Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Andrew Rossi
Diane says: “Had resisted seeing this one for so long, but… “The main thrust of the docu, about how the Web, social media, etc. are killing newspapers, is a stale story by now. What excited me were the stories of
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Dee Rees
Starring: Aasha Davis | Adepero Oduye | Charles Parnell | Kim Wayans | Pernell Walker | Sahra Mellesse
Michael says: “Saw PARIAH last week, and I want to urge anyone who is heading out to the movies this week to try to catch it before nominations. PARIAH is the story of a young African-American lesbian in high school
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Starring: Jun Kunimura | Kippei Shiina | Ryo Kase | Takeshi Kitano | Tomokazu Miura
Jason says: “Takeshi Kitano has apparently been doing unusual stuff lately, with GLORY TO THE FILMMAKER and TAKEHSHIS apparently being considered weird for even Japan. Those projects haven’t been doing quite so well, so Kitano has gone back to the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Andrea Blaugrund Nevins
Diane says: “Doc about middle-aged punk rockers becoming ‘F’athers. Snippets of interviews about men teaching street-crossing rules to their kids after a career of being anti-authority, being accepted by other preschool parents despite all those nasty tattoos, blaming their parents
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Jesse Peretz
Starring: Elizabeth Banks | Emily Mortimer | Janet Montgomery | Kathryn Hahn | Matthew Mindler | Paul Rudd | Rashida Jones | Shirley Knight | Steve Coogan | T.J. Miller | Zooey Deschanel
Jason says: “OUR IDIOT BROTHER is just as broad a comedy as its name suggests but a good deal less mean-spirited. In other eras, it might have been a door-slamming farce, although in the present its screwball tendencies are held
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Jeff Chiba Stearns
Jason says: “There’s an interesting idea at the center of ONE BIG HAPA FAMILY – investigating the astonishingly high rate of mixed marriages among ethnically Japanese Canadians – and director Jeff Chiba Stearns is enthusiastic about pursuing it and occasionally
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Xavier Beauvois
Starring: Lambert Wilson | Michael Lonsdale | Olivier Rabourdin | Philippe Laudenbach
Diane says: “I had avoided this one for quite a while because I thought it would be trite. But no! Based on the true story of French monks in Algeria in the late 1990s, much of the film covers the
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.25 cats
Director: Patricio Guzmán
Jason says: “I don’t think it was Patricio Guzmán’s plan to do a bait-and-switch with his documentary NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT, but if it was, he executes an unusually smooth and effective one here: It’s one thing to start with
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jeong-beom Lee
Starring: Bin Won | Hyo-seo Kim | Sae-ron Kim | Seong-oh Kim | Thanayong Wongtrakul
Jason says: “One thing that I’ve noticed from reviewing Korean movies is that action movies are fairly likely to have the same person credited as writing and directing, whereas in Hollywood (and elsewhere) there will be many more names in
Read the review...By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Hiroki Matsukata | Mikijiro Hiro | Naoko Takenaka | Shido Nakamura | Susumu Terajima
Jason says: “For the last few years, I’ve had this recurring joke about how hiring TakashivMiike to direct family movies is the Japanese equivalent of Warner Brothers getting the rights to Harry Potter and deciding that the right man for
Read the review...