Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Starring: Gaby Hoffman | Jon Tenney | Laura Linney | Mark Ruffalo | Matthew Broderick | Rory Culkin
Michael says: “After watching SPOTLIGHT, and ruminating on Mark Ruffalo as an actor, and how people just seem to go gaga over him, but I find him… fine, I decided to go back to the first film I saw him
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Dan Chen
Vicki says: “ACCEPTED is a provocative and timely documentary. What makes it stand out is its bizarre number of unexpected turns. Chen follows four students as he begins his profile of the TM Landry Prep school where all students achieve
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: David Gelb
Vicki says: “David Gelb of JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI fame now turns his camera on Wolfgang Puck. Puck began cooking for celebrities and then became a celebrity chef. We learn quite a bit about Wolfgang in this well-done profile of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Debbie Lum
Julie says: “Focuses on Lowell High School, a top public high school in San Francisco. The seniors there are stressed out as they apply for their dream colleges. They scrutinize how every element of their application from classes, extracurricular activities
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kristian Petri | Kristina Lindström
Julie says: “Documentary about Bjorn Andresen and the effects of fame thrust upon him when he was cast in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film Death In Venice Story at just 15. His past and present are more interesting than one might
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Hal Holbrook | Jane Fonda | Jason Robards | Maximilian Schell | Meryl Streep | Rosemary Murphy | Vanessa Redgrave
Philip says: “There exist a handful of films I watch so many times with such intensity I imagine the next scene a moment before it arrives on the screen. Such is my experience with JULIA, the 1977 adaptation of the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Basil Dearden
Starring: Anthony Nicholls | Dennis Price | Dirk Bogarde | Norman Bird | Peter Copley | Peter McEnery | Sylvia Syms
Philip says: “In 1961, U.K. director Basil Dearden did something remarkable. He made a big budget film starring Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Sims about homosexuality. The title of the film was VICTIM. Ironically instead of portraying the lead character as
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: George Stevens
Starring: Anne Revere | Elizabeth Taylor | Fred Clark | Keefe Brasselle | Montgomery Clift | Raymond Burr | Shelley Winters
Philip says: “George Stevens’ adaptation of An American Tragedy became the 1951 Oscar winning film, A PLACE IN THE SUN. Starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters, Stevens’ film follows the modest rise and fall of a nephew to a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: C. Aubrey Smith | George Sanders | Joan Fontaine | Judith Anderson | Laurence Olivier | Nigel Bruce | Reginald Denny
Philip says: “REBECCA is a classic on so many levels. It was Hitch’s first American film made in 1940 for David O. Selznick. Second, it was an eerie Gothic thriller based on the famous Daphne du Maurier novel. Third it stars
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Gregory La Cava
Starring: Adolphe Menjou | Andrea Leeds | Constance Collier | Gail Patrick | Ginger Rogers | Katharine Hepburn | Lucille Ball | Samuel S. Hinds
Philip says: “Edna Ferber’s adaptation of the stage play she wrote with George S. Kaufman won Best Picture from the NY Film Critics Circle and was nominated for four Oscars. STAGE DOOR is the kind of old film (1937 is
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Starring: Henry Wadsworth | Maureen O'Sullivan | Minna Gombell | Myrna Loy | Nat Pendleton | Porter Hall | William Powell
Philip says: “The 1930’s shone a little brighter thanks to the adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Thin Man serialized for the big screen by director W.S. ‘Woody’ Van Dyke. Stars William Powell and Myrna Loy as carefree sleuths Nick and
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Christopher Amos
Philip says: “I found the new documentary HATING PETER TATCHELL fascinating. I knew who Peter was and often see his name online, but his life story surprised and impressed me. Hailing from Australia, Tatchell’s made the U.K. his home for the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Penny Marshall
Starring: Ann Cusack | Anne Ramsay | Bitty Schram | Geena Davis | Lori Petty | Madonna | Megan Cavanagh | Rosie O’Donnell | Tom Hanks | Tracy Reiner
Philip says: “Penny Marshall’s love letter to women’s baseball, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN holds up beautifully nearly 30 years after its initial release. Weaving an all-American story wrapping feminism in the blanket of America’s favorite pastime proved box office
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Robert Luketic
Starring: Ali Larter | Holland Taylor | Jennifer Coolidge | Luke Wilson | Matthew Davis | Reese Witherspoon | Selma Blair | Victor Garber
Philip says: “LEGALLY BLONDE is my pass. It’s my one ridiculously pulpy Hollywood comedy I get to swoon over without any flack from friends or family. We all deserve one pass and LEGALLY BLONDE is mine. What starts out as
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Francine Parker
Philip says: “This nearly lost 1972 documentary, F.T.A.focuses on the Free Theater Associates, an anti-war variety show offering up an alternative to Bob Hope’s sexist revue as F.T.A. performs at Pan Pacific U.S. military bases. The idea came to Jane Fonda and Donald
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Starring: Bernie Casey | Buck Henry | Candy Clark | David Bowie | Jackson D. Kane | Rip Torn
Michael says: “On my journey to fill in gaps of my film-viewing history as triggered by mentions in the Brattle Film Podcast, I finally saw Nicolas Roeg’s THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, famously starring David Bowie in one of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Morgan Neville
Vicki says: “ROADRUNNER is Morgan Neville’s slightly long, but otherwise raw and superb documentary about the late chef/writer, Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain tragically committed suicide in 2018 at age 61. Luckily, the film does not dwell on this at all, except
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Matthew Ya-Hsiung Balzer
Starring: Bill Sage | Emy Coligado | Gianna Capri | James McMenamin | Jere Burns | Katia Winter | Kyle Gallner
Toni says: “THE CATCH also explored a fishing (or lobstering) community in Maine, but is more of a family drama mixed with crime thriller, only hinting at the economic struggles, spending more time on ‘failure to launch’ and drug dealing tropes,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Laura Fairrie
Vicki says: “LADY BOSS tells the real story behind Jackie Collins, the well known author and sister of actress, Joan Collins. It is very effectively layered by using interviews with friends, family and archival footage. She was quite complex. I
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Robert Coe | Warwick Ross
Vicki says: “In the Q and A, the director stole my opening line, ‘This is the wine version of COOL RUNNINGS.’ An unlikely quartet of refugees from Zimbabwe end up in South Africa where they get jobs in restaurants, often
Read the review...