Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
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Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: books, crime, Judd Apatow, movies, Pauline Kael
No time to describe this now, just know it’s about Pauline Kael and her influence on contemporary—and contemporary New Yorker—film criticism, and also that the writer uses “kaelled” as a verb in his headline. (Which seems to be a gaming term when spelled with one L; if you know more, write in.) As for me, I own almost every single Kael volume in first edition, and I don’t collect first editions! And one of ‘em’s signed! Don’t burgle me!
Speaking of film critics, Juno, Knocked Up, and suchlike, here’s a sound critique of complaints by Time’s Richard Corliss, who thinks critics are showing off with their lists of arty obscurities and ignoring “mainstream” movies. What can American movie audiences handle? Why don’t we try making and hyper-promoting fewer terrible movies and find out?
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Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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Comments
Yes! I am so sick of studios assuming our idiocy (or encouraging it). It’s even worse when critics do it; someone has to be optimistic about the future of film and the people who go see it! (That’s why I wrote the critique.)
Pauline Kael was no snob; she liked “Used Cars,” hardly a bastion of renegade independent cinema. She also hated “Hiroshima mon Amour.” Anyway, I don’t think Kael created “the rift between popular movies and cinematic movies.” What she did was made the cinematic movies more popular, or become the norm for a bit. Scorsese, De Palma, Coppola: these are all popular directors, liked by a wide variety of people. Film moves forward and should reflect the present: the old sweeping Hollywood dramas had little resonance to the culture in the 70s, which is why Kael championed a new kind of filmmaking and why that filmmaking became the norm and eventually became popular.