Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Noah Buschel
Starring: Amy Ryan | Frank Wood | Linda Emond | Margaret Colin | Michael Shannon | Paul Sparks
Jason says: “THE MISSING PERSON suffers from a bit of an identity crisis, which is only fitting, as it parallels that of the main character. Its jumps between mystery and parody don’t do it many favors, even if it has
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Simon Ennis
Starring: Dov Tiefenbach | Joshua Peace | Kristen Hager | Michael Madsen | Stephen McHattie
Jason says: “YOU MIGHT AS WELL LIVE is a solid moron movie – the type where the lead character’s quite astounding stupidity is just balanced with his innocence in such a way that we can laugh at him while still
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Oren Moverman
Starring: Ben Foster | Eamonn Walker | Jena Malone | Samantha Morton | Steve Buscemi | Woody Harrelson | Yaya DaCosta
Jason says: “THE MESSENGER has no problem with making the audience a little uncomfortable. What might, in another movie, have been a bittersweet romance between Ben Foster’s Will Montgomery (a wounded soldier serving the end of his hitch informing next
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Michael Keaton
Starring: Bobby Cannavale | Darlene Hunt | Kelly Macdonald | Michael Keaton | Philip Earl Johnson | Tom Bastounes
Jason says: “THE MERRY GENTLEMAN is one of those movies that appears at the local boutique theater for a blink-and-miss-it one-week engagement with just about zero fanfare, and I probably would have missed it if I hadn’t noticed Michael Keaton’s
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Cheol-hie Park
Starring: Ha-kyun Shin | Ji-hye Yun | Min-jun Kim
Jason says: “NO MERCY FOR THE RUDE isn’t exactly the movie its English-language title would imply. The name implies some sort of satire or that the rudeness is important, and that’s not really where this movie’s going. It’s a much
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Barry Jenkins
Starring: Tracey Heggins | Wyatt Cenac
Jason says: “The ‘getting to know you’ movie is a vital part of the independent film scene. Aside from being something that can be shot on a budget – get a couple actors, some friendly locations, and a script with
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Ben Chaplin | Christian McKay | Claire Danes | Eddie Marsan | Kelly Reilly | Zac Efron | Zoe Kazan
Jason says: “At times, it’s a bit hard to grasp that Orson Welles was a sex symbol, once upon a time. Forget the way he ballooned to a size that matched his ego and personality later in life; he did
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Lyes Salem
Starring: Lyes Salem | Merouane Zmirli | Mohamed Boucharïb | Mourad Khen | Rym Takoucht | Sarah Reguieg
Bruce says: “MASQUERADES is one of those films that take me by surprise and win me over easily. The story is a small one and perhaps not that original. Three old men sit in the village square when a group
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Adam Elliot
Starring: Barry Humphries | Bethany Whitmore | Eric Bana | Philip Seymour Hoffman | Toni Collette
Jason says: “It’s interesting how certain things seem to arrive in clusters. Stop-motion animation never seemed to disappear quite so completely as the traditional cel-based form, but what has appeared over the last year or so has been an unexpected
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Lukas Moodysson
Starring: Gael García Bernal | Jan David G. Nicdao | Marife Necesito | Michelle Williams | Sophie Nyweide | Thomas McCarthy
Michael says: “As in JELLYFISH, my favorite film from last year, MAMMOTH finds as one of its core conflicts, a mother traveling half-way around the world to take care of other people’s children in order to make money to support
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Crayton Robey
Bruce says: “MAKING THE BOYS, a documentary about the creative process in developing The Boys in the Band and the resulting impact it has had on the gay community, was entered in the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival as a work-in-progress.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Sebastián Silva
Starring: Alejandro Goic | Andrea Garcia-Huidobro | Anita Reeves | Augustín Silva | Catalina Saavedra | Claudia Celedón | Mariana Loyola | Mercedes Villaneuva
Bruce says: “Sebastián Silva follows the adage that one should write about what one knows. THE MAID tells the story of his family’s maid during the time he was growing up and was filmed in the actual house where the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Kôki Mitani
Starring: Eri Fukatsu | Haruka Ayase | Kôichi Satô | Satoshi Tsumabuki | Toshiyuki Nishida
Jason says: “Let’s face it: The whole deal with gangs and movies intersecting in such a way as to cause hilarious, self-referential misunderstanding is pretty darn played out. I groaned a little just reading the description for THE MAGIC HOUR,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Derick Martini
Starring: Alec Baldwin | Cynthia Nixon | Jill Hennessey | Kieran Culkin | Rory Culkin | Timothy Hutton
Diane says: “Saw LYMELIFE on the strength of the trailer, plus the appeal of two elements: Lyme disease and Long Island in the ’70s. “Variety says, ‘Startling performances, searing dialogue and an archaeologist’s sense of late ’70s period detail power
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Mark Wahlberg | Rachel Weisz | Rose McIver | Saoirse Ronan | Stanley Tucci | Susan Sarandon
Jason says: “Though I tend to think that attempting to fit a movie into a specific genre and then being frustrated when it fails to fit there nicely speaks more ill of the viewer’s inflexibility than the movie itself, I
Read the review...The Loved Ones (Australia; 84 min.) directed by: Sean Byrne starring: Xavier Samuel ; Richard Wilson; Jessica McNamee; Victoria Thaine; John Brumpton Thom says: “This Australian horror entry was brief, to-the-point, gruesome, & rather fun. It’s Prom Night in
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Jonathan Hock
Jason says: “If THE LOST SON OF HAVANA were fictional, there’s a good chance that people would call its screenplay ridiculous. After all, it features the World Series, the Negro Leagues, multiple incredible returns from injury, baseball bringing about a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ellen Seidler | Megan Siler
Starring: Angelyna Martinez | Ashleigh Sumner | Cathy DeBuono | Jessica Graham | Jill Bennett
Michael says: “In Provincetown for the weekend and as luck would have it, the Provincetown International Film Festival has a slate of Women’s Week Films running at the Whaler’s Wharf! Wary of catching some amateurish, lesbian film (a la BAR
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Starring: Alex Descas | Bill Murray | Gael García Bernal | Hiam Abbass | Isaach De Bankolé | Tilda Swinton
Chris says: “Few films baffle me as much as this one initially did. Jim Jarmusch has always been a particularly austere auteur: his narratives tend to unfold at a zen-like pace and the films’ structures possess as much weight as the stories
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Starring: Go Hyun-jung | Kim Tae-woo | Kong Hyeong-jin | Uhm Ji-won
Bruce says: “I’ve never before seen a picture by director Hong Sang-soo, which appears to be a grave oversight on my part. LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL is a refreshing take on dark comedy. The anti-hero of this movie is
Read the review...