Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.9
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Colin Farrell | Ewan McGregor | Hayley Atwell | Peter-Hugo Daly | Philip Davis | Sally Hawkins | Tom Wilkinson
Jason says: “Woody Allen is a bitter old man, and has been for a while. As a young man, he looked at the world around him and laughed at the absurdity, but for the past decade or two his movies
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Nadine Labaki
Michael says: “We saw this French/Lebanese co-production a couple months ago as part of the Sunday Eye Opener, but as it’s opening next weekend, I thought I’d mention it now. Billed as a bit of a STEEL MAGNOLIAS in Beirut,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Sarah Gavron
Starring: Christopher Simpson | Satish Kaushik | Tannishtha Chatterjee
Michael says: “Based on an internationally best-selling novel, BRICK LANE explores a plethora of theme including the nature of love, the Muslim community in Britain after 9/11, the empowerment of Indian women, and much more. Sarah Gavron, whose little seen
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Laurie Lynd
Starring: Ben Shenkman | Noah Bennett | Sheila McCarthy | Thomas Cavanaugh
Michael says: “BREAKFAST WITH SCOT was adapted from a lovely novel by Michael Downing that I read several years ago, and despite the fact that it features my husband’s name (correct spelling included) in the title, I had forgotten that
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Stefan Forbes
Bruce says: “In many minds Lee Atwater remains one of the more despicable characters on the political landscape within the past several decades. Many think Atwater was Machiavellian. While that may sound damning to most people, one man claimed at
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Alex Orr
Starring: Ana Chlumsky | Katie Rowlett | Marla Malcolm | Matt Hutchinson | Mike Brune
Jason says: “BLOOD CAR has an idea that has loads of potential, introduces it in witty fashion, and an ending that is just gleefully over the top. It’s also got a half hour or forty-five minutes (out of seventy-five) between
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Starring: Alice Braga | Don McKellar | Gael García Bernal | Julianne Moore | Mark Ruffalo | Yoshino Kimura | Yusuke Iseya
Beth Curran says: “Okay, I first must talk about the spectacle first – the film’s premiere was at the Elgin, and it was beyond zooey. Seating took forever, and it was unbelievable how large the reserved section was. While looking
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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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