Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Alison Klayman
Jason says: “Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is an odd duck, even by installation-artist standards. That it’s often an affable, upbeat eccentricity may help explain why a government not known for free expression let the outspoken Ai be for so long
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Yousry Nasrallah
Starring: Bassem Samra | Menna Shalabi | Nahed El Sebaï | Salah Abdallah
Bruce says: “Having seen Yousry Nasrallah’s earlier films THE AQUARIUM and SCHEHERAZADE: TELL ME A STORY, I now know what to expect. His films tell multiple stories, usually involving clashes between classes, religious groups and the old and new Egypt.
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Akiyoshi Naako | Hiroki Narimiya | Mirei Kiritani | Rei Dan | Ryo Ishibashi | Takumi Saito
Jason says: “I’ve never played the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney video game, but I gather it’s just as deeply silly as Takashi Miike’s adaptation, which I submit must be a good thing. I also suggest that it’s quite possible that
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Fernando Merirelles
Starring: Anthony Hopkins | Ben Foster | Jude Law | Lucia Siposova | Marianne Jean-Baptiste | Rachel Weisz
Thom says: “Director Meirelles has really been on a tear with such successes as CITY OF GOD, THE CONSTANT GARDNER, & BLINDNESS so with the first rate cast here I had high expectations, but maybe I’ve seen one too many
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Pablo Stoll
Starring: Anaclara Ferreyra Palfy | Humberto De Vargas | Sara Bessio
Thom says: “Director Stoll had impressed me with WHISKEY (2004) & I liked this dysfunctional family drama even more. Usually with such a sad sack trio (mother, moved-out dad, & obstreperous teen girl) I’d have lost interest shortly into the
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Julie Delpy
Starring: Albert Delpy | Alexandre Nahon | Alexia Landeau | Chris Rock | Dylan Baker | Julie Delpy | Kate Burton
Jason says: “Sequels to independent films that didn’t really break out are kind of odd things; the audience is as much those who heard the first movie was pretty good as the people who loved it, so even more than
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: John Carney | Kieran Carney
Starring: David Murray | David Pearse | Janice Byrne | Rory Keenan | Simon Delaney
Jason says: “If ZONAD ever started to make a lick of sense for even one second, it probably wouldn’t work. Fortunately, filmmakers John & Kieran Carney are well aware of that, and while they have managed to put something resembling
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Vladan Nikolic
Starring: Al Nazemian | Ana Asensio | Didier Flamand | Jason Robards III | Peter Scanavino
Jason says: “ZENITH is a bad no-budget science fiction movie, but at least it’s considerate enough to place itself toward the end of the alphabet. After all, while it did somehow manage to get itself booked in a few theaters
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Justin Reitman
Starring: Charlize Theron | Collette Wolfe | Elizabeth Reaser | Patrick Wilson | Patton Oswalt
Diane says: “Major disappointment! Maybe I was too excited by my sister’s prediction that YA would be the female CHUCK AND BUCK. Maybe I’ve been too captivated by the cringeworthy, edgy dialogue of the Duplass brothers. YA’s story is flat
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Andy Mitton | Jesse Holland
Starring: Anessa Ramsey | Cassidy Freeman | Clark Freeman | Laura Heisler | Lee Wilkof
Jason says: “YELLOWBRICKROAD is a movie constructed out of every tangentially-related spooky idea that its makers could graft onto the setting, and that grab-bag approach can be a dangerous way to put a movie together, even one where the usual
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Mike Leigh
Starring: Jim Broadbent | Lesley Manville | Oliver Maltman | Peter Wight | Ruth Sheen
Ibad says: “ANOTHER YEAR is the latest offering from Mike Leigh and among the most emotionally affecting films of the year. The film, among other things, studies age and its various consequences and connotations. Among his illustrious string of performance
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Laura Israel
Jason says: “WINDFALL was not quite the movie I expected to see. The usual narrative about wind power here in Eastern Massachusetts involves liberals who support green energy until it threatens to become a part of their expensive sea views,
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Starring: Alex Shaffer | Amy Ryan | Bobby Cannavale | Jeffrey Tambor | Melanie Lynskey | Paul Giamatti
Michael says: “Paul Giamatti plays Mike Flaherty, an attorney in a New Jersey town who is struggling to make ends meet. When an opportunity presents itself for him to become the guardian of one of his elderly clients and make
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Larysa Kondracki
Starring: David Strathairn | Monica Bellucci | Nikolaj Lie Kaas | Rachel Weisz | Vanessa Redgrave
Jason says: “THE WHISTLEBLOWER has a good cast and a topic that provokes a strong emotional reaction, and when a project starts with that, making a memorable film can often come down to not screwing up. Co-writer/director Larysa Kondracki doesn’t
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Daming Chen
Starring: Andy Lau | Chengru Li | Daming Chen | Gong Li | Jing Hu | Kelly Hu | Osric Chau
Jason says: “It’s bad enough that WHAT WOMEN WANT is a romantic comedy that has deficiencies were both halves of the term are concerned, relying on its stars’ charm to get the audience to ignore writing that is sloppy and
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Andrew Haigh
Starring: Chris New | Tom Cullen
Chris says: “In Richard Linklater’s BEFORE SUNRISE, two people meet and form a deep bond despite only having a limited window of time to spend with each other. Initially, Andrew Haigh’s film acts as a gay male take on that
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Rating: 3.9
Director: Simon Curtis
Starring: Dominic Cooper | Eddie Redmayne | Julia Ormond | Kenneth Brannagh | Michelle Williams
Bruce says: “Brilliant, astonishing, miraculous, breathtaking….there are not enough words to describe Michelle William’s uncanny Marilyn Monroe, a role that is almost inconceivable for any actress to attempt, much less conquer. Williams has the look, the voice, the subtle wit,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Anne Makepeace
Jason says: “A few years ago, one of the documentaries that played IFFBoston (on, I believe, the same screen at roughly the same time) was a film by the name of THE LINGUISTS, about linguists seeking out dying languages before
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Emilio Estevez
Starring: Deborah Kara Unger | Emilio Estevez | James Nesbitt | Martin Sheen | Yorick van Wageningen
Diane says: “Emilio Estevez, you’re no screenwriter. I say that with some sadness, since I did have a crush on him in the ’80s. “Martin Sheen and director/writer Estevez play father and son, frustrated in their relationship. Healing comes on
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Chen Jin
Starring: Degang Guo | Enhe Feng | Hao Hao | Huang Haibing | Yunwei He | Zige Fang
Jason says:”THE WARRING STATES is the sort of movie that, for one reason or another, only China seems to make: The period melodrama about the clash of nations and individuals, with playful comedy existing side-by-side with romance and horrible betrayal.
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