Oh ghod, I NEVER felt I was seeing the same flicks Kael was, ever. I remember she went rapturously on and on and fucking ON about Shoot the Moon, a dreadful divorce picture with Albert Finney and Diane Keaton, and I watched it on cable one day and my reaction was one long continuous betrayed wtfffffff. THEN she went on and on about some film starring Willie Nelson, but I knew better by then. I get the same feeling reading her I do Didion (or Sontag), here is a huge wiry intellect intent on wrestling you to the ground and saying Uncle isn't the same thing as getting the reader to agree/see your point of view. But the contortions are invigorating until they're exhausting.

Everyone remembers (with justice) Agee's one-liners, and the writing on Chaplin, but it was the stuff on Keaton that really got me. Just amazing.