Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Jonathan Tiplitzky
Starring: Colin Firth | Hiroyuki Sanada | Jeremy Irvine | Nicole Kidman | Stellan Skarsgaard | Tanroh Ishida
Jason says: “This is a movie seemingly designed for awards consideration that the Weinstein Company released in April, and while that may just be an example of them deciding another horse was a safer bet… Well, PHILOMENA was the safer
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Gregory Levasseur
Starring: Amir K | Ashley Hinshaw | Christa Nicola | Denis O’Hare | James Buckley
Jason says: “I can (and to a certain extent, will) rattle off the ways that THE PYRAMID is disappointing, subpar, and lucky to find a particularly barren release date in order to avoid a direct-to-VOD fate. But even though I
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Eisuke Naitô
Starring: Baku Ohwada | Kaho | Kazuya Takahashi | Kokone Sasaki | Ryuzo Tanaka | Shûhei Nomura
Jason says: “I’m sure that the title of PUZZLE was supposed to describe the sensation of watching it to a certain extent, although there were several times that I think filmmaker Eisuke Naito may not necessarily have meant to set
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Pau Teixidor
Starring: Ana Fernández | Andrés Gertrúdix | Oona Chaplin | Sergi Mendez
Jason says: “Though it’s not uncommon to encounter one that makes a good case for its greater length at all, most horror movies would be best served running seventy-five to eighty minutes, long enough to set a story up, make
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Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Zack Parker
Starring: Alexa Havins | Alexia Rasmussen | Joe Swanberg | Kristina Klebe
Jason says: “Give PROXY filmmaker Zack Parker this: Unlike many movies that wind up labeled ‘horror’, his delivers something that its audience will want to put out of their heads afterward because it doesn’t bear thinking about. Unfortunately, he keeps
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jenée LaMarque
Starring: Carroll Lynch | Frankie Shaw | Jake Johnson | Jeremy Howard | Ron Livingston | Zoe Kazan
Jason says: “It sometimes feels like Jenée LaMarque could have done more with THE PRETTY ONE; the idea of one identical twin taking the place of the other is certainly not new, but it’s the sort of plot device that
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Rating: 3.25
Director: Christopher Denham
Jason says: “Wilderness survival movies don’t get much more basic than PRESERVATION, which takes this budget-friendly premise and builds a passable movie out of it. It’s not going to change the genre, or even necessarily stand out as particularly innovative
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael Spierig | Peter Spierig
Starring: Christopher Kirby | Ethan Hawkes | Noah Taylor | Sarah Snook
Jason says: “If they have any ambition at all, both good and bad time-travel movies make the viewer’s head hurt a little bit thinking about how the plot fits together; the good ones make the us like it. By that
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Rating: 3 cats
Director: Michael Tully
Starring: Amy Sedaris | Emmi Shockley | John Hannah | Joseph McCaughtry | Lea Thompson | Marcelo Conte | Myles Massey | Robert Longtreet | Susan Sarandon
Jason says: “PING PONG SUMMER could probably stand to be cut down to half its length, which is a bit of a problem because it only runs 92 minutes as it is. Maybe the time it spends hanging out with
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Lee Suk-hoon
Starring: Kim Nam-gil | Kim Tae-woo | Lee Kyoung-young | Son Ye-jin
Jason says: “That they can be given names as generic as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN or, in this case, just THE PIRATES without fear of confusion means just one thing: There are not enough pirate movies being made these days.
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