Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: David Russo
Starring: Bryan Glasow | Jay Wesley Cochran | Marshall Allman | Melissa D. Brown | S. Joe Downing
Jason says: “David Russo had a bunch of nifty ideas that he threw into THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF LITTLE DIZZLE, and they’re the kind of ideas that work as part of this sort of strange stew movie – not big
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Terry Gilliam
Starring: Christopher Plummer | Colin Farrell | Heath Ledger | Johnny Depp | Jude Law | Lily Cole | Tom Waits
Jason says: “Ordinarily, when good people make a bad movie, there’s a tendency to hunt for where things went wrong. THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS offers an obvious and logical culprit: The sudden death of its star, Heath Ledger, midway
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Mike Sandejas
Starring: Adriana Agcaoili | Jayjay Sunico | Lorenzo Mara | Romalito Mallari | Zoe Sandejas
Michael says: “While certainly doing something different than what the festival circuit is used to regarding Philippine cinema, i.e. avoiding the slums and focusing on a more middle-class family, IF I KNEW WHAT YOU SAID ends up coming across like
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Funihiko Sori
Starring: Haruka Ayase | Shido Nakamura | Takao Osawa | Yôsuke Kubozuka
Jason says: “It is one of the oldest tricks in the book, despite having rather limited success, as far as I can tell: Take a franchise that has seen better days and revive it, only the new protagonist is no
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Glenn McQuaid
Starring: Angus Scrimm | Dominic Monaghan | John Speredakos | Larry Fessenden | Ron Perlman
Jason says: “I SELL THE DEAD is one of those movies that sits somewhere between comedy and horror and threatens to be neither one. The horror elements are rooted in the familiar rather than the unknown, but there’s often enough
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Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Anthony Mackie | Brian Geraghty | David Morse | Evangeline Lilly | Guy Pearce | Jeremy Renner | Ralph Fiennes
Diane says: “My stomach was in knots during the whole of THE HURT LOCKER a fine-grained study of a three-man American bomb squad unit in Iraq. Camera stays so close to the characters that you think what they think. The
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Eric Bilodeau
Starring: Emilie Gilbert-Gagnon | Luc Rivard | Marie-Eve Lemire | Patrice LeBlanc | Patrick Baby | Valérie Tremblay
Jason says: “Sure, this may not look like a Chlotrudis movie at first, but it’s hard for something to get more independent – or more Canadian! – than this! 🙂 “Every once in a while, I’ll get an email from
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Rating: 4.75 cats
Director: Steve McQueen
Starring: Brian Milligan | Liam Cunningham | Liam McMahon | Michael Fassbender | Stuart Graham
Bruce says: “Award winning video artist Steve McQueen makes a stunning directorial debut with his evocative film documenting the conditions leading up to the 1981 hunger strike led by Bobby Sands at Her Majesty’s Maze prison nine miles from Belfast.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Lynn Shelton
Starring: Alycia Delmore | Joshua Leonard | Mark Duplass
Jason says: “I haven’t seen Lynn Shelton’s first feature, but MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE and HUMPDAYT form an interesting pattern, and not just in how both are kicked off by an old friend visiting unannounced. Unlike many female independent filmmakers who
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Alejandro Fernández Almendras
Starring: Alejandra Yañez | Clemira Aguayo | Cornelio Villagrán | Manuel Hernández
Thom says: “If sincerity was the byword of film art this would have been best-in-show. In this case though, the film simply lacks interest. A country family is followed as they try to get by in a changing world. Prices
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Joe Dante
Starring: Bruce Dern | Chris Massoglia | Haley Bennett | Nathan Gamble | Quinn Lord | Teri Polo
Thom says: “Dante seems to be stuck in a child/scary mode with most of his feature films (GREMLINS is a good example) and while does have a fun quotient it’s not very special. Two brothers who have moved to a
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Megumi Sasaki
Jason says: “Herbert and Dorothy Vogel are a treasure, and most people will likely decide that’s the case just from hearing about the couple, without the need for a movie to convince them. They’re a working-class couple that managed to
Read the review...The Headless Woman (Argentina/France/Italy/Spain; 87 min.) directed by: Lucrecia Martel starring: Maria Onetto; César Bordón; Claudia Cantero; Daniel Genoud; Guillermo Arengo; Inés Efron Bruce says: “THE HEADLESS WOMAN is a state-of-mind study. Vero (Maria Onetto), a successful dentist, climbs
Read the review...Harry Brown (UK; 97 min.) directed by: Daniel Barber starring: Michael Caine; Emily Mortimer; Iain Glen; Liam Cunningham; Amy Steel; Ben Drew Thom says: “Thrill of thrills Michael Caine was at the Q&A session & I basked in his
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Shinobu Yaguchi
Starring: Haruka Ayase | Kazue Fukiishi | Saburô Tokitô | Seiichi Tanabe | Shinobu Terajima
Jason says: “Commercial air travel has become common enough that even those of us who do not fly very often take it for granted. We should and we shouldn’t: Life in the 21st century demands relying on complex systems that
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Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Rob Zombie
Starring: Brad Dourif | Chase Wright Vanek | Malcolm McDowell | Margot Kidder | Mary Birdsong | Scout Taylor-Comptona | Sheri Moon Zombie
Thom says: “More than idle curiosity begs me to ask the question: why in the name of all that’s Holy is Rob Zombie continuing to make this done-to-death story. I had a healthy respect for Zombie’s rock group White Zombie,
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Blaine Thurier
Starring: Ali Liebert | Ben Cotton | Benjamin Ayres | Craig Anderson | Paul Anthony | Sarah Edmondson | Sarah Lind
Thom says: “This was far and away the best Canadian film I saw at TIFF. A very black comedy featuring extraordinarily peculiar characters, I was hooked on this from the get-go. Thurier made quite the impression with his earlier film
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Paul Hasegawa-Overacker | Tom Donahue
Bruce says: “Having the pleasure of seeing slick documentaries such as MAN ON WIRE, PROTAGONIST, and SHUT UP AND SING one tends to be somewhat spoiled by their detailed scripting and/or high production values. It is important to keep in
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Stephen Soderbergh
Starring: Benicio Del Toro | Catalina Sandino Moreno | Demián Bichir | Franka Potente | Rodrigo Santoro
Jason says: “As Part One did, CHE: PART TWO opens with a geography lesson, this time showing us the landlocked nation of Bolivia. We’re also given a text scroll telling us that Che Guevera suddenly disappeared from Cuba in the
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Ryûichi Honda
Starring: Chiaki Kuriyama | Kenti Kashiwabara | Massao Kigawa | Muneo Okochi | Shun Masamiya
Jason says: “One of the signs of a particularly good comedy – or any sort of movie, really – is when there are funny or interesting things happening in the corners; stuff that the movie doesn’t need but which make
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