Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Aggeliki Papoulia | Christos Stergioglou | Hristos Passalis | Mary Tsoni | Michelle Valley
Bruce says: “Dark comedy either grabs you or keeps you at arm’s length. Fortunately DOGTOOTH is the type of film that is intriguing from the get go. In an early scene a mother (Michelle Valley) is giving her three children
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Paul Fierlinger | Sandra Fierlinger
Starring: Brian Murray | Christopher Plummer | Isabella Rossellini | Lynn Redgrave | Peter Gerety
Beth Caldwell says: “For some reason, I was the only one of the movie group who really liked this film. Maybe it’s because I’m a dog lover. But, I really liked the narrative style. I loved the drawings (animation within animation)
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Patrick Alessandrin
Starring: Cyril Raffaelli | Daniel Duval | David Belle | Elodie Yung | MC Jean Gab'1 | Philippe Torreton
Jason says: “I hate to be a scold about such things, but I saw DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM back-to-back with FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (well, back-to-back with time to walk from one theater to another). Both came from Luc Besson’s action-movie
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: J Blakeson
Starring: Eddie Marsan | Gemma Arterton | Martin Compston
Thom says: “This fun caper film features the kidnap of a woman who is the daughter of a very powerful man, by two fellows that appear to have a very well-thought-out plan that they execute to a certain perfection. But,
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Park Bench
Starring: Alex Appel | Barbara Radecki | Gordon Currie | Kris Holden-Ried | Megan Fahlenbock | Park Bench
Jason says: “A couple days after watching it and turning it over in my mind, I can’t decide whether THE DEATH OF ALICE BLUE is a sloppy example of vampire soap opera melodrama or a dead-on parody of such things.
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ben Safdie | Joshua Safdie
Starring: Alex Greenblatt | Dakota O'Hara | Eleonore Hendricks | Frey Ranaldo | Ronald Bronstein | Sage Ranaldo | Sean Price Williams | Victor Puccio
Chris says: “With their first two features, filmmakers/brothers Josh and Benny Safdie already demonstrate a knack for designating reasonably unsympathetic characters as their protagonists: THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED followed an unrepentant kleptomaniac, while DADDY LONGLEGS offers up Lenny (Ronald
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Andrew Drazek
Starring: Adam Busch | Aimee-Lynn Chadwick | Edrick Browne | Jordan Kessler | Laura Silverman
Jason says: “I admit it – when I opened up the IMDB page for CUMMINGS FARM for reference while writing this review, I was kind of shocked to go straight to the film page, rather than a list of this
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Jon Amiel
Starring: Jennifer Connelly | Jeremy Northam | Martha West | Paul Bettany | Toby Jones | Zak Davies
Thom says: “How this film opened TIFF is beyond all understanding for it failed on so many levels. There really wasn’t even much pleasure in seeing Bettany play against his real life wife Connelly as Charles Darwin & his wife
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jordan Scott
Starring: Adele McCann | Ellie Nunn | Eva Green | Imogen Poots | Juno Temple | Maria Valverde
Chris says: “The arrival of an aristocratic Spaniard student upsets the delicate hierarchy of an elite, remote, all-female 1930s British boarding school. Eva Green stars as a flamboyant, idealistic, controlling teacher. A slightly overcooked directorial debut from Jordan Scott (daughter
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Carter Gunn | Ross McDonnell
Michael says: “I was very excited to see COLONY, which was reportedly about honeybees. In fact, while honeybees drive the story, COLONY is actually about beekeepers, the economics of bees, and colony collapse disorder (CCD), a syndrome that is causing
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Raymond De Felitta
Starring: Andy Garcia | Dominik García-Lorido | Emily Mortimer | Ezra Miller | Julianna Margulies | Steven Strait
TC says: “The title locale is a fishing village on an island in the middle of the Bronx, where corrections officer Vince Rizzo has lived almost all his life. Now Vince is the head of a family including a bored
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Amanda Seyfried | Julianne Moore | Liam Neeson | Max Thieriot | Nina Dobrey
Bruce says: “CHLOE is a reworking of Anne Fontaine’s 2003 French film NATHALIE which starred Fanny Ardant, Gérard Depardieu and Emanuelle Béart. And CHLOE is one of the rare films that is more inspired than its antecedent. The plot is
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Tze Chun
Starring: Cindy Cheung | Crystal Chiu | Frank Pando | Kieran Campion | Michael Chen | Stephen Gevedon
Jason says: “I am certain that there is no shortage of bad independent films which focus on kids; after all, there are plenty in the mainstream. Having to contend with boutique cinema and festival programmers looking to please grown-up audiences
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Rodrigo García
Starring: Annette Benning | Cherry Jones | Jimmy Smitts | Kerry Washington | Naomi Watts | Samuel Jackson | Shareeka Epps
Michael says: “Rodrigo García is so clearly a writer/director who knows how to create dramatic stories about women, and we can always use more filmmakers like that. He also lets some beautiful performances by women and men shine through beautifully
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Neil Marshall
Starring: Andreas Wisniewski | Axelle Carolyni | Dave Legeno | Dominic West | Michael Fassbender
Jason says: “I suspect that Neil Marshall will never break through to doing big Hollywood movies, assuming that holds any interest for him, despite just how good he is at every aspect of the job. The man is just too
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Daniel Monzón
Starring: Alberto Ammann | Antonio Resines | Carlos Bardem | Luis Tosar | Manuel Morón | Marta Etura
Jason says: “Director Daniel Monzón seems to know that the hook to CELL 211, with a rookie guard having to impersonate an inmate when a riot breaks out, is as improbable as it is intriguing. He and co-writer Jorge Guerricaechevarria (adapting
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Airel Schulman | Henry Joost
Thom says: “I saw CATFISH & I finally ended up putting in the positive column. It’s very heartwarming in a way. It’s definitely entirely documentary although I thought it wasn’t for some duration. A young man connects with a family
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Eric Zimmerman
Starring: Denny Kirkwood | James Duval | John Cho | Nathan Bexton | Peter Green | Roger Guenveur Smith
Jason says: “The filmmakers did a Q&A after CALLER ID, and it turned out to be sort of informative in learning where all the seemingly random elements came from. It was interesting, but probably not something that the average audience
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ruba Nadda
Starring: Alexander Siddig | Amina Annabi | Patricia Clarkson | Tom McCamus
Bruce says: “For sure, I’m a huge Patricia Clarkson fan. I’m also known for little loyalty to those I hold in high esteem. So, I am thrilled to report that Ms. Clarkson has never been better than she is in
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Rodrigo Cortés
Starring: José Luis García Pérez | Robert Paterson | Ryan Reynolds | Samantha Mathis | Stephen Tobolowsky
Jason says: “BURIED is the sort of movie where every step in the process of getting made is a combination between those involved challenging themselves and crafting a movie that can be shot with a tiny budget, cast, and crew.
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