pauline kael Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Have you ever dismissed a movie as an unmitigated piece of junk, and then seen it a second time and thought, "That wasn't so bad"? Xan Brooks in The Guardian raises the question: "Who's at fault if a film fails on a first viewing and succeeds on the second? The viewer, the film-maker, or the tangled, criss-crossing dialogue between the two?"

He notes the turn-around he experienced with the Chilean drama Tony Manero, which is due for US release shortly. and admits that he is "nagged by the suspicion that there may be many other films in need of hasty reappraisal." The influential film critic Pauline Kael famously said she never watched a movie more than once, but Newsweek film critic Joe Morgenstern completed changed his mind about Bonnie and Clyde after describing it as a "squalid shoot-em-up for the moron trade." His mea culpa read in part: "I am sorry to say I consider that review grossly unfair and regrettably inaccurate."

I'm not suggesting that every bad movie will suddenly blossom into a classic with a second viewing. Our own Scott Weinberg recently watched Howard the Duck again, and that sucker is still a "$40 million dollar poop-nugget." On the other hand, my estimation of the original Friday the 13th rose with a recent reviewing, and Peter Bogdanovich's films have been rising in stock for me lately after falling through the floor for a period of my critical life.

What about you? Have repeat viewings changed your mind, perhaps after a period of years, either for good or for bad? Are you now convinced that Citizen Kane isn't so bad after all, or ready to give Watchmen a second chance when it hits DVD?

(Full disclosure: current Cinematical Managing Editor Scott Weinberg and Cinematical co-founder Karina Longworth, now editor of Spout.com, make brief appearances in this film.)

Some documentaries demand to be seen on the big screen; others are best discovered while channel surfing. Gerald Peary's For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism falls into the latter category.

On the film's official site, Peary declares his doc to be "an unapologetic defense of a profession under siege." It's filled with talking head interviews with critics whose bylines are more familiar than their faces: A.O. Scott, J. Hoberman, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Owen Gleiberman, Kenneth Turan, and many others. It's a treat to see the best-known film critic on the planet, Roger Ebert, give a never-before-seen interview. The sound bites are distinctive, the insider's perspective is refreshing, the historical overview is welcome, and the overall impression is positive.

Here's the sticking point: For the Love of Movies features an academic approach to the subject. Unless you have a great interest in film criticism, it feels like you're watching a term paper. Peary is both a long-time film studies professor at Suffolk University and a film critic for The Boston Phoenix, an alternative weekly, and is obviously not the first film critic to direct a movie.

Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut were critics before they made movies; so were fellow French New Wave directors Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette. The difference is that they were younger men in rebellion; Peary is an older man more interested in defending his longtime colleagues from charges that film criticism is no longer relevant or needed.

• Hollis Alpert (1916-2007) - Writer and film critic who co-founded the National Society of Film Critics with Pauline Kael in 1966. He was a critic for Woman's Day and Saturday Review and was editor-in-chief for American Film Magazine. He also wrote on film for Playboy, Esquire and Cosmopolitan and authored several biographies of Hollywood personalities, including The Barrymores and Marlon Brando. He died November 18 in Naples, Florida. (NY Times)
• Alan Barnard (1928-2007) - Special effects technician who worked on Full Metal Jacket, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Dirty Dozen, Octopussy, Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Superman, Superman II, Superman III, Supergirl, Dragonslayer, Moonraker, Lifeforce and Gandhi. His specialty was the production and operation of machines that simulate wind, fire, rain, smoke and waves. He died in October. (Welwyn & Hatfield Times)
• Pierre Granier-Deferre (1927-2007) - French filmmaker who co-wrote and directed Le Chat, La Horse, Le Train and La Cage. He also directed Alain Delon in La Race des 'seigneurs' (Creezy), La Veuve Couderc (The Widow Couderc) and Le Toubib (The Medic). He died November 16 in Paris. (Variety)
• Fernando Fernán-Gómez (1921-2007) - Spanish director and actor (pictured) who is best known here for playing the father of Penelope Cruz' character in All About My Mother. He also co-stars in Fernando Trueba's Belle Epoque (also with Cruz), Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive, José Luis Cuerda's Butterfly, Carlos Saura's Mama Turns 100, Antonio Hernández's The City of No Limits and José Luis Garci's El Abuelo (The Grandfather). He directed The Strange Journey and wrote and directed the comedies Life Goes On, Life Around Us and Life Ahead. He died of heart complications November 21, in Madrid. (Variety)
• Emily Gamboa (1939-2007) - Production coordinator/secretary for the Mexican shoots for Predator, Romancing the Stone, Men With Guns, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, The Falcon and the Snowman, Missing and Medicine Man. She died of pneumonia November 11, in Mexico City. (IMDb)