Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Drew Tobia
Starring: Dana Eskelson | Eleanore Pienta | Keisha Zollar | Molly Plunk
Jason says: “I know a fair amount of people who tend to judge movies in large part based on how much they agree with how the characters act. I suspect most of us do so a little more than we’d
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mary Jane Doherty
Jason says: “For someone who has never been to the ballet, I sure tend to find a lot of movies involving the combination of art and athleticism fascinating. Maybe it’s the way that the intense discipline necessary to master the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Jang Cheol-soo
Starring: Kim Soo-hyun | Ko Chang-seok | Lee Hyun-woo | Park Hye-sook | Park Ki-woong
Jason says: “It happens all the time: An action-comedy starts out funny, but when building to a climax, the action so completely takes over that the thing that got the audience hooked at the beginning is almost completely lost. SECRETLY
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ronny Yu
Starring: Adam Cheng siu-Chow | Ady Ang Yi-Xuan | Ekin Cheng | Fu Xinbo | Shao Bing | Vic Chou | Wu Chan
Jason says: “The tale of the Yang Clan is something special, even in a culture already packed full of martial legends. Its combined simplicity and grandeur makes it an excellent source for Ronny Yu’s latest, and apparent labor of love
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Annette Heywood-Carter
Starring: Bradley Whitford | Chiwetel Ejiofor | Hal Holbrook | Jaimie Alexander | Jim Caviezel
Jason says: “As with many movies based on true stories, SAVANNAH ends with a few screens of text summing up the lives and accomplishments of its subjects, and for Ward Allen it states that he was an eloquent advocate of
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: James Franco
Starring: James Franco | Jim Parrack | Raymond T. Williams | Trevor Neuhoff | Val Lauren | Vince Jolivette
Kyle says: “Oscar-nominated actor, director, painter, sculptor, poet, essayist, novelist, installation artist, famous college student and occasional professor, currently Gucci men’s perfume spokesperson, and soon-to-be Broadway play director James Franco is steadily amassing an intriguing body of work as cinema
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Keishi Ohtomo
Starring: Emi Takei | Munetaka Aoki | Takeru Satô | Taketo Tanaka | Teruyuki Kagawa | Yû Aoi
Jason says: “RUROUNI KENSHIN PART ONE: ORIGINS is a comic-book movie, not just in the sense that it’s adapted from a popular manga, but in how it both aims to introduce a lot of favorite elements and tell the story
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Barbara Kopple
Chris says: “Mariel Hemingway is an accomplished actress in her own right—she even received an Academy Award nomination while in her teens for Woody Allen’s MANHATTAN. However, before anything else, most people will identify her as Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter and
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Alex Karpovsky
Starring: Alex Karpovsky | Amanda Good Hennessey | Dakota Shepard | Dennis Staroselsky | Jaime Ray Newman
Jason says: “It doesn’t happen very often, but RUBBERNECK is almost too simple to classify. It’s got characteristics of both a thriller and an indie drama of the character-study variety, but the only thing that seems unique about it is
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Rodney Ascher
Chris says: “Remember when someone first stumbled across how eerily Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon album synced up to the first forty or so minutes of THE WIZARD OF OZ? With the band denying any intentional links
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Jay Chou
Starring: Eric Tsang Chi-wai | Huang Huai-chen | Huang Jun-lang | Oh Yau-lun | Song Jian-zhang | Wang Xue-qi
Jason says: “THE ROOFTOP is overstuffed, like Jay Chou had a half-dozen ideas for his 1960s Taiwanese musical project and couldn’t decide exactly which ones he wanted to use. So he threw in all of them, even if they don’t
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Giulla Brazzale | Luca Immesi
Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky | Anna Bonasso | Cosimo Cinieri | Désirée Giorgetti | Ivan Franek | Nicola Arabi
Jason says: “RITUAL: A PSYCHOMAGIC STORY is explicitly inspired by the work and philosophy of Alejandro Jodorowsky, and many may find themselves disappointed that, after a very stylish opening, it is never in the same category of strangeness as Jodorowsky’s
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Gilles Bourdos
Starring: Christa Théret | Michel Bouquet | Michèle Gleizer | Romane Bohringer | Thomas Doret | Vincent Rottiers
Jason says: “I’m certain that I must, at some point, learned that famed Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and noted filmmaker Jean Renoir were father and son. Somehow the information failed to stick, so re-learning that bit of information was kind
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Rachid Djaïdani
Starring: Sabrina Hamida | Slimane Dazi | Stéphane Soo Mongo
Kyle says: “RENGAINE is called a ‘no-budget urban drama’ in the New Directors/New Films program note; this is obvious from the number of duties director Rachid Djaïdani is credited for in the end titles. So let us issue a shout-out
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Farihah Zaman | Jeff Reichert
Jason says: “REMOTE AREA MEDICAL takes great pains to separate itself from partisan politics as much as possible, but its very premise – that a service designed to bring basic medical treatment to people in areas without any sort of
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mira Nair
Starring: Kate Hudson | Keifer Sutherland | Liev Schrieber | Martin Donovan | Riz Ahmed
Michael says: “Mira Nair is a talented filmmaker. Her latest film, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, is beautiful to watch, well structured, provocative, features terrific performances and a real slow burn. Unfortunately, the screenplay by William Wheeler, adapted from a novel by
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Calvin Reeder
Starring: Dermot Mulroney | James Cady | Lindsay Pulsipher | Natasha Lyonne | Scott Sharotis
Jason says: “Much of the time, a movie that was expanded from a short will feel bloated and kind of boring, as though the striking idea behind the original work has been watered down and made bigger without gaining more
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Emile Hirsch | Gina Grande | Joyce Payne | Lance LeGault | Lynn Shelton | Paul Rudd
Chris says: “This is the film devotees of David Gordon Green’s earlier features hoped he would make, although it’s probably not entirely what they expected. A remake of the Icelandic film EITHER WAY, PRINCE AVALANCHE returns to the Terrence Malick-on-a-tight-budget
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Rico Maria Ilarde
Starring: Andi Eigenmann | Baron Geisler | Janice de Belen | JM de Guzman | Joel Torre | Ronnie Lazaro
Kyle says: “The North American Premiere of PRIDYIDER (FRIDGE) was presented under the New York Asian Film Festival rubric of ‘Manila Chronicles: The New Filipino Cinema.’ Yes, it’s about a refrigerator that kills people. And it’s so clear-headed and good-natured
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Eric Valette
Starring: Albert Dupontel | Alice Taglioni | Natacha Régnier | Serge Hazanavicius | Sergi Lopez | Stephane Debac
Jason says: “THE PREY isn’t a big summer blockbuster by American standards; for all I know, it wasn’t a big deal when it played its native France as LA PROIE two years before its American release. It is a lean,
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