Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Deagol Brothers
Starring: Brett Miller | Cody DeVos | Eric Lehning | Leah High
Jason says: “MAKE-OUT WITH VIOLENCE isn’t quite so good as LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, but that’s the film it brings to my mind. Both take horror-movie tropes and twist them into service of a strange story of young love,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1.75
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Anna Chazelle | Desiree Garcia | Eli Gerstenlauer | Jason Palmer | Karen Adelman | Sandha Khin
Jason says: “First impressions can be a heck of a thing to shake. Even before talking to the other people at the screening, I knew there were a lot of things that rookie filmmaker Damien Chazelle did well in GUY
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Alex Craig | Corey Adama
Starring: Anthony Amerdori | James Faulkner | Jeff Halliday | John Mackey | Lukács Bicskeyr | Vanessa Guide
Jason says: “It seems like a ridiculous thing to say, after having seen the movie, but I initially thought MaACHOTAILDROP was a documentary. Skim the description, and the bits about a company with a colorful head recruiting skateboarders looking to
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Matthew Avant
Starring: Arte Richard | Dave Potter | Jed Himel | Matt Romagosa | Nathan Avant | Sarah Avant
Jason says: “Fair warning: I was part of the group screening potential entries for this festival, and LUNOPOLIS was one of the ones I watched and commented on. That’s not just a warning that this could potentially be viewed as
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Alba Rohrwacher | Diane Fleri | Edoardo Gabbriellini | Flavio Parenti | Marisa Berenson | Pippo Delbono | Tilda Swinton
Thom says: “This might well end-up as my TOP FILM for TIFF. Of course, must-see Tilda Swinton is a great help and here she totally shines as a Russian émigré married to an extremely wealthy Italian industrialist, whose company is
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Dan Pritzker
Starring: Anthony Coleman | Anthony Mackie | Jackie Earle Haley | Michael Rooker | Shanti Lowry | Vilmos Zsigmond
Jason says: “When I mentioned to a friend that I was planning a trip to New York to see a new movie inspired by the early life of Louis Armstrong, I asked him to guess what sort of movie it
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Brillante Mendoza
Starring: Anita Linda | Benjie Filomen | Jhong Hilario | Kethcup Eusebio | Rustica Carpio | Tanya Gomez
Bruce says: “Ever since I first saw THE MASSEUR, a rough but auspicious directorial debut, I’ve been a huge Brillante Mendoza fan. This prolific director, a winner of the 2009 director’s award at Cannes for his prior film – the sensation stirring
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Rating: 1 cat
Director: Suri Kirshnamma
Starring: Ben Barnes | Clarke Peters | Eliza Dushku | Johnny Whitworth | Sarah Roember
Jason says: “LOCKED IN is a pretty terrible movie, although one where the audience might be willing to make allowances for budget, or at least give some of its off-seeming moments a conditional pass, just in case the all-but-inevitable twist
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Mladen Djordjevic
Starring: Ana Acimovic | Mihajlo Jovanovic | Predrag Damnjanovic | Radivoj Knezevic | Srdjan Jovanovic
Jason says: “Well, I can’t say that I got anything less than could be expected from that title, can I? It’s right there – life, death, people making porn, far more direct than its somewhat more infamous cousin, A SERBIAN
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Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Reginald Harkema
Starring: Anjelica Scannura | Don McKellar | Gregory Smith | Kaniehtiio Horn | Kristen Hager | Kristin Adams | Ryan Robbins | Tracy Wright | Travis Milne
Bruce says: “In 1970-71 Charles Manson along with a trio of his followers – Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia ‘Katie’ Krenwinkel – were tried for killing five people at the home of Sharon Tate on August 9, 1969,
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Lixin Fan
Jason says: “LAST TRAIN HOME starts by presenting the audience with large numbers – the 130 million Chinese workers who return home for the New Year’s holiday annually (the world’s largest human migration), and the 2100 kilometers that separate the
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Michael Hoffman
Starring: Anne-Marie Duff | Christopher Plummer | Helen Mirren | James McAvoy | Kerry Condon | Paul Giamatti
Jason says: “THE LAST STATION is a perfectly adequate sort of historical drama. Nice cast in Christopher Plummer, Paul Giamatti, and Helen Mirren. Nice production values. Interesting subjects. You may learn something while watching it, whether in terms of history,
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Casey Affleck | Elias Koteas | Jessica Alba | Kate Hudson | Ned Beatty | Tom Bower
Jason says: “THE KILLER INSIDE ME is getting a certain amount of notice for its violence, which is a little surprising to me, in a strict ‘well, I’ve seen worse’ sense. But I suspect the filmmakers will be fine with
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lisa Cholodenko
Starring: Annette Bening | Josh Hutcherson | Julianne Moore | Mark Ruffalo | Mia Wasikowska | Yaya DaCosta
Michael says: “Lisa Cholodenko’s fourth feature (following HIGH ART, LAUREL CANYON and CAVEDWELLER) THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, is getting a tremendous amount of critical acclaim, and even early Oscar buzz. I was very excited to see this film after
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Daniel Alfredson
Starring: Annika Hallin | Jacob Ericksson | Lena Endre | Michael Nyqvist | Noomi Rapace | Sofia Ledarp
Jason says: “It’s somewhat apt that, in giving the novels and films in the Millennium trilogy similar titles in English-speaking parts of the world, the names given second and third wound up being phrases that essentially mean the same thing.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Anne Sundberg | Ricki Stern
Beth Caldwell says: “This was a very interesting documentary. When I went into the film I had heard it was a good documentary, but I was less than enthused because I don’t really like Joan Rivers. I didn’t think she’d
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Tamra Davis
Jason says: “In the last review I wrote (for the delightful MARWENCOL), I said that documentaries about art and artists were frequently disappointing, in part because filmmakers have a hard time translating the brilliance they see into something a non-artist
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Starring: Amy Ryan | Daphne Rubin-Vega | John Ortiz | Philip Seymour Hoffman
Michael says: “Hats off to Philip Seymour Hoffman! Not only is his directorial debut a warm, funny, brilliantly acted, gorgeously written romance, it’s also the most adept depiction of the internal lives of people I’ve seen on screen. It’s a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Anna Boden | Ryan Fleck
Starring: Emma Roberts | Jeremy Davies | Keir Gilchrist | Lauren Graham | Viola Davis | Zach Galifianakis
Jason says: “The title of IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY is its own review. It’s just a matter of where you want to put the emphasis. It’s got enough jokes and amusing moments to qualify as a funny story,
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Wilson Yip
Starring: Donnie Yen | Lynn Hung | Sammo Hung Kam-Bo | Simon Yam | Sui-Wong Fa | Xiaoming Huang
Jason says: “When I reviewed IP MAN last year, I was enthusiastic, comparing it to classic Shaw Brothers and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA. As I said then, that’s pretty good company for a martial arts epic to be
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