Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Troy McGatlin
Starring: Adair Jameson | Chuma Gault | David Pevsner | Jan Van Sickle | Patrick John Hurley | Robin DeMarco
Jason says: “There are times when I watch movies and it’s not the obviously bad science itself that bothers me so much as the ignorance about the people and processes involved. It’s not the only discipline filmmakers seem to not
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Xu Zheng
Starring: Huang Bo | Tao Hong | Wang Baoqiang | Xu Zheng
Jason says: “Comedies are tough imports; wordplay gets lost in translation and different cultures find different things odd enough to be considered funny. So, it’s the big, unmistakable gags that cross borders best, but they’re not usually in the best
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Cate Shortland
Starring: André Frid | Hans-Jochen Wagner | Mika Seidel | Nele Trebs | Saskia Rosendahl | Ursina Lardi
Jason says: “Set LORE in almost any other time and place, and it’s an impressive adventure story of a certain type, with fine young actors playing kids who must make an impossible-seeming journey against incredible odds. But it’s not set
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Dheeraj Akolkar
Bruce says: “A love affair that evolved into a friendship spanning five decades is the best way to describe the relationship between Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann. They met during the filming of Bergman’s PERSONA on
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Bille August
Starring: August Diehl | Bruno Ganz | Jack Huston | Jeremy Irons | Lena Olin | Martina Gedeck | Mélanie Laurent | Tom Courtenay
Jason says: “Sometimes, there are things that the written word can do that a film can’t. In NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON, Raimund Gregorius (Jeremy Irons) tells how certain sentences in the book at the film’s center had a profound effect
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Starring: Denden | Rin Takanashi | Ryo Kase | Ryota Nakanishi | Tadashi Okuno
Bruce says: “Kiarostami’s films have been on serious filmgoers’ lists for a long time now. Interest in his work began when he was strictly an Iranian director documenting the Iranian cultural landscape through his narrative works such as A TASTE
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Liz W. Garcia
Starring: Amy Madigan | David Lambert | Joshua Harto | Kristen Bell | Mamie Gummer | Martin Starr
Jason says: “It is, almost undoubtedly, a sign of encroaching middle age that the first thing that annoyed me about THE LIFEGUARD was the way that the characters not even a full generation younger than me acted. But I figured,
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Shinsuke Sato
Starring: Chiaki Kuriyama | Jun Hashimoto | Junichi Okada | Koji Ishaizaka | Nana Eikura | Soto Fukushi
Jason says: “Not having read any of the books in Hiro Arikawa’s Toshokan Sensô series, I readily admit that this film adaptation of the first may give its fans exactly what they want (the manga adaptation looks as ‘shojo’ as
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mikael Buch
Starring: Amira Casar | Carmen Maura | Clément Sibony | Jarkko Niemi | Jean-François Stévenin | Nicolas Maury
Thom says: “This is director Buch’s 1st film and there’s a lot of oomph to the production that mostly works. Ruben is a young, gay. French Jew living in Finland with his Finnish partner, Teemu. He works as a postman
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Robert Morin
Starring: Allocha Schneider | Antoine Bertrand | Antoine LӃcuyer | Camille Mongeau | Christian de la Cortina
Jason says: “I gather writer/director Robert Morin is kind of a big deal in French-Canadian film, which doesn’t surprise me from watching LES 4 SOLDATS; it’s a very confident, assured independent film, impressive for how it can take relatively minimal
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Herman Yau
Starring: Fan Siu-wong | Huang Yi | Ip Chun | Lam Suet | Rose Chan | Sammo Hung | To Yu-hang | Yuen Biao
Kyle says: “The immense popularity of the two Ip Man movies, starring Donnie Yen and directed by Wilson Yip, made a sequel inevitable; but what we actually got was a fanciful prequel starring charismatic Wing Chun expert To Yu-hang (also
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Rating: 4.9
Director: Xavier Dolan
Starring: Magalie Lépine Blondeau | Melvil Poupaud | Nathalie Baye | Suzanne Clément | Yves Jacques
Thom says: “Bad boy of Canadian cinema Dolan returns with a strong 3rd entry after the award-winning I KILLED MY MOTHER & the dramatically good HEARTBEATS. Laurence & Fred (Clement) are deeply in love. She’s a television director and he’s
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Wong Jing
Starring: Chow Yun-fat | Francis Ng | Huang Xiaoming | Sammo Hung | Yasuaki Kurata | Yuan Quan
Kyle says: “Seen in its North American Premiere, THE LAST TYCOON is a rip-roaring old-fashioned Hong Kong gangster flick with some of the biggest names in Asian cinema. What you see in the cast list above is what you will
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Ashley Sabin | David Redmon
Jason says: “Documentary filmmakers David Redmon and Ashley Sabin had two features at IFFBoston last year; I saw the one about teenage Russian models in Japan rather than the one about the attempt to open a fish-processing plant in Maine.
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Rakesh Roshan
Starring: Amitabh Bachchan | Hrithik Roshan | Kangana Ranaut | Priyanka Chopra | Vivek Oberoi
Jason says: “Here’s a funny coincidence – Bollywood superhero movie KRRISH came out the same summer as SUPERMAN RETURNS and its sequel KRRISH 3 (I’ll explain later) is hitting theaters the Diwali after Warner Brothers delivered a Superman movie franchise
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Neil Barsky
Jason says: “The lettering used for the main titles of KOCH is the same as that used at a New York City subway station. That’s fitting; the subway is how New Yorkers (or those who visit) most frequently interact with
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Xan Cassavetes
Starring: Anna Mouglalis | Michael Rapaport | Milo Ventimiglia | oséphine de La Baume | Roxane Mesquida
Jason says: “Sexy vampires are a problematic sort of monster; it’s very easy for someone telling a story of these creatures to forget that they are monsters at all, getting lost in the beauty and grandeur of these eternally young
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Daihachi Yoshida
Starring: Ai Hashimoto | Kôdai Asaka | Kurumi Shimizu | Masahiro Higashide | Mizuki Yamamoto | Noboyuki Suzuki | Ryunosuke Kamiki | Suzuka Ohgo | Takemi Fujil
Kyle says: “THE KIRISHIMA THING received its New York Premiere at the Asian Film Festival. There is no jury, no prize is given, the film is not a commodity in competition. Nonetheless this film resonated more strongly with me, stayed
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Rating: 3.9
Director: John Krokidas
Starring: Ben Foster | Dane DeHaan. Michael C. Hall | Daniel Radcliffe | David Cross | Elizabeth Olsen | Jack Huston | Jennifer Jason Leigh | John Cullum
Thom says: “WARNING SPOILER: I Do give some information away but since the film is based on fact I felt I had the license but if you would be disturbed stop reading now. “It’s rare to see such an utterly
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Kenji Uchida
Starring: Masato Sakai | Ryoko Hirosue | Toruyuki Kagawa | YosiYosi Arakawa
Jason says: “Imagine a hat containing many pieces of paper. Each one of those slips of paper has written upon it an offbeat comedy trope, and screenwriters start their work by grabbing a handful. KEY OF LIFE is an example
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