Dave Kehr

Though it's almost impossible, try to sit back sometime and enjoy this 1938 Howard Hawks masterpiece not only for its gags, but for the grace of its construction, the assurance of its style, and the richness of its themes. Cary Grant's adventures with Katharine Hepburn lead from day into night, tameness into wildness, order into chaos; needless to say, it's a deeply pessimistic film, though it draws its grim conclusions in a searingly bright and chipper way. Amazingly, the film was a failure when first released (during Hepburn's "box-office poison" period), but time has revealed its brilliance, as well as the apparent impossibility of its like ever being seen again (What's Up, Doc? notwithstanding).

rosenbaum, whatever his past virtues, has become an unreadably dreary pedant

At least I'm having a good time with Movie Mutations, though it sort of makes me feel excluded as a cinephile rather than included (that's probably more my problem than the authors').

The denial at the heart of this comedy gives it unusual potency because the current political discourse in this country has been shaped by denial. In order to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq the Bush administration is in denial about, among other things, this country's support for and arming of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, intelligence showing that Iraq had destroyed most if not all of its programs to build weapons of mass destruction, and high-level warnings that Iraq could turn chaotic once the Iraqi army was defeated. Whatever one thinks of the Bush administration, we're all affected by this kind of denial.

then there's his review of "Aladdin," which produced the brilliant observation: "I'm inclined to take a parrot named Iago, dubbed by Gilbert Gottfried, as a stand-in for Israel."

I don't think that was Rosenbaum. Though I wouldn't have put it past him to have suggested, at the time, that maybe it would've been nice to have a film about racism on the list that was directed by, y'know, an African-American... and Rosenbaum was hardly the only one making that assertation, either.

don't get me wrong, the AFI list was utterly appalling, for many more reasons than i could name. shall we have a thread about it?

no, i've long since written him off.

I see your Chicago critics and raise you St. Paul's Chris Hewitt and Minneapolis's Jeff Strickler.

(of course, in my book, gushy and worthless embrace of Landmark international-boutique product and Medved-like slavery to espousal of family values -- respectively -- will always be worse than having a fixation on the political implications of cinephilia.)

Wasn't this thread about Dave Kehr?

ebert is endlessly frustrating because his tastes and ideas sometimes lag behind his writing ability

That said, I think that in the past couple of years his tastes have become fairly unexplainable. I went to see "Small Soldiers" based on his rave, and I just don't get it. This seems to happen more and more. He loved AI? Loony Toons: Back in Action? This, from the man who taught me how to appreciate Brakhage?

AI would have been a great film had Kubrick made it. (Have you seen the original treatment? MUCH darker than the Oedipal fantasy Spielberg left us.)

You are spot on about Small Soldiers though. Well said.

Zzzzzzzz...... next!

What, please, is so fucking light and cheery about Oedipal fantasies?! That much-maligned final scene was more "disturbing" than anything Kubrick's ever thrown out there. Don't get me wrong, Kubrick as a formalist wipes the floor with Spielberg; but with A.I., whether intended or not, Spielberg stumbled onto something nasty and selfish about humanity. Even Kubrick would probably have the David character express maybe even the slightest shred of guilt about consigniing his mother's soul to oblivion.

But this may prove to be a pointless argument. I loathe SS. (Well, ever since Jaws.) His constant use of kids in trouble/danger is nauseating. "Mommy/Daddy didn't love me enough" and "mommy/daddy wasn't around" has played itself out. Enough already.

Only Spielberg could take a brilliant tale on ethics and turn it into a "daddy let me get abducted" movie.