A pair of new books centering on film critic Pauline Kael — The Library of America's lavishly rendered The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael and Brian Kellow's incisive biography Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark — have resulted in an avalanche of recent Kael appraisals and reminiscences a decade after her death in 2001 and 20 years after her retirement from writing in 1991.

I can't quite remember when I became aware of Kael, but it had to be in my late teens, which is when I began to move beyond the Hollywood blockbusters of my youth and into deeper, more adventurous cinematic waters. I do know that my initial Kael exposure occurred after she had retired from The New Yorker, where she rather famously wrote film essays and reviews for nearly 25 years.

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Film Schooled, a Cincinnati-based reality TV show that follows two teens through the filmmaking process, screens its pilot episode 7 p.m. tomorrow. Think of it as a head-to-head, meta version of the 48 Hour Film Project.

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A curious collection of filmmakers populates this week’s opening films — from well-established veterans to foreign masters to newbies to practitioners of Hollywood product.

Pedro Almodovar’s entertaining Broken Embraces is laden with the Spanish master’s now signature traits: a rich narrative rife with emotional u-turns and sex galore; a healthy splash of mood-altering color; beautiful females, including longtime muse Penelope Cruz; and ample technical chops informed by a clear nod to film history.

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The Sundance Film Festival's opening weekend is now in the books, and if occasional CityBeat contributor/Salt Lake City Weekly A&E editor Scott Renshaw is any guide, Park City, Utah, is again awash in movie mayhem.

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Just a heads up that Cincinnati World Cinema tonight continues its screenings of The British Arrow Awards, a collection of British television commercials (or, as they're called across the pond, adverts) that put their American counterparts to shame.

In fact, as I wrote the other day, there is often more creative energy in one of these 90-second British adverts than in a two-hour Hollywood effort.

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Another summer is rapidly winding down, which means it's almost time to assess the relative quality of the movies that have graced our screens over the past three months.

I said almost because there are still a few weeks left (the season traditionally runs Memorial Day to Labor Day) and, more importantly, there are still a handful of movies I've yet to catch — from high-profile studio stuff (like Cars 2, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the latest Harry Potter) to smaller indie offerings (like Buck and Project Nim, not to mention a host of titles that have yet to open here — most notably Miranda July's The Future, Michael Winterbottom's The Trip, Azazel Jacobs' Terri and Raúl Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon).

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Tuesday has long been one of my favorite days of the week. Why? That’s when new music and movies traditionally hit stores for purchase and/or rental. Remember John M. James’ column/list of new albums that used to appear in CityBeat? I admit that was the first thing I turned to as a music-mad pre-CityBeat-staff college kid when I picked up the paper every week. Where are you, John?

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I try not to make it a habit of steering you, dear readers, to other Web sites, but The Movie Club is back! Essentially an insider-y movie-critic wank-fest, the Slate-curated endeavor features five writers who go back and forth debating the year in movies via 600-word-or-so online missives — a wet dream for those of us who think about movies deeply and obsessively and how they impact and reflect the culture at large but probably a big bore for those with little patience for such seemingly narrow, esoteric conversations.

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Ever wonder what happened to the kid who played Chunk in The Goonies? 

Wonder no more.

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With the rollout of fall's higher-profile “prestige” pictures still a week away (including Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar Hoover biopic with Leonardo DiCaprio as the notorious FBI director), a pair of lesser-known films open here this week that are worthy of your attention.

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