Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Adrien Brody | Ed Stoppard | Emilia Fox | Michal Zebrowski
Laura says:”Polanski is quick to establish Wladyslaw’s determination not to be silenced by his continuing to play Chopin as the recording studio he inhabits is destroyed by German bombs. Brody quietly and confidently inhabits Szpilman in one of the best
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Dan Ireland
Starring: Emmy Rossum | Jason Isaacs | Sofia Milos
Laura says: “Because it is a love story set within a distinct ethnic community, PASSIONADA” is being compared to MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, but this film is more rooted in realism than that Windex-infested sitcom. That said, while there
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Rating: 0 cats
Director: Fenton Bailey | Randy Barbato
Starring: Macaulay Culkin | Seth Green Chloë Sevigny
Hilary says: “This biopic of club kid/murderer Michael Alig is monstrously bad. The quality of the script, acting and style are on par with your average WB teen melodrama, but with a gigantic budget for drugs. If Macaulay Culkin intended
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Richard Kwietniowski
Starring: John Hurt | Minnie Driver | Philip Seymour Hoffman
Bruce says: “In OWNING MAHOWNY, Dan Mahowny (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has just been promoted to Assistant Manager of a large Toronto bank when the loan sharks descend upon him. He has to come up with some money fast. Dan is
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Carl Franklin
Starring: Denzel Washington | Eva Mendes | Sanaa Lathan
Bob G. says: “Very average cop-drama that aside from being marvelously shot and competently acted, offers up nothing of note either script-wise or in the way of style. Denzel dodges bullets and hangs from balconies with the best of ’em,
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy
Michael says: “If 2003 isn’t the ‘Year of the Documentary’ I don’t know what is. Film Movement’s OT: OUR TOWN is a worthy addition to the many outstanding documentaries released this summer. It’s playing at the Coolidge Corner, and I
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Susanne Bier
Starring: Mads Mikkelsen | Nikolaj Lie Kaas | Paprika Steen | Sonja Richter | Stine Bjerregaard
Michael says: “You’d think, after ARARAT and WHALE RIDER, that Peg and I have diametrically opposed viewpoints when it comes to films. Not so! Scot and I watched the screener for the Danish film, OPEN HEARTS over the weekend, and
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Director: Chris Hegedus | D.A. Pennebaker
Peg says: “Veteran music documentarian D. A. Pennebaker (ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS) and Chris Hegedus (STARTUP.COM) team with journalist Roger Friedman to play old-home week with legendary soul singers in New York, Chicago, and Memphis. Friedman is
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Antonio Banderas | Johnny Depp | Mickey Rourke | Salma Hayek
Howard says: “As exciting as the trailer was, the film is not. Robert Rodriguez has attempted to make another Mexican mythology picture in his ‘El Mariachi’ series. Oh, it’s pretty, there are a couple of great action sequences and all
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Caroline Link
Starring: Juliane Köhler | Karoline Eckertz | Lea Kurka | Matthias Habich | Merab Ninidze | Regine Zimmermann | Sidede Onyulo
Michael says: “NOWHERE IN AFRICA is a true epic, telling the tale of a Jewish family’s flight from Nazi occupied Germany to Africa. Walter Redlich travels to a farm in Africa to prepare the way for his wife and daughter.
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Michael Polish
Starring: Claire Forlani | Duel Farnes | James Wood | Mark Polish | Nick Nolte
Laura says: “Writer/director Michael and Writer/star Mark Polish complete their American Heartland trilogy with a dreamlike meditation on death and departure. Using two groups of angels, the bureaucratic guardians of the real world and a rag tag assemblage looking for
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Douglas McGrath
Starring: Charlie Hunnam | Christopher Plummer | Jamie Bell | Stella Gonnet
Laura says: “When an idealistic gentleman of little fortune dies in rural England, his nineteen year old son is left to fend for himself as well as his mother and younger sister. They travel to London to engage the aid
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Ken Loach
Starring: Dean Andrews | Joe Duttine | Steve Huison | Thomas Craig
Peg says: “THE NAVIGATORS, directed by Ken Loach, is a fictional story of an all-too-real situation: the deregulation and increasingly-private ownership of the railway system in Great Britain. The script was written by a former railway employee, Rob Dawber, who
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Director: Joe Carnahan
Starring: Dane Leis | Jason Patric | Lloyd Adams | Meagan Issa
Hilary says: “A heroin-fueled ‘Law & Order’ in feature form, shot through the now obligatory icy blue ‘Detroit Lens,’ as seen in OUT OF SIGHT, etc. Jason Patric shows off his underutilized talent in the role of a burnt out
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Kevin Bacon | Laura Linney | Marcia Gay Harden | Sean Penn | Tim Robbins
Bob says: “I didn’t read the book, but I thought the film was very good. I found Robbins’ performance just as strong as Penn’s (and Penn really was great). Besides, I love depressing films.” Hilary says: “I saw it
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Isabel Coixet
Starring: Deborah Harry | Mark Ruffalo | Sarah Polley | Scott Speedman
Michael says: “Last week, Mary and I caught a preview of the latest film to star personal favorite Sarah Polley called MY LIFE WITHOUT ME. This Pedro and Augustin Almodovar production combines the whimsy and drama of Almodovar’s films with
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Starring: Dolly Wells | Kathleen McDermott | Paul Popplewell | Ruby Milton | Samantha Morton
Peg says: “I saw this Scottish film by Lynne Ramsay at the Women’s Film Festival and thoroughly enjoyed it! “Morvern is a young woman who wakes up, or perhaps arrives home, on Christmas morning to find her boyfriend has committed
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Fernando León de Aranoa
Starring: Javier Bardem | José Ángel Egido | Luis Tosar
Laura says: “Director Fernando León de Aranda’s (who also cowrote with Ignacio del Moral) film won the Golden Seashell at the 2002 San Sebastian film festival, scooped up a bunch of Goyas (Spanish Academy Awards) and, mostly notably, was chosen
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Mike Newell
Starring: Julia Roberts | Julia Stiles | Kirsten Dunst | Maggie Gyllenhaal | Marcia Gay Harden
Bruce says: “Only two names are listed in the writing credits but I would swear that this film was designed by a committee. A lot of ‘stuff’ is going on here and usually the bad stuff is also the good
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Satoshi Kon
Starring: Fumiko Orikasa | Mami Koyama | Miyoko Shôji
Bob says: “My experience with animé is mostly limited to movies like AKIRA and GHOST IN THE SHELL – urban science fiction with a healthy dose of philosophical questioning about the nature of the self. Well, MILLENNIUM ACTRESS is nothing
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