Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Julián Hernández
Starring: Alejandro Rojo | Fernando Arroyo | Miguel Á Hoppe
Bruce says: “BROKEN SKY is not a film that seduces its audience with flashy tricks or devices. It is a film that forces the viewer to do all the work, to discover its rhythm and fall in step. For those
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Eric Steel
Bruce says: “The Golden Gate Bridge is a majestic beauty. Filmmaker Eric Steel captures the gorgeous orangey-red structure (it’s not really gold at all) from many angles. As the film begins he familiarizes his audience with all the activities on
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Rian Johnson
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Leavitt | Lukas Haas | Nora Zehetner
Michael says: “Before seeing BRICK, Rian Johnson’s debut feature that combines lays the Noir genre over a high school setting, Beth said, ‘it’s sounding from reviews that you either buy into the conceit and enjoy the film, or you don’t
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: François Delisle
Starring: Anne-Marie Cadieux | Frédérick De Grandpre | Joseph Bellerose | Stéphane Krau
Michael says: “LE BONHEUR C’EST UNE CHANSON TRISTE was presented at the Brattle Theatre by the Quebec Delegation of the Canadian Consulate. I would like to see more presentations such as this; we miss out on a lot of exciting
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Heinz Bütler
Bruce says: “As Andrew Berends describes his film, ‘The primary objective of THE BLOOD OF MY BROTHER is to illustrate the infinite ripples of grief that follow the tragic killing of even just one person.’ When Ra’ad, an Iraqi photographer
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Rating: 1 cat
Director: Roland Vranik
Starring: Gergely Bánki | Péter Albert | Tamás Balikó
Bruce says: “From its description BLACK BRUSH (FEKETE KEFE) is a Hungarian slacker film featuring four novice chimney sweeps and a stoned goat. Sounds irresistible, no? The plot is whacky enough but the dialogue (hopefully a bad translation) is inane.
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Carlos Reygadas
Starring: Anapola Mushkadiz | Bertha Ruiz | Marcos Hernández
Chris says: “Coincidentally, I saw another Mexican film this week: Carlos Reygadas’ second feature which is also set in Mexico City but could easily have taken place on another planet. The film, in a nutshell: middle-aged, poor chauffer Marcos (Marcos
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Starring: Adriana Barraza | Brad Pitt | Cate Blanchett | Elle Fanning | Gael García Bernal | Koji Yakusho | Mohamed Akhzam | Rinko Kikuchi
Michael says: “Alejandro González Iñárritu’s third feature to be released in the U.S. is a sprawling mess with a lot of intriguing ideas, but with way too much story for one film. It’s also a film with a message, and
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Terry Zwigoff
Starring: Jim Broadbent | John Malkovich | Max Minghella | Sophia Myles
Hilary says: “Director Terry Zwigoff’s and graphic novelist Daniel Clowes’ latest collaboration is a string of character sketches strung out with a third-rate CSI-style script. Max Minghella, the second coming of Mark Ruffalo, is all delicate features and doe eyes
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Michele Soavi
Starring: Alessio Boni | Alina Nadelea | Carlo Cecchi
Bruce says: “ARRIVEDERCI AMORE, CIAO has an English title, THE DEADLY KISS, that describes nothing contextual about the film, whereas the Italian title relates perfectly to the story. In THE BEST OF YOUTH Alessio Boni was extremely vulnerable and devastatingly
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Ian Inaba
Bruce says: “Sponsored by the Guerilla News Network AMERICAN BLACKOUT is a film that every person should see. That is not very likely since many distributors have already backed out of deals at the last moment. In an age where
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jessica Sanders
Michael says: “Jessica Sanders’ AFTER INNOCENCE is an emotional and inspirational documentary about men who were wrongfully convicted of horrific crimes, then exonerated 15 – 20 years later due to the emergence of DNA testing. The horror of being innocent
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Craig Chester
Starring: Chris Kattan | Craig Chester | Malcolm Gets | Parker Posey
Michael says: “Actor Craig Chester (GRIEF, SWOON, I SHOT ANDY WARHOL) wrote and directed his first feature film, a broad romantic comedy where the two protagonists are both men. What could have been sweet, and comfortably mainstream like the films
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Doug Block
Bruce says: “**Spoilers** “The idea of seeing someone else’s home movies may be appealing if the ‘someone else’ is a good friend, but much less so if the films belong to a stranger. There are exceptions such as TARNATION and
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Michael Apted
Bruce says: “Tony is a kid from the East End, once a rough-and-tumble section of London, now home to many immigrants from Africa and Asia. Jackie, Sue and Lynn hail from similar backgrounds. Simon and Paul were living in a
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Ilya Khrjanovsky
Starring: Marina Vovchenko | Sergei Shnurov | Yuri Laguta
Chris says: “This is one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen (and if you know me, that’s saying something). 4 begins with a piano-tuner, a prostitute, and a slaughterhouse worker. Strangers to each other, they meet in a Moscow
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Ben Hopkins
Bruce says: “Judging the merits of a documentary can be daunting. Has the filmmaker made a focused statement? Does the film develop a mosaic based on a topic or theme? What about the truth – should the filmmaker be bound
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Thom Fitzgerald
Starring: Chloe Sevigny | Ian Roberts | Lucy Liu | Olympia Dukakis | Sandra Oh | Shawn Ashmore | Stockard Channing
Michael says: “3 NEEDLES is Thom Fitzgerald’s A.I.D.S. epic, spanning three continents, telling three stories, and clearlyva movie that was a labor of love, in addition to clearly being a labor of high finances. In Africa, three nuns double as
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Géla Babluani
Starring: George Babluani | Pascal Bongard | Philippe Passon
Bruce says: “**Spoilers Beyond Second Paragraph** “In spite of garnering prizes at Sundance, the Venice Film Festival and the European Film Awards 13 TAZMETI has remained relatively obscure. Beautifully constructed, acted and filmed 13 TZAMETI is an unusual thriller. Sébastian
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Rating: 3.375
Director: Sally Potter
Starring: Joan Allen | Sam Neill | Shirley Henderson | Simon Akbarian
Michael says: “YES is a challenging and ambitious film. You would expect no less from Sally Potter, the director of ORLANDO and THE TANGO LESSON. It has been a couple of weeks since I saw the film and I still
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