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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 1h

THE HUSTLER (1961)

You can see all the picture's faults and still love it. It's the most vital and likable of Rossen's movies.

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 3h

When Tom Hanks does comedy, his slightly blank quality is a form of stylization. But when he's sobbing he's blank like Rob Lowe sobbing. (1986)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 6h

SWEET NOVEMBER is the kind of squishy whimsey that is always referred to as a "woman's picture." This means not that it was written or directed by a woman but that, as the trade press says, it will "undoubtedly appeal to femme audiences." Doubt might give us hope. (1968)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 8h

[COMING HOME] The other characters are playing abstractions, too. Jon Voight, round-faced and blond-bearded, is like a Kris Kristofferson who studied acting. (1978)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 10h

It is really incredible that a great nation can be so culturally demoralized that the high point of children's entertainment for hundreds of thousands of people is a visit to a tourist trap. (1970)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 12h

[Richard Gere] He does a soap-opera actor's impersonation of De Niro, with some feints and scowls from Brando, and he imitates Warren Beatty's self-love without having it. (1977)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 14h

Trintignant, who has always gained from his elusive, submerged resemblance to Bogart, toys with the Bogart snarl-grin and makes the identification explicit; this seems a pity, but he can get by with it. So far, he's the only one who can. (1972)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 1d

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951)

As the prim, innocuous civil servant with a hidden spark of nonconformity, Alec Guinness carries out a dream of larcenous glory: robbing the Bank of England...It's a minor classic, a charmer.

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 1d

Tommy Lee Jones, with his cat burglar's grace, his sunken eyes, rough skin, and jagged lower teeth that suggest a serpent about to snap, takes us into the world of punk. (1978)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 1d

Though BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK is crudely melodramatic, it is a very superior example of motion picture craftsmanship. John Sturges is an excellent director—each movement and line is exact and economical. (1967)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 1d

[THE EYES OF LAURA MARS] Faye Dunaway, with long, thick dark-red hair, brings it emotion and presence, as well as a new erotic warmth. (Her legs, especially the thighs, are far more important to her performance than her eyes; her flesh gives off heat.) (1978)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 1d

Dimples, wigs, bazooms, and all, Dolly Parton is phenomenally likable in THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS. (1982)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 1d

[THE DEER HUNTER] At times, we feel that we're there to be awed rather than to understand. (1978)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 1d

[WELCOME TO L.A.] Baskin sings like someone trying to play the double bass who doesn't know how; the quavering anal growl on the sound track might be Kissinger serenading NBC. Baskin is so serious he won't even grant us the relief of a few inflections. (1977)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 2d

CLEOPATRA (1934)

The extravaganza is moderate, with too much Rome and too little Egypt...Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) wiggles her slim hips and wonders if her dress is becoming. It is, and the big bash aboard her barge has its own dreamy chic.

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 2d

There's hokey melodrama in Hemingway's masculine rites: you see the test being set up and you know how you're supposed to judge the person, and how he judges himself. (1977)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 2d

There are dozens of musicals that have one or two good numbers, but that's all they've got; and to get that much you may have to writhe in sympathy while poor Gene Kelly, rose clenched between his teeth, ogles Kathryn Grayson as she shrills a high C. (1967)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 2d

Nothing in L.A. looks as if it were meant to last anyway; it isn't a city you expect will sustain the ravages of time. (1974)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 2d

THE KILLING (1956) is no more than a good tense thriller, but it has movement, and dialogue that doesn't sound as if it were written by the IBM machine that's been processing most recent film speech. (1967)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 2d

THE ELEPHANT MAN is a very pleasurable surprise. Though I had seen ERASERHEAD, which is the only other feature directed by David Lynch, and had thought him a true original, I wasn't prepared for the strength he would bring out of understatement. (1980)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 2d

[STAVISKY] Resnais's style here is like that of a melancholy Lubitsch; however, Lubitsch could move the camera through great hotels and richly appointed bedrooms for the sheer delight in high living, while Resnais uses luxury and beauty iconographically. (1975)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 3d

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945)

Gothic pyschologizing melodrama, so preposterously full-blown and straight-faced that it's a juicy entertainment. Evil, beautiful Ellen (Gene Tierney) hoards her father's ashes and has a penchant for eliminating people who clutter up her life.

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 3d

Buñuel's indifference to whether we understand him or not can seem insolent, and yet this is part of what makes him fascinating. (1969)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 3d

Ingrid Bergman became a popular favorite when Humphrey Bogart, as Rick, the most famous saloonkeeper in screen history, treated her like a whore in CASABLANCA—a movie that demonstrates how entertaining a bad movie can be. (1967)

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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 3d

[DR. STRANGELOVE] Conceptually, we had already been living with the bomb; now the mass audience of the movies—which is the youth of America—grasped the idea that the threat of extinction can be used to devaluate everything, to turn it all into a joke. (1967)

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