Hollywood's odd couple

Film critics Marcia, 81, and Lorenzo, 84, are winning fans of all ages on YouTube. Elizabeth Day asks the Reel Geezers how they do it

Hollywood has a history of great double acts - Burton and Taylor, Fred and Ginger, John Travolta and his chin cleft. For years, the most inspired pairings have been on the big screen rather than off it.

That is about to change. For the past nine months, two American octogenarian pensioners have reinvented themselves as internet film critics, becoming an unlikely hit on YouTube. Marcia Nasatir, 81, and Lorenzo Semple, 84, call themselves the Reel Geezers and have almost 4,000 regular subscribers. Their pithy, 10-minute critiques attract 500,000 views and director Tony Gilroy was so impressed by their review of his movie Michael Clayton that he sent a copy to his lead actor George Clooney.

Like all great double acts, the Reel Geezers have an obvious chemistry that teeters on the brink of mutual affection, occasionally tipping over into vociferous disagreement. Nasatir, a former agent and pioneering studio executive, has a more feminist perspective - she cites Showgirls as her all-time least favourite movie. Semple, one of the top screenwriters of the 1970s, can suspend any amount of disbelief for a really good story. They share a wicked sense of humour and an elegant turn of phrase.

In a review of the new Judd Apatow comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Semple accuses a dismissive Nasatir of wanting female characters to be 'a cross between Hillary Clinton and Mother Teresa'.

'It is pleasant to have such an easy recurring target for my wrath,' he tells me. 'Whereas I assume and would like to believe Lorenzo is being provocative for the sake of the show,' counters Nasatir.

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