Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
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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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Karen Moncrieff
Starring: Brittany Murphy. Piper Laurie | Bruce Davison | James Franco | Kerry Washington | Marcia Gay Harden | Mary Beth Hurt | Mary Steenburgen | Rose Byrne | Toni Collette
Michael says: “With an outstanding cast and a handful of Independent Spirit Award nominations (including Best Director, Best Feature, and Best Supporting Actress), I would have thought that Karen MoNcrieff’s somber, powerful film, THE DEAD GIRL, would have had better
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Rachid Bouchareb
Starring: Bernard Blancan | Jamel Debbouze | Roschdy Zem | Sami Bouajila | Samy Nasceri
Bruce says: “Algeria, 1943. Men are marching through the streets urging others to join them in saving France from Nazi Germany. ‘We must liberate France, Mother,’ exclaims Saïd (Jamel Debbouze). ‘I prefer poverty to losing you,’ his mother replies. DAYS
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Julia Loktev
Starring: Gareth Saxe | Josh Philip Weinstein | Luisa Williams
Chris says: “SPOIERS AHEAD! “It’s ideal to go into Julia Loktev’s remarkable debut feature not knowing anything, but it’s also damn near impossible to write about it without disclosing what it’s about. (However, basic knowledge of the plot did not
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Je-yong Lee
Starring: Jin-woo Park | Kyeon Lee | Ok-bin Kim
Jay says: “DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS is based on an internet comic strip, and it’s got that kind of manic energy: It starts out with a whole bunch of quick, raunchy gags that aren’t much more than crude but don’t really
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Adrian Brody | Amara Karan | Angelica Huston | Bill Murray | Jason Schwartzman | Owen Wilson | Waris Ahluwalia
Bruce says: “Characters in a Wes Anderson film are often smug, have an oversized sense of entitlement and lack empathy. That description fits most of the characters in THE DARJEELING LIMITED. One year after their father died, three brothers –
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Chris Stapp
Starring: Bonnie Soper | Chris Stapp | Matt Heath
Jason says: I ‘missed’ this one at Fantasia – it wasn’t one I was really super-excited to see anyway, but I would probably have gone if the schedule lined up right. The program made it out to sound like a
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Rating: 3.375
Director: Christophe Honoré
Starring: Guy Marchand | Joana Preiss | Louis Garrel | Marie-France Pisier | Romain Duris
Bruce says: “Director Christophe Honoré has created a delightful offbeat comedy about family, friendship, love and loss. Louis Garrel begins by facing the camera and telling the audience he will be the narrator of the story. We don’t know who
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Rodrigo Moerno
Starring: Cristina Villamor | Julio Chávez | Osmar Núñez
Bruce says: “Custodio translates as bodyguard in English. Ruben (Julio Chávez) is a personal bodyguard for the Planning Minister (Osmar Núñez) in the Argentine government. The Minister is a social animal – weaving work and pleasure as he darts from
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Dan Klores | Fisher Stevens
Hilary says: “This documentary gives new weight to the maxim that some people’s truth is stranger than fiction. “Burt Pugach and Linda Riss met and embarked on a rocky romance in the late ’50s. Burt was a successful ambulance-chasing lawyer
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Kim Massee
Starring: Diego Mestanza | Françoise Klein | Thierry Levaret
Bruce says: “COWBOY ANGELS begins with an eleven year old playing pinball in a smoky bar. We can tell it is late by the apparent drunkenness of the patrons. His mother (Françoise Klein) is at the bar, spilling her drinks
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Ethan Coen | Joel Coen
Starring: Beth Grant | Javier Bardem | Josh Brolin | Kelly McDonald | Tommy Lee Jones | Woody Harrelson
Barbara says: “Definitely one of my favorites this year. A film that makes you think about chance and how we react to what life throws at us. Hard to figure out who the heroes really are. The Coens have done
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Anton Corbijn
Starring: Alexandra Maria Lara | Harry Treadaway | James Anthony Pearson | Joe Anderson | Sam Riley | Samantha Morton
Chris says: “Why did Joy Division vocalist Ian Curtis hang himself at the age of 23? Was it misery brought on by marital infidelity, an uneasy mixture of meds prescribed for his epilepsy, stress at the onset of fame, or
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Philippe Falardeau
Starring: Arnaud Mouithys | Claudia Tagbo | Janine Sutto | Jean-Pierre Cassell | Olivier Gourmet | Paul Ahmarani
Beth says: “I have to confess that I succumbed to that festival affliction – eyes falling shut midfilm – during this film, but thankfully figured out rather quickly what I missed, and that it wasn’t a significant plot point, whew!
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