Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Todd Haynes
Starring: Andrea Frankle | Charles Melton | Chris Tenzis | Cory Michael Smith | Julianne Moore | Natalie Portman
Chris says: I suppose Todd Haynes’ latest does for Lifetime TV movies what his 2002 film FAR FROM HEAVEN did for Douglas Sirk, recreating an aesthetic and carefully tweaking it for postmodern consumption, but it’s also so much more. It
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Don Roos
Starring: Anthony Rapp | Debra Monk | Lauren Ambrose | Lisa Kudrow | Natalie Portman | Scott Cohen
Thom says: “This film was adapted from the novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. This didn’t really win me over but perhaps it was a matter of relating to it. Emilia Greenleaf (Portman) a young lawyer sets
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Director: Noah Hawley
Starring: Dan Stevens | Jon Hamm | Natalie Portman | Zazie Beetz
By Michael Colford
Rating: 2.8 cats
Director: Xavier Dolan
Starring: Amara Karan | Ben Schnetzer | Chris Zylka | Emily Hampshire | Jacob Tremblay | Jared Keeso | Kathy Bates | Kit Harington | Michael Gambon | Natalie Portman | Susan Sarandon | Thandie Newton
Michael says: “Ah, where do I start with the work of Xavier Dolan. His first film, I KILLED MY MOTHER, was a tour de force for me. A beautiful, emotional story, and an audacious and artistic feature directorial debut. Dolan
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Brady Corbet
Starring: Jude Law | Natalie Portman | Raffey Cassidy | Willem Dafoe
Brett says: “VOX LUX is a demolition derby of themes that keep colliding after the initial premise is introduced. Just when the viewer thinks that he/she has a finger on what this movie is, another head-on impact from writer/director Brady
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Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Barbara Hershey | Benjamin Millepied | Mila Kunis | Natalie Portman | Vincent Cassel | Winona Ryder
Ibad says: “Vincent Cassell informs his group of New York City ballet dancers that he’s going to stage the old staple of ballet, Swan Lake. But it’s going to be different. It’s gonna be stripped down, visceral, real. “He chooses
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Allen Hughes | Brett Ratner | Fatih Akin | Joshua Marston | Mira Niar | Natalie Portman | Randall Balsmeyer | Shekhar Kapur | Shunji Iwai | Wen Jiang | Yvan Attal
Starring: Blake Lively | Bradley Cooper | Christina Ricci | Ethan Hawke | Natalie Portman | Orlando Bloom | Shia LaBeouf
Thom says: “This companion piece to PARIS JE T’AIME isn’t quite as good as the Paris version. The former concentrated on all different districts of the ‘City of Light,’ each with its own yarn, and was quite a bit more
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Chad R. Davis | David Strathairn | Jude Law | Natalie Portman | Norah Jones
Chadd says: “As I discussed my love of indie and foreign film to a woman I recently met (coincidentally, the same woman who accompanied me to see this film), I described that the process of viewing most foreign films is
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Amos Gitai
Starring: Carmen Maura | Hana Laszlo | Hiam Abbass | Natalie Portman
Michael says: “FREE ZONE is Amos Gitai’s latest film, illuminating life in Israel and all its strife from a decidedly female point of view. The story revolves around three women, an Israeli, an American living in Israel, and a Palestinian
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Rating: 3.4
Director: Zach Braff
Starring: Ian Holm | Natalie Portman | Peter Sarsgaard | Zach Braff
Bruce says: “In 1997, Elizabeth Wurtzel grabbed the country’s attention by declaring we were a Prozac Nation. Prozac is just one of many drugs generously distributed by doctors to fight depression. In GARDEN STATE, Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff), now 26,
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