Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Sean Dunne
Jason says: “Addiction to prescription medication is hardly limited to rural America, but it thrives there. The reasons why communities like Oceana, West Viginia have such a serious problem with painkillers like Oxycontin are far from the first concern of
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Darren Paul Fisher
Starring: Charlie Rixon | Daniel Fraser | Dylan Llewellyn | Georgina Minter-Brown | Lily Laight | Owen Pugh
Jason says: “It is not necessarily difficult for an alternate-reality sci-fi film to hook an audience; it just needs a clever premise and the chance to present it in a familiar setting before playing out how strange it makes the
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Terence Nance
Starring: Alisa Becher | Dexter Jones | Jc Cain | Namik Minter | Talibah Lateefah Newman | Terence Nance
Jason says: “AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY began life as a short film, ‘How Would You Feel?’, and goes about building that work up to a feature in an unusual way, not so much expanding it but responding to it.
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Timothy Wheeler
Jason says: “Are you a swimmer?’ asked the man at the ticket booth who knew full well I was there because I had a season pass for this film series. I said I wasn’t, and he pointed out that even
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Kristin Scott Thomas | Ryan Gosling | Tom Burke | Vithaya Pansringarm | Yayaying Rhatha Phongam
Chris says: “ONLY GOD FORGIVES is similar to DRIVE, only without any redeemable characters, narrative momentum, or moral structure whatsoever. That may sound a little glib, but sadly, it’s not much of an exaggeration. Once again working with director Nicolas
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Elizabeth Mims | Jason Tippet
TC says: “To outsiders, Santa Clarita, California looks like a really great place to live. It is less than an hour from Los Angeles, is ranked as #18 among the Top 100 places to live by Money magazine, and sits
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Jeremy Frindel
Thom says: “While I have a great admiration for Jeffrey Kagel (Krishna Das) on turning his life around a making a sizable contribution to the world scene, I wasn’t all that swept up with this film, mainly for the simple
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Walter Salles
Starring: Alice Braga | Amy Adams | Elisabeth Moss | Garrett Hedlund | Kristen Stewart | Sam Riley | Tom Sturridge
Chris says: “The best one can say about this, the first filmed version of Jack Kerouac’s seminal 1957 novel is that it’s not embarrassing. If that sounds like faint praise, it aptly mirrors the film’s modest ambitions. Rather than transform
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Maya Kenig
Starring: Arad Yeni | Elya Inbar | Gur Bentvich | Salit Achimiriam | Tzahi Grad
Thom says: “This charming Film Movement entry from Israel has a lot to recommend it. A 15-year-old girl arrives in Israel during the 2006 war between Israel & Lebanon. Her mother has sent her to the Middle East from California
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Nobuteru Uchida
Starring: Kiki Sugino | Maho Yamada | Makiko Watanabe | Takeshi Yamamoto | Yû Koyanagi | Yûki Shinohara
Bruce says: “ODAYAKA is a psychological study regarding how people react to disaster. Inspiration for the film was drawn from real life events, the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which caused over fifteen thousand deaths, many injuries and three level 7
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Norio Osada
Starring: Do-an Chau Mao | Kenji Isomura | Lan Tanh | Yusuke Kawazu
Jason says: “It’s almost certain that there have been movies made under more insane circumstances than NUMBER10 BLUES/GOODBYE SAIGON (both titles appear on-screen at once), or worthier ones made in a war zone, but that does nothing to take away
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Richard Griffin
Starring: Elyssa Baldassari | Michael Reed | Monica Saviolakis | Nathaniel Sylvia | Patrick Keeffe | Sarah Nicklin
Jason says: “This is not the first time independent director Richard Griffin has tried to give his audience the creeps without having his tongue planted in his cheek – given how prolific the Rhode Island filmmaker has been since he
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Janet Tobias
Jason says: “There’s enough staged footage with actors in NO PLACE ON EARTH that one almost wonders why director Janet Tobias didn’t just present this story of a Jewish family hiding from the Nazis in caves for the better part
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Starring: Adelaide Clemens | America Olivo | Beau Knapp | Brodus Clay | Derek Magyar | Laura Ramsey | Lee Tergeesen | Lindsey Shaw | Luke Evans
Thom says: “Kitamura, well-known for such horror fare as VERSUS and THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN does his best work here but be warned this serial killer film is way over-the-top when it comes to bloody, ultra-disgusting scenes. While the ending
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Pablo Larraín
Starring: Alfredo Castro | Antonia Zegers | Gael García Bernal | Luis Gnecco | Nestor Cantillana
Thom says: “This was a TIFF 2012 entry that I was dying to attend but they didn’t award me a slot. This film from Chile concerns itself with the plebiscite that finally overthrew the heinous Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Susanne Bier
Starring: Kim Bodnia | Molly Blixt Egelind | Paprika Steen | Pierce Brosnan | Sebastian Jessen | Trine Dyrholm
Thom says: “Bier will be familiar to serious film-goers after such memorable features as OPEN HEARTS, THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE, AFTER THE WEDDING, BROTHERS, & IN A BETTER WORLD and this delightful romp adds to her resume. The
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Alexander Payne
Starring: Bob Odenkirk | Bruce Dern | June Squibb | Mary Louise Wilson | Stacy Keach | Will Forte
Chris says: “‘Older’ is a They Might Be Giants song whose primary lyric incessantly proclaims ‘You’re older than you’ve ever been / and now you’re getting older,’ baldly and astutely stating a fact that most of us would rather not
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Dennie Gordon
Starring: Ruby Lin Xin-ru | Wang Lee-Hom | Yao Chen | Zhang Ziyi
Jason says: “I’ve said before that making sequels to romantic comedies is a tempting but dangerous idea, but MY LUCKY STAR (FEICHANG XINGYUN in Mandarin) may just have hit upon the best way to follow up such a hit: It’s
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Jem Cohen
Starring: Bobby Sommer | Ela Piplits | Mary Margaret O’Hara
Chris says: “Art is a tricky subject for a movie. Most filmmakers take the artist biopic route (and many of them end up feeling stuffy and hermetic) while others utilize a more experimental approach (RUSSIAN ARK and its feature-length tracking
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Jacob Lofland | Matthew McConaughey | Michael Shannon | Reese Witherspoon | Sam Shepard | Sarah Paulson | Tye Sheridan
Chris says: “As a follow-up to TAKE SHELTER, a film with shifting ambiguities and an awesome performance from Michael Shannon, Jeff Nichol’s MUD can’t help but almost feel a bit of a letdown. The titular figure, an on-the-run hobo of
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