Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mark Wexler
Diane says: “Documentarian Mark Wexler, affected by the death of his mother, considers mortality and aging. Wexler is unassuming and sympathetic, with a good sense of humor. I laughed a lot. He consults geriatricians, quacks, old people in California nursing
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Adam Wingard
Starring: AJ Bowen | Amy Seimetz | Brandon Carroll | Joe Swanberg | Lane Hughes
Jason says: “I don’t want genre filmmaking to become a paint-by-numbers affair, where we as an audience rejoice at basic competence and filmmakers strive to replicate a winning formula. Crime, horror, and the like can be innovative and done with
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura
Starring: Eihi Shiina | Kazuki Namioka | Minoru Torihada | Yumiko Hara | Yûrei Yanagi
Jason says: “Yoshihiro Nishimura’s HELLDRIVER is a Yoshihiro Nishimura film, and he doesn’t do things halfway. So how a person reacts to the opening scene (and, I presume, any preview they make for the movie) will likely serve as a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mona Achache
Starring: Anne Brochet | Garance Le Guillermic | Josiane Balasko | Togo Igawa
Michael says: “Somehow I missed hearing about this film until it showed up last week at the Kendall Square Cinema, even though it played at the Boston French Film Festival. Not that I was surprised. THE HEDGEHOG is based on
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Sophia Takal
Starring: Alex Ross Perry | Kate Lyn Sheil | Lawrence Michael Levine | Louis Cancelmi | Sophia Takal
Jason says: “Ignore the first scene of this movie; it sets a tone and a theme that winds up being a relatively minor part of what follows. The remaining hour or so turns into something much more interesting than the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Michael Webber
Diane says: “I guess I heard about this doc on NPR, in the aftermath of the exotic animal incident in Ohio a few weeks ago. Tim Harrison runs an organization called Outreach for Animals. ELEPHANT is primarily the story of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Albert Brooks | Bryan Cranston | Carey Mulligan | Oscar Isaac | Ryan Gosling
Diane says: “The good: Ryan Gosling, of course. I was with a dozen or so women friends recently, and Ryan Gosling was the one actor they could all agree on as someone they’d like to sleep with. Albert Brooks. What
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Howard J. Ford | Jonathan Ford
Starring: David Dontoh | Prince David Oseia | Rob Freeman
Jason says: “Most people who decide to make a zombie movie do it in a bare-bones way, shooting in their hometown rather than going particularly far afield; when you’re working with no budget, it’s best to be in familiar territory.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Evan Kelly
Starring: Mary-Colin Chisholm | Matthew Amyotte | Nigel Bennett | Stephen Chambers
Jason says: “In most horror movies, insanity encroaches slowly, chipping away at the seemingly normal world that the filmmakers had built up at the start. To say that director Evan Kelly and writer Josh MacDonald go the opposite route with
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Starring: Agathe Natanson | Gianna Giachertti | Jean-Claude Carrière | Juliette Binoche | William Shimell
Ibad says: “Celebrated Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami marks a new chapter in his long career with CERTIFIED COPY, making a film outside of his home country for the first time. The naturally sunny Tuscan cinematography keeps the film floating light
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