Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Elliot Page | Joseph Gordon-Leavitt | Ken Watanabe | Leonardo DiCaprio | Tom Hardy
Tony says: “A stunning jewel. . . . The best . . . cinematic experience . . . since ROCKY IV.”
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lee Sang-woo
Starring: Jeon Hye-jin | Kim Roe-ha | Moon Sung Keun | Myeong-cheol Shin
Jason says: “A LITTLE POND’s goal is to educate its audience about the Nogunri massacre of 1950, and it succeeds: It presents a reconstruction of that shameful incident in the best detail that the filmmakers could extrapolate. It is almost
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Rating: 5 cats
Director: Ole Bornedal
Starring: Jacob Ottensten | Lasse Rimmer | Lene Nystrøm | Mogens Pedersen
Jason says: “Ole Bornedal was never really away from filmmaking, but time spent trying to work Hollywood and then working Danish theater kept his film output very sparse in the ten years leading up to 2007. Since then, though, he’s
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Vincent Lannoo
Starring: Bénédicte Bantuelle | Carlo Ferrante | Fleur Lise Heuet | Pierre Lognay | Vera Van Dooren
Jason says: “It’s not that you can’t make a scary, surprising vampire movie any more – my last two trips to this festival delivered LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and THIRST, so it can be done. It’s just hard; the
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mai Tominaga
Starring: Dori Sakurada | Hikari Mitsushima | Ko Shibaski | Mirai Shida | Tetsushi Tanaka
Jason says: “So, here’s my question: If you lived in this tiny Japanese village, what sort of evidence would you need to declare that Rinco’s cooking has magical wish-granting powers? After all, in the sort of small town where everybody knows
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Momoru Hosoda
Starring: Mieko Nobusawa | Mitsuki Tanimura | Nanami Sakuraba | Ryunosuke Kamiki | Takahiro Yokokawa
Jason says: “Mamoru Hosoda perhaps didn’t make a huge name for himself with THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME, but he made a very good animated film that told a fantastical science fiction story that was also very emotionally grounded.
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Daniel Stamm
Starring: Ashley Bell | Caleb Landry Jones | Iris Bahr | Louis Herthum | Patrick Fabian
Jason says: “I’ve got an issue with THE LAST EXORCISM, but it’s about as minor as one can be: It may be borne almost entirely out of my personal beliefs and one that only becomes an issue in the final
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Yûya Ishii
Starring: Hikari Mitsushima | Kira Aihara | Kôtarô Shiga | Masashi Endô
Jason says: “A frustrating aspect of seeing foreign films at festivals is that they tend to be very directer-oriented, so if it’s a performance that catches one’s eye, the most likely situation for seeing that actor again is if he/she
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Eva Jin
Starring: Bingbing Fan | Chen Yao | Peter Ho | So Ji-sub | Zhang Ziyi
Jason says: “Take heart, people of the world; the west and the east aren’t necessarily so different after all. Sure, we may not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but if both cultures churn out romantic comedies where the
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Arild Fröhlich
Starring: Jenny Skavlan | Josefin Ljungman | Kyrre Hellum | Nils Jørgen Kaalstad | Per Kjerstad
Jason says: “Norway’s FATSO goes for the comedy of discomfort far more than an American version of the same story would, and as a result, maybe it makes sense in that case that it ends with only the wispiest sense
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