1967 vs 2014: Two film critics fight against two different "radical" films.

In 1967, there was NEW YORK TIMES film critic Bosley Crowther on Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty's gangster-genre-reshaping BONNIE AND CLYDE:
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173CE361BC4C52DFB266838C679EDE

Cut to this summer.  Kenneth Turan disliked Richard Linklater's filmed-over-12-years coming-of-age-genre-reshaping BOYHOOD (which I haven't seen yet).  Unlike Crowther with BONNIE AND CLYDE, Turan recused himself from reviewing BOYHOOD upon its release--waiting a few weeks to write this think piece which is a sort of I-feel-so-alone-and-marginalized-but-I'm-Right-damnit primal scream about the film, other film critics' excellent reviews of the film. director Linklater's career and Turan's own recent career at THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:
 http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-ca-boyhood-on-film-turan-20140803-story.html

Examples of the writing of film critic Pauline Kael--subject of new biography and reviews collection.

Pauline Kael on A CLOCKWORK ORANGE http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0051.html

Kael's essay on Cary Grant "The Man From Dream City":
http://www.carygrant.net/articles/dream%20city.htm

Kael on LAST TANGO IN PARIS:
http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/834-last-tango-in-paris

Kael's controversial pre-release review of Robert Altman's NASHVILLE:
http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1975-03-03#folio=079

And the review of BONNIE AND CLYDE that led to her being hired at THE NEW YORKER:
http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1967-10-21#folio=147

RIP film and stage director Arthur Penn.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/09/penns_end.php

I remember seeing Arthur Penn once around 1989 at the Telluride Film Festival; Penn and Penn & Teller were there to promote the film PENN AND TELLER GET KILLED.  All three were, if memory is correct, on an outdoor panel where Arthur Penn was on the end of a brief tongue-lashing from a local Telluride woman (decidedly not a festival-goer) intent on using him as a punching bag for her disdain for Hollywood and its filmed product, which she apparently found values-deficient.

Certainly, THE MIRACLE WORKER, BONNIE AND CLYDE, THE LEFT HANDED GUN, THE CHASE, ALICE'S RESTAURANT (haven't seen it, but should ), LITTLE BIG MAN and NIGHT MOVES  form the cornerstone of Penn's reputation as a film director. MICKEY ONE (Penn's first collaboration with Warren Beatty) and THE MISSOURI BREAKS (Penn's second time working with Marlon Brando--who, from his performance, had a different film in mind) are watchable, idiosyncratic misfires.

And, as Mr. Wells mentions in his HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE post, Penn was out of cinematic fashion by 1981.  Two of his later films (TARGET and DEAD OF WINTER) were genre thriller stuff that could have been made by just about anyone.

But Penn had a good run from THE LEFT HANDED GUN through MISSOURI BREAKS and deserves posthumous attention from younger generations of film enthusiasts.