In Love With the Movies

WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL (A-minus) - Rob Garver seems to love movies as much as Pauline Kael did. His profile of the former New Yorker film critic is both an homage to and a montage of Kael and the movies that she championed. And like her, this documentary has attitude and swagger.

Garver, in his debut, probably tries to cram too many ideas into this biography -- it's quite visually and aurally stimulating. But Kael shot from the lip and let the chips fall, and this paean to not just a film writer but a bygone era of the American New Wave comes out with barrels blazing.

You get a good flavor of Kael, warts and all, from fanboys like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Schrader to John Guare and Camile Paglia (along with fresh voices like Lili Anolik from Vanity Fair). Garver digs out a clip of Jerry Lewis on a talk show both disparaging and praising Kael for her talent and passion. He quotes liberally from Renata Adler's 1980 attempted puncturing of her rival. He recounts some of Kael's memorable takedowns, like her evisceration of "The Sound of Music."

Garver starts with film clips from the 1930s of trash-talking dames to set the theme: Here was a confident woman kicking ass and taking names, taking a pin-prick to the New Yorker's stuffy prose style, and building an army of acolytes akin to that of a speaker of the House.

It's all so bittersweet, though, because Kael, who retired in 1991 and died in 2001 (just before 9/11), represents a whole distinct era, where things like erudite criticism mattered, pre-Internet, before Yelp and the insipid Rotten Tomatoes. She championed and challenged an art form, and she did so with gusto. She and her favorites, like Brian De Palma, had quite a lusty run during an analog heyday, and life in a CGI world seems so much flatter without her.

VARDA BY AGNES (B+) - I doubt anyone has ever so meticulously curated her life like Agnes Varda did. Here, the doyenne of the French New Wave, who died in March at 90, films herself giving a lecture wherein she methodically marches through her career achievements. It's a loving and clear-eyed tribute to the creative process by someone who seemed to devote every waking hour to not only creating images but connecting with her fellow humans.

Varda says it's not enough to create; she argues that no piece of art is trite if it's imbued with empathy. Her art installations are as impressive as her movies, which include the landmark "Cleo From 5 to 7" and "The Gleaners and I." Those titles and the rest are generously represented here during a full two-hour retrospective. It helps if you are a fan of Varda's or are familiar with her movies (recently we've reviewed her collaborations with Jane Birkin and the photographer JR ("Faces Places")). But even newcomers should appreciate a legend who shared her art and her heart so generously.

BONUS TRACKS
The trailers: