Critic’s Notebook
“Wisdom born of pain”
After a first enigmatic scene —buckets of soapy water flowing over a stone surface — it seems clear early on [...]
What’s to forgive?
When we’re introduced to Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy), she’s just been fired (apparently from "The New Yorker" magazine, where she [...]
A family, coming apart
The strength of Paul Dano’s directing debut, “Wildlife,” based on the eponymous 1990 novel by one of America’s best novelists, [...]
He did it, but why?
It’s convenient and often useful to classify films: this one’s a buddy film, that one’s a rom-com, another’s a chick [...]
Anxious youth
Director Bo Burnham, in his first feature film, vividly captures the unrelenting anxiety of the early teenage years in “Eighth [...]
Black man, white voice
The film's title is “Sorry to Bother You," and that's also the first line of the script that call center [...]
When violence trumps politics
Director Gerard McMurray's "The First Purge” is a prequel in a franchise constructed on a rather silly social science premise [...]
A large and troubled piazza
Piazza Vittorio: an enormous rectangular space not far from Stazione Termini, Rome’s central train station, surrounded by magnificent 19th-century porticoes [...]
La dolce vita is not so sweet
In his latest cinematic effort, the master Italian director Paolo Sorrentino revisits two themes that have dominated his work: La [...]
Black new world
The blockbuster "Black Panther" is both a classic super-hero movie (not meant as a compliment), and an immersion into black [...]
Codes of love
Sicilian Luca Guadagnino beautifully captures the implacable oneness of deep feelings in "Call Me By Your Name."
Creature comfort
A mousey cleaning woman and a monster become sentimentally entangled in Guillermo del Toro's magical "The Shape of Water."
“Critics Notebook” Authors
Dianne Bennett & William Graebner
William Graebner is Emeritus Professor of History, State University of New York, Fredonia, where he taught Film and American Culture. Dianne Bennett, the first woman to head a large U.S. law firm, is a mostly retired U.S. tax lawyer. They blog about Italy and can’t resist movies. Visit HERE.