"Between Ecstasy and Disgust"

"This is heroic criticism, warrior criticism, live-ammo criticism that boldly intervenes in culture and unapologetically takes on everything: the movie, the movies, the audience, the other critics, history, society, politics, love and death. This isn't simply a demonstration of reviewing in all its habitual simpering passivity–that type of criticism which is, paradoxically, entirely uncritical, because it eats up whatever film is put on its plate every week and then obediently raises a thumb up or down or at some angle.
"This is criticism that doesn't wait to be asked, Kael's criticism isn't happy with the demurely submissive 'handmaiden to the arts' tag; she is more like Joan of Arc at the Battle of Orléans."

Peter Bradshaw and others at The Guardian praise Pauline Kael on what would have been her 100th birthday.