Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Starring: Brie Larson | Jacob Tremblay | Joan Allen | Rom McCanus | Sean Bridgers | Wendy Crewson | William H. Macy
Diane says: “Hey, fans of the book–you won’t be disappointed. I’ll be giving ROOM noms for Best Adapted Screenplay (happily, by the book’s author and Best Actress. This movie was as emotionally intense as any I’ve seen. As THE ROAD
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lee Ka-wing
Jason says: “ROBBERY is one of several movies in the festival that I didn’t expect to be nearly as funny as it wound up being, and unlike HE NEVER DIED, this is full-out anything goes material, going for the big
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Gren Wells
Kyle says: “The first line of dialogue in THE ROAD WITHIN takes place during a funeral service, as a young man with Tourette’s Syndrome shouts out at the presiding priest, ‘Shut up, fucking pedophile!’ After a few more wildly inappropriate
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Rating: 0 cats
Director: Helen Hunt
Kyle says: “35 minutes into the seemingly interminable running time of the twaddle titled RIDE, which accurately describes what anyone who sits through this is being taken for, I had exhausted the wait for one single believable moment, curiosity about
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Rating: 1 cat
Director: Fouad Mikati
Kyle says: “If you’ve been longing for a movie about rape and revenge, this one is for you. I extend my apologies for allowing my impatience with films like this to repeating IMDB ‘Plot Keywords’ instead of venting purple prose
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Starring: Alain Chabat | Elodie Bouchez | John Glover | Jon Hader | Jonathan Lambert | Kyla Kenedy
Jason says: “A sad thing about how peculiar movies like those made by Quentin Dupieux are likely to be more readily available to a larger audience via the various on-demand services is that I’m certain that, at some point while
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Kevin Derek
Jason says: “There have always been a fair number of documentaries like THE REAL MIYAGI, but I wonder if there are a lot more in the future. Equipment to shoot/record fairly well in 2K is readily available, if not quite
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Alex Ross Perry
Kyle says: “QUEEN OF EARTH opens with a closeup of the tear-stained face and disheveled hair of Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) sobbing bitterly while asking, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ The ‘you’ is boyfriend James (Kentucker Audley), and we
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Taisuke Kawamura
Jason says: “Though the audience for comic books in America – and symbiotically, comic-book movies – has been growing broader in the past few years, the variety of material has lagged a bit, and we’ll probably never catch up to
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Rating: 1 cat
Director: Christopher Denham
Starring: Aaron Staton | Cody Saintgnue | Michael Chacon | Nick Saso | Pablo Schreiber | Wrenn Schmidt
Kyle says: “I pulled up the IMDB listing before watching PRESERVATION. As soon as I read the Plot Keywords (singing in a car, hunting trip, hairy chest, self surgery, hiding in a sewer pipe — there are actually 126), and
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Samuel Ortí Martí
Jason says: “There are some spoofs that cast such a broad net for their targets that they maybe slip out of the category of parody altogether, and then there are things like POSSESSED which is clearly one-third THE EXORCIST, one-third
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Philip Yung Chi-kwong
Jason says: “PORT OF CALL looks like it’s going to be a police procedural, and certainly acts like one during the early going. But then the answer to ‘who killed Wang Jiamei?’ presents itself, and Aaron Kwok’s Inspector Chong keeps
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Yûichi Satô
Jason says: “I’m not sure when INSIDE OUT opened in Japan, but I do wonder how many folks there saw it as less incredibly creative and insightful compared to their American counterparts, considering that the Poison Berry in My Brain
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Shoojit Shircar
Jason says: “Even if you’re not a real fan of Indian film but just sort of generally aware of it (and maybe not even that), the cast of PIKU should make you take note: Amitabh Bachchan is an institution who
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Christian Petzold
Starring: Felix Römer | Imogen Kogge | Michael Maertens | Nina Hoss | Nina Kunzendorf | Ronald Zehrfeld | Trystan Pütter
Jason says: “In a happy coincidence, the local boutique multiplex was playing PHOENIX and the new restoration of THE THIRD MAN in adjacent theaters on the night when I saw the former, and the pair would make a fantastic double feature:
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: James C. Strouse
Michael says: “When Will walks in on his wife Charly having just had sex with another man on their twin daughters’ fifth birthday he is thrown for a loop. A year later, he is still having trouble letting go. He
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Bard Barber | Scott Christopherson
Jason says: “‘Dub’ Lawrence is a disconcertingly cheerful face with which to sell the idea that the militarization of American police forces is out of hand; it’s a serious, life-and-death subject to which he has a highly personal connection, and
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: John Turk | Keith Nickoson
Jason says: “It’s not quite ideal that my strongest reaction to PARALLEL is to note its strong fundamentals – that the filmmakers keep a potentially-confusing picture clear is great, but this is a love story; shouldn’t that be what sticks
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Dong Chengpeng
Jason says: “I doubt that JIAN BING MAN will be a part of the next International Pancake Film Festival (a real thing in Boston and Chicago, look it up!); there just isn’t enough pancake content to justify adding a feature
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Rating: 1 cat
Director: Nick Powell
Kyle says: “For the ‘New Rules’ segment of his hit HBO show REAL TIME, comedian Bill Maher has found considerable merriment in making fun of actors attempting to portray gravitas by affecting a British accent, and in pointing out how
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