Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Yonfan
Starring: Guangxuan Zhu | Joseph Chang | Kenneth Tsang | Terri Kwan | Wing Fan
Thom says: “It happens in 1950s Taiwan, during the period known as White Terror, when an anti-Communist crusade swept the island and hysteria reigned. On one fall afternoon, two young sisters come back from class to find their home ransacked
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Alex van Warmerdam
Starring: Alex van Warmerdam | Annet Malherbe | Eva van de Wijdeven | Gene Bervoets | Gijs Naber | Marlies Hueur | Marwan Kenzari
Thom says: “This Dutch gem is so droll that I find myself still thinking about months after seeing it at T.I.F.F. A woman who supposedly is dying lives in a large country house where she has assigned servant roles (including
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Don Roos
Starring: Anthony Rapp | Debra Monk | Lauren Ambrose | Lisa Kudrow | Natalie Portman | Scott Cohen
Thom says: “This film was adapted from the novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. This didn’t really win me over but perhaps it was a matter of relating to it. Emilia Greenleaf (Portman) a young lawyer sets
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Francois Ozon
Starring: Isabelle Carré | Louis-Ronan Choisy | Melvil Poupaud | Pierre Louis-Calixte
Thom says: “French director Ozon was well on his way to becoming one of my favorite TOP 10 LIVING DIRECTORS with his 4 really strong showings WATER DROPS ON BURNING ROCKS, UNDER THE SAND, 8 WOMEN, & SWIMMING POOL (my
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Rating: 0 cats
Director: Claudio Fragasso
Starring: Connie Young | George Hardy | Margo Prey | Michael Paul Stephenson
Scot says: “While I can’t say that TROLL 2 is the worst film I’ve ever seen (see PLANET 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, LET ME DIE A WOMAN, and INDEPENDENCE DAY), I could be convinced that it is the worst film
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard | Jamie Bell | Richard Madden | Taron Egerton
Thom says: “This is a tough film for me to review because although I’ve been a great lover of music throughout my life I never liked Elton John. Over the years he only had a minuscule number of songs I
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Eliza Scanlen | Emma Watson | Florence Pugh | Laura Dern | Saiorse Ronan
Thom says: “LITTLE WOMEN has been somewhat of a Hollywood staple over the years with adaptations of the Louisa May Alcott classic coming out in 1918, 1933, 1949, 1994, & 2018, not to mention the innumerable television versions. I’ve seen
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: George Cukor
Starring: Cary Grant | Doris Nolan | Edward Everett Horton | Katherine Hepburn | Lew Ayers
Thom says: “Maybe it was my effusive mood but this pure professional comedy romance entranced me. While not a gigantic fan of neither Cary Grant nor Katherine Hepburn they click together with such an authentic force (BRINGING UP BABY, THE
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: John Crowley
Starring: Ansel Elgort | Jeffrey Wright | Nicole Kidman | Oakes Fegley
Thom says: “This film was adapted from the gigantic best-seller of the same name by Donna Tartt. When my brother Chuk and I had taken our previous cat Mandy in for a check-up I remember the lady veterinarian and Chuk
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Rating: 1 cat
Director: Jon Favreau
Starring: Beyoncé | Donald Glover | Seth Rogen
Thom says: “To be perfectly honest, I knew there was no way I was going to like this film. I had already suffered through the 1994 animation smash hit and hearing about its enormous success as a Broadway legend under
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Irving Rapper
Starring: Bette Davis | Emlyn Williams | Gary Merrill
Thom says: ” When some 20 years ago I started a must-see list for actors, the first actor I added to the list was Bette Davis, and upon doing so I realized that there were actually dozens of her films
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Brad Pitt | Leonardo DiCaprio | Margot Robbie
Thom says: “I’m the first to admit it, I just am not a fan of Quentin Tara ntino (the only film of his I’ve really liked [&, yes, I’ve seen all of them] was THE HATEFUL EIGHT). But this shoddy
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael Engler
Starring: Imelda Staunton | Lesley Nicol | Maggie Smith | Michael Fox | Michelle Dockery | Stephen Campbell Moore
Thom says: “This is an absurdly easy film to review because it’s nearly impossible to believe that anyone who loved the mega-successful television series from 2010 wouldn’t also praise this highly entertaining affair. Director Engler has done only one other
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Director: Hiroshi Hamazaki | Kôjirô Tsuruoka | Nanako Shimazaki | Satoshi Kon | Takayuki Hirao | Takuji Endo
Starring: Liam O'Brien | Mamiko Noto | Michael McConnohie | Shôzô Îzuka | Toshihiko Seki
Tom G. says: “I promise, promise, that I won’t review anime series often, if ever again. However, I thought this may be of interest of those of you who enjoyed Satoshi Kon’s other works Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and/or Tokyo
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Starring: Elena Rufanova | Eva Mattes | Leonid Mozgovoy | Peter Fitz
Thom says: “After having found FATHER & SON so provocative I decided to delve further into the Sokurov cannon. Hopefully this film will be a great companion piece to DOWNFALL, which I hope to see in the next two weeks.
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Chris Weitz | Paul Weitz
Starring: Alyson Hannigan Chris Klein | Jason Biggs | Jennifer Coolidge | Shannon Elizabeth
Janet says: “Rented this from my library yesterday (with bonus scenes!) after years of curiosity. For a film that got so much press, it seemed quite ordinary. It has trouble getting traction between the big jokes, mostly because the lead
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Jacques Demy
Starring: Catherine Deneuve | Jacques Perrin | Jean Marais | Micheline Presle
Hilary says: “I encourage the local membership to go see DONKEY SKIN (Peau d’âne) at the Brattle this week — it’s a trippy good time! “Stylistically, Jacques Demy’s adaptation of a 17th-century fairy tale is somewhere between CAMELOT and WILLY WONKA
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Rick Sebac
Rob says: “Children’s show host and bastion of goodness Fred Rogers, the Presbyterian minister who became an American institution, is the subject of this wonderfully thorough and thoroughly wonderful tribute, made shortly after his death in February 2003. Hosted by
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Director: Seijun Suzuki
Starring: Annu Mari | Jô Shishido | Kôji Nanbara | Mariko Ogawa
Tom G. says: “Filmed in Black and White, this 1967 Japanese thriller is engaging, beautiful and confusing. Both Takashi Miike and Quentin Tarentino have cited director Seijun Suzuki as a major influence, and one can easily, easily see a logical
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: James Mangold
Starring: Christian Bale | John Bernthal | Matt Damon
Thom says: “So it appears with age some objectivity is almost totally lost. To be up front, I have absolutely no interest in cars, car races, nor anything to do with automobiles. I understand their need and usefulness but at
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