Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Nicols Winding Refn
Starring: Alexander Morton | Callum Mitchell | Ewan Stewart | Gary Lewis | Jamie Sives | Mads Mikkelsen
Thom says: “Charming Mads Mikkelsen was present for the Q&A after the viewing and he regaled us with stories about how hard it was to work with director Refn. This existential, religious, even metaphysical film is about a group of
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: André Téchiné
Starring: Catherine Deneuve | Emilie Dequenne | Mathieu Demy | Michel Blanc | Nicolas Duvauchelle | Ronit Elkabetz
Jason says: “THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN is based upon an incident that drew a fair amount of attention in its native France, but makes an unusual choice or two in telling the story. Director André Téchiné and co-writer Jean-Marie
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Lena Dunham
Starring: Alex Karpovsky | Grace Dunham | Jemima Kirke | Laurie Simmons | Lena Dunham | Merritt Wever
Jason says: “I’m often not quite sure where I land on movies like TINY FURNITURE. They spend a lot of their time annoying me, quite honestly, with their characters’ awkward quirks and selfishness, and I’m never quite able to figure
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Henrik Ruben Genz
Starring: Anders Hove | Jakob Cedergren | Kim Bodnia | Lars Brygmann | Lene Maria Christensen
Jason says: “I take note of odd credits when watching movies, and maybe any (hypothetical) readers from Denmark could fill me in on a couple from the end of TERRIBLY HAPPY: Is it common for Danish films to credit the
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Julie Taymor
Starring: Alan Cumming | Amber Tamblyn | David Straithairn | Helen Mirren | James Franco | Kate Mara | Treat Williams
Jason says: “As THE TEMPEST opens in cinemas after a certain amount of delay (the Walt Disney Company spent much of the past year or so trying to figure out what to do with Miramax Pictures, holding it in limbo),
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Uros Stojanovic
Starring: Katarina Radivojevic | Nenad Jezdic | Olivera Katarina | Sonja Kolacaric | Stefan Kapicic
Jason says: “The hackneyed phrase that is often used to describe this movie is ‘a Serbian AMELIE,’ which I think does it a disservice because, well, I didn’t like AMELIE much at all. Gilliam might be a better comparison; after
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Omar Majeed
Jason says: “So, if you’re making a movie about the birth of Muslim punk rock, who do you put at the center? Even if you know the players, that might not be as obvious as it seems: The word ‘taqwacore’
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Andrea Arnold
Starring: Charlotte Collins | Harry Treadaway | Jason Maza | Katie Jarvis | Kierston Wearing | Michael Fassbender
Michael says: “After her triumphant first feature, RED ROAD, which won lead actress Kate Dickie a Chlotrudis Best Actress Award, writer/director Andrea Arnold returns with another powerful drama about a young woman’s desire this time in blue-collar Britain. Mia doesn’t
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Stephen Frears
Starring: Bill Camp | Dominic Cooper | Gemma Arterton | Luke Evans | Roger Allam | Tamsin Greig
Jason says: “TAMARA DREWE is an odd film, able to defy expectations even if all the audience knows going into it is its name. After all, one would expect this movie to be a showcase for Gemma Arterton as the
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Director: lisa Barbash | Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Jeff says: “If you’re going to make a terrific cinematic work of cultural anthropology, you have to slow it way, way down, give the viewer lots of long, long, often static shots that convey the feel and the rhythms of
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Rob Stefaniuk
Starring: Alice Cooper | Dave Foley | Henry Rollins | Iggy Pop | Jessica Paré | Malcolm McDowell | Moby | Nicole de Boer
Thom says: “Another lackluster Canadian entry this one about a touring rock ‘n roll band will do anything to get ahead, yes, even become vampires. You can tell a film like this is crappy when a quality talent (McDowell) walks
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Rating: 2.75
Director: Steve Balderson
Starring: Jane Wiedlin | Karen Black | Mink Stole | Stacy Cunningham | Starina Johnson | Susan Traylor
Jason says: “The thing to realize about STUCK! is that, despite the exclamation point in the title and the meticulous recreation of a genre and style that has fallen out of favor, it is not a parody. Or at least,
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Gail O'Hara | Kerthy Fix
Chris says: “An adequate documentary about an extraordinary subject, this decade-in-the-making labor of love profiles Stephin Merritt, cult musician and head of The Magnetic Fields (and many other side projects). As a songwriter, Merritt seems out-of-time, his lyrics and melodies
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Danny Pang | Oxide Pang Chun
Starring: Aaron Kwok | Charlene Choi | Ekin Cheng | Kenny Ho | Nicholas Tse | Simon Yam | Suet Lam
Jason says: “My monthly pull at the comic shop is pretty international: North American, British, French, Korean, Japanese. No Chinese, though; not much of that has made it to America in translation. Which means I can’t say for sure whether
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: David Heilbroner | Kate Davis
Bruce says: “This documentary examines the aftermath of the infamous riots which occurred on June 28, 1969 when police raided the Stonewall Tavern on Christopher Street, near Sheridan Square in New York’s Greenwich Village. The film uses a quote from
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Don Argott
Bruce says: “In 1922, rebuffed and ridiculed by art critics – the Philadelphia Inquirer in particular – and many of the wealthy Philadelphians who supported the arts, Dr. Albert Barnes hired John G. Johnson, one of the best lawyers and
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Rating: 4.6
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Starring: Adrien Brody | Brandon McGibbon | Delphine Chanéac | Sarah Polley | Simona Maicanescu
Jason says: “SPLICE is an independent film that has been cleverly disguised as a big-studio summer movie, so a fair portion of the audience may feel uneasy as they watch it. More uneasy, that is; writer-director Vincenzo Natali isn’t just
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Bill Guttentag | Dan Sturman
Thom says: “I was all set to watch this out of obligation. Not that I haven’t been a strong advocate my entire life of universal acceptance and love but this was a story I’m intimately familiar with because of demonstrating
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Fatih Akin
Starring: Adam Bousdoukos | Anna Bederke | Birol Ünel | Lukas Gregorowicz | Moritz Bliebtreu | Pheline Roggan
Bruce says: “Fatih Akin’s first international hit HEAD-ON was an augury of great things to come. Certainly the Chlotrudis Best Picture, THE EDGE OF HEAVEN, bore out any such theories of predication regarding his work. Along comes SOUL KITCHEN which,
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Eddie Marsan | Jude Law | Mark Strong | Rachel McAdams | Robert Downey Jr | Robert Maillet
Thom says: “Hmmm… Admittedly, I have no respect at all for fake macho director Ritchie, and while this film is fitfully entertaining, finally let’s attack it for esthetic reasons. This was adapted from a comic book of all mediums but
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