Dave Kehr’s writing about film has garnered high praise from both readers and fellow critics. Among his admirers are some of his most influential contemporaries. Roger Ebert called Kehr “one of the most gifted film critics in America.” James Naremore thought he was “one of the best writers on film the country as a whole has ever produced.” But aside from remarkably detailed but brief capsule reviews and top-ten lists, you won’t find much of Kehr’s work on the Internet, and many of the longer and more nuanced essays for which he is best known have not yet been published in book form.             With
When Movies Mattered,
readers welcomed the first collection of Kehr’s criticism, written during his time at the
Chicago Reader
.
Movies That Mattered
is its sequel, with fifty more reviews and essays drawn from the archives of both the
and
Chicago
magazine from 1974 to 1986. As with
When Movies Mattered
, the majority of the reviews offer in-depth analyses of individual films that are among Kehr’s favorites, from a thoughtful discussion of the sobering Holocaust documentary
Shoah
to an irresistible celebration of the raucous comedy
Used Cars
. But fans of Kehr’s work will be just as taken by his dissections of critically acclaimed films he found disappointing, including
The Shining, Apocalypse Now
, and
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. Whether you’re a long-time reader or just discovering Dave Kehr, the insights in
will enhance your appreciation of the movies you already love—and may even make you think twice about one or two you hated.