“... At the time of his death at the age of 97 in 1985, Marc Chagall was, if not the world’s best-known living artist (as much trademark as painter), certainly its best loved. The School of Paris’s last surviving master was dismissed by some as a purveyor of high-class kitsch and hailed by others as one of the 20th century’s truly popular artists, but no one denied Chagall’s power as a colourist or the distinctiveness of his iconography: the embracing lovers, joyful barnyard creatures, tumbledown villages and Jewish musicians, among other free-floating symbols ...”

“... Is there anything stranger than a pop star out of time? Before Elvis Presley, before Michael Jackson, there was Al Jolson – ‘the most popular entertainer of the first half of the 20th century,’ as Michael Rogin describes him. Eyes wide and mouth agape, arms outstretched and face painted black, Jolson concludes his performance in The Jazz Singer (1927) down on one knee, serenading the delighted actress who plays his mother in a voice as strong and piercing as a foghorn ...”

“... of ‘even as’ constructions. Yet the book has a generous plan and keeps up a lively pace. Hoberman interprets his chosen films as works of commercial art and as symptoms of a popular culture sealed off like a sickroom. This goes for political movies like I Married a Communist and The Red Danube but also for many others (Westerns, biblical epics, space ...”

“... J. Hoberman’s book, appropriately enough, is a cinematic montage of reflections on the long-drawn-out demise of the former Soviet Union, seen through the eyes of a New York journalist and film critic: a process that began with the death of Stalin and ended with the sale of chunks of the Berlin Wall in Bloomingdale’s ...”

“... Lulu is delighted – in an essay accompanying the Criterion Collection version of the film, J. Hoberman says ‘few movie moments are more electrifying’ than her ‘radiant smirk of triumph’ – and returns happily to her dance number. This is the one moment in the work where she does seem to be a femme fatale. She has her powers of enchantment, and ...”

“... the shadow war of the 21st century that has long been anticipated but never really expected. J. Hoberman New York Suicidal militants who hate us and want to kill us obviously cannot be deterred by threats. But can recasting US policy – say, withdrawing our troops from Saudi Arabia or putting pressure on Israel to retreat within its 1967 borders – blunt ...”