Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.2 cats
Director: Marc Forster
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton | Halle Berry | Heath Ledger | Peter Boyle
Hilary says: “One of the most stunning things about the film is the stark contrast between the quality of the visuals and the incredibly bleak story. The prison, the dusty roads, the stuffy old house that ‘Hank’ (Billy Bob Thornton)
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Mira Nair
Starring: Lillete Dubey | Naseeruddin Shah | Shefali Shetty | Vijay Raaz
Diane says: “Janet and I liked MONSOON WEDDING very much. We’re both nom’ing Vijay Raaz (events manager) who makes a beautiful transition from an ugly boor to an eccentric lover. The opening and closing credits are very colorful and original.
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Tarô Rin
Starring: Jamieson Price | Kei Kobayashi | Kouki Okada | Yuka Imoto
Bob says: “I for one didn’t see much of a connection to Lang’s film at all. There is the setting — a huge mechanized city in which many of the people find themselves below the surface (literally and figuratively), an
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Claude Chabrol
Starring: Anna Mouglalis | Isabelle Huppert | Jacques Dutronc | Rodolphe Pauly
Laura says: “Septuagenarian Chabrol, long known as the French Hitchcock, knows how to utilize Huppert’s cool brand of calculation. Their seventh collaboration is both as twisty and as obvious as the black web Mika literally spins with her crochet needle.
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Starring: Cary Elwes | Eddie Izzard | Edward Herrmann | Jennifer Tilly | Joanna Lumley | Kirsten Dunst
Ellen says: “I was not especially excited to see this film based on the previews, but if my friends ask me to go, I’m usually game to try to expand my horizons unless I know I’ll absolutely hate something. Going
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Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Sandra Goldbacher
Starring: Anna Fiel | Michelle Williams | Oliver Milburn | Trudy Styler
Michael says: “The final day of the Boston International Festival of Women’s Cinema kicked off with a film that was being co-presented by the Boston Jewish Film Festival. ME WITHOUT YOU was directed by Sandra Goldbacher, who did the film
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Rating: 3.75 cats | 3.9
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Starring: Diego Luna | Gael García Bernal | Maribel Verdú | Marta Aura
Ellen says: “I can see that MAMA might be a ‘teen movie’ because it is about teens and has those silly things that teens do – fart jokes, drinking, etc as noted by others. But, I felt these elements were
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Marlo Poras
Michael says: “The final film of our P-Town extravaganza comes from Boston filmmaker Marla Poras. Mai is a Vietnamese girl who comes to America… more specifically rural Mississippi to spend her Senior Year in High School as an exchange student.
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jean-Pierre Denis
Starring: Isabelle Renaud | Julie-Marie Parmentier | Sylvie Testud
Laura says: “Denis’ claustrophobic film evokes the sinister European wartime era feel of DOCTEUR PETIOT) where close houses hide dark secrets, and the downtrodden dankness of Claude Chabrol’s biopic of Marie Latour (THE STORY OF WOMEN), who was executed for
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Starring: Brenda Blethyn | Catherine Keener | Emily Mortimer | Jake Gyllenhaal | James LeGros | Raven Goodwin
Michael says: “The Boston International Festival of Women’s Cinema kicked off with LOVELY & AMAZING, Nicole Holofcener’s follow-up to WALKING & TALKING. Once again starring Catherine Keener, LOVELY & AMAZING explores the lives of a mother and her three daughters.
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Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood | Ian McKellen | Sean Astin | Viggo Mortensen
Laura says: “The only beauty to be found in THE TWO TOWERS is in the faces of the women who love Aragorn, Arwen (Liv Tyler) and the Rohan King’s niece Eowyn (Miranda Otto), and the majestic New Zealand landscape. The
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: DeMane Davis | Khari Streeter
Starring: Barbara Montgomery | Eugene Byrd | Kerry Washington | Lonette McKee
Michael says:”LIFT takes the viewer into the world of ‘boosters,’ or professional shoplifters to the rest of us. Set on the streets of Boston and Roxbury, Kerry Washington, so loved in OUR SONG, plays Niecy, floor manager of an upscale
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Starring: Angelina Jolie | Edward Burns | Stockard Channing | Tony Shalhoub
Laura says: “It’s the lead actors who make this piece work. Jolie is appealing and believable as a hurt little girl masquerading as a shallow career gal. Playing Lanie Kerigan was a smart choice on Jolie’s part, softening her own
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Shawn Levy
Starring: Amanda Bynes | Amanda Detmer | Frankie Muniz | Paul Giamatti
Robin says: “BIG FAT LIAR, with its young TV stars, comic bad guy and goofy fun, is aimed squarely at the older kids/younger teen audience. With its plethora of site gags, harmless vengeance and comic antics, it should strike pay
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Rating: 3.9
Director: Dover Koshashvili
Starring: Lior Ashkenazi | Moni Moshonov | Ronit Elkabetz
Nathaniel R. says: “Though Zaza or ‘Dooby’ as his girlfriend calls him, is a grown man who everyone treats like a boy, they’re angry that he doesn’t grow up. His family is maddened by his indifference to the bridal candidates
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Director: Fred Schepisi
Starring: Bob Hoskins | Helen Mirren | Michael Caine | Tom Courtenay
Ellen says: “A group of men go on a road trip to fulfill the final wishes of their deceased friend. Along the way, we are treated to flashbacks that show how the different men are interconnected. The film had excellent
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ray Lawrence
Starring: Anthony LaPaglia | Barbara Hershey | Geoffrey Rush | Kerry Armstrong | Leah Purcell | Rachel Blake
Diane says: “An excruciating round robin of infidelities in Sydney, combined with a murder mystery. For some reason, I was expecting a lighter film, but there’s no respite to be had here. “LANTANA is striking in its manipulation of the
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Stanley Kwan
Starring: Fang Lu | Jun Hu | Li Huatong | Shuang Li
Michael says: “LAN YU is a simple, well-conceived love story that takes place in Hong Kong during the late 80’s, during the time of the Tiananmen Square disaster. Handong is a successful business partner who spends a night with Lan
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Starring: Aamire Kahn | Gracy Singh | Paul Blackthorne | Rachel Shelley
Michael says: “LAGAAN is a 4-hour psuedo-Bollywood epic of legendary proportions, filled with good triumphing over evil and injustice in a most satisfactory way. In fact, LAGAAN is structured very much like a legend, complete with predictable plot, and over-the-top
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Eric Rohmer
Starring: Alain Libolt | Jean-Claude Dreyfus | Léonard Cobiant | Lucy Rusell
Michael says: “THE LADY & THE DUKE is Eric Roehmer’s interesting behind-the-scenes look at the French Revolution. Lucy Russel plays a Scottish aristocrat living in France, Grace Elliott, a royalist and former lover and still good friend of Philippe, the
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