Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Signe Baumane
Jason says: “I want to champion ROCKS IN MY POCKETS; it is a striking animated film made with adults in mind, and one that tackles a difficult but important subject head-on. The world needs movies like that. The thing is,
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Director: Raymond De Felitta
Starring: Andy Garcia | Frank Whaley | Griffin Dunne | Michael Pitt | Nina Arianda | Ray Romano
Toni says: “The worst thing about a Buried Treasure eligible film ($208K made in the US) like ROB THE MOB is its title, directed by Raymond De Felitta who made CITY ISLAND. “While it does describe what the film is
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Andrew Lau
Starring: Billy Magnussen | Harry Shum Jr. | Jin Auyuen | Justin Chon | Kevin Wu | Leonard Wu | Ray Liotta
Jason says: “Don’t let some of the pedigree that REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS can whip out fool you – executive producer/’presenter’ Martin Scorsese and co-director Andrew Lau have made some transcendent gangster movies, but this one is more or
Read the review...The Return to Homs (Syria/Germany; 94 min.) directed by: Talal Derki documentary Kyle says: “THE RETURN TO HOMS is one of the great documentaries on war — horrifying, infuriating, haunting. It takes place over a two-year period from August 2011
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lee Ju-hyoung
Starring: Jung Woo | Kim Yu-mi | Oh Jae-moo | Park Myung-shin | Park So-young | Son Byung-ho
Jason says: “There have been many, many films built around the twin premises that the family next door that’s too perfect to be true really isn’t, and that they have their own problems. RED FAMILY doesn’t go a completely new
Read the review...The Reconstruction of William Zero (USA; 98 min.) directed by: Dan Bushstarring: Conal Byrne; Amy Seimetz; Adam Fristoe; Tim Habeger; Melissa McBride Jason says: “As much as it’s fun to be one of the first people to see a movie,
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Josh C. Waller
Starring: Bailey Anne Borders | Doug Jones | Rebecca Marshall | Sherilyn Fenn | Tracie Thoms | Zoe Bell
Jason says: “The problem with RAZE ultimately, is that it’s boring. It’s got a good cast that executes some good action, but this is a movie that lacks one single moment of surprise in its stupid story. And when a
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Jonathan Tiplitzky
Starring: Colin Firth | Hiroyuki Sanada | Jeremy Irvine | Nicole Kidman | Stellan Skarsgaard | Tanroh Ishida
Jason says: “This is a movie seemingly designed for awards consideration that the Weinstein Company released in April, and while that may just be an example of them deciding another horse was a safer bet… Well, PHILOMENA was the safer
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Andrei Gruzsniczki
Kyle says: “Students of Latin and mathematical and philosophical arguments will know QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM by its more familiar abbreviation QED, meaning ‘that which has been demonstrated.’ It is an essential journey into the Romanian New Wave by way of
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Gregory Levasseur
Starring: Amir K | Ashley Hinshaw | Christa Nicola | Denis O’Hare | James Buckley
Jason says: “I can (and to a certain extent, will) rattle off the ways that THE PYRAMID is disappointing, subpar, and lucky to find a particularly barren release date in order to avoid a direct-to-VOD fate. But even though I
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Eisuke Naitô
Starring: Baku Ohwada | Kaho | Kazuya Takahashi | Kokone Sasaki | Ryuzo Tanaka | Shûhei Nomura
Jason says: “I’m sure that the title of PUZZLE was supposed to describe the sensation of watching it to a certain extent, although there were several times that I think filmmaker Eisuke Naito may not necessarily have meant to set
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Pau Teixidor
Starring: Ana Fernández | Andrés Gertrúdix | Oona Chaplin | Sergi Mendez
Jason says: “Though it’s not uncommon to encounter one that makes a good case for its greater length at all, most horror movies would be best served running seventy-five to eighty minutes, long enough to set a story up, make
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Zack Parker
Starring: Alexa Havins | Alexia Rasmussen | Joe Swanberg | Kristina Klebe
Jason says: “Give PROXY filmmaker Zack Parker this: Unlike many movies that wind up labeled ‘horror’, his delivers something that its audience will want to put out of their heads afterward because it doesn’t bear thinking about. Unfortunately, he keeps
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jenée LaMarque
Starring: Carroll Lynch | Frankie Shaw | Jake Johnson | Jeremy Howard | Ron Livingston | Zoe Kazan
Jason says: “It sometimes feels like Jenée LaMarque could have done more with THE PRETTY ONE; the idea of one identical twin taking the place of the other is certainly not new, but it’s the sort of plot device that
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Christopher Denham
Jason says: “Wilderness survival movies don’t get much more basic than PRESERVATION, which takes this budget-friendly premise and builds a passable movie out of it. It’s not going to change the genre, or even necessarily stand out as particularly innovative
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael Spierig | Peter Spierig
Starring: Christopher Kirby | Ethan Hawkes | Noah Taylor | Sarah Snook
Jason says: “If they have any ambition at all, both good and bad time-travel movies make the viewer’s head hurt a little bit thinking about how the plot fits together; the good ones make the us like it. By that
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lee Suk-hoon
Starring: Kim Nam-gil | Kim Tae-woo | Lee Kyoung-young | Son Ye-jin
Jason says: “That they can be given names as generic as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN or, in this case, just THE PIRATES without fear of confusion means just one thing: There are not enough pirate movies being made these days.
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Michael Tully
Starring: Amy Sedaris | Emmi Shockley | John Hannah | Joseph McCaughtry | Lea Thompson | Marcelo Conte | Myles Massey | Robert Longtreet | Susan Sarandon
Jason says: “PING PONG SUMMER could probably stand to be cut down to half its length, which is a bit of a problem because it only runs 92 minutes as it is. Maybe the time it spends hanging out with
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Roy Andersson
Starring: Holger Andersson | Lotti Tōmros | Nils Westblom | Viktor Gyllenberg
Chris says: “Roy Andersson makes movies that could come from no other director. I suppose most film buffs can detect plentiful influences on his style: the more overtly comic works of Luis Bunuel and David Lynch, naturally fellow Swede Ingmar
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Eugenio Mira
Starring: Alex Winter | Allen Leach | Don McManus | Elijah Wood | John Cusack | Kerry Bishé | Tamsin Egerton
Jason says: “GRAND PIANO is evidence that, with enough creativity and energy, a clever filmmaker can make an exciting thriller out of what may seem like unlikely activities and situations. In this case, it’s a man playing classical piano before
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