Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Andrea Staka
Starring: Ljubica Jovic | Marija Skaricic | Mirjana Karanovic
Bruce says: “This lovely, haunting film is first rate independent fare – wonderful characters, an offbeat story, and an ending that is enigmatic. Ruza came to Switzerland from Yugoslavia thirty years ago and has determinedly set about to find a
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Sterlin Harjo
Starring: Cody Lightning | Jeri Arredondo | Laura Bailey | Tamara Podemski
Chris says: “Sterlin Harjo’s first feature arrives nearly a decade after SMOKE SIGNALS promised a wave of Native American cinema that never really amounted to much. It’s another coming-of-age, leaving-the-Reservation tale, this time set and filmed in Oklahoma. The main
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Lorraine Levy
Starring: Catherine Jacob | Marilou Berry | Pierre Arditi
Bruce says: “This coming of age story features Chlotrudis award winning actress Marilou Berry as Hannah Goldman, an ugly duckling with two older, attractive sisters. Like the character Berry played in LOOK AT ME, Hannah does not know how to
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Luis R. Vera
Starring: Adela Secall | Katty Kowaleczko | Tiago Correa
Bruce says: “It’s Patriot’s Day in Chile and the meaning of the occasion varies greatly person to person. Ostensibly Macarena’s (Adela Secall) parents have gathered the family to their country home to honor the approaching engagement of their daughter. Her
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Griffin Dunne
TC says: “FIERCE PEOPLEhas taken a long, roundabout road to the big screen. Filmed in 2004, and having premiered at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival in New York, it has been this close to release several times since then, only
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Director: Andrew Currie
Starring: Billy Connolly | Carrie-Ann Moss | Dylan Baker
Beth says: “This was my first Canadian film. Apparently it was the largest budgeted independent film made in British Columbia, who’da thunk a ‘boy and his pet zombie’ flick would have that distinction. Anyhoo, yup it’s a zombie film, in
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Hal Hartley
Starring: Elina Löwensohn | James Urbaniak | Jeff Goldblum | Liam Aiken | Parker Posey | Saffron Burrows | Thomas Jay Ryan
Michael says: “At certain points throughout FAY GRIM, the latest film by Chlotrudis Award winner Hal Hartley, particularly as the screen went black and the credits began to roll, a little thrill of excitement skittered down my spine. It’s the
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Michel Kammoun
Starring: Elie Mitri | Issam Bou Khaled | Michel El Hourany
Bruce says: “Beirut was once known as the Paris of the Middle East. Now, partly in ruins, Beirut is missing the tourists but the joie de vive still survives. FALAFEL explores the city through the wanderings of three friends during
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: George Hickenlooper
Starring: Guy Pearce | Hayden Christensen | Sienna Miller
Barbara says: “FACTORY GIRL outlines the bizarre and very sad life of Edie Sedgewick and her relationship with Andy Warhol whose ‘genius’ is surpassed by his meanness. Though the movies leaves you with a ‘What a waste of lives’ feeling,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Johnnie To
Starring: Anthony Wong Chau-sang | Francis Ng | Josie Ho | Nick Cheung | Simon Yam
Michael says: “One of the things I love about the Chlotrudis/Brattle co-presented Sunday Eye Opener series is that it gives me the opportunity to see films I would never select on my own. Johnnie To’s EXILED is one such film.
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Jason Todd Ipson
Starring: Cerina Vincent | Jay Jablonski | John Kapelos
Jason says: “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE ITALIAN is a delightfully slight romantic comedy. The film has a cute hook but isn’t held hostage by it, there are only one or two characters who aren’t at least occasionally funny, and the
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Ivan Vyrypayev
Starring: Maksim Ushakov | Mikhail Okunev | Polina Agureyeva
Bruce says: “Aside from two or three lovely moments, EUPHORIA is a rather grim and dreary film. Filmed on the steppes of Russia, the terrain is bleak and the story, bleaker. After meeting Vera at a wedding months earlier, Pavel
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Starring: Abbie Cornish | Cate Blanchett | Clive Owen | Geoffrey Rush | Samantha Morton | Tom Hollander
Michael says: “Who can resist Cate Blanchett, royal, imperious, hair unbound, clad in armor, riding on a white horse? Apparently not me, as I went to see ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE on opening weekend. I enjoyed ELIZABETH, one of Blanchett’s
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Johnny To
Starring: Simon Yam | Tian-lin Wang | Tony Leung Ka Fai
Bruce says: “Triads in Hong Kong are similar to Mafia families in Italy and the United States. Each triad controls a specific geographic area and often a certain type of criminal activity such as drug trafficking, gambling, smuggling, prostitution, running
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Nicole Bettauer
Starring: Amy Hill | Bill Brochtrup | Philip Baker Hall
Jay says: “Some people really enjoy when they’re the only ones in the theater, and I can dig that, especially for a matinee where you might have come for the specific point of not dealing with the boors who can
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Georgia Lee
Starring: Elaine Kao | Freda Foh Shen | Jacqueline Kim | Tzi Ma
Bruce says: “Georgia Lee wrote and directed this enjoyable comedy about the Wongs, a dysfunctional Chinese-American family. The three Wong daughters are all going through major changes. Samantha (Jacqueline Kim), the oldest daughter, gave up a promising opportunity to study
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Julian Schnabel
Starring: Ann Consigny | Emmanuelle Seignier | Issach De Bankolé | Jean-Pierre Cassel | Marie-Josée Croze | Marina Hands | Mathieu Amalric | Max von Sydow | Patrick Chesnais
Bruce says: “Julian Schnabel suspects that Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) was superficial and arrogant, not a particularly likeable man, before he suffered the fatal stroke that turned him into a sensitive, reflecting human being. Bauby was editor of Elle magazine
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Katherine Dieckmann
Starring: Ken Marino | Lauren Ambrose | Maura Tierney | Paul Rudd
Michael says: “Is it a nostalgia piece looking back on working class lives on Long Island in the late 70’s? Is it a tale of big corporations taking the livelihoods of the individual? Is it a coming-of-age story about a
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Anne Sundberg | Ricki Stern
Bruce says: “A few years back had Brian Steidle looked in the mirror he would have seen a U.S. Marine starring back, a military career man not far removed from the days when he was a college beer drinking champion.
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Frank Oz
Starring: Alan Tudyk | Andy Nyman | Daisy Donovan | Ewen Bremner | Matthew Macfadyen | Peter Dinklage | Rupert Graves
Chris says: “This dyspeptic British comedy regarding a family funeral for a deceased patriarch shouldn’t work at all. It has too many characters to respectfully consider, an abundance of outlandish plot twists, and a steady current of lowbrow humor. And
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