Keepers

Starred review from April 27, 2015
Film critic Schickel saw his first film in 1938 (Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves) and started reviewing movies professionally in 1965. Since then, he estimates, he’s seen 22,590 films. In this entertaining and informative journey through cinema history, the renowned Time critic—and author of 37 Hollywood biographies and histories—presents readers with a primer on film history and shares his unique insights on movies big and small. Schickel is clear from the start that he’s a fan of popular (rather than “art”) cinema and considers himself more of an expert on American film than international, despite later, perfectly cogent sections devoted to foreign directors such as Ingmar Bergman and Jean-Luc Godard. Moving roughly in chronological order, Schickel begins by paying his respects to the silent films of D.W. Griffith and Mary Pickford and the 1930s screwball comedies of Howard Hawks—he readily admits that his “loyalty, historically and emotionally speaking, is to the first two decades or so of the talkies.” Then he moves on through Bonnie and Clyde and Star Wars. His taste is eclectic (Errol Flynn is his favorite movie star, Orson Welles is a disappointment) but his opinions are always fully backed up with examples. Schickel, who posits in his introduction that movies are about both nothing and everything, wholly succeeds in making readers care about every film he’s seen.

March 15, 2015
A noted critic celebrates the pleasure of movies.By his own count, film critic Schickel (Conversations with Scorsese, 2011, etc.) has seen 22,590 movies. After a 40-year career as "a professional moviegoer," he admits that he prefers popular movies to "art" films, although his eclectic list of keepers includes some decidedly arty directors, such as Wim Wenders and German expressionist F.W. Murnau. Beginning with the first two decades of the talkies, Schickel praises the exemplary Charlie Chaplin in a movie not well regarded by others, The Circus (1928). To the author, the climax, which "features Chaplin doing a high-wire act while beset by a troop of monkeys," is "breathtaking in its intricacy, and its thrills." Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) seems to him "the greatest of the Dracula movies," but he believes Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and M (1931) to be overrated. Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) was "a great act of modernism"; William Wellman's The Public Enemy (1931), an iconic gangster picture. The author remarks on virtually every director, from D.W. Griffith to Rouben Mamoulian (a "half-forgotten genius"), Clint Eastwood to Steven Spielberg. He thinks Woody Allen is "trapped by his gift" of creating comedy. Annie Hall (1977), though a huge hit, is only a "charming movie, but scarcely an overpowering one," and Radio Days (1987) seems to Schickel "one of Woody's most accomplished films." Although he concedes that Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) "is not everyone's dish of tea," he deems it "an important film because there were not many before it that were essays in pure insanity." A great admirer of Martin Scorsese, Schickel thought Mean Streets (1973) was clumsy, but Raging Bull (1980) and Taxi Driver (1976) were masterpieces. Schickel found writing this collection "a rather playful business"; readers will find it infused with his joy.

January 1, 2015

The prize-winning author of nearly 40 books, preeminent film critic Schickel offers his top picks--skewering classics (Gone with the Wind), pumping up bombs (A.I.), and hailing unnoticed gems--while clarifying what makes a film really work.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2015

Roger Ebert said, "a film critic doesn't have to be right, but he does have to be interesting." Schickel--longtime critic at Time magazine and author of books on Marlon Brando, Woody Allen, Gary Cooper, and others--is often right and always interesting here. He takes us on a random walk through decades of films, starting with the silent era and focusing on the decades up to the 1970s. The book's title signals its informality. The author is not a pretentious cineast; it's more like being with a chatty and knowledgeable friend--a friend who happens to have known Clint Eastwood and Frank Capra. On Casablanca: "What it's saying is that normally love should find its way, but not when the world is in crisis." On Orson Welles: "The possibility that Welles was not a genius at all presents itself. Maybe he was just a very talented guy self-deceived by too early success, running endlessly to catch up with an inflated ego." Schickel is confident and charming. Even his negative assessments are free of the acid of Pauline Kael or David Thomson. VERDICT Film buffs can use this to start conversations with their friends. [See Prepub Alert, 1/1/15.]--Michael O. Eshleman, Bloomington, IN

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2015

Roger Ebert said, "a film critic doesn't have to be right, but he does have to be interesting." Schickel--longtime critic at Time magazine and author of books on Marlon Brando, Woody Allen, Gary Cooper, and others--is often right and always interesting here. He takes us on a random walk through decades of films, starting with the silent era and focusing on the decades up to the 1970s. The book's title signals its informality. The author is not a pretentious cineast; it's more like being with a chatty and knowledgeable friend--a friend who happens to have known Clint Eastwood and Frank Capra. On Casablanca: "What it's saying is that normally love should find its way, but not when the world is in crisis." On Orson Welles: "The possibility that Welles was not a genius at all presents itself. Maybe he was just a very talented guy self-deceived by too early success, running endlessly to catch up with an inflated ego." Schickel is confident and charming. Even his negative assessments are free of the acid of Pauline Kael or David Thomson. VERDICT Film buffs can use this to start conversations with their friends. [See Prepub Alert, 1/1/15.]--Michael O. Eshleman, Bloomington, IN

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.