Stanley Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET

[Chris Knipp]

Thank you. I see the A.N. passage is on p. 827 of the big Kael collection, For Keeps, and the Platoon passage is from her review of the movie (pp. 1122 ff. there) from Hooked , and. . . I guess the other passages are from her reviews of those movies, also anthologized in For Keeps, and it's got a good index. Thanks for calling these to our attention. The "nasty putdown" of Alien isn't so bad if you ask me: "It reached out, grabbed you, and squeezed your stomach; it was more gripping than entertaining, but a lot of people didn't mind. They thought it was terrific, because at least they'd felt something: they'd been brutalized..." etc.

I prefer Aliens anyway, but this should cause no one any pain. We know the Alien series ain't high art, and we know Kael liked Robert Altman not Ridley Scott: she was unmoved (and unthrilled) by the high/low fun of Blade Runner too.