Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Eytan Fox
Starring: Alon Freidman | Daniela Virtzer | Ohad Knoller
Bruce says: “Having loved Eytan Fox’s last film, WALK ON WATER, I greeted THE BUBBLE with great enthusiasm. I was hoping for a masterpiece. That clearly is not the case. In spite of examining up-to-the-minute issues Fox has made a
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Zoe R. Cassavetes
Starring: Drea de Matteo | Justin Theroux | Melvil Poupaud | Parker Posey
Chris says: “Here’s a tale we’ve heard before: Nora (Parker Posey), a woman in her mid-30’s, is in pre-midlife crisis mode. Her administrative hotel job neither challenges nor fulfills her and she has yet to truly fall in love. Substitute
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Anthony Minghella
Starring: Jude Law | Juliette Binoche | Robin Wright Penn | Vera Farmiga
Bruce says: “It’s hard to image how a film with so much potential could leave one feeling totally empty but Anthony Minghella’s flat, soulless BREAKING AND ENTERING does just that. Minghella’s script is the basic problem. It is obvious where
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Guy Maddin
Starring: Gretchen Krich | Jake Morgan-Scharhon | Maya Lawson | Sullivan Brown | Todd Moore
Beth says: “Guy Maddin. His latest, a semi-autobiographical silent film, with a live musical accompaniment, a narrator and a foley effects crew. Pretty much unmissable, really, even if I don’t always get Maddin – I love silent films shown with
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Markie Hancock
Chris says: “Markie Hancock’s middle-class childhood in Altoona, PA was typical in every way except for one: she was raised as a Fundamentalist Christian. Later, as an adult, she came out as a lesbian and renounced her faith. This documentary
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Isidore Rosmarin
Bruce says: “As the camera pans over acts of violence, serene countrysides or samples of everyday life in Israel, a written paragraph prefaces each BLOOD AND TEARS chapter. Covering the battle between Israelis and Palestinians, starting with the Turkish and
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Francisco J. Lombardi
Starring: Magdyal Ugaz | Melania Urbina | Montserrat Carulla
Bruce says: “Having seen STATE OF FEAR and THE FALL OF FUJIMORI, the political background of BLACK BUTTERFLY was infinitely more understandable than it might otherwise have been. Those films chronicled the Fujimori presidency and its gradual phasing into a
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Laura Muscardin
Starring: Carmen De Santos | Marco Bonini | Paolo Gasparini | Susy Laude | Thierno Thiam
Bruce says: “Billo (Thierno Thiam), a young man from Senegal, has wanted to be a fashion designer since he was a small child put to work in his uncle’s garment business. He and his mother have always been the black
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Masanobu Andô | Ryuhei Matsuda | Shunsuke Kubozuka
Jason says: “Takashi Miike showed down a bit a couple years ago to take a stab at doing a big-budget family movie, but since then he’s gotten back to what passes for normal where he’s concerned: Churning out movies at
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael Caton-Jones
Starring: Claire-Hope Ashley | Dominique Horwitz | Hugh Dancy | John Hurt | Nicola Walker
Bruce says: “‘The films you care about are the ones you make with a lot of love and not much money,’ claims director Michael Caton-Jones. BEYOND THE GATES was made in six months for $3 million Euros. The film has
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Manoel de Oliveira
Starring: Bulle Ogier | Júlia Buisel | Leonor Baldaque | Michel Piccoli | Ricardo Trêpa
Bruce says: “In a film career that has spanned eight decades de Oliviera has made forty two films. He has completed at least one film every year since 1990 when he was only 82. The 98 year old director of
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Albert Finney | Brian F. O’Byrne | Ethan Hawke | Marisa Tomei | Philip Seymour Hoffman | Rosemary Harris
Bruce says: “A few weeks ago the producer of BELLA, an independent film that opened at the same time as BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, sent out an email chain letter that was a rant against Lumet’s film, a
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Venutra Pons
Starring: Jordi Bosch | Josep Maria Pou | María Botto | Núria Espert | Pablo Derqui | Rosa María Sardà
Bruce says: “Ventura Pons (BELOVED/FRIEND, FOOD OF LOVE) is noted for his melodramatic, comic films which often have gay themes. BARCELONA (A MAP), a venture into more traditional heterosexual dramatic content, is a slight departure although it is stylistically consistent
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Xiaogang Feng
Starring: Daniel Wu | Xun Zhou | You Ge | Ziyi Zhang
Jason says: “Even in an age where period martial-arts epics have been made by the likes of Ang Lee, Kaige Chen, and Zhang Yimou, THE BANQUET stands out as high-gloss. Much of the behind-the-scenes crew worked on CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Starring: Alexandr Baluyev | Konstantin Lavronenko | Maria Bonnevie | Maxim Shibaev
Bruce says: “Using William Saroyan’s The Laughing Matter as a basis for THE BANISHMENT, Andrei Zvyagintsev follows up his sensational directorial debut, THE RETURN. Konstantin Lavronenko, who played the father in THE RETURN, won the Best Actor at the Cannes
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Abderrahmane Sissiko
Starring: Aissa Maiga | Balla Habib Dembélé | Maimouna Hélène Diarra
Bruce says: “Occasionally a film comes along that defies one’s imagination. BAMAKO is such a film. Residents of a Mali village, disgruntled with the pauperization of their country imposed by outside forces, decide that they will stage a mock trial
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Rating: 4.8 cats
Director: Sarah Polley
Starring: Gordon Pinsent | Julie Christie | Kristen Thomson | Olympia Dukakis
Beth says: “Sarah Polley’s directorial debut, an Alice Munro story, and a glorious Julie Christie – how could I miss it? And it didn’t disappoint – Christie and Gordon Pinsent play husband and wife grappling with how to handle her
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Danièle Thompson
Starring: Albert Dupontel | Cécile de France | Valérie Lemercier
Bruce says: “The Hôtel Plaza Athénée , the Théâtre des Champs Élysées next door and a small bistro en face named Café aux Théâtres are all nestled together on the Avenue Montaigne. Three main stories involving upheaval in the arts
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Tricia Regan
Chris says: “I’ve seen a number of films that copy the formula set in motion by the spelling bee documentary SPELLBOUND, profiling individual participants and charting their progress as theycompete or work towards a unified goal. Produced for HBO but
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Mark Jacobs
Bruce says: “Pentecostals are also known as ‘holy rollers’ because of all the moving and shaking going on during the services. The Voice of Pentecost Church was founded in San Francisco in 1966 by Marilynn Gazowsky. It was linked to
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