David Thomson

In Praise of Pauline Kael (15 person items)

" "The shrewdest thing to say about Pauline Kael – beyond recognising that she was essential – is that she was kind of crazy. Yet determined to seem rational or in control." "In her best writing there was a marriage – no, an affair – between ecstasy and disgust." "Her agitated voice and spurting rhythms were infectious. She was better than some of the film-makers she espoused – smarter, more giddily romantic and more insistent that they do good work. She ushered in an age of film co"

The Favourite Films of Critics and Filmmakers (32 movies items)

"1. Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch) 2. Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974, Jacques Rivette) 3. Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles) 4. The Conformist (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci) 5. His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks) 6. A Man Escaped (1956, Robert Bresson) 7. Pierrot le Fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard) 8. The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir) 9. That Obscure Object of Desire (1977, Luis Bunuel) 10. Ugetsu (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi)"

In Praise of Mickey Rooney (11 person items)

" "Rooney is not just an actor of genius, but an artist able to maintain a stylized commentary on the demon impulse of the small, belligerent man." "Rooney's Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) is truly inhuman, one of cinema's most arresting pieces of magic. ... His toughie in Boys Town (1938) struts and bullies like something out of a nightmare and then comes clean in a grotesque but utterly frank outburst of sentimentality in which he aspires to the boy community ... His role as Baby Fa"