Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Deepti Kakkar | Fahad Mustafa
Bruce says: “POWERLESS examines two sides of the ‘power struggle’ in Kampur, a metropolitan area of approximately three million people. Kampur has had no increase in its power supply for twenty-two years although the population has tripled during that time.
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Luke Poling | Tom Bean
Chris says: “A brief bio of George Plimpton would say that he was a journalist and co-founder of venerable literary magazine The Paris Review. Still, more so than Jean Shepherd, Truman Capote or even David Sedaris, Plimpton was most famous
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Julia Dyer
Starring: Cody Linley | John Hawkes | Jonathon McClendon | Lydia MacKay | Molly Parker
Bruce says: “THE PLAYROOM’s sin is one of omission. There is just not enough substance. One scene in particular is revisited time after time. A voiceover is also repetitious. No doubt Julia Dyer believed repetition would reinforce the moment. That
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Rating: 4.2 cats
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Starring: Ben Mendelsohn | Bradley Cooper | Bruce Greenwood | Eva Mendes | Ray Liotta | Rose Byrne | Ryan Gosling
Bruce says: “Some films focus on the inner selves of the characters; others focus more on the relationship of the characters to society as a whole. THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, certainly one of America’s finest films of this millennium,
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Kim Ki-Duk
Starring: Heo Joon-seok | Jo Jae-ryong | Jo Min-soo | Kang Eun-jin | Lee Jeong-jin | Woo Gi-hong
Thom says: “I’m still trying to figure out what happened to the career of director Kim. After SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER…AND SPRING (2003) won numerous world awards, including an award from Chlotrudis as well & I when I finally saw
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Stephen Frears
Starring: Barbara Jefford | Judi Dench | Mare Winningham | Sophie Kennedy Clarke | Steve Coogan
Thom says: ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised at how much I loved this film but until the starting credits rolled I had completely forgotten that the great Stephen Frears was the director. Over the years he’s been responsible
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Todd Robinson
Starring: David Duchovny | Ed Harris | Johnathon Schaech | Lance Henriksen | William Fichtner
Jason says: “Many elements of PHANTOM are almost certain to remind audiences of THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, and it actually draws heavily on one of the incidents that inspired Tom Clancy’s novel and the later film adaptation – or
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Kevin Schreck
Chris says: “Best known for his creative 1960s opening credit sequences (WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT?) and truly innovative work on WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, Canadian-born, British-based animator Richard Williams would have preferred universal recognition for THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER, a
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Anthony Geffen | Sias Wilson
Jason says: “Going by what I find on IMDB (which is not always the safest thing to do), PENGUINS 3D appears to be what you get when you cut a British nature documentary, THE PENGUIN KING 3D, down to half
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Rating: 4.9
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Starring: Ali Mosaffa | Bérénice Bejo | Elyes Aguis | Jeanne Jestin | Pauline Burlet | Sabrina Ouazani | Tahar Rahim
Michael says: “It may be a little too early to start saying that Iranian director Asghar Farhadi is one of my favorite filmmakers, but he’s batting two for two with A SEPARATION and now the emotionally wrenching THE PAST, actually
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Brian DePalma
Starring: Benjamin Sadler | Dominic Raacke | Karoline Herfurth | Noomi Rapace | Paul Anderson | Rachel McAdams | Rainer Bock
Thom says: “It’s been 36 years since director De Palma was in his hey-day as he captured my FILM-OF-THE-YEAR with CARRIE (1976). Since then he’s not been reliable although certainly he’s had such huge successes as SCARFACE and DRESSED TO
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ulrich Seidl
Starring: Gabriel Mwarua | Helen Brugat | Inge Maux | Margarete Teisel | Peter Kazungu
Bruce says: “Ulrich Seidl has stirred up a controversy or two with his films IMPORT/EXPORT and PARADISE: LOVE. To understand the fuss it is important to see the film, at least that is the case for PARADISE: LOVE that begins
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Marcus Markou
Starring: Cosima Shaw | Frank Dillane | Georges Corraface | Georgia Groome | Stephan Dillane | Thomas Underhill
Jason says: “I was recently reminded that my grandmother reads what I write here, which may be why one of my first reactions to PAPADOPOULOS & SONS was that it would be a good movie to bring parents or grandparents
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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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