Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Dagur Kári
Starring: Brian Cox | Isild Le Besco | Paul Dano
Bruce says: “Who would have guessed that the two stars of the 2001 film L.I.E., one a Scotsman and the other an American teenager, would end up eight years later working together in Iceland? Although Paul Dano (2008 Chlotrudis Award
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Ji-woon Kim
Starring: Byung-hun Lee | Kang-ho Song | Woo-sung Jung
Jason says: “A few years ago, I saw a movie called A BITTERSWEET LIFE AT FANTASIA and loved it, saying it was the sort of action movie John Woo and Chow Yun-fat used to make before they came to Hollywood
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Starring: Lena Endre | Michael Nyqvist | Noomi Rapace | Peter Andersson | Peter Haber | Sven-Bertil Taube
Jason says: “Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium’ novels – all three published posthumously, and given names that begin The Girl Who… in the United States – are kind of a big deal. How can you tell? Well, the three movies with high
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Ewan McGregor | James Belushi | John Bernthal | Kim Cattral | Olivia Williams | Pierce Brosnan
Thom says: “Polanski, perhaps because of his continuing legal problems, is not the most prolific of world-class directors, but I’ve still managed to see 17 of his films. I loved his early oeuvre of KNIFE IN THE WATER, REPULSION, &
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Aaron Schneider
Starring: Bill Murray | Lucas Black | Robert Duvall | Sissy Spacek
Thom says: “This period piece about a hermit in Tennessee in the 1930s has its plusses, especially with pretty horses, good photography and editing, finally ends up disappointing. The truculent hermit has a big secret that separates him from the
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Jeff Reichert
Jason says: “Disdain for the technique of redrawing voting districts in strange ways for political gain (‘gerrymandering’) doesn’t unite America’s political parties, so much as alternate between them as convenient. Because of this, GRRYMANDERING-the-movie actually has a better chance than
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Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Adam Green
Starring: Ed Ackerman | Emma Bell | Kane Hodder | Kevin Zegers | Rileah Vanderbilt | Shawn Ashmore
Jason says: “FROZEN is straightforward, at times almost to a fault. In short order, we get friends with a certain amount of tension between them, a situation we really wouldn’t want to be in, and things getting worse. Fortunately, this
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Gorman Bechard
Starring: Alex Brown | Anne Petersen | Jake Alexander | Lynn Mancinelli | Margaret Laney
Jason says: “A funny thing happened while I sat in the theater, watching the BUFF screening of FRIENDS (WITH BENEFITS): I realized that it was, all told, a pretty conventional romantic comedy – which is probably the last thing I
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Katie Aselton
Starring: Joshua Leonard | Katie Aselton | Ken Kennedy | Leonora Gershman | Sean Nelson
Jason says: “THE FREEBIE is one of those DIY-style movies (it’s too well-spoken and clean-looking to be referred to as ‘mumblecore’) where no writing credits appears; the cast is working from producer/director/star Katie Aselton’s outline. Everyone’s got their own process,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Alex Gibney | Eugene Jarecki | Heidi Ewing | Morgan Spurlock | Rachel Grady | Seth Gordon
TC says: “FREAKONOMICS is based on the best-selling book of the same name by economist Steven Levitt and writer Stephen Dubner. It basically looks at how random chance, or causality, affects various parts of the everyday economy. “Having been fan
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Director: Christopher Morris
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch | Craig Parkinson | Kayvan Novak | Nigel Lindsay | Preeya Kalidas | Riz Ahmed
Jason says: “Before getting upset at the very existence of terrorist comedy FOUR LIONS, remember one thing: Most criminals are idiots. If they were smart, they’d likely be putting their talents to use doing something much more lucrative with much
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Adam Kane
Starring: James Van Der Beek | John Heard | Tzi Ma | Wendy Crewson | Will Tiao
Jason says: “(There’s movies where you want your opinion known, movies that you want people made aware of, and shameless attempts to make sure that the limited-release film you saw counts toward your films-seen tally at the end of the
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ha Yu
Starring: In-seong Jo | Ji-hyo Song | Jin-mo Ju
Jason says: “How things change; before THE KING AND THE CLOWN, which was very careful about what it showed of its title characters’ relationship, I don’t think you ever saw gay characters in Korean cinema, and Park Chan-wook’s THIRST wound
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Daniel Alfredson
Starring: Annika Hallin | Lena Endre | Michael Nyqvist | Michalis Koutsogiannakis | Noomi Rapace | Peter Andersson
Jason says: “It’s not really important that the first ‘Millennium’ novel (and film adaptation) is called Men Who Hate Women in Sweden, becoming The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in English-speaking countries for the purpose of having the entire trilogy
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: James Ivory
Starring: Anthony Hopkins | Charlotte Gainsbourg | Hiroyuki Sanada | Laura Linney | Omar Metwally
Michael says: “I am a huge fan of Peter Cameron’s novel The City of Your Final Destination, so I was looking forward to James Ivory’s adaptation of the same name. The main story follows the journey of a young man
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Yael Hersonski
TC says: “I can’t describe what an amazing, powerful movie this is. The film focuses on four reels of film shot in 1942 in the Warsaw ghetto by Nazi filmmakers who were making a propaganda film. But for some reason,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Doug Liman
Starring: Brooke Smith | David Andrews | Naomi Watts | Norbert Leo Butz | Sean Penn
Jason says: “FAIR GAME is a good movie that is going to have a target on its back for all the wrong reasons. If the story were relocated and names were changed, both its issues and its strengths would be
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Robert Pulcini | Shari Springer Berman
Starring: Alicia Goranson | Dan Hedaya | John C. Reilly | Katie Holmes | Kevin Kline | Paul Dano
Jason says: “In general, it’s a bad sign when the main character of a movie isn’t the first name you see in the credits. That’s not a rule you can really rely on, since that sort of thing is often
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.9
Director: Banksy
Chris says: “It’s rare for one film to fully capture how an artistic movement evolves from inception to irrelevance, but that’s just what this ingenuously constructed, gleefully entertaining documentary does for graffiti-inspired guerrilla street art—as it’s all happening, no less.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jin Ho Choi
Starring: Chang-ju Lee | Cho Hyun-jae | Geon Kim | Kye Sang Yoon | Su-jeong Jo | Su-yeon Cha | Tae-hee Heo
Jason says: “It’s not hard for a prison movie to get off to a decent start. There is, after all, always a new guy coming in who needs to be shown the ropes and taught the rules. That the new
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