Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Alec Su
Jason says: “Even after reading a description of this movie that I thought might give too much away and seeing the dedication at the start, I spent a good chunk of THE LEFT EAR thinking it was going to be
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Isabel Coixet
Chris says: “New York literary critic Wendy (Patricia Clarkson) breaks up with her longtime husband in the back of a cab after he confesses to cheating on her. Storming out of the car and into her apartment, she accidentally leaves
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Luo Luo
Jason says: “I am tempted, half as a joke and half dead serious, to write this review as six paragraphs of ‘Shu Qi is extremely pretty’, maybe with a different adjective or adverb swapped in every once in a while
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Richard Lagravenese
Bruce says: “Jason Robert Brown is on a roll. His ‘Bridges of Madison County’ debuted at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2013 before going to Broadway in the spring of 2014. Honeymoon in Vegas debuted at the Paper Mill Playhouse in
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Nicholas Hytner
Bruce says: “In 1970 playwright Alan Bennett moved into a small house in Camden Town, a then up-and-coming artsy neighborhood. Shortly thereafter Bennett noticed there was a van parked down the street and a feisty old woman seemed to be
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Nobuhiro Yamashita
Jason says: “The latest from the director of LINDA LINDA LINDA is another charmer about someone finding friends and himself (this time) through music, although its appeal won’t be limited to the too-small audiences who have seen the former. It’s
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Teddy Chan
Kyle says: “KUNG FU JUNGLE will appeal to fans of the great Hong Kong martial artist and movie star Donnie Yen (He also appropriately receives main title billing as ‘Action Director’.), but also to fans of director Teddy Chan, since
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: David Zeller
Starring: Ayaka Ohnishi | David Zellner | Kanako Higashi | Mayuko Kawakita | Nathan Zellner | Nobuyuki Katsube | Rinko Kikuchi | Shirley Venard
Chris says: “A beguiling mix of Aki Kaurismaki, David Lynch and Tsai Ming-Liang’ is what I tweeted moments after leaving the theatre. Looking back now, I’m not sure that description is on point, for this film doesn’t really feel like
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Bennett Jones
Jason says: “This review has been a long time coming, as BUFF is the third festival I’ve attended to play I AM A KNIFE WITH LEGS. I’ve watched the film at all three, but it’s the sort of weird movie
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Rating: 0 cats
Director: HKimo Stamboel | Timo Tjahja
Kyle says: “KILLERS is available in a censored 126-minute version, but this is the full monty. Even the helpless negligee-clad young Japanese female, being chased through the woods by a killer with a pillow case over his head, is subtitled,
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Kriv Stenders
Jason says: “True to its title, KILL ME THREE TIMES makes multiple passes through the story – once with a flash-forward to the end, once in basic fashion, and once in more detail – but this jumping back and forth
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Daniel Alfredson
Kyle says: “KIDNAPPING MR. HEINEKEN is an entirely forgettable ersatz crime film whose plot is contained in the title, and yes, it’s about THAT Mr. Heineken, played by Anthony Hopkins. The trivia section on the IMDB listing is more interesting
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Roger Allers
Jason says: “KAHLIL GIBRAN’S THE PROPHET is a labor of love for producer Salma Hayek, and like a fair number of those projects, it’s got some rough edges as the desire to realize a complicated project within a window of
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Daniel Barber
Jason says: “THE KEEPING ROOM is a nicely-built little thriller that takes place during the American Civil War and which uses the details of that period so well in moving the action forward that some might miss what makes it
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Andy Wachowski | Lana Wachowski
Thom says: “The most noted element of seeing this film is that now I can start my 2015 Film List as it was my first 2015 film. The Wachowski siblings (brother & now sister) are revered by quite a few
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Rating: 1 cat
Director: David O. Russell
Diane says: “Saw this one despite poor reviews. With Jennifer Lawrence in the lead, it can’t be all bad, right? Wrong! One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Lack of momentum in the story, dull characters, flat tone. Scenes
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Janet Chun Siu-jan
Jason says: “China seems to be producing a lot of movies like A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME WITH ANTHONY (slightly less unwieldy than the film’s Mandarin title, PEI AN DONG NI DU GUO MAN CHANG SUI YUE) lately, plucked from the
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Rating: 1.75
Director: Sanjay Gupta
Jason says: “I don’t know a lot about Bollywood, but there are a few names I recognize. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, top star often celebrated as one of the world’s most beautiful women and returning from a long maternity break; Irrfan
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Lisandro Alonso
Jason says: “JAUJA opens with an explanation of the title, a mythological land that was always somewhere over the horizon in Patagonia, although these things are always exaggerated. That’s probably the right ‘it’s not really totally real’ attitude to have
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Brett says: “In horror, in action/adventure, and in thrillers, the keystone premise of an external conflict that threatens protagonist(s) to an hyperbolic degree is one that has been recycled and reinvented many times in many different ways and always with
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