Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Shahram Mokri
Kyle says: “FISH & CAT is writer/director Shahram Mokri’s second feature film. Ostensibly a horror film involving an out-of-the-way restaurant in Iran closed for serving ‘non-animal meat’ also known as a cannibal establishment, the proprietors cross paths with a group
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Charlie Siske | John Maloof
Julie says: “FINDING VIVIAN MAIER is an intriguing documentary that takes you on the film maker’s search to piece together the life of Vivian Maier, a prolific photographer who was never recognized in life for her photographs, and who allegedly
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.9
Director: Ben Wheatley
Starring: Michael Smiley | Peter Ferdinando | Reece Shearsmith | Richard Glover | Ryan Pope
Jason says: “Having an annual pass to the Brattle Theater means that it’s no big deal to come back the next night when the attempt to see three movies after a full day in the office means that something gets
Read the review...Faults (USA; 89 min.) directed by: Riley Stearns starring: eland Orser; Mary Elizabeth Winstead; Chris Ellis; Beth Grant; Lance Reddick; Jon Gries Jason says: “FAULTS feels like it should be something along the lines of THE LAST EXORCISM, not so
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lee Jae-kyu
Starring: Cho Jung-seok | Han Ji-min | Hyun-bin | Jung Jae-young | Park Sung-woong | Song Young-chang
Jason says: “Palace intrigue stories, no matter what the culture, tend to develop over time, playing out in subtle ways requiring either inner monologues or exposition that doesn’t necessarily fit well into a movie. There are good ones, but it’s
Read the review...Fat Shaker (Iran; 85 min.) directed by: Mohammed Shirvanistarring: Levon Haftvan; Navid Mohammadzadeh; Maryam Palizban Bruce says: “FAT SHAKER is a film that will have you scratching your head both during and after the screening. Trying to make sense of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Homi Adajania
Starring: Arjun Kapoor | Deepika Padukone | Dimple Kapadia | Naseeruddin Shah | Pankaj Kapur
Jason says: “After a year or so of going to the Indian movies at the local multiplex, one gets a certain idea of what to expect, generally a musical masala picture that’s odd by conventional Hollywood standards. Sometimes, though, you
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Amanda Ryan | Brendan Muldooney | Emma Eliza Regan | Pollyanna Mackintosh | Robert de Hoog | Tom Leick
Jason says: “I didn’t quite avoid LOVE ETERNAL when it played at another festival last year, but I certainly didn’t have much trouble choosing what was on the other screen whenever the Irish death-fetish film was playing. I’m not saying
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Benjamin Renner | Stéphane Aubier | Vincent Patar
Starring: Anne-Marie Loop | Brigitte Virtudes | Lambert Wilson | Patrice Melennec | Pauline Brunner
Jason says: “You can’t decide a whole lot about the quality of one movie from the others it references, but it still has to be considered a pretty good sign when that a poster for A TOWN CALLED PANIC hangs
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Isabella Rossellini | Jake Gyllenhaal | Mélanie Laurent | Sarah Gadon
Diane says: “Alas, waste of time! Jake Gyllenhaal meets his doppelganger, but I didn’t find the two very different, despite one Jake wearing a tweed jacket and the other, leather. ENEMY opens with the tweedie already tired and depressed. Unfortunately,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Chiemi Karasawa
Bruce says: “Elaine Stritch has always maintained a ‘take no prisoners’attitude throughout her career so it is no surprise that she agreed to make this documentary with a caveat: ‘I don’t want this to be a fluff piece. It’s got
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Chad Archibald | Matt Wiele
Starring: Adam Seybold | Julian Richings | Lisa Houle | Mark Gibson
Jason says: “In the Q&A after the movie, the filmmakers described how EJECTA sort of came together as a sort of chimera, with its two distinct tracks being shot well apart and stitched together like a Frankenstein’s monster. It’s not
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Babak Najafi
Starring: Dejan Cukic | Dragomir Mrsic | Fares Fares’ | Joel Kinnaman | Joel Spira | Matias Varela
Jason says: “SNABBA CASH II was released under the title EASY MONEY: HARD TO KILL in the US last week a year and a half after it played in Sweden. This choice of date and title apparently driven by a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Frank Pavich
Kyle says: “Beloved of stoners and consumers of various mind-altering substances in the 1970s and beyond (full disclosure: myself included), Alejandro Jodorowsky is remembered as much for the paucity of his oeuvres, as for such classics as EL TOPO (1970)
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Richard Ayoade
Starring: Chris O’Dowd | James Fox | Jesse Eisenberg | Mia Wasikowska | Noah Taylor | Wallace Shawn
Jason says: “It says something, either about my expectations or what Richard Ayoade pulled off, that THE DOUBLE is actually more peculiar than I had figured on a movie about a man meeting a dead ringer who is his opposite
Read the review...Don’t Ask Me Questions: The Unsung Life of Graham Parker & The Rumour (USA; 95 min.) directed by: Michael Gramaglia documentary Thom says: “Earlier in my life nothing possessed me like music for a number of years & I went
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Richard Shepard
Starring: Demián Bichir | Emilia Clark | Jude Law | Jumayn Hunter | Richard E. Grant
Jason says: “Dom Hemingway feels like he’s the sort of character Jude Law could settle into and play for a while, so perhaps it’s only fitting that the movie itself plays like a couple episodes of a TV show that
Read the review...Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder (Norway; 87 min.) directed by: Arild Fröhlichstarring: Eilif Hellum Noraker; Emilly Glaister; Kristopher Joner; Marian Saastad Ottesen; Alte Antonsen Jason says: “All things considered, DOCTOR PROCTOR’S FART POWDER has got to be one of the least
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Volker Schlöndorff
Starring: André Dussollier | Burghart Klaußner | Johannes Klaußner | Niels Arstrup | Robert Stadlober | Thomas Arnold
Thom says: “While director Schlöndorff doesn’t have quite the cachet of contemporaries Herzog, Fassbinder, or Wenders he still has a fairly consistent track record with THE TIN DRUM, YOUNG TORLESS, THE LOST HONOUR OF KATHARINA BLUM, COUP DE GRACE, CIRCLE
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Alessandro Nivola | Colin Firth | James Hamrick | Kristopher Higgins | Reese Witherspoon | Seth Meriwether
Michael says: “For his latest film, Atom Egoyan tackled the controversial true story of the West Memphis Three, a court case about the shocking murder of three young boys. Three young men were targeted as the murderers because of the
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