Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Yuichi Fukuda
Starring: Fumika Shimizu | Ken Yasuda | Nana Katase | Ryohei Suzuki | Tsuyoshi Muro
Jason says: “Look, I’m not going to make HENTAI KAMEN out to be anything other than it is: It is a deeply silly, tacky, crude spoof of the superhero genre that takes Warren Ellis’s description of their outfits as ‘underwear
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jeremy Kipp Mitchell | John Mitchell
Jason says: “It’s odd but true: These days, an act like Future Folk can be both a local secret and have a national (or international) cult following. Even if both cases are true, a movie centered around such a band
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Tobias Lindholm
Starring: Abdihakin Asgar | Dar Salim | Gary Skjoldmose Porter | Pilou Asbæk | Roland Møller | Søren Malling
Kyle says: “To most Americans, the word ‘hijacking’ is forever associated with 9/11/2001; to many seamen on voyages in the Indian Ocean, it is a fearsome nightmare perpetrated by 21st century Somali pirates, and a potential danger all the time.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Adrian Garcia Bogliano
Starring: Alan Martinez | Barbara Perrin Reivemar | Francisco Barreiro | Laura Caro | Michele Garcia
Jason says: “There are two sorts of horror movies in the world: The kind looking to make the audience jump with a thrill of excitement and the kind aiming to make them shake because they’ve been confronted with an idea
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.4
Director: Mika Ninagawa
Starring: Anne Suzuki | Ferika Sawajiri | Nao Omori | Shinobu Terajima
Kyle says: “All the definitions of ‘gonzo’ in www.urbandictionary.com have to do with pornography, except for the single simple ‘bizarre.’ It’s up to slack-jawed audiences at the end of this outrageous Japanese film to decide which applies most clearly. I
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2 cats
Director: Takashi Ishii
Starring: Kokone Sasaki | Mitsu Dan | Naoto Takenaka | Tasuku Emoto
Jason says: “HELLO, MY DOLLY GIRLFRIEND (FIGYUA NA ANATA in the original Japanese) is just as bizarre a movie as its name makes it sound, and it gets a little stranger if you start following hyperlinks on the online movie
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2 cats
Director: Roberta Grossman
Thom says: “Everyone knows the Jewish staple celebration song Hava Nagila. This film tracks the history of the song from its origins in Eastern European shtetls to pedways of the world. It’s been featured in hundreds of films and this
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Christian Vincent
Starring: Arthur Dupont | Catherine Frot | Hervé Pierre | Hippolyte Girardot | Jean d’Romesson | Jean-Marc Roulot | Laurent Poitrenaux | Philippe Uchan
Bruce says: “Catherine Frot (AN AMAZING COUPLE, ON THE RUN, AFTER THE LIFE, THE DINNER GAME, THE PAGE TURNER) has been around a long time. Chlotrudis members may recall her in the Lucas Belvaux Trilogy consisting of the first three
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Starring: Abigail Breslin | David Hewlett | Michelle Nolden | Peter DaCunha | Peter Outerbridge | Stephen McHattie
Jason says: “HAUNTER is the kind of horror movie that is in many ways so well-built that it almost gets in its own way when someone sees it, likes it, and wants to recommend it: The film has a hook
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Dmitry Vasyukov | Werner Herzog
Jason says: “Werner Herzog is the name that will (and should) draw people to HAPPY PEOPLE: A YEAR IN THE TAIGA, although it’s likely that the other credited director, Dmitry Vasyukov, actually spent more time in Siberia gathering footage. However
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.6
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Starring: Axel Milberg | Barbara Sukowa | Janet McTeer | Julia Jentsch | Michael Degen | Ulrich Noethen
Bruce says: “In 2009 Margarethe von Trotta and Barbara Sukowa collaborated on VISION, the story of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century nun who was a musician, a poet, a scientist, and a practitioner of herbal medicine. Their extraordinary collaboration
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Sebastian Hofmann
Starring: Alberto Trujillo | Hugo Albores | Lourdes Trueba
Jason says: “HALLEY will be classified a horror movie by many, what with it centering on a representative of the living dead, but in some ways its hold on that genre is just a couple of fingertips at the end
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Sion Somo
Starring: Chika Uchida | Kanji Tsuda | Kazuya Kojim | Makoto Togashi | Megumi Kagurazaka | Miki Mizuno | Ryuju Kobayashi
Jason says: “I’m not quite sure what the rationale is for cutting a half hour out of GUILTY OF ROMANCE for non-Japanese audiences; Sion Sono’s fans have proven quite willing to sit through a long movie over the past few
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Yan Yan Mak
Kyle says: “The World Premiere of THE GREAT WAR at the New York Asian Film Festival was for many of us one of the festival highlights. A documentary on the dozen November 2012 concerts by two major groups from the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Cung Le | Qingxiang Wang | Tony Chiu-Wai Leung | Ziyi Zhang
Jason says: “Wong Kar-wai is a notoriously slow worker in a movie industry that can turn things over with ruthless efficiency, and as evidence I present the four movies about martial-arts master Ip Man (by two different directors and starring
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kim Loo-ho
Starring: Cha Tae-hyun | Ko Chang-seok | Lee Chae-young | Min Hyo-rin | Oh Ji-ho | Shin Jung-keun
Jason says: “For all the noir, caper, and pulp material I’ve consumed in my life, I don’t know how many times I’ve ever actually heard someone refer to the jewels they were looking to steal as ‘ice’, and I don’t
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.8 cats
Director: Punit Malhotra
Starring: Anupam Kher | Imran Khan | Kareena Kapoor | Nizhalgal Ravi
Jason says: “GORI TERE PYAAR MEIN is a movie about a layabout becoming a productive and charitable member of society, and maybe it takes that lesson too well to heart. For all that there are moments of it being sweet,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Jesse James Miller
Jason says: “Ray Mancini was at this screening for a Q&A, and he mentioned that when Mark Kreigel approached him with the idea of doing the book on which this movie was based, he wasn’t particularly interested; he’d told his
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Ryan White
Chris says: “A half-century on, there’s not much about The Beatles that hasn’t already been revealed, explored or analyzed to death. The idea of a documentary centered on the band’s secretary and fan club president initially smacks of clutching at
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Starring: Deepika Padukone | Krishna Singh Bisht | Ranveer Singh | Supriya Pathak
Jason says: “The last time I wrote a review of an Indian movie, I got comments saying not to compare it to something else and to just enjoy it for what it is. That’s actually good advice in general, although
Read the review...