MOVIE LOVE: Complete Reviews 1988-1991 <i> by Pauline Kael (Plume: $14.95).</i>

During her 24-year tenure at the New Yorker, Pauline Kael’s pungent essays established her as the most respected film critic in the United States. Her opinions often have been controversial, but Kael undoubtedly loves the medium of motion pictures, and she never allows hype or superficial emotional appeals to cloud her judgements. She shrugs off Kevin Costner as “the Orson Welles that everybody wants--Orson Welles with no belly” and laments that for “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” Stephen Spielberg, “who was perhaps the greatest of all pure, escapist movie directors, is being acclaimed for turning into a spiritual simp.” Her praise for “Grifters,” “My Left Foot” and “Enemies, A Love Story” is equally perceptive and well-reasoned. “Movie Love,” which is being published simultaneously in hard cover by Dutton ($24.95), provides welcome reading at a time when film criticism seems to have been reduced to “A 10!” and “Two thumbs up”.