Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Mathieu Amalric
Starring: Léa Drucker | Mathieu Amalric | Stéphanie Cléau
Jason says: “Georges Simenon wrote La Chambre Bleue (The Blue Room in English) about sixty years ago, and it appears to be the sort of elemental crime story where only small details need be changed to bring it into the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Starring: Amy Hargreaves | Brent Werzner | Devin Ratray | Eve Plumb | Kevin Kolack | Macon Blair | Stacy Rock
Jason says: “Say this for BLUE RUIN: It starts from a different place that many movies of its type, and that starting point means that even when it doesn’t necessarily go in a unique direction, it still winds up in
Read the review...Blind Detective (Hong Kong/China; 138 min.) directed by: Johnnie Tostarring: Andy Lau Tak-wah; Guo Tao; Sammi Cheng Sau-man; Lam Suet; Gao Yuan-Yuan Jason says: “I know that I have made comments about how it’s a shame that we’ll likely only
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kei’ichi Sato | Kentarô Ohtani
Starring: Ayame Gôriki | Hiro Mizushimal | Mizuki Yamamoto | Yûka
Jason says: “One of the women in front of me was throwing her hands up roughly every ten minutes or so during this movie, and I wondered off the top of my head whether she was just having a general
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Robert Lemelson
Jason says: “BITTER HONEY opens with a bit of informative text, including the fact that it was filmed over a seven-year period. It’s an odd bit of information to include, because while director Robert Lemelson does a fair job of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Starring: Amy Ryan | Damian Young | Ed Norton | Emma Stone | Merrit Wever | Michael Keaton | Susan Blackwell | Zach Galifianakis
Diane says: “Too bad I didn’t get it, before seeing BIRDMAN, that the real-life career of its star, Michael Keaton, peaked with the BATMAN movies. But the story of an actor trying to make a comeback–this time by writing, directing,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Pascale Ferran
Starring: Anaïs Demoustier | Geoffrey Cantor | Josh Charles | Radha Mitchell | Roschdy Zem | Taklyt Vongdara
Michael says: “I caught this unusual French film at the Toronto International Film Festival, and while the film overall is very good, it is most notable for a terrific performance by Josh Charles (most recently seen in ‘The Good Wife’)
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Eric Slade | Stephen Silha
Thom says: “It’s a rare film where I have a personal connection with the protagonist, no matter how small, which is the exact case here where for one semester on my way to my B.A. in Film from San Francisco
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Aharon Keshales | Navot Papushado
Starring: Doval’e Glickman | Dvir Benedek | Lior Ashkenzai | Menashe Noy | Rotem Keinan | Tzahi Grad
Jason says: “Even if Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado were just one filmmaking team out of many people making this sort of movie in Israel, BIG BAD WOLVES would be a pretty terrific movie, a step up from their already
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Philippe Le Guay
Starring: Camille Japy | Fabrice Luchini | Lambert Wilson | Maya Sansa
Bruce says: “Several years back, dogged director Phillippe Le Guay travelled to the Île de Ré near La Rochelle to deliver a script to actor Fabrice Luchini who was not returning his calls. Luchini, a well-known stage actor, had a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: AJ Edwards
Starring: Braydon Denney | Brit Marling | Cameron Mitchell Williams | Diane Kruger | Jason Clarke | Wes Bentley
Thom says: “This is the debut film from director Edwards and his love for the project is evident throughout this pastoral work. It takes place in 1817 in Indiana where the young Abe Lincoln is growing up over a 3-year
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Yuval Adler
Starring: George Iskander | Hisham Suliman | Hitham Omari | Michal Shtamler | Shadi Mar'i | Tarik Kopty | Tsahi Halevi
Kyle says: “The murky moral morass of murderous ages-old conflict between Jews and Arabs, and the seemingly never-ro-end war been Israel and Palestine, have brought us two of the year’s best films. The first is OMAR, about which Jason wrote
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Starring: Dermot Crowley | Donald Sutherland | Geoffrey Rush | Jim Sturgess | Kiruna Stamell | Sylvia Hoeks
Bruce says: “Virgil Oldman (Geoffrey Rush) is a preeminent expert in antiquities. He authenticates, appraises and auctions only the finest works of art. A confirmed bachelor, Oldman is a virgin who could easily be classified as a fetishist. He has
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Aron Gaudet | Gita Pullapilly
Starring: Aidan Gillen | Callan McAuliffe | Emory Cohen | Kymberli Bryant | Natalie Johnson | Zoe Levin
Jason says: “If you look at a map of Maine, you’ll find that the northern half of the state is primarily a grid of unincorporated rectangular territories without names, with a few slightly more inhabited towns hugging the Canadian order.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Flora Lau
Starring: Carina Lau | Chen Kun | Lawrence Cheng | Stephanie Che | Tian Yuan
Kyle says: “BENDS is the opening title of the seventh season of ContemporAsian screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Most films offer so little that it is tempting to go overboard in praising something as wonderful
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Amma Assante
Starring: Emily Watson | Gugu Mbatha-Raw | Matthew Goode | Sam Reid | Sarah Gadon | Tom Wilkinson
Jason says: “I don’t watch a lot of costume dramas or read the sort of classic romances that are this film’s close relations, so I’m not sure how often they are focused on matters of ritual and plotting and how
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Chen Sicheng
Starring: Carina Lau Ka-ling | Chen Sicheng | Nana Ou-young | Tong Liya | Tony Leung Ka-fai | Wang Xue-bing
Jason says: “BEIJING LOVE STORY tells five overlapping stories of romance, and it could have gotten by with just three or four: Some feel like fragments just meant to tie others together, and some could use a little more fleshing
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: John Carney
Starring: Adam Levine | Catherine Keener | Hailee Steinfeld | Keira Knightley | Mark Ruffalo | Yasiin ‘Mos Def’ Bey
Jason says: “I wonder if there’s something about making a movie about popular music that puts filmmakers into a zone where they don’t need to work in quite so straight a line – they’re already thinking in terms of coming
Read the review...Before I Go To Sleep (UK/France/Sweden; 92 min.) directed by: Rowan Joffestarring: Nicole Kidman; Colin Firth; Mark Strong; Ben Crompton; Anne-Marie Duff; Adam Levy Thom says: “Gorgeous, super-talented Nicole Kidman has had such a strange career. She did finally win
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mary Dore
Chris says: “The feminist movement’s early years (roughly 1966-71) seem like such a fruitful topic for a documentary that one wonders why it hasn’t been done before, or at least with the scope of Mary Dore’s thorough, entertaining and wonderfully-titled
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