Movie Love: Complete Reviews 1988-1991

by Pauline Kael

Book Overview

The New Yorker reviewer's inimitable reviews from 1988-1991. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452266351
• ISBN13: 9780452266353
• Release Date: September 1991
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

what thou lovest well remains

This is Pauline Kael's 11th and final collection of the film reviews she wrote for The New Yorker, covering the period October 1988 to February 1991. In March 1991 the magazine quietly announced her retirement, due to the extent that the Parkinson's Disease she suffered from had incapacitated her. Her author's note begins wih a quote from Pound - "what thou lovest well remains" - which is an appropriate way to end the relationship she had with movies for over 2 decades, since her inspired reviews of movies of variable quality are Kael's heritage. Her praises here include Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Dangerous Liaisons, the doco Let's Get Lost, Batman, Casualties of War, My Left Foot, Drugstore Cowboy, The Grifters, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Vincent and Theo, and Enemies A Love Story. Her pans include Another Woman, Mississippi Burning, Rain Man, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Always, Postcards from the Edge, The Sheltering Sky, and The Bonfire of the Vanities. Some memorable quotes. Bird looks like he Clint Eastwood hadn't paid his Con Ed bill - the black actors are swallowed up in darkness. As Madame Sousatzka, Shirley MacLaine could be Norma Desmond's sma;;-town spinster sister. The reference in Beaches to the bad experience Bette Midler had on Jinxed! might have more impact if by then you weren't thinking back on Jinked! almostly fondly. People used to say that Gary Cooper was a fine actor - probably because when they looked in his face they were ready to give him their powder of attorney. In Born on the Fourth of July, Tom Cruise's hysteria is like a tennis pro falling to his knees and throwing his fists up in the air. A friend of mine broke up with his woman friend after they saw Dance with Wolves: she liked it. As soon as I got home from seeing it, I ran to the phone and warned him not to it with his new woman friend.