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Title: 5001 Nights at the Movies by Pauline Kael ISBN: 0-8050-1367-9 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 1985 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.15 (20 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Helpful for any film book collection.
Comment: This is a very good anthology of Pauline Kael's writings, but capsule reviews are very unsatisfying to those who are familiar with the strengths of her reviews as they were originally written. Kael is known for her flowing, "conversational" writing style; by chopping many of her reviews into two or three paragraphs, the main reasons for reading her in the first place tend to evaporate. In a typical Kael review, she literally layered opinions on top of opinions. It was not enough for her to simply review a movie--she had to express exactly how the directors and actors had grown (or diminished themselves). One looked forward to reading her because she had such a superb way of relating the film she was writing about to other films, whether by the same director or not, and she could intelligently speculate on how the film tied in to current events or may have been a product of them. She would talk expertly about how many films seemed to evolve out of other less superior ones and then expand due to a director's vision and desire to update a particular theme. Kael focused on what a movie is about--what it is really saying--and her dedication and playfulness was quite infectious (the many reviewers who used her style became known as Paulettes.) For a reference book, "5001 Nights At The Movies" is fun to look through; it is full of reviews but it is Kael-lite. She didn't call one of her best books "Deeper Into Movies" for nothing!
Rating: 5
Summary: Kael Upfront
Comment: Other critics may have covered a wider range, and may be of more use to a beginning moviegoer, but I think its plain that no one ever wrote about movies better than Pauline Kael. She still is the best stylist among film critics--funny,jazzy,informal; powered and sometimes blinded by her enormous passion for the art form. Some people here have complained that Kael is bitter or mean. But who would want to go to the movies with these simpering folks? Criticism at its best is a love/hate relationship with the art in question, where you can fall violently in love with a great film one night and violently deplore another one the next. Kael's reviews don't suffer too much in short form. If there is any problem with this book, it's one that has to do with Kael's career as well. Once Kael became well-established at the New Yorker, she tended to become more American-oriented, so that her coverage of foreign films suffered(Compare this with the work of a modern critic like Jonathan Rosenbaum.) 5001 Nights doesn't quite cover films from foreign shores as well as one likes. Lastly, too many of the films in here are so apprently mediocre and poor that you wonder why Kael wasted her talents and paper discussing them. But this is still an essential book, by one of the century's finest critics. IA
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent overview
Comment: As someone who is just beginning to explore the classics, I love being able to see what Pauline Kael thought about many of the most important movies of our time. Since I often agree with her, it helps me save time and money in determining which movies I want to rent (and if not available to rent, buy). All movie titles are in alphabetical order, and there is an index in the back which contains film titles, directors, actors, etc.
However, the capsule reviews can occasionally be misleading. From the capsules, I thought Pauline liked (or at least didn't dislike) "8 1/2" by Fellini and "Hiroshima Mon Amour" by Resnais. But in her book "I Lost It At The Movies", the full reviews are a pretty harsh pan.
I also wish that she had a "Best Movies" list. Nevertheless, still a very useful (but thick) book.
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Title: The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made by Vincent Canby, Janet Maslin, Peter M. Nichols ISBN: 0812930010 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael by Francis Davis, Pauline Kael ISBN: 0306811928 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 03 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: I Lost It at the Movies: Film Writings 1954-1965 by Pauline Kael ISBN: 0714529753 Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers, Ltd. Pub. Date: March, 1994 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Going Steady: Film Writings 1968-1969 by Pauline Kael ISBN: 0714529761 Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers, Ltd. Pub. Date: January, 1994 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Great Movies by ROGER EBERT ISBN: 076791032X Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 05 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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