Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.75
Director: Yi Li
Starring: Chong Wang | Joma | Yalayam
Jason says: “Director Yi Li and his crew worked for seven years on TEANA: 10000 YEARS LATER, and its looking kind of rough in spots goes to show how crazy the resources Hollywood has at its disposal are and how
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Kang Hyung-chul
Starring: Choi Seung-hyun | Kim In-kwon | Kim Joon-ho | Kim Yun-seok | Kwak Do-wan | Lee Dong-hwi | Sin Se-kyung
Jason says: “I appear to have really liked the first TAZZA movie (alternately called WAR OF FLOWERS and TAZZA: THE HIGH ROLLERS) when it played this festival eight years ago, although I don’t remember it well enough to remember whether
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Zaza Urushadze
Starring: Elmo Nüganen | Giorgi Nakashidze | Lembit Ulfsak | Misha Meskhi | Raivo Trass.
Kyle says: “TANGERINES is set in a rural village in Abkhazia, which considers itself independent, and which Georgia considers part of its territory. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 resulted in dozens of local conflicts, and this one is
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Sean Baker
Starring: James Ransone | Karren Karagulian | Kitana Kiki Rodriguez | Mickey O’Hagan | Mya Taylor
Jason says: “One almost wants TANGERINE to get through its entire length without any sort of real consequences, because the movie Sean Baker has built moves forward with such great chaotic energy that actually slowing down enough for someone to
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.9
Director: Imtiaz Ali
Starring: Deepika Padukone | Ishtiyak Khan | Javed Sheikh | Piyush Mishra | Ranbir Kapoor
Jason says: “It had been a while since I last saw a big Bollywood romantic comedy with singing, dancing, and a little bit of everything, and after seeing TAMASHA…well, it’s still been a while since I’ve seen that sort of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Adam Gierasch | Andrew Kasch | Axelle Carolyn | Darren Lynn Bousman | Dave Parker | John Skipp | Lucky McKee | Mike Mendez | Neil Marshall | Paul Solet | Ryan Schifrin
Starring: Adrienne Barbeau | Barry Bostwick | Booboo Stewart | Grace Phipps | Greg Grunberg | Lin Shaye | Lisa Marie
Jason says: “It may seem like splitting hairs, but this anthology from eleven noteworthy filmmakers working in the horror genre is much more a ‘Halloween’ movie than ‘horror’, if you get the distinction: It, like the holiday, is more about
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Dominic Brunt
Starring: Adam Fogerty | Joanne Mitchell | Jonathan Slinger | Rula Lenska | Victoria Smurfit
Jason says: “There are movies that offer stronger lessons on why a film should not have a flash-forward to nearly the end unless there’s a really clever twist to be revealed than THE TAKING, as indicated by the fact that
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Sion Sono
Starring: Erina Mano | Mariko Shinoda | Reina Triendl | Yuki Sakurai
Jason says: “TAG is the most recent of three films at the festival by Sion Sono, who is having an absurdly productive year (four films total released in 2015!), and there are points where it seems like this frantic pace
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Jacob Gentry
Starring: AJ Bowen | Brianne Davis | Chad McKnight | Michael Ironside | Scott Poythress
Jason says: “There’s not really a glut of movies like this one out there, although if you spend enough time watching modestly-budgeted science fiction you’ll see a fair number of people try to make something that needs the T axis
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Rating: 0 cats
Director: James McTeague
Starring: Dylan McDermott | Frances de la Tour | Milla Jovovich | Pierce Brosnan | Robert Forster | Roger Rees
Kyle says: “So stupid or craven or both is virtually every single person working for the laughingly labelled intelligence services in both America and England that I experienced my own version of SURVIVOR guilt for sitting through this insult to
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.9
Director: Joshua (Xiaoxing) Yi
Starring: Bai Ke White | Joshua Yi | Liuxun Zimo | Ma Tianyu | Mike D. Angelo | Yang Zishan
Jason says: “Though appearing on many American marquees as simply SURPRISE, I think the full title of this movie is SURPRISE YOU’LL NEVER THINK OF: JOURNEY TO THE WEST, and something appears to be lost in translation there. Think of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: J. Hanna
Starring: Andre Antwan | Barrett Mitchell | Bill Ferris | Emily Sandifer | Eryn Joslyn | Milena Mortati | Nicol Razon
Jason says: “The trick to something like I WAS A TEENAGE SUPERHERO SIDEKICK is to do at least a little more than just poke fun at comic-book clichés, both because there’s no real accomplishment in replacing fun with smugness and
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Partho Sen-Gupta
Starring: Adil Hussain | Esha Amiani | Gulnaaz Ansari | Komal Gupta | Tannishta Chatterjee
Jason says: “Writer/director Partho Sen-Gupta takes certain things very literally in SUNRISE but it’s kind of a delight when he does, because the effect is nifty and exhilarating in the midst of a film that can use a bit of
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Christian Carroll
Starring: Adeline Thery | Brian Shoop | Christian Carroll | Katherine Boynton | Mathieu Lagarrigue | Quentin Brussieux
Jason says: “Christian Carroll hits a couple of things I really like in SUICIDE OR LULU AND ME IN A WORLD MEANT FOR TWO, enough that I can overlook its faults, probably better than many would. It’s a nifty little
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Debra Granick
Jason says: “You may have heard of director Debra Granik’s previous film, a great backwoods number called WINTER’S BONE that got a bunch of praise and is arguably the foundation for Jennifer Lawrence being as big a star as she
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Richard Glatzer | Wash Westmoreland
Starring: Alec Baldwin | Julianne Moore | Kate Bosworth | Kristen Stewart
Chris says: “Destined to be remembered for its outstanding lead performance and little else, STILL ALICE is a competent literary adaptation about a Columbia University linguistics professor diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Alice Howland is a juicy role
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Aaron Moorhead | Justin Benson
Starring: Lou Taylor Pucci | Nadia Hilker | Shane Brady | Vanessa Bednar
Jason says: “Every once in a while, a movie will be built in such a way to make you forget what sort of film you came in expecting to see, usually so that it can get a jolt out of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.2 cats
Director: Tom McCarthy
Starring: Brian d'Arcy James | JohnSlattery | Liev Schreiber | Mark Ruffalo | Michael Keaton | Rachel McAdams
Jason says: “SPOTLIGHT is not the sort of movie that is generally described as relentless, but what makes it great is that its makers are, in fact, unceasing and focused on their goal of depicting how a group of Boston
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Sean McNamara
Starring: Carlos PenaVega | David del Rio | George Lopez | Jamie Lee Curtis | Jose Julian | Oscar Gutierrez
Jason says: “If I believed in guilty pleasures, I might count movies like SPARE PARTS among them, even though there’s not much worth feeling bad about where it’s concerned. Sure, it breaks almost no new ground at all, following its
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: James Franco
Starring: Ahna O'Reilly | Danny McBride | James Franco | Joey King | Loretta Devine | Seth Rogen | Tim Blake Nelson
Thom says: “A year before this film, Franco had directed a brilliant adaptation of William Faulkner’s AS I LAY DYING, putting to rest any doubts that the right talent wouldn’t be able to make a film from Faulkner’s difficult, mesmerizing
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