Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Ian Bonhôte | Peter Ettedgui
Starring: documentary
Julie says: “This was a very well done doc. I recommend it. I think it painted a very clear, honest, intriguing and endearing portrait of Susanne Bartsch’s life and those around her as well as the important times in which
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Starring: Aleksey Rozin | Maryana Spivak | Matvey Novikov
Chris says: “Not as sharp a political allegory as LEVIATHAN, nor does it possess that film’s necessary gallows humor (which might’ve been out of place here, anyway.) However, Andrey Zvyagintsev (whose greatest film remains his first, THE RETURN remains a
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring: Kirin Kiki | Lily Franky | Mayu Matsuoka | Sakura Andô
Chris says: “Naming a favorite film by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda is like doing the same for his closest progenitor, Yasujiro Ozu–nearly impossible, given their tendencies to revisit and refine themes of domesticity and humanism while maintaining a higher-than-average consistency.
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Armando Iannucci
Starring: Jeffrey Tambor | Michael Palin | Paddy Considine | Simon Russell Beale | Steve Buscemi
Chris says: “Excessively funny and appropriately dark, from the ‘musical emergency’ opening to the slapstick moving-of-the-body to a deliriously profane argument playing out in front of a small child. I may need a second viewing to determine whether this is
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Matt Tyrnauer
Starring: documentary
Chris says: “Never a movie star but definitely a character, Scotty Bowers’ life was inadvertently custom-built for a documentary. He ran a brothel inside a Hollywood Blvd. gas station in the years following World WarII, one that infamously catered to
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Ethan Coen | Joel Coen
Starring: Clancy Brown | Danny McCarthy | David Krumholtz | James Franco | Tim Blake Nelson | Willie Watson
Chris says: “Pretty consistent for what amounts to six separate stories only related by genre (in this case, the Western); also solid for a Coen Brothers film, given how scattershot the last one was. Not as fully realized as NO
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Starring: Cho Yunhee | Kim Min-hee | Kim Sae-byeok | Kwon Hae-hyo
Michael says: “THE DAY AFTER is a Koren film from prolific director Hong Sang-Soo. This film that starts with our lead, Bongwan (Kwon Hae-hyo),a respected literary critic who runs his own publishing house, being accused by his wife (Cho Yun-hee)
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Debra Granik
Starring: Ben Foster | Jeffery Rifflard | Thomasin McKenzie
Chris says: “Although far less prolific, I’d like to think of Debra Granik as the American Mike Leigh for her depiction (consideration, even) of the working-class without condescending to them. Not as seminal or all-out engrossing as WINTER’SBONE, but teenager
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Dana Adam Shapiro
Starring: documentary
Julie says: “This was pretty interesting. The woman running the show Suzanne Mitchell reminds me of my Mom’s best friend back in Texas re some of her mannerisms in her old age. She’s a character for sure. They go back
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Starring: Carlose Peralta | Daniela Demes | Diego Cortina Autrey | Marco Graf | Marina de Tavira | Yalitza Aparicio
Brett says: “Jaw-dropping cinematography perfectly fits a form-follows-function approach in which the audience eavesdrops and hovers around the tale, which is a sort of ominous love letter or thank-you note to the voiceless. Clearly a personal film for director Alfonso
Read the review...