Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2 cats
Director: Bradley Cooper
Starring: Alec Baldwin | Andrew Dice Clay | Bradley Cooper | Dave Chappelle | Lady Gaga | Ron Rifkin | Sam Elliott
Thom says: “It isn’t just the fact that this is the 4th Hollywood incarnation of the same story (1937 with Janet Gaynor & Frederick March, 1954 with Judy Garland & James Mason, 1976 with Barbra Streisand & Kris Kristofferson) that
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Rob Garver
Chris says: “Although never a celebrity like Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael was arguably the most influential film critic of her time and easily one of the more outspoken ones. Her unique career trajectory, from running a Berkeley moviehouse to landing
Read the review...By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jennifer Trainer
Chris says: “North Adams, a depressed former mill town in far Northwestern Massachusetts is as unlikely a place for a contemporary art museum as one could imagine; MUSEUM TOWN is an in-depth study of how MassMOCA came to inhabit former
Read the review...By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Andrew Slater
Chris says: “ECHO IN THE CANYON POWER RANKINGS: Tom Petty’s last interview and his infectious fandom for the subject at hand. Man, what a loss. Any vintage recording studio footage, esp. The Mamas and The Papas’ immense choral sound. Elderly
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Starring: Adam Driver | Bill Murray | Carol Kane | Chloe Sevigny | Danny Glover | Steve Buscemi | Tilda Swinton | Tom Waits
Thom says: “It would be presumptuous of me to call myself a huge Jim Jarmusch fan but he certainly has had a large number of top-rated films with me including PATERSON, ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE, BROKEN FLOWERS, COFFEE & CIGARETTES,
Read the review...By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Alex Holmes
Chris says: “A genuinely inspiring story on its own, MAIDEN is further enhanced by its subject, Tracy Edwards, whom through considerable determination, chutzpah and luck managed to conceive of and lead the first all-female team to participate in the Whitbread
Read the review...By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 4.4
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Starring: Andrew Garfield | Callie Hernandez | Riley Keough | Topher Grace
Chris says: “Given the copious bodily fluids on display throughout, I can see why A24 was sheepish to give this a wider release. David Robert Mitchell’s (IT FOLLOWS) only real flaw here is that he made a film that simply
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Sebastián Lelio
Starring: Brad Garrett | Caren Pistorius | Holland Taylor | Jeanne Tripplehorn | John Turturro | Julianne Moore | Michael Cera | Rita Wilson
Thom says: “This is exactly the type of film I look for in these troubled times. It is honest, compelling, and a true slice-of-life experience, but, that being said, it totally relies on Julianne Moore’s mind-boggling performance to carry it
Read the review...By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Tom Harper
Starring: Craig Parkinson | James Harkness | Jessie Buckley | Julie Walters
Chris says: “Jessie Buckley is so damn good she altogether shreds and transcends this film’s standard “I wanna be a star” trajectory; almost as impressive is how the film itself nearly does the same with its not-entirely-expected, somewhat corny but
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Ljubomir Stefanov | Tamara Kotevska
Michael says: “HONEYLAND was a remarkable documentary; I think it was my top film of the festival. Remarkably shot, incredibly edits, a real gem of a story that was somehow gifted to the filmmaker, HONEYLAND also illuminates a culture I
Read the review...By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Dava Whisenant
Starring: Chita Rivera | David Letterman | Florence Henderson | Martin Short | Sheldon Harnick | Steve Young | Susan Stroman
Chris says: “If a deep dive into the obscure world of 1960s industrial musicals doesn’t at least pique your interest, then this is not a documentary for you. If it at all does, however, you won’t mind spending ninety minutes
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.8 cats
Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Archie Madekwe | Ellora Torchia | Florence Pugh | Gunnel Fred | Jack Reynor | Vilhelm Blomgren | Will Poulter | William Jackson Harper
Thom says: Last year Ari Aster appeared out of nowhere with his first feature the terrifying HEREDITARY which ended up my favorite film of 2018. So I had enormous expectations for MIDSOMMAR & the viewing actually exceeded them. I was
Read the review...By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Lynn Shelton
Starring: Dan Bakkedahl | Jillian Bell | Jon Bass | Lynn Shelton | Marc Maron | Michaela Watkins | Toby Huss
Chris says: “Lynn Shelton’s first feature in five years (she’s directed a lot of TV in the interim) might be her best. Cynthia (Jillian Bell) and her partner Mary (Michaela Watkins) return to the former’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama to
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.25
Director: Lulu Wang
Starring: Awkwafina | Diana Lim | Jim Liu | Shuzhen Zhao | Tzi Ma
Chris says: “Putting aside its novel narrative hook (‘based on an actual lie”), THE FAREWELL is the latest in a long tradition of family wedding films; it’s also one of the more relatable, realistic depictions of such I’ve seen in
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Samuel Maoz
Starring: Lior Ashkenazi | Sarah Adler | Yonaton Shiray
Chris says: “Despite the title-referencing dance step, where one always ends up in the same place where one started, this is continually unpredictable to a degree most other films are not. The extended mid-section swaps the bookending domestic melodrama for
Read the review...By Chris Kriofske
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Chang-dong Lee
Starring: Ah-in Yoo | Jong-seo Jun | Seong-kun Mun | Seung-ho Choi | Soo-Kyung Kim | Steven Yeun
Brett says: “This piece is a sort of ‘Hitchcock re-imagined’ film that slowly burns away at the viewer’s sensitivities and perceptions. At the center of the film is a hint of a love triangle among a part-time delivery boy Jong-su, an
Read the review...By Michael Colford
Director: Simon Baker
Starring: Ben Spence | Elizabeth Debicki | Richard Roxburgh | Samson Coulter | Simon Baker
Julie says: “‘Being afraid is half the fun,’ or is it ? Coming of age surf movie with some depth beneath the surface. “Atmospheric, moody, great cinematography and performances by newcomers Samson Coulter and Ben Spence as well as seasoned actor
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2 cats
Director: Robin Campillo
Starring: Adele Haenel | Aloïse Sauvage | Antoine Reinartz | Arnaud Valois | Coralie Russier | Félix Maritaud | Nahuel Pérez Biscayart
Thom says: “I distinctly thought I’d like this film much more than I actually did. I’d be a total idiot to question its sincerity or even its verisimilitude but this film about the early days of the Act-Up agitprop movement in
Read the review...By Michael Colford
Rating: 3.9
Director: Joel Edgerton
Starring: Cherry Jones | Frank Hoyt Taylor | Joel Edgerton | Lucas Hedges | Madelyn Cline | Nicole Kidman | Russell Crowe | Xavier Dolan
Thom says: “This is a very good achievement by director Joel Edgerton, the Australian actor, in this his second feature after THE GIFT (2015) which was just OK. I loved how he used his compatriots Kidman & Crowe in this largely
Read the review...By Michael Colford
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Eero Milonoff | Eva Melander | Jörgen Thorsson
Chris says: “From the writer of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, a contemporary fable about Tina (Eva Melander), a somewhat dumpy middle-aged guard for the Swedish border patrol who is excellent in her job, mostly due to her intense, visceral, almost superhuman
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