Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: David Rühm
Starring: Cornelia Ivancan | Dominic Oley | Jeanette Hain | Karl Fischer | Tobias Moretti
Jason says: “The title of THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE (‘DER VAMPIR AUF DER COUCH’ in the original German) suggests something that may not quite be hackneyed, although I’m sure I’ve seen a vampire getting psychoanalysis before, but which is a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Johnnie To
Starring: Chow Yun-fat | Eason Chan Yik-shun | Lang Yue-ting | Sylvia Chang Ai-chia | Tang Wei | Wang Zi-yi
Jason says: “As a fan of filmmakers giving me something great that I don’t necessarily expect, I was kind of already in the tank for OFFICE (aka GORGEOUS OFFICE WORKERS aka DESIGN FOR LIVING) – who expected the first time
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kristina Grozeva | Petar Valchanov
Starring: Ivan Barnev | Ivan Savov | Ivanka Bratoeva | Margita Gosheva | Stefan Denolyubov
Thom says: “I had a lot of mixed feelings about this laconic film. It’s obscure, dim, pastel color palette somehow melds well with its depressing, austere style that features an enormous number of obnoxious, repellent characters. An appealing teacher takes
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Naji Abu Nowar
Starring: Hassan Mutlag Al-Maraiyeh | Hussein Salameh Al-Sweihiyeen | Jacir Eid Al-Hweitat | Jack Fox
Jason says: “The Western never really dies; it just picks up and moves to unexpected places in unexpected forms. In this case, that’s a coming-of-age film set in Arabia, and it’s an impressive, thrilling piece of entertainment. “The year is
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2 cats
Director: Amit Sharma
Starring: Arjun Kapoor | Deepti Naval | Manoj Bajbayee | Raj Babbar | Shruti K. Haasan | Sonakshi Sinha
Jason says: “There is a lot of bloat in TEVAR, a 157-minute Bollywood ‘thriller’ that could be remade as a direct-to-video action flick roughly half that length without particularly suffering for the revision. It’s all well and good to have
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: David Felix Sutcliffe | Lyric R. Cabral
Jason says: “I suspect that many watching (T)ERROR, even with plentiful assurances to the contrary, will be expecting that, by the end, a curtain will be pulled back to reveal the film as fictitious, heavy on re-enactments, or some other
Read the review...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
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
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
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
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
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
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
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