"Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark", a panel among critics to promote two new books, occurred last Saturday at Lincoln Center as part of their 49th Annual New York Film Festival. Tickets were $20 each and, after selling well, were only available via Standby. Begrudgingly, I decided to skip the event, and now I'm pretty glad I did. On the Film Society's Youtube page, Lincoln Center uploaded the entire discussion the other day, free for any wandering and curious internet user. It's worth a watch if you're as big a fan of Kael's as I am. The panel is a mixed bag (the biggest talker, Camille Paglia, rightly and wrongly seems to dominate the last half hour; Geoffrey O'Brien, who collected many of Kael's reviews for a recent book on her criticism, sits quietly in the corner for most of the evening), but the stories and insider information provided is useful. And boy oh boy is the criticism of other critics prevalent: Andrew Sarris, Ella Taylor, and Manohla Dargis each get disrespected in awfully blunt fashion.
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