Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Alex Gibney
Jason says: “Toward the end of WE STEAL SECRETS, one of the interview subjects calls back to an early online handle of Julian Assange’s, ‘Mendax’, an abbreviation of ‘noble liar’. That is, however, not the first (possible) online alias of
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ken Scott
Starring: Antoine Bertrand | Dominic Philie | Julie LeBreton | Marc Bélanger | Patrick Huard
Jason says: “No matter how bound and determined a viewer is to just sit back and enjoy STARBUCK for the light comedy that it is, there are going to be moments when he or she can’t help but think it’s
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Jehane Noujaim
Jason says: “THE SQUARE doesn’t necessarily look like much as it starts; just some people who happened to have a camera in the right place at the right time. Make no mistake; that is an incredibly useful thing for a
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Harmony Korine
Starring: Ashley Benson | Gucci Mane | Heather Morris | James Franco | Selena Gomez | Vanessa Hudgens
Thom says: “WOW, probably my favorite TIFF 2012 film all the more surprising seeing director Korine’s insane track record, plus his past relationship with film goddess Chloe Sevigny. I loved his first film GUMMO (1997) but was then quite disappointed
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: James Ponsoldt
Starring: Brie Larson | Dayo Okeniyi | Jennifer Jason Leigh | Kyle Chandler | Miles Teller | Shailene Woodley
Jason says: “It’s hard enough to try to review the first films to play a festival, writing a paragraph at a time between other screenings, but something like THE SPECTACULAR NOW makes it even more difficult. It’s does almost nothing
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Armen Evrensel
Starring: Amanda Tapping | Amy Matysio | Billy Boyd | George Takei | Kristin Kreuk | Robin Dunne
Jason says: “As of this writing, SPACE MILKSHAKE hasn’t actually been purchased by SyFy (or its Canadian equivalent Space) to run as a Saturday night original movie, but that’s what it is: A low-budget sci-fi movie just long enough that
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Jodi Whillle | Maria Demopoulos
Chris says: “A popular health food restaurant on the Sunset Strip… an experiment in spiritual communal living at the dawn of the 1970s… a cult overseen by Father Yod, a charismatic, excessively-bearded ex-Marine who eventually proclaimed he was God Himself…
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Rating: 3.2 cats
Director: Olivier Assayas
Starring: Carol Combes | Clément Métayer | Felix Armand | Hugo Conzelmann | Lola Créton
Thom says: “I was to learn before the screening that Assayas had won the best script at the Venice Film Festival. If truly that is the case I’d hate to know what the other choices were as this autobiographical film
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Daisy von Sherler Mayer
Starring: Adam Brody | Emily Watson | Jennifer Morrison | Kristen Bell | Mia Maestro | Zoe Kazan
Jason says: “Based upon Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s film version, SOME GIRL (S) is a play with a rather tortured premise, and I suspect that actors who like a challenge are drawn to it for that. Sure, Neil LaBute gives
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Nathan Silver
Starring: Carl Kranz | Ed Ryan | Melanie J. Sheiner | Moshe Kessler | Sheila Etxeberria | Theodore Bouloukos
Jason says: “I don’t feel bad about not particularly liking SOFT IN THE HEAD, but one of the reasons I don’t like it bugs me. I look down on its characters, which means I probably look down on their real-life
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jonathan Gurfinkel
Starring: Eviatar Mor | Roy Nik | Sivan Levy
Bruce says: “This disturbing Israeli film S#X ACTS examines the effects of sexual bullying, a most disquieting albeit extremely important issue among teenagers. Gili (Sivan Levy) has switched schools midway through high school. Her mother is a single parent and
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Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: John Sayles
Starring: Edward James Olmos | Harold Perrineau | Hector Elizondo | Isaiah Washington | LisaGay Hamilton | Mahershala Ali | Yolanda Ross
Jason says: “John Sayles is perhaps the most notable independent filmmaker who falls through the cracks despite being quite accessible. Why is that? After all, he’s got LONE STAR and EIGHT MEN OUT to his name! There are a number
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: David M. Rosenthal
Starring: Jason Isaacs | Jeffrey Wright | Joe Anderson | Kelly Reilly | Sam Rockwell | Ted Levine | William H. Macy
Jason says: “There are two general ways a ‘bag of money’ movie can go: Navigating the intricate set-up that is revealed through a constant series of revelations and double-crosses that the anti-hero must navigate in order to keep the cash
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lian Lunson
Kyle says: “SING ME THE SONGS THAT SAY I LOVE YOU is a documentary of the May 2011 Town Hall concert in New York in loving memory of Kate McGarrigle by Rufus and Martha Wainwright, her children with singer/songwriter Loudon
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Richie Mitchell
Starring: Allison Dawn Doiron | Farid Yazdani | Jeremy Larter | Richard Guppy | Stephen Jacob Hogan
Jason says: “If the initials in S.I.N. THEORY stand for anything specific, I don’t believe it is revealed in the movie, which is too bad. They imply material that’s more salacious and exciting than what’s on screen, and the movie
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Rating: 4.6
Director: Ben Wheatley
Starring: Alice Lowe | Eileen Davies | Kenneth Hadley | Richard Lumsden | Steve Oram
Jason says: “Ben Wheatley’s previous two films weren’t everyone’s cup of tea, and he hasn’t exactly gone conventional with SIGHTSEERS. It’s quite often as funny as it is twisted (or, perhaps, vice versa), overflowing with strange, messy, disturbing romantic comedy.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Josh Greenbaum
Jason says: “It feels like it’s been a while since a documentary about kids who do something well and compete to see who does it the best has worked its way into a decent number of theaters, and THE SHORT
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Rating: 4.9
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Starring: Brie Larson | John Gallagher | Kaitlyn Dever | Keith Stanfield | Kevin Hernandez | Rami Malek
Chris says: “On the TV series United States of Tara, Brie Larson excelled at playing a complicated teenager: initially shallow and self-absorbed, over three seasons her character convincingly grew into a somewhat wiser, if still searching young adult. Still, if
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Goro Kishitani | Kento Nagayama | Masato Ibu | Nanako Matsushima | Takao Osawa | Tatsuya Fujiwara | Tsutomu Yamazaki
Jason says: “I thought I’d seen it all from Takashi Miike – for a guy who started out doing quick, strange, direct-to-video crime movies, he’s certainly seemed to do have done everything, from gross-out horror to whimsical adaptations of popular
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: James Marsh
Starring: Andrea Riseborough | Brid Brennan | Clive Owen | David Wilmot | Domhall Gleeson | Gillian Anderson
Jason says: “There’s a twenty-year jump early in SHADOW DANCER, from 1973 to 1993, and another twenty years between then and the present day, and there’s something appealing about that sort of symmetry, especially with the reminders in the background
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