Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Aaron Schimberg
Starring: Avi Glickstein | Brandon deSpain | Bryant Pappas | Milda | Rayvin Disla | Sammy Menna | Simone Xi
Jason says: “Sometimes, it just doesn’t pay to get your facts straight. I saw GO DOWN DEATH late in the evening toward the end of Fantasia, and was wiped enough to have spaced out at points during even a fun,
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Krishna DK | Raj Nidimoru
Starring: Anand Tiwari | Kunal Khemu | Pooja Gupta | Saif Ali Khan | Vir Das
Jason says: “GO GOA GONE isn’t going to be of a whole lot of interest to serious horror movie fans unless they’re trying to fill a zombie passport of some sort and were missing a comedy from India. Otherwise, it’s
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Cory James Krueckeber
Bruce says: “What do you do when you are between projects and the financing for your next project just fell through? If you are writer/director/editor Cory James Krueckeberg and producer Tom Gustafson you raise $10,000 on Kickstarter, pull together a
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Rating: 3.375
Director: Sally Potter
Starring: Alessandro Nivola | Alice Englert | Annette Bening | Christina Hendricks | Elle Fanning | Jodhi May | Oliver Platt | Timothy Spall
Thom says: “Here’s another atrocious film from the vastly overpraised Sally Potter, & I never seem able to learn my lesson. I did give her first film ORLANDO my highest rating, perhaps in retrospect more for the presence of the
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Adam Leon
Starring: Adam Metzger | Greyson Cruz | Meeko | Sam Soghor | Tashiana Washington | Ty Hickson
Chris says: “Ostensibly about two graffiti artists/small time pot dealers on a quest to tag New York City’s most desired (and untagged) target, the big apple that pops up whenever the Mets hit a home run at Citi Field, GIMME
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Paul Bunnell
Starring: Creed Bratton | De Anna Joy Brooks | Jed Rowen | Les Williams | Reggie Bannister | Will Keenan
Jason says: “Many films boast of firsts, but THE GHASTLY LOVE OF JOHNNY X has to settle for lasts: Last film shot on Kodak’s Super-X black-and-white film stock. Last role for Kevin McCarthy of INVADERS OF THE BODY SNATCHERS fame.
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Gary Entin
Starring: Ana Gasteyer | Cameron Deane Stewart | Justin Deeley | Meaghan Martin | Scott Bakula
Michael says: “About thirty minutes into GEOGRAPHY CLUB, I started to get pretty uncomfortable. Based on a teen novel, Russell is a good-looking, athletic high-school student struggling with his sexuality. He‘s trying to meet someone online, but he’s nervous because
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Vlad Yudin
Thom says: “This Chlotrudis offering far out-met my expectations which is always a thrill for this inveterate viewer. Of course I’d seen PUMPING IRON (1977) back in the day, & was surprised probably as anyone at the continued career &
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Dror Moreh
Chris says: “This Academy Award-nominated documentary consists of interviews with six former heads of the Shin Bet (essentially the Israeli equivalent of the Secret Service), spanning the Six Day War (late 1960s) to the present. The openness and candor with
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Starring: Fumi Hirano | Gou Maeda | Kana Hanazawa | Miyu Irino | Suguru Inoue | Yuka Terasake
Jason says: “A new animated film from Makoto Shinkai at this point necessitates my going back and re-reading what I have written about the rest of his productions, as it can look somewhat lazy to praise him the same way
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Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Kevin McManus | Matthew McManus
Starring: Alex Maizus | Brandon Waltz | Charles Kwame Odei | Dylan Hartigan | Jordan Puzzo | Kevin Corrigan
Jason says: “You don’t really need that much of a hook for a coming-of-age film – they’re more or less going to cover the same territory, albeit in different ways – but it doesn’t hurt to have one. That way,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Ahna O'Reilly | Kevin Durand | Melonie Diaz | Michael B. Jordan | Octavia Spencer
Chris says: “So powerful and upsetting are the last twenty-odd minutes of Ryan Coogler’s debut feature that it’s not hard to see why it won the 2013 Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize. In recreating the moments that led up
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Rating: 4.9
Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Adam Driver | Grace Gummer | Greta Gerwig | Michael Zegen | Mickey Sumner | Patrick Heusinger
Thom says: “After KICKING & SCREAMING, MR. JEALOUSY, THE SQUID & THE WHALE, GREENBERG, & MARGOT AT THE WEDDING all cineastes are aware of Baumbach and except for the misstep GREENBERG he’s always interested me but this is far-and-away his
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Arthur Vincie
Starring: Derek Morgan | Eric Martin Brown | Kelly Sullivan | MacLeod Andrews | Mina Vesper Gokal
Jason says: “A tricky thing for a science fiction story to do is to build its world and story without spending any time explaining it to the characters that, living in it, don’t need the explanation. Add a changing timeline
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Aozaru Shiao | Kitamura Toyoharu
Starring: Amber An Xin Ya | Hou Yen-hsi | Lan Zheng-long | Long Shao-hua | Tien Hsin | Wang Po-chieh
Kyle says: “A slapstick farce from Taiwan in Mandarin that is both an affectionate satire of a long vanished Taiwanese film business in 1969 (there are numerous references to the July 1969 Moon Landing) and a sweet romantic comedy about
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Richie Mehta
Starring: Gillian Anderson | Haley Joel Osment | Rufus Sewell | Susanna Fournier | Victor Garber
Jason says: “Science fiction writers have come up with dozens of ways for time travel to be a terrible idea, from rifts that can collapse the entire structure of the Universe to far-future AIs who will eradicate anything that might
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
Starring: Bartosz Gelner | Katarzyna Herman | Marda Nieradkiewicz | Mateusz Banasiuk
Bruce says: “Growing up in Warsaw film director Tomasz Wasilewski was exposed to the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski at an early age. While he does not see films such as THE DECALOGUE as a direct influence, he does feel that
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Herman Yau
Starring: Anita Yuen Wing-yee | Anthony Wong Chau-sang | Gillian Chung Yan-tung | Jordan Chan Siu-chun | Timmy Hung Tin-ming | Xiong Xin Xin
Kyle says: “The North American premiere of IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT, the second Hong Kong film about Ip Man directed by Herman Yau to be screened at the New York Asian Film Festival, contrasts both narratively and stylistically with
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Tom O'Brien
Starring: Alexie Gilmore | Chris Messina | Natalie Gold | Rich Sommer | Sarah Paulson | Tom O'Brien
Jason says: “If you’re going to go through a time of self-doubt or regret, you could find worse surroundings than Fairhaven, Mass. It’s got the kind of snow dirt and smoke don’t seem to stick to, there are good friends
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Sebastián Cordero
Starring: Anamaria Marinca | Christian Camargo | Daniel Wu | Embeth Davidtz | Karolina Wydra | Michael Nyqvist | Sharlto Copley
Jason says: “I have likely mentioned this a few dozen times, but my favorite subset of science fiction is that which takes place during the ‘interplanetary era’, as humanity expands from Earth but is still confined to the solar system
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