"This book is the film-security x-ray device we really need: it sees through everything. Witty, caustic, passionate and wise, Hoberman treats movies as the bizarre cross-cultural phenomenon they have become in a book of critical essays that somehow manages to be a suspenseful page-turner. Film criticism at this level is deliciously close to philosophy."—David Cronenberg
"J. Hoberman is one of the best film critics working regularly in America today. His reviews and essays have many striking qualities that help account for its cogency, insight, and authority. He is exceptionally knowledgeable about film history and very deft at bringing it to bear on the films under discussion. His writing is terse, aphoristic, and unpredictable—pure gold. Whether we agree with him or not, he is a pleasure to read."—Morris Dickstein, CUNY Graduate Center, and author of Gates of Eden, and Leopards in the Temple
"Archivist, excavator and wicked wit, J. Hoberman holds a lead place at the forefront of contemporary American film criticism. In The Magic Hour: Film at Fin de Siècle, he effortlessly transcends the banality of so much of our contemporary film culture and identifies essential truths about how we watch and why. Even when the movies are lousy Hoberman is inimitable."—Manohla Dargis, movie critic, Los Angeles Times