Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Ho-Cheung Pang
Starring: Carrie Ng | Eric Tsang | Gigi Leung | Louis Koo | Man-Tat Eng | Miriam Chin Wah Yeung
Jason says: “Is there a term for when directors like Pang Ho-cheung who have thrived, maybe not on the edge, but certainly in a part of the film industry where things are less polished and more open to eccentricity, do
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Alex Orr
Starring: Alex Orr | Dan Triandiflou | John Curran | Juduth Beasly | Katie Rowlett
Jason says: “Someday, Alex & Katie Orr’s first-born child is going to see this movie, and in my head it’s running fifty-fifty on whether they’ll have some explaining to do our whether they’ll just be the sort of weird parents
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ursula Long
Jason says: “9-MAN was the second film at the festival built around Chinese-American themes and it turns out to be an excellent pairing with THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO: Where TSO mainly concerned itself with history and adaptation, this movie
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.9
Director: Juan Carlos Maneglia | Tana Schembori
Starring: Celso Franco | Lali Gonzalez | Nico Garcia | Paletita | Victor Sosa
Julie says: “This one should have been nominated for buried treasure! I loved this! “Have there been any other Paraguayan movies that our group has seen? There are not a lot of them out there. “The film had some brilliant
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Joe Swanberg
Starring: Adam Wingard | Caroline White | Helen Rogers | Mike Brune | Simon Barrett | Sophia Takal
Jason says: “How prolific is independent filmmaker Joe Swanberg? His latest movie (as a director) started showing up on the festival circuit before his prior one hit theaters, and DRINKING BUDDIES wasn’t nearly as slow in moving through the system
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Iain Forsyth | Jane Pollard
Kyle says: “The closing night screening of the 43rd New Directors/New Films fittingly offered the feature film debut of British directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard — a documentary on Australian musician/composer/screenwriter/novelist/actor Nick Cave. Many fans admire him for his
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Felix Herngren
Jason says: “Sometimes you see a movie and don’t realize what it was missing until decades later, when someone else tries something similar but with an added extra ingredient. Such is the case with THE 100 YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.25
Director: Jérôme Salle
Starring: Conrad Kemp | Forest Whitaker | Orlando Bloom | Tinarie van Wyk Loots
Jason says: “That ZULU Is basically a mismatched-cop movie is not something that should be held against it; that’s a field-tested template which could prove a little more interesting than usual given this film’s South African setting. There’s usually something
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Andrew Matthews | Katie Graham
Starring: Anne Gee Byrd | Brock England | Cyndi Williams | Garrett Graham | Sam Eidson | Vincent James Prendergast
Jason says: “If I were the type of person to walk out of movies (and could have done it without disturbing the rest of the audience), I would have bolted ZERO CHARISMA. That’s not to say it’s a terrible movie;
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Tsui Hark
Starring: Angelababy | Carina Lau | Chao You-ting | Feng Shaofeng | Ling Geng-xin
Jason says: “I’ve got to confess: When I hoped for more Detective Dee movies after seeing MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME a couple years ago, I didn’t really think I’d get them. Happily, it seemed the people of China also
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Eytan Fox
Starring: Lior Ashkenazi | Ohad Knoller | Orly Silbersatz Banai | Oz Zehavi
Bruce says: “I’ll admit to a bit of skepticism when I saw that a sequel to Eytan Fox’s wonderful 2002 film YOSSI AND JAGGER would be made. Sequel can be a very bad word for a film buff. Very few
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Juan Carlos Fanconi
Starring: Alvaro Matute | Fabian Sales | Juan Pablo Olyslager | Rocio Carranza
Jason says: “EL XENDRA is impressively ambitious for a Honduran science fiction movie, and it actually does a better job of delivering on those ambitions than a lot of movies whose reviews start that way. It’s not necessarily going to
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Starring: Alexis Dziena | Eric Judor | Jack Plotnick | Mark Burnham | Regan Burns | Steve Little | William Fichtner
Jason says: “Even those who haven’t seen Quentin Dupieux’s previous feature-length bit of absurdity RUBBER can probably guess that this is going to be a strange movie from the title alone. The playful, cheery nature of the picture may be
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.75
Director: Catherine Corsini
Starring: Adele Haenel | Alban Aunard | Arta Dobroshi | Clotide Hesme | Raphaël Personnaz | Rasha Bukvic | Reda Kateb
Thom says: “”I had quite like Corsini’s LEAVING (2009) and went into this with my eyes wide open and was mostly satisfied. It’s the story of a man returning from his bachelor party with two friends who runs over an
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Terence Malick
Starring: Ben Afleck | Javier Bardem | Olga Kurylenko | Rachel MacAdams
Brett says: “Terrence Malick has a new film out. Did you take your pill this morning? “Malick’s TO THE WONDER follows in the footsteps of his previous works, that of a slow-paced stroll through a series of contemplations against the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Hou Chi-ja
Starring: Chien Man-shu | Kai Ko | Kuo Shu-yau | Nikki Hsieh | Tsai Chen--nan
Kyle says:”A welcome respite from gangsters and ninjas, the New York premiere of this delightfully whimsical comedy is the remarkably assured work of director Hou Chi-jan, who directed the insightful documentary on Taiwanese cinema history called TAIWAN BLACK MOVIES —
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Kim Nguyen
Starring: Alain Lino | Mic EliBastien | Mizinga Mwinga | Rachel Mwanza | Ralph Prosper | Serge Kanyinda
Beth Ca says: “My goodness! This is a wonderful film! It’s amazingly beautiful and emotional!! I have to stop using exclamation points!!!! I’ve seen so many films this year I think are my favorite, but this one has stampeded past
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Kieran Darcy-Smith
Starring: Antony Starr | Felicity Price | Joel Edgerton | Teresa Palmer
Jason says: “WISH YOU WERE HERE pulls off something of a neat trick, even if it doesn’t always mean to: The filmmakers might not have anticipated Joel Edgerton and Teresa Palmer getting top billing Stateside (they’ve each put on North
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Alexie Gilmore | Bryce Johnson
Jason says: “Ever since THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT kickstarted the boom in found-footage horror a decade and a half ago, there’s been a tendency to make the form ever more elaborate, until the likes of CLOVERFIELD and TROLLHUNTER are basically
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ben Nabors
Jason says: “WILLIAM AND THE WINDMILL does not so much tell the tale of a boy who builds a windmill to generate electricity for his poor village as one that has built such a windmill. After all, that’s the sort
Read the review...