Lotta 3 paragraph reviews by an insightful reviewer.

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	• 5001 Nights at the Movies Pauline Kael Henry Holt & Company, 1991 - 960 pages average customer review:based on 26 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

As much fun as a giant buttered popcorn!

Pauline Kael was at her tangy, erudite best in the long-form reviews she wrote for "The New Yorker." Nevertheless, these capsule reviews she culled from her longer articles to comprise "5001 Nights at the Movies" manage to capture the acerbic essence of her style. (There are a few exceptions, such as the bare-bones squib on the Gene Deitch-Jules Feiffer satirical cartoon "Munro," so short and bland that I wonder why they bothered to print it.)

Kael was the first celebrity film critic, and still the most bracing and fun to read, although she can be extremely annoying when you disagree with her. (I don't understand her enthusiasm for John Boorman's indigestible "Excalibur," or her condescending summation of John Ford's masterful "The Quiet Man" as "fearfully Irish and green and hearty," to give two of many examples.) Kael had an encyclopedic knowledge of film technique and history, and she was never afraid to call them the way she saw them. One of her sharpest putdowns was of the Dustin Hoffman-Mia Farrow romantic drama "John and Mary": "Remember when that man in `The Graduate' told Hoffman to go into plastics? Well, he did when he made this one." And she was no respecter of inflated reputations, as when she took on Alain Resnais' revered "Hiroshima, Mon Amour": "Hushed and hypnotic, it makes you feel so conscious of its artistry that you may feel as if you're in church and need to giggle."

Kael excelled at giving readers the exact mood and feel of a movie, and when she was right about a movie, she was very, very right. She puts the finger on Jean Cocteau's "Orphee": "Cocteau's special gift was to raise chic to art." And she was astute enough to call Kurt Russell "a star in the world of the mendacious" for his much underrated comic con man performance in Robert Zemeckis'"Used Cars." She also pinpointed the exact problem with Lawrence Kasdan's Western "Silverado": "The film is so opulent it has a nouveau riche aura about it; it's a counterfeit Western, without the feel of the memorable ones." The book doesn't quite live up to its title--there are 2,800-plus capsule reviews here, not the 5,001 the title would suggest. Nevertheless, they make compulsive reading. Like a giant tub of buttered popcorn, you'll find yourself consuming these reviews till you come to the end.

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The definitive critic's guide to films

This covers - as you may have gussed - 5001 movies, and her views are clear, intelligent and valuable. I find myself looking in this for reference and just curiosity. This lady knew a great deal about the subject and writes in a way that is easy to understand for the non expert. Helpful, entertaining stuff.

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Lotta 3 paragraph reviews by an insightful reviewer.

The trick with reading any review of anything such as a play, a movie, a record or any art or exhibition is to know the reviewer. In San Diego we've had the same movie reviewer, Duncan Shepard, for the San Diego Reader for two or three decades. Everyone I know who reads his reviews has cranky things to say about his reviews as his point of view is very distinct. However, the reviews are not useless. Once you learn that most of his 5 star films are something that the typical movie goer would give 2 stars to and his 1 or 2 starred films are sometimes our favorites, then it's a breeze reading his reviews. His point of view has remained true all this time.

The same can be said for Kael. Both reviewers are very intelligent and see movies through their own viewing lens. We all have no choice but to see everything from our own point of view. The good news is, Kael keeps her consistent point of view, writes sharply and with some humor and is quite intelligent. As a result, one can learn about films by reading her reviews. The best way to approach this book, least for me, was to immediately read her reviews of films I have seen. Then I got a good idea of her perspective. Where she was coming from became more evident.

I am delighted I purchased this book on amazon.com, the best book store around (besides Powell's in Portland but, it's in Portland, though, of course, they do have a website but it ain't the same as seeing all their books in their massive store). Ironically, it's the reviews on amazon.com that really help a person make more informed decisions about books you can't actually thumb through.

I don't completely agree with Kael on her evaluations of every film. That's because everyone has their own fingerprint for their distinct tastes in movies, music and art. We are each formed by our upbringing and our experiences and our personal taste. What matters is when a person can efficiently convey an intelligent idea of a film to us with an honest perspective that remains true to her own point of view over the decades. Kael has accomplished this.

I look forward to many more opportunities to dive into this thick book to explore the world of film from the late 1920's to the late 1980's. chrisbct@hotmail.com

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Kael Encapsulated

Pauline Kael did not specialize in capsule reviews, and in her NEW YORKER columns, any film that did not merit much more than one or two paragraphs was literally and figuratively being given 'short shrift.' The reviews in 5001 NIGHTS AND THE MOVIES were either written (kinda) anonymously for the "About the Town" section or have been largely been edited down from her lengthier reviews to make them more "browser friendly." There are upsides and downsides to this approach. Readers still get a flavor for Kael's sharp, quirky writing style, but also get to the heart of her criticism more readily than they would have in the longer format. Yes, you can see almost immediately whether she LOVED IT or HATED IT, but some of the fun in reading Kael's longer reviews lay in following the twists and turns in her arguments. The more you got used to her highly personalized and somewhat rambling writing style, the more you appreciated her insights, which could be wildly enthusiastic, bitingly negative OR (more often than people gave her credit for) understandably mixed.

Her writing often seemed like an attempt to reason through why a particular film mattered (implicitly, why it mattered to HER, but also why it might matter to other more or less like-minded souls). But even when she was dismissive of a film, she would often write at considerable length as to why it failed, why it still might be a popular success and why it may or may not matter as a cultural artifact, even if it was an artistic disaster.

As some other reviewers have stated: she got you thinking. And even if you vehemently disagreed with her, either in general, or on this or that particular film, that's always a good thing. I remember, in my early 20s, getting excited over the auteur theory debate that was raging(?) a few years prior between Kael and Andrew Sarris. After a bit of reflection, I decided they were both right, in their ways. I'm nothing if not a critical mamby pamby, I guess. But seriously, there was something to be said for the film-as-product-of-an-auteur school and for the film-as-collaboration school. Both critics enhanced my understanding of film, and if that's mamby pamby, so be it.

I'm glad to have this handy compendium of Kael's abbreviated writings. As noted, the capsule format makes for great browsing, and for many reviews, a reference for a more extended treatment (when available) is cited, so that researchers and new found fans can, if they choose, dig up a more exhaustive critique. Be advised, however, that many of the anthologies of her full length reviews are currently out of print. They still may be available through out-of-print services and in public libraries.

If you like what you find in this volume, don't stop there.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

This series of capsule movie reviews by the great Pauline Kael is actually an anthology of her writings for the "Goings on About Town" section of the New Yorker magazine. In 5001 Nights, Kael digs into the heart of each movie she considers with extraordinary penetration and exuberance. And while every movie you know may not appear here, each of Kael's reviews is detailed enough to provide tremendous insight into the movies that are covered. This book is as much fun to browse as it is to read through. Whether you've run the rounds at your local video store, Kael will lead you to treasures you may not know are out there.

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