Hooked (book)

Hooked: Film Writings, 1985–88 (1989) is the ninth collection of movie reviews by the critic Pauline Kael, covering the period from July 1985 to June 1988.

She reviews more than 170 films giving rich praise to the work of directors and performers she admires - in this collection for example, Robert Altman; Alan Rudolph - for his film Songwriter; Nick Nolte; Susan Sarandon; Melanie Griffith; Lesley Ann Warren; Steve Martin in Roxanne.

And she attacks what she regards as second rate, for example, George Lucas, -"George Lucas should believe less in himself - he keeps trying to come up with an original idea, and he can't"; and the film Heartbreak Ridge - "It would take a board of inquiry made up of gods to determine whether this picture is more offensive aesthetically, psychologically, morally, or politically."

"I got hooked on movies at an early age, (around 4 or 5 , when I saw them while sitting on my parents' laps), and I am still a child before a moving image.

Movies seem to me the most mysteriously great of all art forms."