Author: 2 Film Critics

William Graebner is Emeritus Professor of History, State University of New York, Fredonia, where he taught courses on film and American culture. He is the author or co-author of 11 books and more than 50 scholarly articles, including essays on “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” and zombie films as they relate to the Holocaust. Dianne Bennett, the first woman to head a large U.S. law firm, is a retired U.S. tax lawyer. Dianne and Bill were early and passionate attendees at the Toronto Film Festival, and today enjoy the film scenes of Los Angeles, Rome, London, and Buffalo, New York. They began reviewing films for the Rome-based website “TheAmerican/inItalia” in 2016, have maintained a blog on Rome for a decade, and published two alternative guidebooks to the Eternal City. They still can’t resist going to the movies, not to mention the ensuing discussions, sometimes heated, over a bottle of Arneis at the nearest wine bar. ​And that's just the beginning of our reviewing process. For one or two hours we discuss the film, as one of us takes notes. The notetaker transcribes the notes and prints two copies. Dianne or Bill (usually depending on who had the most compelling understanding of the film, or who was most taken with it) writes the first draft of the review--supposedly taking into account the views of the other--which is followed by 3, 4, or even 7 more drafts. At some point, sometimes days later, when we're both comfortable with the result (or accepting of it, anyway), it's done. https://www.2filmcritics.com

Fallen Leaves (“Kuolleet lehdet”)★★★1/2 (out if 4 stars) When Harry Met Sally in Helsinki A combination of reserve and clichés makes veteran Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s films both entertaining and strange. “Fallen Leaves,” which won this year’s Jury Prize at Cannes, has been called the fourth in his 1986-1990 “Proletariat Trilogy.” The two working-class protagonists toil in mind-numbing jobs under ludicrously bullying bosses. Ansa (Alma Pöysti), first seen tagging out-of-date grocery products, is summarily dismissed for having put a sandwich in her purse rather than in the dumpster. We watch her at her job, where she says not one word,…

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Eileen ★★★ (Out of 4 stars) Not Exactly Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm British director William Oldroyd’s “Eileen” is two stories, two films one might say, and you should attend to both—if only to decide whether, as a viewer, you’ve been entertained and informed in some reasonable Hollywood way, or whether, like some of the characters you’ve been following, you’ve been exploited. It’s not an easy call. Rebecca (Anne Hathaway), the new prison psychologist, might be the femme fatale for Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie). Based on the 2015 prize-winning novel by American author Ottessa Moshfegh (who with her husband wrote the screenplay),…

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May December ★★★1/2 (out of 4 stars) Women on the Verge of Moral Ambiguity “I’m interested in morally ambiguous characters,” responds Elizabeth, a 36 year-old actress portrayed by Natalie Portman, to a student’s query about how she chooses her roles. The morally ambiguous reference is to Gracie, a now-60 year-old who had an affair with a not-quite-13-year-old some 20 years ago. Like Mary Katherine Letourneau, on whom Gracie (Julianne Moore) is loosely based, Gracie marries the boy, Joe, and has children with him, one while she is in prison for the rape of a pre-teen. (In 2022 a tenured philosophy…

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Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute) ★★★ (out of 4 stars) Anatomy of a Marriage The thunderous, pounding sounds of music drown out any attempt by an interviewer to question, and hear answers from, her subject, writer Sandra Voyter. After several annoying minutes in the theater of not being able to hear the dialogue (and contemplating walking out), the interview is aborted and the young female journalist leaves the isolated, French Alps chalet that is Sandra’s home. Soon after, a boy discovers his father’s body, lying in the snow, blood all around, below the chalet. Within minutes, each of…

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Killers of the Flower Moon ★★★ (out of 4 stars) What Was the Matter with Oklahoma? For those accustomed to understanding the State of Oklahoma through the celebratory play (1931), song (1953, when it became the state’s official song), and Hollywood musical “Oklahoma!” (1955), it can be difficult to fathom that two of the most horrific events of 20th-century American history occurred in the “Sooner” state (the word celebrated the opening of the Oklahoma Territory to [mostly white] settlement), both in the 1920s. The best known is the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, in which some 300 Black residents of a…

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Scarlet ★★ (out of 4 stars) A Fairy Tale for the War-Weary A craggy, wounded, older man returns from World War I to a village in Normandy, France to visit his young wife’s grave and to find their infant daughter. Using his woodworking skills, Raphaël (Raphaël Thiéry) ekes out a living for them both in the worker quarters of a manse, where he makes a family life (not a spousal union) with the midwife, Adeline (Noémie Lvovsky), who caught the newborn in her arms. The toddler, Juliette, will become a a child, a young girl, a beautiful young woman who…

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The Royal Hotel ★★★1/2 (out of 4 stars) The Things We Did Last Summer Australian director Kitty Green’s taut, unrelenting drama follows Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick), adventurous Canadian college-age young women on a work-vacation. The two find themselves working as barmaids (and living alone upstairs) in an isolated roadhouse in Australia’s remote outback, serving the bar’s clientele of brawny, over-sexed, testosterone-driven, violence-prone miners, while longing for a relaxing swim and a peek at some kangaroos. With few exceptions, the mise en scène is appropriately claustrophobic—the one-room bar, filled with aggressive, intimidating men; the cramped, confined, and vulnerable…

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Showing Up ★★1/2 (out of 4 stars) Girl with a Broken Wing In Director Kelly Reichardt’s latest of 9 features over 30 years, Michelle Williams is Lizzie, a depressive secretary for an art school and a sculptor off-hours. The 5 times Oscar-nominated Williams, who has starred in 5 of Reichardt’s films, has a wide range, and perhaps this role appealed to her because it shows off a part of her one doesn’t see in “Blue Valentine” (2010) or “The Fabelmans” (2022). With very few, very slight smiles on her face in the entire 107 minutes, her arms always at her…

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Past Lives ★★★1/2 (out of 4 stars) Carousel of Time “Past Lives” opens in a bar in New York City. It’s 4 a.m., and we hear off-screen Americans trying to figure out the relationships among three people seated across from them at the bar, without being able to hear what the three are saying. Two—a man and woman—are Asian, and a third is a white man, seated to their right and not saying much, while the other two talk. Though they can sense the discomfort and distance of the white man, the observers are uncertain about what is going on.…

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Bottoms ★★★1/2 (out of 4 stars) Fight Club Goes Queer Two high school lesbian losers set out to find sexual partners by starting a fight club in this raucous, over-the-top comedy where girls hit each other in the face. If this seems not your ideal movie experience, think again, maybe even think “Barbie.” True, Emma Seligman in her second film is no Greta Gerwig, and “Bottoms’” $11 million budget is less than a tenth of “Barbie’s.” But Seligman’s willingness to take on the Woke culture, to make fun of almost everything in sight—from feminism to terrorism—makes “Bottoms” an entertaining 90…

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