Rating: 
Summary: A Treasure!
Review: ...Paulene Kael took movie criticism to an entire new level. She was a sensational WRITER who used criticism of movies and pop culture in general as a tool to express deeply felt opinions about life, art and politics. She was at once intelligent, outrageous, caustic, and provocative and possesed with a sense of wit and irony most movie critics just dream of. Example, in her review of Frank Sinatra's tepid spy thriller "The Naked Runner," Miss Kael simply states: "this would be a good movie to read by if there were light in the theater." A neat phrase that could sum up every bad movie we've ever sat through (God knows that she'd think of "A.I." "Pearl Harbor" "Charlie's Angels" and "3,000 Miles to Graceland"). Most of Kael's collections of movie reviews (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, I Lost It At The Movies, When the Lights Go Down, State of the Art et al), are out of print in America. Fortunately,Plume/Penguin has assembled the best of these collections in one compendium, "For Keeps." This anthology spans more than 30 years of the best of Kael and includes some of her historic essays: "Trash, Art and the Movies," and "Raising Kane" "For Keeps" is invaluable for anyone who loves movies or just has a keen interest in popular culture. ...it's a stunning collection worthy of a woman who turned movie criticism into an art form and who claims she retired in 1990 simply because she didn't want to have to sit through another Oliver Stone movie.
Rating:
Summary: An essential for any film buffs shelf
Review: At over 1,200 pages, covering 30 years (from the late 50s to early 90s)this book contains the best of America's most influential and acclaimed film critic's reviews. ...I refer to my book continually, and would be amazed if any film buff did not have this on their shelves, or was not planning to add it to them. A book that I feel deserves over 5 stars if Amazon.com allowed me to give it!
Rating:
Summary: Acerbic analysis from one of the best.......
Review: I do not know what "For Keeps" means (I am French) but I would rather say "For throw away". The material on which this book is based is far too old and has become irrelevant. I understand Pauline Kael was a great film critic at her time, and I even possess her book "5001 Nights at the Movies", to which I refer once in a while, but... most of the time I have to close the book, because the film is missing. Either it came out only in the nineties, or Pauline Kael did not go to see it, or did not review it anyway. Of course it is funny to hear somebody speaking of "Casablanca" and saying (reportedly) : "It is surprising how a bad film can be entertaining" (we do not agree with her, but never mind...), or putting out 50 pages of script explaining that Orson Welles did not REALLY write "Citizen Kane" (apparently it was Mankiewich) but frankly we need more today, we need books which cover AT LEAST the last 50 years of the century, with special emphasis on the last 10 or 20 years, man, we cannot settle for anything less! If anybody knows such a book, please let me know.
Rating:
Summary: R.I.P. Pauline
Review: I'm writing this as the obituaries pour in. Pauline Kael was not just my favorite movie critic, but my favorite writer, period. A great writer's work can take root in your cerebral cortex (for keeps), change the way that you look at and appreciate art, and inspire and infuriate you in equal measure. Pauline Kael's writings are the lodestone of movie criticism. I truly believe that one cannot claim to be a movie fanatic and yet be unfamiliar with her pieces. Mind-expanding, joyous, passionate, often hysterically funny. Why aren't you clicking to your shopping cart now? All of the working film critics are mere matchstick men. Buy and read this book and find out why.
Rating:
Summary: R.I.P. Pauline
Review: I'm writing this as the obituaries pour in. Pauline Kael was not just my favorite movie critic, but my favorite writer, period. A great writer's work can take root in your cerebral cortex (for keeps), change the way that you look at and appreciate art, and inspire and infuriate you in equal measure. Pauline Kael's writings are the lodestone of movie criticism. I truly believe that one cannot claim to be a movie fanatic and yet be unfamiliar with her pieces. Mind-expanding, joyous, passionate, often hysterically funny. Why aren't you clicking to your shopping cart now? All of the working film critics are mere matchstick men. Buy and read this book and find out why.
Rating:
Summary: Great American Criticism
Review: It's said that what distinguishes a great critic from a good critic is that a great critic's work will stand on its own, even after the material he or she has written about has faded away, been forgotten, or lost appeal. Kael's writing is of the great kind - truly memorable and insightful, even when removed from the context of cinema. This is a huge book, and one the reader should dip into, not read straight through. But what is contained within the pages is some of the most intelligent, passionate, and controversial ideas about movies available. I don't want to suggest that Kael is middle of the road, because she ceratinly isn't, but what her makes her unique (and quite enjoyable) is that she neither plays to the lowest common denominator nor plays to the elitist crowd. She is staunchly, proudly, individualistic, and if lowbrows may be offended by her criticisms of popular favorites, highbrows will be just as outraged at her scathing dismissals of pompous auteurs. On one hand, Kael lambasts "West Side Story" and refers to "The Sound of Music" as the Sound of Mucus, but on the other hand, she calls Fellini on his pretentions, trashes Kubrick's "2001" as an "amateur movie," and yawns her way through Wim Wenders' angel extravaganza. Such dismissals can come as a shock to the well-meaning film enthusiast, but the trashing of sacred cows is refreshing as well as disturbing. But there's so much more to this book than cheap shots. If Kael hates the films that fail to measure up to her standards, she adores those that do, and page after page is filled with warm praise regarding some of the finest cinematic works to grace screens since the mid-1960's. For helpful, intelligent reviews of films such as "Taxi Driver," "Nashville," "The Godfather," "Citizen Kane," and "Last Tango in Paris," look no further. Perhaps Kael's greatest gift is her ability to write in such a way that her knowledge and ideas can be removed from the discussion of film, and applied to life in general. For keen insights into politics, morals, history, theory, art, and philosophy, Ms. Kael's reviews serve a greater purpose than mere movie writing. Her essays are great criticism, bar genre.
Rating:
Summary: nonfiction at its best
Review: Kael's writings on film are a sheer pleasure to read. She's strongly opinionated and not afraid to voice her thoughts. Her reviews and essays take you on an intellectual journey and leave you feeling the same passion for movies, art, and even intelligent thought - all the things that come across clearly in her writing. This collection is superb, better than 5001 nights in my opinion because it includes the full reviews and essays of her best work and most prominent movies, rather than abbreviated samplings of reviews and essays. Kael is at her best on long discourses, in which her sharp prose and intelligence take center stage. All of her books are excellent, but this is the equivalent of a two or three volume greatest hits anthology, spanning her entire career - easily worth buying.
Rating:
Summary: nonfiction at its best
Review: Kael's writings on film are a sheer pleasure to read. She's strongly opinionated and not afraid to voice her thoughts. Her reviews and essays take you on an intellectual journey and leave you feeling the same passion for movies, art, and even intelligent thought - all the things that come across clearly in her writing. This collection is superb, better than 5001 nights in my opinion because it includes the full reviews and essays of her best work and most prominent movies, rather than abbreviated samplings of reviews and essays. Kael is at her best on long discourses, in which her sharp prose and intelligence take center stage. All of her books are excellent, but this is the equivalent of a two or three volume greatest hits anthology, spanning her entire career - easily worth buying.
Rating:
Summary: Cinema's most influential critic.
Review: Love her or hate her (or both), it cannot be denied that Pauline Kael was the most important, witty, insightful, maddening, funny, infuriating, exhilirating and incisive movie critic of all time. For me, the only critic that equals her is her antithesis, the great Stanley Kauffmann. Kael burst upon the scene in the 1960s (though her first review appeared in 1953) and movie criticism has never been the same since. With her conversational, waspish prose style and absolute belief in the rightness of her convictions, Kael had a talent for inspiring both intense debate and intense thought. Her reviews were often more anticipated than the movies she wrote about. Her retirement in 1991 due to Parkinson's was a great loss for both movies and American literature: she was definitely one of the great essayists of the 20th century. "For Keeps" is the definitive one volume Kael collection. From some of her earliest 1950s reviews to her last reviews for The New Yorker in 1991, virtually every important essay she ever wrote is here. Her most famous and controversial reviews (on "Nashville," "Last Tango in Paris," "The Godfather" and "Stardust Memories") are all included, as well as her legendary "Citizen Kane" essay, "Raising Kane." While Kael was an intellectual, writing for a (presumably) literate and educated audience, she was no cinema snob. Her joy in movies extended from Ingmar Bergman to "The Spy Who Loved Me." This is one of the great books on film ever published and a must have for any movie fan.
Rating:
Summary: WHY IS THIS OUT OF PRINT?
Review: Omnibus edition spanning the career of our finest film critic. Nearly every major essay Miss Kael ever published is included here, and even though the material towards the end of her New Yorker gig sags somewhat (well, so did the movies she wrote about), FOR KEEPS is still the most important volume of movie writing ever issued in America. You might find yourself in violent disagreement with her in places, and so what? If you love movies and have any sense of history, you'll be engaged waist-deep in this book from the get-go. HOW can this be out of print?
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