Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1.75
Director: Ralph Ziman
Starring: Callan McAuliffe | Carl Beukus | Deon Lutz | India Eisley | Samuel L. Jackson
Jason says: “This live-action adaptation of Yasuomi Umetsu’s animated series has apparently been in development for fifteen years, and the end result is one to make you wonder why certain projects persist and eventually get made in some form while
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Mami Sunada
Jason says: “THE KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND MADNESS is sometimes described as ‘a year in the life of Studio Ghibli’, and one which is potentially its last year as an active production house. Many fans will likely be fascinated to
Read the review...To Kill a Man (Chile; 82 min.) directed by: Alejandro Fernández Almendrasstarring: Daniel Candia; Daniel Antivilo; Ariel Mateluna,; Alejandra Yañez Kyle says: “TO KILL A MAN sets up the conventions of a revenge thriller and takes us in an unexpected
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Robert May
Jason says: “‘Kids For Cash!’ makes a great tabloid headline – heck, it looks good on a broadsheet when something akin to the scandal that this movie documents is discovered. It may not be the best title for this particular
Read the review...Kept (Japan; 71 min.) directed by: Maki Mizuistarring: Momoha; Ken Koba; Kayano; Iona; Fuzuki Jason says: “The folks who made KEPT don’t usually do this sort of thing; their names usually show up on light-hearted but bloody genre movies. The
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Jim Mickle
Starring: Don Johnson | Michael C. Hall | Nick Damici | Sam Shepard | Vinessa Shaw | Wyatt Russell
Jason says: “Joe R. Lansdale is a writer much beloved by crime & horror fans but who has never really broken through to mainstream recognition the way contemporaries like Steven King and Clive Barker have; Jim Mickle is an independent
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: David Dobkin
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton | Dax Shepard | Grace Zabriskie | Jeremy Strong | Robert Downey Jr | Robert Duvall | Vera Farmiga | Vincent D'Onofrio
Thom says: “This is a bulging, pompous, treacly mess of a film that has big bucks written all over it. Here Downey Jr. (he takes his A-List status very seriously these days) plays a Chicago defense lawyer of dubious moral
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Derek Kwok | Stephen Chow
Starring: Chen Bing Qiang | Huang Bo | Show Luo | Shu Qi | Wen Zhang
Kyle says: “JOURNEY TO THE WEST is a wild comedic fantasy based on a 16th century Chinese text that occupies a significant place in Chinese culture and has been adapted many times for many different media. In the New Directors/New
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: JB Sapienza | Phil Healy
Jason says: “I wonder where filmmakers start and wind up, in terms of motivation and attitude, when making something like MY NAME IS JONAH. It seems awfully cynical if the final product is what they envisioned, but if not… Well,
Read the review...Jon Imber’s Left Hand (UK; 57 min.) directed by: Richard Kanestarring: Deborah Wye; Jill Hoy; John Yau; John Stromberg; Jon Imber Jason says: “I can’t claim to have much of a grasp on Join Imber’s place in the world of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Adriene Mishler | Gary Poulter | Nicholas Cage | Ronnie Gene Blevins | Tye Sheridan
Jason says: “Look at JOE and you see a couple of people who haven’t necessarily done their best work for the past few years. Some will say director David Gordon Green’s PRINCE AVALANCHE was a return to form after a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Kieran Turner
Bruce says: “The hype machine is usually associated with success stories. JOBRIATH A. D. is a fascinating documentary about a colossal failure in spite of tremendous hype. Jobriath (rhymes with Goliath) Salisbury was the stage name chosen by Bruce Wayne
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1.25 cats
Director: Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad
Starring: Dominic Rains; Serinda Swan; Ray Park; William Atherton; Faran Tahir
Jason says: “This is a terrible little supernatural thriller, one of the more clumsily executed movies I’ve seen at a mainstream multiplex in some time. It’s bad enough that one really doesn’t need to get into how timid it is
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Starring: Benicio Del Toro | Gina McKee | Mathieu Amalric | Michelle Thrush | Misty Upham
Jason says: “Early on in JIMMY P., a character apologizes for the way he tells, and it’s a bit of an odd moment, as he’s not the one whose manner of speech is likely to give a modern audience pause.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Ilan Duran Cohen
Starring: Audrey Dana | Aurélien Recoing | Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet | Laurent Lucas | Pascal Greggory
Kyle says: “THE JEWISH CARDINAL disappoints in the way of most fictional accounts of real people and events: The messiness of life must be reduced to the neatness of fiction. This account of the relationship between Jean-Marie Aaron Lustiger, Archbishop
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Tudor Cristian Jurgiu
Kyle says: “THE JAPANESE DOG is yet another outstanding film from what cineastes refer to as either the Romanian New Wave or the New Romanian Cinema. The title refers to a plastic toy dog that waddles, flashes lights, talks ‘baby
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Trevor White
Starring: James Woods | Mary-Louise Parker | Spencer Lofranco | Taissa Farmiga | Ving Rhames
Kyle says: “‘All I want is a normal life.’ The moment this line is delivered by James (Spencer Lofranco) in the running time of JAMESY BOY is startling, first because every action and character preceding has made sure this is
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Riad Sattouf
Jason says: “The fact that the satire in JACKY IN THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN so often seems silly rather than particularly cutting might just be the most damning indictment of entrenched gender roles that there is; the whole thing seems
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Laurent Cantet
Bruce says: “No one can accuse Laurent Cantet of making the same film over and over. Although his first film was not even released in his home country, his auspicious second feature HUMAN RESOURCES (1999) resonated with filmgoers around the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Ralph Fiennes
Starring: Amanda Hale | Felicity Jones | Joanna Scanlan | John Kavanagh | Kristin Scott Thomas | Perdita Weeks | Ralph Fiennes | Tom Hollander
Jason says: “It’s been far too long since I’ve read far too little Dickens, but that actually matters not a whit in appreciating THE INVISIBLE WOMAN; though knowing some details of his work certainly will help, this story of him
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