Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.25
Director: Sijie Dai
Starring: Kun Chen | Shuangbao Wang | Xun Zhou | Ye Liu
Scot says: ” The novel of Balzac has been making the rounds of book clubs lately, so to be honest, I was kind of prepared for this to be a let down. Often, when a book or a film is
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Daniel Geller | Dayna Goldfine
Michael says: “BALLETS RUSSES does for ballet what BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN YEARS did for Broadway. The film documents the history of the Ballet Russes, the ballet company (and its offshoot) that defines ballet today through archival footage and interviews with
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Emmanuelle Bercot
Starring: Emmanuelle Seigner | Isild Le Besco | Noémie Lvovsky | Valéry Zeitoun
Bruce says: “If only the last 90% of BACKSTAGE were as good as the beginning. – the first scenes were out of this world. Lauren (Emmanuelle Seigner) is a French pop star so unlike any female musician in America she
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Rating: 2.3
Director: Niels Mueller
Starring: Don Cheadle | Naomi Watts | Sean Penn
Barbara says: “Extremely bleak film which was ‘inspired’ by a true event. For 90% of it I thought Sean Penn was doing a fair imitation of Dustin Hoffman. For the remainder he reprised his role as the mentally challenged character
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Paul Provenza
Michael says: “Before entering this film, I told the seven other people with me that I wasn’t a fan of stand-up comedians. Here we were about to enter a documentary featuring dozens of stand-up comedians telling and reflecting on a
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Pierre Salvadori
Starring: Daniel Auteuil | José Garcia | Sandrine Kiberlain
Michael says: “I decided to check out this trifle of a film because Daniel Auteuil (THE WIDOW OF ST. PIERRE, THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE) was the star. Shades of THE CLOSET, APRÈS VOUS, is, for the most part, a
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Rating: 3 cats
Diane says: “This year’s version of the show compiled by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt doesn’t reach the quality of the earlier one I saw. The best of the 12 shorts is Ward 13, an inexplicably successful horror Claymation. Also
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Shonali Bose
Starring: Brinda Karat | Konkona Sen Sharma | Yashpal Sharma
Bruce says: “‘I feel foreign,’ Kaju tells her Delhi cousins. Raised in Los Angeles by a single mom, Kaju is visiting her family in India for the first time on her own. Her cousin takes her to the university where
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: John Kirby
Bruce says: “‘If you see this film, it may not be the same film I saw, which was not the same film shown at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival. The filmmakers confessed to having been up all night editing before
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Kieran O'Brien | Margot Stilley
Hilary says: “Is it soft-core porn? Is it nine mini-concert films? It’s successfully neither; mostly just boring. “1 cat for the whole mess, 3 cats for the musical perfs”
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Starring: Lalita Panyopas | Tasanawalai Ongartittichai
Bruce says: “After playing in film festivals for over two and one half years (January 2000 – August 2002) 6IXTYNIN9, never found distribution in the United States. As a result of the success of Ratanaruang’s LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE,
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Francois Ozon
Starring: Stéphane Freiss | Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Michael says: “The director of SWIMMING POOL, 8 WOMEN and UNDER THE SAND takes a slight stumble with his latest feature 5 X 2. Ozon shows us five stages in a couple’s relationship beginning with the day of their divorce
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Judd Apatow
Starring: Catherine Keener | Elizabeth Banks | Jane Lynch | Kat Dennings | Leslie Mann | Paul Rudd | Romany Malco | Seth Rogen | Steve Carrell
Janet says: “With THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN I expected a DEUCE BIGALOW/AMERICAN PIE type of sensibility with perhaps a few ribald laughs. Instead, I found a cleverly written and well-acted film. The characters are well developed, every setup pays off, and
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Kim Ki-Duk
Starring: Jae Hee | Kwon Hyuk-ho | Lee Seung-yeon
Tom says: “I saw at least 2 dozen films at last years Toronto Film Festival, but the one that stayed with me was the Korean film 3-IRON. “This delicate, quiet yet whimsical movie establishes Kim Ki-Duk’s (SUMMER, SPRING, SOMETHING AND
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Faye Wong | Gong Li | Tony Leung | Zhang Zhiyi
Thom says: “I was looking forward to seeing this film almost more than any other I knew about. With Wong Kar Wai as director and starring Tony Leung, Li Gong, Ziyi Zhang, Maggie Cheung, & Faye Wong how could it
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Director: Ramadan Suleman
Starring: Mpumi Malatsi | Pamela Nomvete | Sophie Mgcina
Bruce says: “In the 1960’s many South African men went into exile leaving the women to raise the children. Supposedly 80% of South African leaders were brought up by single mothers. The writer and director of ZULU LOVE LETTER were
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Starring: Beat Takeshi | Gadarukanaru Taka | Michiyo Ookusu | Michiyo Yasuda | Tadanobu Asano
Diane says: “Samurai spaghetti western with a heavy dose of MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. While samurai gangs destroy each other, Kitano shows what’s happening to the disenfranchised regular folks. Beat Takeshi, playing the lead role of THE BLIND
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Alexandra Cassevetes
Hilary says: “Xan (Alexandra) Cassavetes’ first feature-length foray into the ‘family business’ tells the story of Z Channel, the the nation’s first pay-cable station, founded in 1974 in LA. “Z Channel’s founder, Jerry Harvey, was a rabid cinemaphile who influenced
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: David Mackenzie
Starring: Emily Mortimer | Ewan MacGregor | Ewan Stewart | Jack McElhone | Pauline Taylor | Peter Mullan | Stuart McQuarrie | Therese Bradley | Tilda Swinton
Chris says: “YOUNG ADAM features Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton having lots of steamy, hot sex in the repressed 1950s. It’s not a skeezy film, nor a really pleasurable one. At least no one pays too dearly for their sins;
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Director: Chris Smith | Dan Ollman | Sarah Price
Chris says: “Hilarious documentary on two satirists-cum-activists who pose as WTO members to educate the public about that organization’s damaging effects on corporate politics, third world ecosystems and beyond. A little more entertaining than provocative, it’s a sly diversion that
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