I Lost it at the Movies: Film Writings, 1954-65

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I have always been a great admirer of Kael's film criticism, even while most of the time I didn't agree with her. There is something about her writing that even while she dislikes a film and will bluntly just say that she dislikes movies that others consider good or even great, she enjoys the act of experiencing the picture and talking about them. I also love how she often will gauge the reactions of an audience around her, even mentioning comments by people made during the viewing. Gauging audience reaction is a big part (in my honest opinion) as to whether a picture is working or not. The other night I saw JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGODOM and while I hated it (it is a really badly scripted movie), the audience didn't seem to care and loved watching the humans running from and (some) being eaten by dinosaurs. A group behind me made some amusing comments, and it reminded me of Kael and I am sure that if she were alive and reviewing the picture from that screening, she would use some of those comments to enhance her point. seksueel actieve vrouw die daarmee haar toegewezen plaats verlaat, de status quo bedreigt en om die reden

the late, great Pauline Kael. This is a collection of her early, pre-New Yorker, writings about film. I have always been a Pauline Kael fan. I love the way she writes about movies -- even when I don't agree with her, or have no idea what she's talking about, it makes me excited about film and I find myself wanting to watch Last Year at Marienbad again (which normally is the kind of idea that should make you say OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, NO.) just to see particular things she is talking about. All of that said, in many ways the woman was a raving lunatic, and that also comes through. I'm torn over whether or not to include some specific examples of her kookiness, mostly involving homosexuality but some real gems on race as well, because I worry that the fun of pointing and laughing at the crazy lady (and to be fair, some of it no doubt seemed less demented in the late 1950s/early 1960s) would overshadow her truly perceptive exploration of the movies and American culture. kleurfilters, lijkt ‘Magic Mike’ misschien nog het meest op een Andrew Christian video, filmpjes die altijd op de rand van gay porno zittenAPA style: Pauline Kael: I lost it at the movies.. (n.d.) >The Free Library. (2014). Retrieved Nov 27 2023 from https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pauline+Kael%3a+I+lost+it+at+the+movies.-a014580121

Still though, reading Kael is engaging and inspires actual thought, and I look forward to re-reading my way through her collected writings. A more adverse reaction comes from the auteurist Andrew Sarris, mainly as a result of the essay '" Circles and Squares", which was originally published in Film Quarterly. Sarris's reaction was in response to Kael's denunciation of the Auteur theory's merits, and has, in later years, occasionally jabbed at Kael's work. Examples of his critical observations are available in his books, e.g., The Primal Screen and Politics and Cinema. With the exception of "Circles and Squares", Kael has rarely responded. Notwithstanding Kael's unresponsive silence, this has gone down in film lore as the Sarris-Kael feud.Ik heb in mijn essay over Nine½ Weeks geclaimd dat die film één grote ode is aan de geneugten van het She is resolutely middlebrow in her taste, with a very light leaning toward the postmodern. While she hates big Hollywood productions like The Sound of Music, she appreciates Antonioni's L'Avventura and Godard's Breathless. Paying her money like anybody else, Kael left the theater transformed or cheated. (“Robbe-Grillet . . . may say that . . . the existence of the two characters begins when the film begins and ends ninety-three minutes later, but, of course, we are not born when we go in to see a movie though we may want to die by the time we leave.”) Kael made prissy writers like Sarris uncomfortable because she demanded more from movies, from life, than they did. It was easy to find yourself in Kael’s essays; it was harder to get out of them. As with West Side Story: Despite having some extremely different views to Pauline Kael (mainly in her disillusionment with auteur theory, her outright rejection of many arthouse/experimental films that lean towards surrealism and certainly politically), it amazes me that I still consider her one of the greatest critics of all time. She challenges my whole perception of a masterpiece. There are works that I would consider flawless that she will find flaws in and the oddest thing is I don't necessarily disagree with the point she makes.

te zijn en ‘Fatal Attraction’ de clichématige. 'Ladder' is een film die mensen direct interessant en goed vinden, omdat Then the bugaboo, The Auteur Theory : This you must read, for The Kael is a Killer here. "What is all this nonsense about?" she asks most sensibly, noting that any film involves a team and Golden Age directors were simply assigned films. With deadly accuracy, she demolishes auteurism. On "West Side Story" : Boobs and wiseguys, she asserts, try to impress with their seriousness. When the always boring Stanley Kauffmann calls it the best musicom ever made, The Kael snorts. The best are those which celebrate high spirits, giddy romance and light satire like "Singin' in the Rain," she counters. Is There a Cure for Film Criticism? Or, Some Unhappy Thoughts on Siegfried Kracauer's Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Realityor even extraordinary, but at the very least they are all very good movies. But then of course, what Kaufman has been successfully channelling his negative impulses for about two decades now. He’s also been misunderstood as a misanthrope for roughly as long. Of all the adjectives one might apply to his scripts, as well as his directorial efforts, “mean-spirited” probably shouldn’t be one of them, nor should “ironic.” Unlike certain other brand-name purveyors of millennial “smart cinema,” Kaufman doesn’t countenance glib distance. Hence the legitimately thrilling dynamics of his work with Spike Jonze, whose detached music-video sensibility gives Kaufman’s whirligig scripts plenty of room; temperamentally, he’s closer to his other major collaborator, Michel Gondry, whose cute-is-what-we-aim-for style is more hit-or-miss. In any event, I choose to take the moments of sentimental pathos in Kaufman’s films, like Nicolas Cage serenading his brother-slash-shadow-self with the Turtles’ “Happy Together” at the close of Adaptation (2002), at face value. Recommended: For the film geekery set, although I will note that despite her protestations, her focus is on movies that we would now categorize as artsy or academic films with some notable exceptions. This is probably not a bad choice if you feel nostalgic about your Intro to Film History classes in college. of a Psycho” is far from a waste of time, what makes this new drive-in double feature from Vinegar Syndrome truly In reference to the title of the book, the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote an article entitled "I Missed It at the Movies: Objections to Raising Kane" as a rebuttal to Kael's essay on Citizen Kane, which had been entitled " Raising Kane".