Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Alexander Olch
Diane says: “Lacking the directorial genius of Jonathan Caouette (TARNATION) and the painfully fascinating subjects of GREY GARDENS, deceased Harvard film prof Richard Rogers tried for twenty-five years to create an autobiographical documentary. He failed. In fact, Rogers called himself
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Emily Kunstler | Sarah Kunstler
Jason says: “For most documentaries, the narrator is relatively anonymous – a reassuringly familiar celebrity voice, perhaps with some connection to the subject matter. For WILLIAM KUNSTLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE, it is Kunstler’s youngest daughter, Emily, who made the film
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Julian Netizberg
Jason says: “I sympathize with the Boone County D.A. who, in the opening reel of THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA, asks why the White family should get so much attention. There’s a boy in the county from
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Michael Haneke
Starring: Christian Friedel | Ernst Jadobi | Fion Mutert | Leonie Benesch | Ulrich Tukur | Ursina Lardi
Bruce says: “Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Michael Haneke (THE PIANO TEACHER, CACHÉ, BENNY’S VIDEO, FUNNY GAMES, THE TIME OF THE WOLF) finally gets his well deserved recognition. Not that his films are always satisfying. I cannot think
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Drew Barrymore
Starring: Alia Shawkat | Drew Barrymore | Elliot Page (as Ellen Page) | Juliette Lewis | Kristen Wiig | Marcia Gay Harden
Thom says: “For all the world I thought this was going to be a box office smash due to the general nature of the story and the great big “Hollywood” presence of the production. But the public reception to the
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Adam Brooks | Ed Begley Jr. | Evan Rachel Wood | Larry David | Lyle Kanouse | Michael McKean | Patricia Clarkson
Thom says: “After being a minor Woody Allen fan for years I turned very sour on him for a span. After returning to his films with the witty MELINDA AND MELINDA (due to the presence of must-see Chloë Sevigny) all
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Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Ondi Timoner
Michael says: “I was a big fan of Ondi Timoner’s documentary DiG! from a few years ago, so I was intrigued to see what her next project was like. WE LIVE IN PUBLIC explores the increasingly blurry line between public
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Aron Gaudet
Jason says: “I was, perhaps, a little hard on THE WAY WE GET BY when I first got out of it. It’s like that, sometimes, when you’re at a festival and really want to see one movie, can’t get in,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Peter Chan | Wai Man Yip
Starring: Andy Lau | Jet Li | Jinglei Xu | Takeshi Kaneshiro
Jason says: “At certain points, the fact that Warlords licked around for a while without a U.S. distributor despite being an epic with high production values and a star in Jet Li who is still relatively bankable was taken as
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Ming-liang Tsai
Starring: Fanny Ardant | Jean-Pierre Léaud | Jeanne Moreau | Laetitia Casta | Lee Kang-Sheng | Lu Yi-Ching | Mathieu Amalric | Natalie Baye
Michael says: “Drawing parallels between the chaos of making a film and that same unpredictability in life, Tsai Ming-liang has made his most far out and in many ways exciting movie to date. Kang, who we have come to know
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Tim Disney
Starring: Alfre Woodard | Michael O'Keefe | Nicole Beharie | Tim Blake Nelson | Will Patton
Julie says: “Docudrama of a young mother’s fight after being unfairly accused in drug raid of a predominantly black housing project in Arlington Texas. Will Patton was excellent. Nicole Beharie did do a good job as of course did Alfre
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Benoît Jacquot
Starring: Clara Bindi | Isabelle Huppert | Jean-Hughes Anglade | Maya Sansa | Xavier Beauvois
Bruce says: “Isabelle Huppert is an actress I would pay money to hear read the phone book; any city – Paris, New York, Tokyo – will do. Huppert elevates every film in which she appears and that fortunately is the
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Pierre Schöller
Starring: Aure Atika | Brigitte Sy | Guillame Depardieu | Judith Chemla | Max Baissette de Malglaive | Patrick Descamps
Bruce says: “For a woman at the end of her ropes, caring for a child is not easy. Nina (Judith Chemla) is first seen navigating the backstreets of Paris trying to find a construction site where she and her five
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Matt Tyrnauer
Bruce says: “There are several things many people might not know about Valentino. The first that comes to mind is that Valentino is his first name not his surname, which is Garavani. Another thing is that Valentino is basically a
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Hajime Kadoi
Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima | Kaoru Kobayashi | Nene Otsuka | Ren Ôsugi
Jason says: “Toru Hirai (Kaoru Kobayashi) is dragging. He falls asleep while riding the train with his fiancée Mika (Nene Otsuka) and her son Tatsuya (Shusei Uto), but you don’t need that to see it. He’s middle aged, but it’s
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jason Reitman
Starring: Amy Morton | Anna Kendrick | George Clooney | J.K. Simmons | Jason Bateman | Melanie Lynskey | Vera Farmiga
Thom says: “Reitman has done a few seriously lauded films including JUNO and THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. & yes I’m thrilled to see him using must-see Simmons once again, albeit, in a small role. For many reasons, I suppose, it’s
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Bob Peterson | Pete Docter
Starring: Bob Peterson | Christopher Plummer | Delroy Lindo | Edward Asner | Jordan Nagai
Diane says: “Latest Pixar is bedeviled by a MacGuffin chase that makes it generic. It’s the first half hour of the film, the beautifully moving story of a couple passing from youth to old age and relinquished dreams, that makes
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jonathan Parker
Starring: Adam Goldberg | Eion Bailey | Lucy Punch | Marley Shelton | Vinnie Jones | Zak Orth
Jason says: “It is easy to make fun of the art world, especially those on the edge (or fringe, depending on how you feel about it). It’s a little harder to do it well; just because something is mockable doesn’t
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Nati Baratz
Jason says: “UNMISTAKEN CHILD is an example of my favorite sort of documentary, the fly-on-the-wall film that looks and feels like a narrative feature. It tells its story by marshaling extraordinary access and patience, rather than cutting cutting away to
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: James Toback
Barbara says: “Watching TYSON and LAGERFELD CONFIDENTIAL within a day of each other was an interesting experience. The one attribute that the two subjects seem to share is self awareness although Tyson came by his after just about ruining his
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