Good documentary that brings its subject back to life in all her opinionated, maddening, sometimes brilliant, more often nasty, but always fun to read glory. My two caveats are that the plethora of talking heads, other than Kael's, are a bit on the dull side and, more importantly, that the overall tone tends toward the protective rather than the acerbic which would seem, in a work that deals with a famous critic, like the wrong way to go. Take, for example, the notorious evisceration of Kael by Renata Adler in the pages of the NYR, which caused, according to this film, great hurt feelings in its target. The attitude taken toward the incident by director Rob Garver seems to be the very non ironical "That was an unfair hit job" rather than the proper "She could dish it out but she couldn't take it." Give it a B.
