Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.25
Director: Christopher Denham
Jason says: “Wilderness survival movies don’t get much more basic than PRESERVATION, which takes this budget-friendly premise and builds a passable movie out of it. It’s not going to change the genre, or even necessarily stand out as particularly innovative
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael Spierig | Peter Spierig
Starring: Christopher Kirby | Ethan Hawkes | Noah Taylor | Sarah Snook
Jason says: “If they have any ambition at all, both good and bad time-travel movies make the viewer’s head hurt a little bit thinking about how the plot fits together; the good ones make the us like it. By that
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lee Suk-hoon
Starring: Kim Nam-gil | Kim Tae-woo | Lee Kyoung-young | Son Ye-jin
Jason says: “That they can be given names as generic as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN or, in this case, just THE PIRATES without fear of confusion means just one thing: There are not enough pirate movies being made these days.
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Michael Tully
Starring: Amy Sedaris | Emmi Shockley | John Hannah | Joseph McCaughtry | Lea Thompson | Marcelo Conte | Myles Massey | Robert Longtreet | Susan Sarandon
Jason says: “PING PONG SUMMER could probably stand to be cut down to half its length, which is a bit of a problem because it only runs 92 minutes as it is. Maybe the time it spends hanging out with
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Roy Andersson
Starring: Holger Andersson | Lotti Tōmros | Nils Westblom | Viktor Gyllenberg
Chris says: “Roy Andersson makes movies that could come from no other director. I suppose most film buffs can detect plentiful influences on his style: the more overtly comic works of Luis Bunuel and David Lynch, naturally fellow Swede Ingmar
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Eugenio Mira
Starring: Alex Winter | Allen Leach | Don McManus | Elijah Wood | John Cusack | Kerry Bishé | Tamsin Egerton
Jason says: “GRAND PIANO is evidence that, with enough creativity and energy, a clever filmmaker can make an exciting thriller out of what may seem like unlikely activities and situations. In this case, it’s a man playing classical piano before
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Brett Ryan Bonowicz
Starring: Cheryl Nichols | Don McManus | James M. Connor | Kelton John | Whit Hertford
Jason says: “Science fiction on film often tends to be action-oriented, even when the filmmakers would really like to be focusing on an idea, if only because an hour and a half of someone spewing jargon is not a natural
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Mark Levinson
Jason says: “Lots of sci-fi movies will have scenes of scientists frantically scribbling on chalkboards, with the directors at a loss for how to make this exciting. I don’t envy them their task; it’s usually being done by a new
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Gia Coppola
Starring: Chris Messina | Emma Roberts | Jack Kilmer | James Franco | Nat Wolff | Val Kilmer
Jason says: “That James Franco always seems to have more ambition than one would think should have stopped surprising me a few of his less mainstream projects ago, but it hasn’t. It should no longer shock to see another member
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Rating: 4.6
Director: Jessie Moss
Jason says: “THE OVERNIGHTERS starts with economics on-screen and probably could have the same sort of genesis as a project: The fracking-based oil boom in North Dakota brings people there in search of jobs that pay well, but a lack
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Takashi Miike
Jason says: “In addition to his film work, Takashi Miike has directed a few stage productions, experience that he likely dipped into for OVER YOUR DEAD BODY (KUIME in Japanese). At times, I kind of wish that was where the
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Sang-soo Hong
Bruce says: “Critics, fans and detractors alike, have compared Hong Sang-soo to Yasujiro Ozu largely because he is perceived as making the same film over and over OUR SUNHI clearly has broken that mold if for no other reason than
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Aik Karapetian
Starring: Anita Aizupe | Aris Rozentals | Maxim Lazarev
Jason says: “Why, Fantasia (and other) programmers, do you insist on scheduling nearly wordless movies for 10pm (or later)? I get that they’re often enough of an acquired taste to keep out of prime time, but it can be rough
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Starring: Anton Yelchin | Jeffrey Wright | John Hurt | Mia Wasikowska | Tilda Swinton | Tom Hiddleston
Diane says: “Jim Jarmusch gives us another lovely, delicately realized, witty film. Thanks, Kyle, for your writing on the soundtrack. “I always wish that Tilda Swinton could be more chameleonic–that is, not be so obviously Tilda Swinton–but I have to
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Charlie McDowell
Starring: Elizabeth Moss | Mark Duplass | Marlee Matlin | Mary Steenburgen | Ted Danson
Jason says: “There are filmmakers that like to explain all the details of how their plot devices work, there are those who like to keep a little mystery, and then there are the makers of THE ONE I LOVE, who
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: David Frankel
Starring: Alexandra Roach | Colm Meaney | James Corden | Julie Walters | MacKenzie Crook | Trystan Gravelle
Jason says: “Once upon a time, the Weinstein brothers might have been able to make the pleasant-enough ONE CHANCE a sleeper hit, if not necessarily an awards contender; today they are barely able to get it noticed. And that’s not
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ching-Po Wong
Jason says: “Is Philip Ng the next big martial-arts action star to come out of China? It seems like we’ve been waiting for the generation that comes after Jet Li and Donnie Yen to show up for a while, and
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Emmanuelle Bercot
Starring: Camille | Catherine Deneuve | Claude Gensac | Gérard Garouste | Nemo Schiffman
Jason says: “At one point in ON MY WAY, Catherine Deneuve’s Bettie looks at the kid singing some English-language song in the passenger seat, then at the freeway outside the window, and grumbles that she feels like she’s in America.
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Starring: Adam Bakri | Iyad Hooran | Leem Labany | Samer Bisherat | Waleed Zuaiter
Jason says: “OMAR starts with its title character scaling a wall to travel between two Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, and while I don’t know the exact rationale for that arrangement, a spy movie can do a heck of a lot
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Benedikt Erlingsson
Kyle says: “OF HORSES AND MEN marks an impressive feature film debut by Icelandic stage director Benedikt Erlingsson, as well as film debuts by many of his theater actor colleagues. Beautifully conceived and observed, with the exquisite but forbidding landscapes
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