Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Carlos Saurin
Starring: Juan Villegas | Rosa Valsecchi | Walter Donado
Bruce says: “EL PERRO (sometimes advertised as BOMBON, EL PERRO) is a delightful film. Set in Patagonia, the story is paper thin but the sentiment is sincere thanks to a lovely performance by Juan Villegas. He plays Coco, an aging
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Rachel Boynton
Bruce says: “It is 2002 and Goni (Alberto Sanchez de Lozada), the former president of Bolivia, is seeking to regain office he held from 1993-1997. When his finds himself lagging behind Manfred (Reyes Villa) in the polls, he panics and
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Dominic Harari | Teresa Pelegri
Starring: Guillermo Toledo | María Botto | Marián Aguilera
Bruce says: “Leni (Marián Aguilera), a nice Jewish girl, brings her boyfriend Rafi (Guillermo Toledo) home to meet the extended family. Rafi has one major disadvantage in this household; he is Palestinian. Leni’s belly-dancing sister Tania (María Botto) is wildly
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Starring: Daniel London | Tanya Smith | Will Oldham
Chris says: “Mark (Daniel London) and Kurt (cult folk-rocker Will Oldham) were once close friends; now both in their mid-30s, they’ve grown apart as friends often do. Mark has a career and a partner and is about to become a
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Billy Kent
Starring: Danny DeVito | Parker Posy | Paul Rudd | Winter Ave Zoli
Chris says: “Stars a rarely-better Parker Posey as a Cleveland ad exec who has never had an orgasm, ever. A thin premise and somewhat clumsy script are enlivened by a decent cast: Paul Rudd (shlubby and nearly unrecognizable with copious
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Mary Harron
Starring: Cara Seymour | Chris Bauer | David Strathairn | Gretchen Mol | Jared Harris | John Cullum | Jonathan M. Woodward | Lili Taylor | Norman Reedus | Sarah Paulson
Michael says: “In theory, the life of Bettie Page seems like a perfect basis for a biopic. A young girl growing up in the 40’s and 50’s, Page travels from Nashville to New York to pursue her dreams of acting.
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Richard Eyre
Starring: Bill Nighy | Cate Blanchett | Judi Dench | Juno Temple | Max Lewis | Philip Davis
Michael says: “Richard Eyre follows-up IRIS and STAGE BEAUTY with a real romp of a thriller in NOTES ON A SCANDAL. There’s a lot of excess in SCANDAL, and the entire thing really lives and dies by Judi Dench’s performance
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Fanta Régina Nacro
Starring: Adama Ouédraogo | Claude Kaboré | Georgette Paré | Moussa Cissé | Naky Sy Savane | Sami Rama | Yves Thombiano
Bruce says: “The 57 countries of Africa are largely the creation of colonists, Europeans who carved up the continent as they licked their chops over their newfound treasures. Most countries consist of many peoples from many cultures. The people of
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Greg Whiteley
Chris says: “Few musicians–heck, few people have undergone as radical a transformation as Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane. In the early ’70s, he was the bassist for the New York Dolls, a thunderously influential (but never commercially successful) cross-dressing glam rock outfit.
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Andrew Bujalski
Starring: Andrew Bujalski | Justin Rice | Rachel Clift
Michael says: “Chlotrudis loves it when a talented, local filmmaker achieves some level of success, and while Andrew Bujalski isn’t a Matt Damon or even an Eliza Dushku, he’s well-known in indie-circles for his debut film, FUNNY HA HA. Now
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Emmanuel Carrère
Starring: Cylia Malki | Emmanuelle Devos | Hippolyte Girardot | Mathieu Amalric | Vincent Lindon
Bruce says: “A meditation on the complexities of intimate relationships, LA MOUSTACHE is successful up to a point. One day, Marc (Vincent Lindon) asks his wife Agnès (Emmanuelle Devos) if he should shave off his moustache. She replies indifferently. When
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Michael Kang
Starring: Jade Wu | Jeffery Chyau | Sung Kang
Michael says: “Michael Kang’s first feature film is a traditional coming-of-age tale about a chubby, 13-year-old, Asian-American boy who lives with his mother, grandfather, and younger sister in the seedy, roadside motel that they operate. This compact film starts off
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Rating: 1.75
Director: George Bamber
Starring: Daniel Letterle | David Monahan | Meredith Baxter
Michael says: “The less said about this tired adaptation of Eric Orner’s gay-themed comic strip the better. Revolving around Ethan Greene, searching for love and a committed relationship, but continuously self-sabotaging every one he finds himself in, this film is
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Emily Mortimer | Jonathan Rhys-Meyers | Matthew Goode | Scarlett Johansson
Chris says: “For years, Woody Allen has desperately needed to get away from his terminal Upper East Side complacency and try something different, but I never thought he’d go ahead and do it. Actually, this isn’t as much of a
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Judy Davis | Kirsten Dunst | Marianne Faithfull
Chris says: “Had I seen MARIE ANTOINETTE ten years ago, I would have walked out the theater flushed and excited, declaring it my favorite of the year. Now, I know a little better to lavish such praise on what is
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Barbara Hammer
Bruce says: “In 1937 Claude Cahoun and Marcel Moore moved from France to the Isle of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands in the English Channel off the coast of Brittany. Claude, nee Lucy Schwab, was young when her father
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Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Valérie Minetto
Starring: Aurélia Petit | Guilaine Londez | Malik Zidi | Mila Dekker
Michael says: “This French film explores the broken relationship between two women who have made opposing life choices. It requires concentration and attention, both of which were in short supply when I saw this film at the Provincetown International Film
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Sarah Watt
Starring: Anthony Hayes | Justine Clarke | William McInnes
Michael says: “This Australian film has so much going for it; a great premise, terrific writing, strong acting, a strong visual style, and some neat experimental tricks that it’s a shame that first time feature director Sarah Watt relied so
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Steve Buscemi
Starring: Casey Affleck | Jack Rovello | Kevin Corrigan | Liv Tyler | Mary Kay Place | Seymour Cassel
Michael says: “I was very pleasantly surprised by Steve Buscemi’s tiny film about the shattered dreams and paralyzing ennui of a Midwestern family. Jim left his small-town Indiana home, including Mom, Dad and brother Tim, for NYC and thought he
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Radu Mihaileanu
Starring: Moshe Agazai | Rami Danon | Roni Hadar | Sirak M. Sabahat | Yaël Abecassis
Michael says: “LIVE AND BECOME is the first epic film to be made about the migration of the Ethiopian Jews to Israel. As that, it has a little bit of the epic formula that Atom Egoyan so successfully avoided in
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