Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.8 cats
Director: Dante Lam
Starring: Christie Chen Si-xuan | Daniel Wu Yin-cho | Dominc Lam Ka-wah | Fung So-po | Nick Cheung Ka-fai
Jason says: “You can tell from the opening moments of THAT DEMON WITHIN that it’s not going to be your standard cops ‘n robbers movie, and it’s sure not going to stand out for how grounded and realistic it is.
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Rating: 1.75
Director: Michael J. Epstein | Sophia Cacciola
Jason says: “By the time TEN is over, it has maybe managed to beat its story into making some kind of sense, or at least into the kind of nonsense that the audience can sort of work with. That’s probably
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Isao Takahata
Starring: Aki Asakura | Hikaru Ijûin | Nobuko Miyamoto | Takei Chii | Yukiji Asaoka
Jason says: “Though Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement from directing animated features with THE WIND RISES deserved all the attention it got last year, there is somewhat less noise being made about Isao Takahata’s swan song, THE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA, though
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Jennifer M. Kroot
Jason says: “For a while, I found George Takei’s twenty-first century career little more than tacky, an old man who was one a minor part of a pop culture phenomenon becoming a parody of himself in an effort to hang
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Christopher Menaul
Starring: Dan Stevens | Daphne Neville | Dominic Cooper | Jane Cussons
Jason says: “SUMMER IN FEBRUARY takes place in 1913 Cornwall, which had become an artists’ colony, and in some ways that community is more interesting than any of the people in it. There’s nothing wrong with the story the filmmakers
Read the review...Suck it Up Buttercup (USA; 87 min.) directed by: Malindi Ficklestarring: Robyn Ross; Gregory Konow; Lacy Marie Meyer; Alex Raymond; Brian Stuart Boyd; Steven Durgarn Lorraine says: “SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP premiered at the Bare Bones International Film and Music
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Richard Bates Jr
Jason says: “According to the post-movie Q&A, writer/director Richard Bates Jr. initially couldn’t get any projects off the ground after EXCISION, in part because that movie, despite garnering many positive reviews and festival awards, was just absurdly dark. So for
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Stuart Acher
Starring: Abraham Benrubi | Joel David Moore | Madeline Zima
Jason says: “Given that its name is a hashtag, one might expect #STUCK to have social media play some sort of central part of the story, and maybe cringe at the inevitable mishandling. Fortunately, filmmaker Stuart Acher doesn’t choose to
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Alain Guiraudie
Starring: Christophe Paou | Jean-Christophe Deladonchamps | Jérôme Chappatte | Patrick d'Assumçao
Kyle says: “New York Film Festival Selection Committee member Dennis Lim tells the audience: ‘I’ve been waiting to see this on a big screen ever since the Cannes Film Festival!’ His words promise size as well as artiness. The program
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Bruno Forzani | Hélène Cattet
Starring: Anna D'Annunzio | Birgit Yew | Hans de Munter | Joe Koener | Klaus Tange | Ursula Bedena
Kyle says: “A terrible title that will be shunned by all except artsy foreign film junkies, THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS is a deconstruction of the giallo genre. The word refers to the color yellow, which apparently was
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Ramon Zürcher
Starring: Gustav Körner | Lea Draeger | Leon Alan Beiersdorf | Matthias Dittmer | Mia Kasalo | Monika Hetterle
Kyle says: “THE STRANGE LITTLE CAT is the assured feature film debut of writer/director Ramon Zürcher. The title is somewhat misleading, because the German DAS MERKWÜRDIGE KÄTZCHEN also means ‘remarkable’ or ‘noteworthy’ little cat, not our word ‘strange’ that usually
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Albert Serra
Kyle says: “STORY OF MY DEATH is the work of a true provocateur, and it is much easier to quote what Albert Serra says than to describe what he does. He gleefully quotes a friend saying that ‘this is a
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Roberto Minervini
Starring: Colby Trichell | Grace Carlson | Katarina Carlson | LeeAnne Carlson | Sara Carlson | Tim Carlson
Kyle says: “I quote the first sentence of the New Directors/New Films program notes: ‘Sara (Sara Carlson, playing herself) is part of a devout Christian goat-farming family with 12 children, all home-schooled and raised with strict moral guidance from the
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jin-sung Choi
Starring: Chang-gil Moon | King Kwab-sub | Oh Hee-Joon | Shi-hoo Kim | So-dam Park | Yun-hea Kim
Jason says: “Apparently the literal translation of this movie’s Korean title (‘SONYEO’) is simply ‘Girl’. Fair enough, and evocative in its own way; maybe in some ways a little better than the English-language title it’s been given for the festival
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Wiebke von Carolsfeld
Starring: Aidan Quinn | Barry Keoghan | Brian Gleeson | Carrie Crowley | Michael Ironside | Nika McGuigan | Taylor Schilling
Michael says: “STAY is the long-awaited second narrative feature from Chlotrudis winner and friend, Wiebke von Carolsfeld. It comes ten years after her powerful debut, MARION BRIDGE, and while STAY may not pack the emotional or dramatic punch as the
Read the review...Starry Eyes (USA; 98 min.) directed by: Dennis Widmyer & Kevin Kölsch starring: DAlex Essoe; Amanda Fuller; Noah Segan; Fabianne Therese; Shane Coffey; Pat Healy Jason says: “I am going to guess that the makers of STARRY EYES have not
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.25
Director: Fedor Bondarchuk
Starring: Aleksey Barabash | Andrey Smolyakov | Mariya Smoinikova | Thomas Kretschmann | Yanina Studilina
Jason says: “Columbia Pictures is releasing Russian blockbuster STALINGRAD almost entirely in 3D on Imax screens, and I only include that ‘almost’ just to cover all bases. This is not a bad strategy, as this is the sort of film
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Ben Rivers | Ben Russell
Kyle says: “A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS is an experimental documentary that centers on musician Robert A.A. Lowe of ‘Lichens’ and ‘Om’ but investigates in a three-part structure the idea of humanity’s search for utopia. The first section
Read the review...Soulmate (UK; 104 min.) directed by: Axelle Carolyn starring: Anna Walton; Tom Wisdom; Tanya Myers; Nick Brimble Jason says: “What is a ghost? Potentially anything a writer wants, but probably the strongest way to use this particular bit of supernatural
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Kris Elgstrand
Starring: Arabella Bushnell | Brad Dryborough | Ross Smith
Chris says: “BEGIN AGAIN, John Carney’s follow-up film to ONCE originally sported the far more on-the-nose title CAN A SONG SAVE YOUR LIFE? when it played the festival circuit. It’s a phrase Carol (Arabella Bushnell), the quietly acerbic lead of
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