Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Michael Colford
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Arturo Ripstein
Starring: Ana Martin | Carmen Sa linas | Fernando Soler | Gonzalo Vega | Lucha Villa | Roberto Cobo
Thom says: “My brother has a dear friend in Seattle who’s a great film scholar and aficionado and he recently recommended Mexican auteur Arturo Ripstein with some 60 films credited to him. In fact, he’s still working. His films have
Read the review...By Michael Colford
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Billy Postelthwaite | Colin Firth | Daniel Mays | Dean-Charles Chapman | George MacKay | Pip Carter
Thom says: “This highly-praised WWII film by the talented Mendes (AMERICAN BEAUTY) is especially impressive with its technical gifts following two British soldiers as they navigate a rough battle path trying to avoid bombs, bullets, & accidents hoping to deliver
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Sonia Kennebeck
Chris says: “Matt DeHart, a ‘hacktivist’ charged with a crime he claims he didn’t commit is a fascinating subject for a doc/expose, but this format, heavy on reenactments and shocking reveals, does him no favors. In the tradition of CITIZENFOUR,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Arab Nasser | Tarzan Nasser
Starring: Hiam Abbass | Ibrahim Altoubat | Maisa Abd Elhadi | Namil Alraee
Chris says: “Ostensibly a romance between Issa (Salim Dau), a lifelong bachelor who announces, ‘I’ve decided to get married’ and Siham (Hiam Abbass), a seamstress with an adult daughter, this plays out with a slight surreal twinge, almost like a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Aisling Chin-Yee | Chase Joynt
Chris says: “Billy Tipton, a jazz musician born as a woman who presented himself to the world as a man, is obviously an intriguing subject for a documentary, but it’s actually only a part of this one. NO ORDINARY MAN
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Matthew Rankin
Starring: Brent Skagford | Catherine St-Laurent | Dan Beirne | Kee Chan | Louis Negin | Matthew Rankin | Mikhaïl Ahooja | Sarianne Cormier | Seán Cullen
Michael says: “You know you’re watching something perversely special when it features an ejaculating cactus. Paying liberal homage to the strangers films of Guy Maddin, Matthew Rankin’s first feature film is a wildly inventive, biopic (in the loosest sense of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats | 5 cats
Director: Darius Marder
Starring: Mathieu Amalric | Olivia Cooke | Paul Raci | Riz Ahmed
Michael says: “I have taken to watching films without really finding out too much about them first. Usually it’s one or two sentences from the synopsis, and I’ll make up my mind. SOUND OF METAL came as a big surprise,
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jeff Orlowski
Michael says: “Workshopped at the Sundance Institute, this whistle-blowing documentary about the social media industry was picked up by Netflix. While not all that surprising for anyone who’s paying attention, it’s still pretty chilling as it paints a picture of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Makoto Nagahisa
Starring: Keita Ninomiya | Kuranosuke Sasaki | Mondo Okumura | Rinko Kikuchi | Satoshi Mizuno | Sena Nakajima
Michael says: “The one-line synopsis on the Internet Movie Database for WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES states, ‘Four Japanese orphans form a rock band.’ While that statement is a fact, it barely scratches the surface of this fun, colorful, frankly, insane
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Hong Khaou
Starring: David Tran | Henry Golding | Molly Harris | Parker Sawyers
Michael says: “There’s a bit of a thread between COMING HOME AGAIN and MONSOON. Both deal with Asian families, and particularly sons dealing with the death of parents, and difficulty of accessing emotions. But where COMING HOME AGAIN was more
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