Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Cindy Kleine
Thom says: “This is the 2nd time I’ve seen this film which leads me to (unverifiable so far) believe that this is the 2nd time around for this film as a screener. Ostensibly it’s a film made by the daughter about
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Gwendolyn Oxenham | Luke Boughen | Rebekah Fergusson | Ryan White
Jason says: “‘Pelada’ means ‘naked’ in Portugese, but this is not that kind of movie. Instead, the title refers to a slang term for pick-up soccer, fitting because when played that way, it’s often the game stripped down to its
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Michael Lander
Starring: Bill Pullman | Cillian Murphy | Elliot Page | Graham Beckel | Josh Lucas | Susan Sarandon
Thom says: “For shame on the movie’s producers inability to get this released in theaters, especially because super-talented Cillian Murphy deserves all sorts of awards for his spectacular work here. Yes, it’s reminiscent of Jeremy Iron’s work in David Cronenberg’s
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Meghan Eckman
Jason says: “Most documentary features that get any sort of play beyond local public television do because not only are they generally well-made, but they have important subject matter; someone programming a film festival or a boutique movie house decides
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Starring: Alex Lutz | Jean Dujardin | Louise Monot | Pierre Bellemare | Reem Kherici | Rüdiger Vogler
Jason says: “I was pretty fond of filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius’s previous comedic revival of the OSS 117 franchise and character (OSS 117 CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES); it did a lot of things right and did them in ways that an
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Neil Jordan
Starring: Alicja Bachleda | Alison Barry | Colin Farrell | Dervla Kirwan | Marion O'Dwyer | Stephen Rea | Tony Curran
Thom says: “I’ll easily admit that I’ve been a huge fan of many of Jordan’s films including THE CRYING GAME, THE BUTCHER BOY, MONA LISA, BREAKFAST ON PLUTO, & THE END OF THE AFFAIR, but he’s also bombed with some entries (INTERVIEW
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Laura Poitras
Thom says: “I don’t feel all that strong in criticizing this film, but I simply couldn’t’t absorb it. Both Jandal & Hamdan have past connections to Al Qaeda (Jandal was Osama bin Laden’s personal bodyguard from 1996-2000 & remains a
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Henry Joost | Jody Lee Lipes
Starring: Adam Hendrickson | Amar Ramasar | Brittany Pollack | Rebecca Krohn | Tiler Peck
Jason says: “Is ballet the least-appreciated major art form in America? To perform it demands the physical fitness and training of a professional athlete and the skills a professional actor. The music is often lively, and the choreography is intricate,
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Philipp Stölzl
Starring: Benno Fürmann | Florian Lukas | Georg Friedrich | Johanna Wokalek | Simon Schwarz | Ulrich Tukur
Jason says: “I saw a poster advertising a mini festival of ‘climbing movies’ in the same theater where I saw NORTH FACE, and the fact that most of us can instantly deduce what that means probably counts as a strike
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Irving Schwartz
Starring: Dawn Noel Pignuola | icole LaLiberte | Naama Kates | Ty Jones
Jason says: “MY NORMALl is thoroughly enjoyable, but I’ve got to be honest: It might come off as just another talky indie/mumblecore film if half the cast of characters were not lesbian dominatrices. “Take Natalie (Nicole LaLiberte); she’s a lesbian
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Jason says: “NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS doesn’t initially look remarkable; indeed, midway through it, it appears slight of frame but bloated by music videos; interesting, but trying to be two things and doing neither well. But it eventually
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Mark Romanek
Starring: Andrew Garfield | Carey Mulligan | Charlie Rowe | Ella Purnell | Isobel Meikle-Small | Keira Knightley
Jason says: “NEVER LET ME GO is the sort of science fiction that tends to hide its genre or go by another name – ‘speculative fiction’ or ‘slipstream’ – because it wants to associate itself with a different audience. Science
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Dan Eckman
Starring: Aubrey Plaza | D.C. Pierson | Dominic Dierkes | Donald Glover | Matt Walsh
Jason says: “Aw, nuts. Granted, it’s not as if I’m likely to ever actually be able to produce Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators movies, but it’s on my list of things that I would like to do if I
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Brad Dourif | Chloe Sevigny | Grace Zabriskie | Loretta Devine | Michael Peña | Michael Shannon | Willem Dafoe
Jason says: “The first two credits to appear on the screen in MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE are ‘David Lynch Presents’ and ‘A Film By Werner Herzog.’ If you recognize the names, you know that means there’s
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Michael Kallio
Starring: Bart Williams | Bob Young | Colleen Nash | Jack White | Michael East | Pete LaDuke
Jason says: “This shit needs to stop. “Shouldn’t young filmmakers with no money have moved on from spoofing bad 1950s sci-fi by now? It’s too easy a target if the intent is to skewer, and if the goal is to
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Rating: 4.4
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Starring: Bin Won | Hye-ja Kim | Ku Jin | Mi-sun Jun | Sae-Beauk Song | Yoon-jae Moon | Young-suck Lee
Jason says: “Bong Joon-ho’s last film, THE HOST, was a great big special effects extravaganza that set the record for ticket sales in South Korea. In many cases, one would expect a director to try and top that in his
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Glenn Ficarra | John Requa
Starring: Antoni Corone | Brennan Brown | Ewan McGregor | Jim Carrey | Leslie Mann | Rodrigo Santoro
Jason says: “I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS opens with a playful variant on the standard disclaimer, something along the lines of ‘This all happened. It really did!’ It’s the sort of movie that might get dismissed as ridiculous or improbable
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Gareth Edwards
Starring: Scoot McNairy | Whitney Able
Jason says: “Movies like MONSTERS often get graded on a curve because of how much they do with relatively little. Gareth Edwards shot it guerilla-style and had to cram a fair amount of effects shots into a five or six-figure
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Rating: 2.25
Director: Gianni Di Gregorio
Starring: Gianni Di Gregorgio | Grazia Cesarini Sforza | Maria Cali | Marina Cacciotti | Valeria De Franciscis
Bruce says: “MID-AUGUST LUNCH is based on a solid idea but is hampered by a sloppy, unsatisfying execution. Gianni is a dutiful son confronted with dwindling coffers and an insatiable yearning for white wine. He lives with and cares for
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring: André Dussollier | Dany Boon | Jean-Pierre Marielle | Nicolas Marié | Yolande Moreau
Thom says: “This film is absolute perfection, defining the art of film, frame-by-frame, scene-by-scene, with so many of the delightful excesses that Jeunet is known for. And don’t count me as a Jeunet Pollyanna, by any means. While I’m a
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