In the Hollywood Reporter, Todd McCarthy writes that "while it's possible to regard the subtitle of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark as subtly snide, author Brian Kellow strongly suggests that Pauline, as she was called by everyone and is invariably referred to in these pages, lived most intensely in a darkened theater. As a film critic for The New Yorker from 1967 to 1991, she responded to movies with an unmediated emotion that was perhaps absent from her personal life (she is never described as having been in love with anyone after college), and her reactions could even be physical; one friend swears Pauline levitated at one screening, and her companion at Last Tango in Paris, about which she wrote her most famous review, said she was 'drenched' afterward, unable to talk."
"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2011 was awarded to Tomas Tranströmer 'because, through his condensed, transluscent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.'"
Danish police are looking into whether or not Lars von Trier broke French laws regarding the justification of war crimes when he made those infamous comments in Cannes. Von Trier has released a statement, and the Playlist's Kevin Jagernauth has it in full, but here's the gist: "Due to these serious accusations I have realized that I do not possess the skills to express myself unequivocally and I have therefore decided from this day forth to refrain from all public statements and interviews."
Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema from the 1960s to Now, Part II is on at MoMA through October 23.
The exhibition Just Like the Movies is on view at the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden through October 23: "Using pictures from 52 different Hollywood films the Polish film producer Michal Kosakowski attempts to reconstruct the events of 9/11 in a 21-minute montage."
"Roger Ebert referred to him as 'that character actor with a smile like Jaws,'" recalls Tom Stockman, passing along the news that Charles Napier as died at the age of 75. "Russ Meyer recognized that his cartoonish grin and jutting chin made a perfect complement to the bigger-than-life women he cast in his films so gave Napier his first starring roles in Cherry, Harry & Raquel, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (both 1970) and Supervixens (1975)…. Jonathan Demme cast Napier in his films frequently and everyone remembers him as the ill-fated Lt Boyle, charged with guarding Hannibal Lecter in that cage in Silence of the Lambs (1991)." More from Jennifer Self in the Bakersfield Californian.
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