Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Christine Jeffs
Starring: Alan Arkin | Amy Adams | Clifton Collins | Emily Blunt | Jason Spevack | Jr. | Mary Lynn Rajskub | Steve Zahn
Michael says: “SUNSHINE CLEANING is a nice movie. It features some terrific, heartfelt performances, and a script that is as unconventional at times as it is cliché at others. Rose and Norah are sisters who need jobs. Rose has a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Olivier Assayas
Starring: Charles Berling | Edith Scob | Isabelle Sayodan | Jérémie Renier | Juliette Binoche
Bruce says: “This film began as a commission from the Musée d’Orsay and then evolved into a different animal from what had originally been envisioned. By the time the film was made the relationship with the d’Orsay evaporated. Hard-core Assayas
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Anna Boden | Ryan Fleck
Starring: Algenis Perez Solo | Andre Holland | Ann Whitney | Ellary Potterfield | Jaime Tirelli | Rayniel Rufino
Diane says: “Loved SUGAR. More kudos to that fab filmmaking duo, Boden-Fleck. SUGAR is beautifully filmed and edited. Every shot has an emotion underlying it. This baseball ignoramus was able to get the story completely. My only complaint: I thought
Read the review...Suck (Canada) directed by: Rob Stefaniuk starring: Malcolm McDowell; Dave Foley; Jessica Paré; Nicole de Boer; Henry Rollins; Iggy Pop; Alice Cooper; Moby Thom says: “Another lackluster Canadian entry this one about a touring rock ‘n roll band will
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.125 cats
Director: Alex Vlack | Damani Baker
Jason says: “The recording studio that occupies a fair-sized chunk of Bill Withers’s Los Angeles home in STILL BILL is a tremendous tease. It’s new-looking, with plenty of digital tools, which certainly suggests that the man behind ‘Lean on Me’
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring: Hiroshi Abe | Kazuya Takahashi | Kirin Kiki | Shohei Tanaka | Yoshio Harada | You | Yui Natsukawa
Jason says: “Among my moviegoing friends, I have gained a not-undeserved reputation for lacking patience with French dysfunctional family dramas. I contend that this is a bit unfair; while I did, in fact, bang my head against the back of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: J. J. Abrams
Starring: Bruce Greenwood | Chris Pine | Eric Bana | Karl Urban | Leonard Nimoy | Zachary Quinto | Zoe Saldana
Diane says: “Awesome. I grew up with STAR TREK and found this film very satisfying. Impressed with art director’s restraint in keeping the futuristic look developed in the 1960s, and with the graphics of the black holes. Nice touch to
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Brant Sersen
Starring: Christopher McDonald | Dean Winters | Lea Thompson | Rachael Taylor | Thomas Middleditch
Jason says: “Apparently ‘splinterheads’ are a subset of what I’ve always thought of as ‘carnies,’ but that’s apparently like calling a sailor, Marine, or airman a ‘soldier’ – outsiders may think it’s close enough, but in actuality it’s not. Carnies
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Dia Sokol
Starring: Andrew Bujalski | Donovan Baddley | Ia Hernandez | Kenya Miles | Wiley Wiggins
Jason says: “The ‘mumblecore’ generation is, perhaps, starting to get interesting. Digital video is both good and cheap enough that these movies no longer default to looking like a muddy mess. More importantly, the characters are starting to feel much
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.6
Director: Majid Majidi
Starring: Hamid Aghazi | Kamran Dehgha | Maryam Akbari | Mohammad Amir Naji | Neshat Nazari | Schabnam Akhlaghi
Diane says: “I love many of Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi’s films (CHILDREN OF HEAVEN, BARAN, WILLOW TREE, COLOR OF PARADISE) for their gentle recognition of the beauty inherent in life. SONG OF SPARROWS, however, is so driven by its morality
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Starring: Haruka Igawa | Inowaki Kai | Kanji Tsuda | Kyôko Koizumi | Teruyuki Kagawa | Yû Koyanagi
Jason says: “There have been many sequences in movies where someone loses his or her job, but few have been so callously cruel as the one that opens TOKYO SONATA: A pretty girl walks through an office, drawing all eyes.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Shane Meadows
Starring: Elisa Lasowski | Ireneusz Czop | Kate Dickie | Perry Benson | Piotr Jagiello | Thomas Turgoose
Michael says: “Beautifully shot in black & white, Shane Meadows’ (THIS IS ENGLAND) latest film SOMERS TOWN is a sly look at two teenagers who become friends in working class London. Marek has recently arrived from Easter Europe and spends
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael J. Bassett
Starring: James Purefoy | Jason Flemyng | Max von Sydow | Pete Postlethwaite | Rachel Hurd-Wood | Samuel Roukin
Thom says: “This is one of those big-budget extravaganza & fantasy creation that is beautifully done with lovely images of creatures from lost worlds. The time is the 1500s and our hero Kane has to fight pure evil to overcome
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Lee Demarbre
Starring: David Hess | Jesse Buck | Michael Berryman | Ray Sager | Sasha Grey
Jason says: “The appeal of the deliberately shoddy homage continues to elude me, even when I find something to enjoy in one, as I did with SMASH CUT. Wouldn’t it be a finer tribute to take what you learned from,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.125 cats
Director: Alex Rivera
Starring: Giovanna Zacarías | Jacob Vargas | Leonor Varela | Luis Fernando Peña
Jason says: “Science fiction on film is tricky. The money to do spectacle generally comes with strings attached, but without it, a filmmaker runs the risk of having their world look unconvincing or settling for using their big ideas to
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kevin Heffernan
Starring: April Bowlby | Cobie Smulders | Kevin Heffernan | Michael Clarke Duncan | Steve Lemme
Jason says: “I have more or less ignored BROKEN LIZARD for what are pretty stupid reasons: The trailers for SUPER TROOPERS didn’t amuse me and it later became a movie much-loved by people who were fans of comedies I disliked.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2 cats
Director: Mark Lebenon
Starring: Malcolm Ferreira | Nicole Smart | Roland Gaspar | Shaun Myburg
Jason says: “SLAM-BANG is, as the director pointed out several times during the introduction and Q&A, a notable movie for being a bit of pulp action made independently in South Africa. It is apparently very difficult to get a film
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Anthony Fabian
Starring: Alice Krige | Ella Ramangwane | Sam Neill | Sophie Okonedo | Tony Kgoroge
Jason says: “The laws of nature and the laws of man are almost entirely different beasts. The former are relatively few, and constant, but allow for great complexity and variety; they say what can happen. The latter multiply continually, but
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Nina Paley
Starring: Debargo Sanval | Pooja Kumar | Reena Shah | Sanjiv Jhaveri
Jason says: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity. SITA SINGS THE BLUES is an extraordinary independent animated film, and while those are far from a dime a dozen, they have a tough time getting distribution and attention. Even with
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Tom Ford
Starring: Colin Firth | Jon Kortajarena | Julianne Moore | Matthew Goode | Nicholas Hoult
Michael says: “I’m glad I took the time to see this film a second time after seeing it in September in Toronto because I enjoyed it much more the second time allowing the minor issues that bothered me upon first
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