Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: José Luis Cuerda
Starring: Javier Cámara | Maribel Verdú | Raul Arevalo
Beth Curran says: “Maribel Verdu (Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN; PAN’S LABYRINTH) is a tour de force in this drama set in Spain during the 40’s, a few years after the end of the Civil War. Her husband, a republican, has
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: James Crump
Bruce says: “Robert Mapplethorpe achieved world-wide fame and notoriety in the 1980’s when his stunning black and white photographs became iconic and his reputation for being lewd, lurid and lascivious mushroomed. Little about Mapplethorpe having a partner is ever mentioned.
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Jennifer Venditti
Michael says: “Jennifer Venditti’s feature debut emerged from a short film she cast called BUGCRUSH. When looking for some high school extras in a small town in Maine, she met Billy, a precocious, geeky, high school outcast and knew instantly
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Chris Bell
Chris says: “As a short kid growing up in Poughkeepsie in the 1980s, Christopher Bell and his brothers Mark and Mike were picked-on outcasts until the tremendously pumped-up likes of Hulk Hogan and Arnold Schwarzenegger came along and saturated American
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jay Delaney
Jason says: “NOT YOUR TYPICAL BIGFOOT MOVIE isn’t really about cryptozoology. It may have started out that way, but given how little actual information one is likely to find about the mythical creature and how unlikely it is that a
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Beth Murphy
Jason says: “Humanity is still around as a species because most of its members are basically good. They need to be, because one person giving into his or her more destructive impulses can create damage that require the actions of
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Santosh Sivan
Starring: Jennifer Ehle | Linus Roache | Nandita Das | Rahul Bose
Bruce says: “**SPOILERS** “During the British Raj, Britain’s nearly 100-year rule of India, Britain attempted to maintain a myth of white male supremacy while raping a country many times its size of natural resources. To say that the Brits were
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jan Hrebejk
Starring: Anna Geislerová | Emília Vásáryová | Jana Brejchová | Jirí Schmitzer | Roman Luknár
Michael says: “I saw a strange preview for this film a few weeks ago, and I can’t decide whether or not it worked or not. I guess we have to see that it did work because I did go to
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Danny Glover | Jack Black | Mia Farrow | Mos Def
Carolyn says: “Moderately interesting plot to experiment with some crazy special effects. 3 cats”
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Eran Kolirin
Starring: Imad Jabarin | Khalifa Natour | Ronit Elkabetz | Rubi Moskovitz | Saleh Bakri | Sasson Gabai | Uri Gavriel
Bruce says: “THE BAND’S VISIT is a gentle little film. A small Egyptian police band is invited to Israel to perform. The band arrives a day early and follows signs to a bus stop where they board a bus to
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Ed Pincus | Lucia Small
Michael says: “I have been waiting for Lucia Small, director of MY FATHER, THE GENIUS, to make another film; curious to see what direction she would take after the intensely personal examination of her father’s life and its affect on
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Dan Stone | Patrick Gambuti Jr.
Bruce says: “In 1986 an international ban on whaling was initiated. Most countries have honored the ban but a few – Iceland, Japan and Norway, to be specific – are continuing their whaling unapologetically. Japan found a loop hole in
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Xiaogang Feng
Starring: Fan Liao | Hanyu Zhang | Jun Hu | Yuan Wenkang
Jason says: “One probably wouldn’t name a war movie RETREAT!, although that’s what the assembly call of the film’s title means – fall back and regroup. There is, after all, a time for soldiers to be fierce and a time
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Bai Li | Carina Lau | Jacky Cheung | Lesley Cheung | Maggie Cheung
Jason says: “I saw and reviewed ASHES OF TIME three and a half years ago, when it played as part of a series of director Wong Kar-wai’s films at the Brattle Theatre. I was not particularly impressed at the time,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Yousry Nasrallah
Starring: Ahmed Al Feshawy | Amr Waked | Hend Sabry | Menha Batraoui | Samah Anwar
Bruce says: “Occasionally I recognize that I am out of step with a filmmaker who clearly loves his or her characters while I sit there finding them deplorable or pathetic. THE AQUARIUM is a strange film. Watching it, I was
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Esteban Sapir
Starring: Alejandro Urdapilleta | Julieta Cardinali | Rafael Ferro | Valeria Bertuccelli
Jason says: “LA ANTENA opens with hands superimposed on a typewriter keyboard while a piano plays, and introduces us to its City Without a Voice by displaying it as the pages of a pop-up book. That’s a fanciful start to
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Ian McCrudden | Robbie Cavolina
Bruce says: “Anita O’Day was somewhat of a national treasure in her time. What a shame that today so few people are familiar with her music. O’Day’s remarkable career began in 1936 while still a teenager and continued to her
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Nanette Burstein
Michael says: “I was intrigued to see this documentary focusing on the lives of teens today that has been the subject of much praise and controversy on the festival circuit. Burstein spent a year immersed in an Indiana community, seeking
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jean-Pierre Lledo
Bruce says: “Every country has its horror stories. Algeria has more than its share. Most recently, civil war tore Algeria asunder from 1990-1998. In his film ALGERIA, UNSPOKEN STORIES Jean Pierre Lledo focuses on an earlier period. In July 1962
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Starring: Galina Vishnevskaya | Raisa Gichaeva | Vasily Shevtsov
Bruce says: “Operatic diva Galina Vishnevskaya plays against type as Alexandra Nikolaevna, an aged Russian grandmother who travels to the front lines in Chechnya to see her grandson whom she loves dearly. As the film begins we see the back
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