Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Tol
Starring: Beatrice Dalle | Hisayo Mochizuki | Shinji Takeda | Takeshi Katô
Michael says: “How can you not love a film that’s a bizarre melding of Hello Kitty, YELLOW SUBMARINE, ‘Betty Boop,’ and an indictment against consumerism and religion all at the same time? TAMALA 2010 : A PUNK CAT IN OUTER
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Rating: 3.375
Director: Jae-eun Jeong
Starring: Du-na Bae | Ji-young Ok | Yu-won Lee
Ivy says: “I was lucky enough to catch this on the Sundance Channel. I have seen many bad Korean films, their film industry is still trying to form an identity instead of making cut-rate Hong Kong or Japanese films and
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Christine Jeffs
Starring: Blythe Danner | Daniel Craig | Gwyneth Paltrow | Jared Harris | Michael Gambon
Bruce says: “SYLVIA documents the last years of Sylvia Plath’s life, from the time she met and married Ted Hughes. While I liked this film, I found it more than a bit depressing. What was I expecting? It seems an
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: François Ozon
Starring: Charles Dance | Charlotte Rampling | Ludivine Sagnier
Bob G. says: “30 minutes into SWIMMING POOL you find yourself unavoidably engaged, much to your chagrin, given the lack of physical screen action. There’s not a lot going on here, at least on the surface, but Charlotte Rampling and
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ken Loach
Starring: Annmarie Fulton | Martin Compston | William Ruane
Michael says: “British filmmaker Ken Loach released two films in 2003, both woefully underseen. I hope to catch up with THE NAVIGATORS later this weekend, but I caught his more recent film SWEET SIXTEEN, on DVD this morning. “Loach’s usual
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Joel Katz
Laura says: “In a one hour running time, Katz explores how a white Jewish schoolteacher came to write the song which Holiday claimed, incorrectly, was written for her and which was later adopted by the Civil Rights movement. STRANGE FRUIT
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mark Moskowitz
Michael says: “2003’s string of outstanding documentaries continues with Mark Moskowitz’s powerful rumination on literature and its effect on our lives. In the early 70’s Moskowitz read a review in the NYT Book Review of Dow Mossman’s first novel, The
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Rating: 4.6
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Starring: Bobby Cannavale | Michelle Williams | Patricia Clarkson | Peter Dinklage | Raven Goodwin
Bob G. says: “As Finbar McBride, Peter Dinkledge emotes a quiet storm usually reserved for icons of the ’30s and ’40s such as Bogart or Cagney. His performance is so understated, it draws attention to itself precisely through its unobtrusiveness.
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Rating: 1 cat
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Alexa Vega | Antonio Banderas | Carla Gugino | Daryl Sabara | Elijah Wood | Ricardo Montalban
Howard says: “In this latest installment of the SPY KIDS franchise, it’s painfully obvious that the decline shown in SPY KIDS 2 is moving along faster than a mom unplugging your Xbox game. Where the original was fun, goofy and
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Starring: Jason Schwartzman | John Leguizamo | Mena Suvari | Patrick Fugit
Emily and Greg say: “We saw this at a midnight screening in Toronto, and it was probably the best celebrity studded night. All the stars of the film came out – Mickey Rourke, looking like a plastic rebel-rocker in black
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Gabriel Byrne | Lynne Redgrave | Miranda Richardson | Ralph Fiennes
Esmé says: “This was great and who saw it? I thought Fiennes was great, and so was the directing. Lots of cats. (A man is released from the asylum and returns to his old neighborhood where he tries to make
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Rating: 3.6
Director: Jeffrey Blitz
Robin says: “Each and every year, across the U.S., 9,000,000 kids compete for the 249 slots available at the National Spelling Bee held every year in Washington, DC. Documentary maker Jeff Blitz follows eight middle-schoolers on this road as they
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Rating: 0.5 cats
Director: Keith Gordon
Starring: Mel Gibson | Robert Downey Jr | Robin Wright Penn
Bruce says: “Robert Downey, Jr. gives one of the greatest performances in one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. While I knew exactly what was going on, THE SINGING DETECTIVE still made little sense and held little interest. “Downey
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Rating: 3.9
Director: Billy Ray
Starring: Chloe Sevigny | Hank Azaria | Hayden Christensen | Melanie Lynskey | Peter Saarsgard | Rosario Dawson | Steve Zahn
Chris says: “Here’s a film that should join ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN or ABSENCE OF MALICE as required viewing for all Journalism students. SHATTERED GLASS recreates the incredible story of Stephen Glass, the young New Republic reporter whom in 1998
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Director: Neil LaBute
Starring: Fred Weller | Gretchen Mol | Paul Rudd | Rachel Weisz
Peg says: “Based on a stage play of his (and maybe more successful in that format) this was a dark, intriguing little tale of a beautiful grad student and artist (Rachel Weisz) who seduces a geeky museum docent (Paul Rudd)
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu | Amos Gitai | Claude Lelouch | Danis Tanovic | Idrissa Ouedraogo | Ken Loach | Mira Nair | Samira Makhmalbaf | Sean Penn | Shohei Imamura | Youssef Chahine
Starring: Dzana Pinjo | Emmanuelle Laborit | Ernest Borgnine | Jérôme Horry | Kapil Bawa | Keren Mor | Kumiko Aso | Lionel Zizréel Guire | Liron Levo | Maryam Karimi | Nour El-Sherif | Taleb Adlah | Tomorô Taguchi | Vladimir Vega
Laura says: “This outstanding omnibus is a French production featuring a short film from 11 global filmmakers. Their only guidelines were that the film be a reflection on 9/11 and that it be 11 minutes, 9 seconds and 1 frame
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Aviva Slesin
Laura says: “When Academy Award winning documentarian Aviva Slesin (THE TEN YEAR LUNCH: THE WIT AND LEGEND OF THE ALGONQUIN ROUND TABLE) returned to Lithuania after fifty years to meet the woman who had saved her as a baby from
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Gary Ross
Starring: Chris Cooper | Jeff Bridges | Tobey Maguire | Valerie Mahaffey
Howard says: “As a docudrama, SEABISCUIT plays wonderfully. Here are reenactments of the most important moments of the horse and the people who loved him. As a piece of cinema it lacks slightly. It’s interesting and even compelling at times,
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Rating: 3.375
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Starring: Gunnar Eyjólfsson | Hélène de Fougerolles | Hilmir Snær Guðnason
Esmé says: “THE SEA is a sort of Icelandic King Lear. An aging patriarch calls his children back from the 4 corners of Europe to give them news of what, they aren’t yet sure. He owns an antiquated fish processing
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Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Adam Pascal | Jack Black | Lucas Papaelias | Mike White
Diane says: “SCHOOL OF ROCK is the film that TO BE AND TO HAVE wanted to be! Great opp. to admire Mike White’s eyelashes once again. Only way this movie could have been improved would be to have shot it
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