Miss Kael is the most quotable critic writing; but what is important and bracing is that she relates movies to other experience, to ideas and attitudes, to ambition, books, money, other movies, to politics and the evolving culture, to moods of the audience, to our sense of ourselves—to what movies do to us, the acute and self-scrutinizing awareness of which is always at the core of her judgment.

Miss Kael, currently a film critic for The New Yorker—the most recent piece in the book is here penetrating and controversial review of “Bonnie and Clyde”—has been finger-wagged for her irreverent cracks, for talking about herself too much, for being too flexible (unclassifiable?) in her tastes (she rather enjoyed “Hawaii”!), for not being properly awed by technique (she asks, ungratefully, that it serve substance and intention) and for various other failings that come with brains, wit, independence, spirit, humor, curiosity, candor and a flat refusal to be anybody’s toady. All can be relished in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” which, among other things, has the, niftiest title of the year.

Good as these pieces are, however, they are overshadowed by the accomplishment of Miss Kael’s long article on the making of The Group that was commissioned and then rejected by Life. Along with her piece on “Movies on Television,” this is one of the handful of truly indispensable things written about films. Patiently, with a scrupulously nuanced attention both to her own role as a partici-pant-observer and to the characters of the main protagonists, Miss Kael gives us a picture of the complex human situation out of which films are actually made, and from which her argument about the transformation of movies by television is allowed to emerge without the slightest imposition.

Does anything rate a Kiss Kiss? Yea. . . Bravo Bonnie and Clyde, flawed to be sure but the movie that ""has put the sting back into death."" One of the most inherently hilarious and incisive sections deals with the plums that plummet. In this case it's The Group which Miss Kael personally observed from mis-casting to missed plaudits. It's a stunning analysis of what went wrong and why. Along with other capsule reviews of contemporary films Miss Kael includes a section on ""Careers"": the current self-parody of Brando, the missed masterpieces of Orson Welles, etc., and for the home viewer: run-ups run-downs of old movies. Kiss Kiss or Bang Bang. . . never a dull moment from one of the most provocative critics in the country.