5001 Nights at the Movies: A Guide from A to Z, first published in 1982, is a book compiling passages of film critic Pauline Kael's reviews from the silent era to the early 1980s. They were originally written for The New Yorkers 'Goings On About Town' section.
Summary In her regular New Yorker column Kael wrote long, detailed critiques of the latest films. 5001 Nights is made up of abbreviated reviews of those longer articles, and single-paragraph critiques of dozens of other movies from throughout the 20th century. Her reviews often contain a phrase that captures a film's essence.
Excerpts In a Lonely Place: "an atmospheric but disappointingly hollow murder melodrama" Rebel Without a Cause: "had more emotional resonance for the teenagers of the time than many much better movies" Written on the Wind: "his [Douglas Sirk's] talent for whipping up sour, stylized soap operas in posh settings" The Tarnished Angels: "the kind of bad movie that you know is bad—and yet you're held by the mixture of polished style and quasi-melodramatics achieved by the director, Douglas Sirk" Gun Crazy: "In its B-movie way, it has a fascinating crumminess" New York, New York: "an honest failure...the improvisational Cassavetes-like psychodrama seems hollow and makes it uneasy" Raging Bull: "He [Martin Scorsese] loses the lowlife entertainment value of prizefight films; he aestheticizes pulp and kills it" Au hasard Balthazar: "Considered a masterpiece by some, but others may find it painstakingly tedious and offensively holy" Red Desert: "Boredom in Ravenna, and it seeps into the viewer's bones" The Wrong Man: "an unusually drab Hitchcock film"
Expanded edition Henry Holt and Company published an expanded edition in 1991 with 800 additional Kael reviews of films released after the book's original 1982 date.
References
External links Amazon.com webpage for the 1991 paperback edition Spectrum Culture book review Flick Attack book review Book excerpt Goodreads webpage for the book