelot, etc.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:15 (thirteen years ago) link
xpost
that casualties of war review pissed me off because it got me to see that p.o.s. movie which i never would've bothered with otherwise
― Pussy v. Sperguson (Princess TamTam), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:17 (thirteen years ago) link
This is still a fantastic listen.
http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/2006/05/when-film-critics-gather.html
Especially because all three are so frequently ill-tempered and bitchy.
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:17 (thirteen years ago) link
Plus, the eighties version of "seriousness" was often merely ponderous.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:17 (thirteen years ago) link
But maybe I should've known better anyway, knowing her history w/Depalma
xxpost (From the comments: "Kael sounds much as she did in other interviews I've heard, a sort of overly-didactic bedside nurse, explaining the symptoms of your disease with a dispassionate hauteur.")
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:18 (thirteen years ago) link
I was about to say, "Many of those comments are typical."
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:19 (thirteen years ago) link
Americans just hate smart people
(Plz to ignore my comment in that thread.)
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:20 (thirteen years ago) link
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, December 17, 2010 4:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark
http://web.archive.org/web/20061022083014/www.geocities.com/paulinekaelreviews/
?
― just sayin, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:20 (thirteen years ago) link
MouchetteFrance (1966): Drama 80 min, No rating, Black & White
Robert Bresson has made several films of such sobriety that while some people find them awesomely beautiful, other people find sitting through them like taking a whipping and watching every stroke coming. MOUCHETTE, from a Bernanos novel, is about a lonely, mistreated 14-year-old girl who commits suicide. Cinematography by Ghislain Cloquet. In French.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:22 (thirteen years ago) link
that site just reprinted all the stuff in her 5001 nights at the movies book, right? Which is cool and all, but I don't think they transcribed her longer reviews.
god i'm enough of a fanboy that i shouldn't even look at this thread. any bet-hedge or tongue cluck about some movie she overrated or underrated just pisses me off unnecessarily.
― da croupier, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:22 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, those are all 5001 nights capsules. nice to have since i lost my copy, but...
― Pussy v. Sperguson (Princess TamTam), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:24 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm about to put on The Simpsons movie for my class, but in closing: no one inspires more commentary than Kael.
― clemenza, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:35 (thirteen years ago) link
Richard Brody has a fairly vicious takedown of Kael on his NYer blog re: her Shoah review: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2010/12/shoah-at-25.htmlI guess he's always had a problem with her, though now she can't answer back.
― tylerw, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:41 (thirteen years ago) link
her shoah review was pretty brutal iirc
― Pussy v. Sperguson (Princess TamTam), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Is J. Hoberman's supposedly legendary response online anywhere?
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:44 (thirteen years ago) link
I guess he's always had a problem with her, though now she can't answer back.
It's crazy how many people waited til she was dead to lash out. Like Sarris' whole "can't say I mourn her, she gay-baited me" thing.
― da croupier, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:49 (thirteen years ago) link
Wonder what Molly Haskell thinks of that reaction.
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 18:51 (thirteen years ago) link
Would be curious what anyone would think of their husband writing an obituary that starts:
The death of Pauline Kael (1919-2001) was announced on a local television-news program late on Labor Day night, as I was preparing for my first film class of the semester the next morning at Columbia. I can't say I was as saddened as I had been a few days earlier by the death of Jane Greer (1924-2001). Still, do not send for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, and all that. Pauline was 82, and I am 72, and who knows when the Grim Reaper from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal will come for me?
― da croupier, Friday, 17 December 2010 18:56 (thirteen years ago) link
Andrew Sarris's Scenes from a marriage
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 19:03 (thirteen years ago) link
that's some flaccid writing
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 December 2010 19:26 (thirteen years ago) link
Limp wrists, limp writing, stiff corpse.
― benanas foster (Eric H.), Friday, 17 December 2010 19:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Recess...I saw Molly Haskell introduce A nos amours a few months ago. She signed a book for me afterwards, and I asked about her husband. I've always had mixed feelings about Sarris, but I felt bad when she said he'd recently had a bad fall, which is obviously not good at his age.
― clemenza, Friday, 17 December 2010 19:45 (thirteen years ago) link
she wasn't really someone whose taste i would ever trust but she was a good writer.
― omar little, Friday, 17 December 2010 20:09 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, that's pretty much how i feel. really enjoy reading her stuff, but i definitely don't take her opinions as gospel.
― tylerw, Friday, 17 December 2010 20:22 (thirteen years ago) link
I assume you guys mean Kael, not Molly Haskell.
― clemenza, Friday, 17 December 2010 21:18 (thirteen years ago) link
I bet yr posts will suffer when you're 72.
I asked about the capsules in the first place cuz I saw she said Mickey Rooney's perf was the most 'daring' thing in B'fast @Tiffany's.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 December 2010 21:27 (thirteen years ago) link
Yup--she loved Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, just like (from all reports) she openly campaigned for Driving Miss Daisy over Do the Right Thing for the New York awards that year. When it came to race, either she was pure id or she loved to provoke; she was worlds away from the oncoming political-correctness freight train.
― clemenza, Friday, 17 December 2010 22:34 (thirteen years ago) link
she was better pre-new yorker imo
― indian food 3: electric tandoori (history mayne), Saturday, 18 December 2010 00:36 (thirteen years ago) link
You mean the radio stuff, and the notes she wrote for her rep theatre...Interesting; I don't think I've heard anyone make that argument.
State of the Art and Hooked are my favorites of her collections. (upthread)
For me, Reeling by a mile. I don't know anything about literary or art criticism, just film and music, but I can't think of any critic more in sync with a specific moment that Kael was over the course of Reeling. Last Tango, Mean Streets, Godfather II, Nashville--the book is just filled with monumental reviews. There are probably a number of music critics who did their best work during punk.
― clemenza, Saturday, 18 December 2010 01:10 (thirteen years ago) link
It sounded to me like Kael was saying "Scor-sezza." The Italian pronunciation is something like "Scor-say-zeh" or "Scor-seh-zeh" depending on how you transcribe the Italian vowels. Kael is schwa-ing down the last vowel but that's not less accurate than saying "zee."
― Josefa, Saturday, 2 December 2023 22:03 (four months ago) link
Should be scor-chay-zeh the way everyone insists on spelling it
― Boris Yitsbin (wins), Saturday, 2 December 2023 22:39 (four months ago) link
Frankly I wish the man himself would issue a statement to resolve this once and for all
― Josefa, Saturday, 2 December 2023 22:47 (four months ago) link
Pauloon as in Buffoon? Kind word for Armond, considering for instance his moist "review" of a recent Van Morrison album, really mostly a parade of quotes, celebrating the anti-vaxx fount of all wisdom.Anybody who keeps up with this thread should also check this book---from Publisher's Weekly:
AFTERGLOW: A Last Conversation with Pauline KaelFrancis Davis, Pauline Kael, . . Da Capo, $18 (134pp) ISBN 978-0-306-81192-0This slim but potent volume offers movie lovers an elegant good-bye from the acerbic, wildly opinionated National Book Award– winning film critic who reigned at the New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. The New York Times called her "probably the most influential film critic of her time." Kael's enthusiasm for films was contagious, as she praised or damned them with giddy vitality. Longtime friend Davis's three extended conversations find the octogenarian still an avid moviegoer. While this book doesn't offer extended reviews, fans will be delighted to hear Kael weigh in on movies released since she stopped writing a decade ago. She enjoyed the "sweet" Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest; the first half of Boogie Nights; High Fidelity ("it gets better as it goes along"); and Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars. She was also fond of TV's "terrific" Sex and the City and The Sopranos ("I loved the first season and watched it religiously"). She found Silence of the Lambs "a hideous and obvious piece of moviemaking"; Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut "ludicrous from the word go"; and American Beauty "heavy and turgid." She also blasts later-day Steven Spielberg (Always was "a shameful movie" and the casting was "terribly wrongheaded" in Schindler's List). Besides film quips, Kael defends her critical review of the Holocaust documentary Shoah, regrets being talked out of reviewing Deep Throat and discusses current filmmaking and her 20-year battle with Parkinson's disease. (Sept. 3)FYI:The book's publication date coincides with the one-year anniversary of Kael's death at age 82.
FYI:The book's publication date coincides with the one-year anniversary of Kael's death at age 82.
― dow, Sunday, 3 December 2023 03:34 (four months ago) link
Wait what’s up with him?
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 3 December 2023 03:35 (four months ago) link
"Scor-seh-see"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbPp13icx1c
― jaymc, Sunday, 3 December 2023 03:38 (four months ago) link
Pronouncing it is one thing, spelling it without checking is another.
― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 3 December 2023 03:42 (four months ago) link
xxpost He mentions it toward the end of this:https://artsfuse.org/267051/the-17th-annual-francis-davis-jazz-poll-my-poll-without-me/
― dow, Sunday, 3 December 2023 03:44 (four months ago) link
Partly my own bias, but felt she was a little nasty about Lauren Bacall--who was almost 60 at that point, only semi-active, and no doubt having a difficult time finding decent rolls.
― clemenza, Monday, 4 December 2023 19:39 (four months ago) link
PauluneKael, catty? I’m shocked. And stunned.
― Blecch’s POLLero (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 4 December 2023 19:57 (four months ago) link
Can’t type either, especially when my keyboard is set to English.
Even when it is in fact set to English;)
― Blecch’s POLLero (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 4 December 2023 19:58 (four months ago) link
yes it's "pauloon"
― mark s, Monday, 4 December 2023 20:34 (four months ago) link
Every few years I'll go back and listen to the Kael+MacDonald+Simon symposium from 1963-ish, simply because (among other things) it's just a fun sparring match. It's a fascinating contrast to this mid-'80s audio in that Kael back in the earlier instance was more about raising her favorites up. In this newer clip, she's clearly become embittered and — for all she has to say about Ebert & Siskel — seems to think just tossing cherry bombs like "Lauren Bacall was a terrible actress" somehow moves any kind of needle anymore. The more I reflect, the sadder the newer clip feels.
― active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Monday, 4 December 2023 20:40 (four months ago) link
I read Afterglow at the time. She's kind about Carol Reed.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 4 December 2023 20:42 (four months ago) link
the Kael+MacDonald+Simon symposium from 1963-ish
Do you know if that's available somewhere? I'd love to hear it.
― jmm, Tuesday, 5 December 2023 19:30 (four months ago) link
Looks like maybe it is no longer available online. I'll rip and post when I get home later tonight
― active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Tuesday, 5 December 2023 19:33 (four months ago) link
Wow, thanks!
― jmm, Tuesday, 5 December 2023 19:34 (four months ago) link
no doubt having a difficult time finding decent rolls.
Picture Lauren Bacall regarding the selection at her local bakery with disgust.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 5 December 2023 21:12 (four months ago) link