Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Starring: Dermot Crowley | Donald Sutherland | Geoffrey Rush | Jim Sturgess | Kiruna Stamell | Sylvia Hoeks
Bruce says: “Virgil Oldman (Geoffrey Rush) is a preeminent expert in antiquities. He authenticates, appraises and auctions only the finest works of art. A confirmed bachelor, Oldman is a virgin who could easily be classified as a fetishist. He has
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Flora Lau
Starring: Carina Lau | Chen Kun | Lawrence Cheng | Stephanie Che | Tian Yuan
Kyle says: “BENDS is the opening title of the seventh season of ContemporAsian screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Most films offer so little that it is tempting to go overboard in praising something as wonderful
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.8 cats
Director: Amma Assante
Starring: Emily Watson | Gugu Mbatha-Raw | Matthew Goode | Sam Reid | Sarah Gadon | Tom Wilkinson
Jason says: “I don’t watch a lot of costume dramas or read the sort of classic romances that are this film’s close relations, so I’m not sure how often they are focused on matters of ritual and plotting and how
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: John Carney
Starring: Adam Levine | Catherine Keener | Hailee Steinfeld | Keira Knightley | Mark Ruffalo | Yasiin ‘Mos Def’ Bey
Jason says: “I wonder if there’s something about making a movie about popular music that puts filmmakers into a zone where they don’t need to work in quite so straight a line – they’re already thinking in terms of coming
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Chen Sicheng
Starring: Carina Lau Ka-ling | Chen Sicheng | Nana Ou-young | Tong Liya | Tony Leung Ka-fai | Wang Xue-bing
Jason says: “BEIJING LOVE STORY tells five overlapping stories of romance, and it could have gotten by with just three or four: Some feel like fragments just meant to tie others together, and some could use a little more fleshing
Read the review...Before I Go To Sleep (UK/France/Sweden; 92 min.) directed by: Rowan Joffestarring: Nicole Kidman; Colin Firth; Mark Strong; Ben Crompton; Anne-Marie Duff; Adam Levy Thom says: “Gorgeous, super-talented Nicole Kidman has had such a strange career. She did finally win
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mary Dore
Chris says: “The feminist movement’s early years (roughly 1966-71) seem like such a fruitful topic for a documentary that one wonders why it hasn’t been done before, or at least with the scope of Mary Dore’s thorough, entertaining and wonderfully-titled
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Jennifer Kent
Starring: Barbara West | Daniel Henshall | Essie Davis | Hayley McElhinney | Noah Wiseman
Kyle says: “THE BABADOOK is a slick well-made horror genre item that sets up the events to follow with a car speeding to local hospital with mother in labor crashing and killing the father. It follows logically that the relationship
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Gabe Ibáñez
Starring: Antonio Banderas | Birgitte Hjart Sørensen | Dylan McDermott | Melanie Griffith | Robert Forster
Jason says: “For the purposes of AUTOMATA, filmmaker Gabe Ibáñez reduces Asimov’s traditional three laws of robotics to two: Do not harm a living thing, and do not engage in self-modification. Most movies about rogue machines would concern themselves with
Read the review...Ayiti Toma (Canada; 82 min.) directed by: Joseph Hillel documentary Jason says: “Full disclosure: I missed the first few minutes of AYITI TOMA, so I admittedly cannot give a full accounting of the film. That happens when you try to
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