Teaching audiences to view films actively
By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Shane Meadows
Starring: Elisa Lasowski | Ireneusz Czop | Kate Dickie | Perry Benson | Piotr Jagiello | Thomas Turgoose
Michael says: “Beautifully shot in black & white, Shane Meadows’ (THIS IS ENGLAND) latest film SOMERS TOWN is a sly look at two teenagers who become friends in working class London. Marek has recently arrived from Easter Europe and spends
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Starring: Haruka Igawa | Inowaki Kai | Kanji Tsuda | Kyôko Koizumi | Teruyuki Kagawa | Yû Koyanagi
Jason says: “There have been many sequences in movies where someone loses his or her job, but few have been so callously cruel as the one that opens TOKYO SONATA: A pretty girl walks through an office, drawing all eyes.
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Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Michael J. Bassett
Starring: James Purefoy | Jason Flemyng | Max von Sydow | Pete Postlethwaite | Rachel Hurd-Wood | Samuel Roukin
Thom says: “This is one of those big-budget extravaganza & fantasy creation that is beautifully done with lovely images of creatures from lost worlds. The time is the 1500s and our hero Kane has to fight pure evil to overcome
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Rating: 4.125 cats
Director: Alex Rivera
Starring: Giovanna Zacarías | Jacob Vargas | Leonor Varela | Luis Fernando Peña
Jason says: “Science fiction on film is tricky. The money to do spectacle generally comes with strings attached, but without it, a filmmaker runs the risk of having their world look unconvincing or settling for using their big ideas to
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Lee Demarbre
Starring: David Hess | Jesse Buck | Michael Berryman | Ray Sager | Sasha Grey
Jason says: “The appeal of the deliberately shoddy homage continues to elude me, even when I find something to enjoy in one, as I did with SMASH CUT. Wouldn’t it be a finer tribute to take what you learned from,
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Kevin Heffernan
Starring: April Bowlby | Cobie Smulders | Kevin Heffernan | Michael Clarke Duncan | Steve Lemme
Jason says: “I have more or less ignored BROKEN LIZARD for what are pretty stupid reasons: The trailers for SUPER TROOPERS didn’t amuse me and it later became a movie much-loved by people who were fans of comedies I disliked.
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Rating: 2 cats
Director: Mark Lebenon
Starring: Malcolm Ferreira | Nicole Smart | Roland Gaspar | Shaun Myburg
Jason says: “SLAM-BANG is, as the director pointed out several times during the introduction and Q&A, a notable movie for being a bit of pulp action made independently in South Africa. It is apparently very difficult to get a film
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Rating: 4 cats
Director: Anthony Fabian
Starring: Alice Krige | Ella Ramangwane | Sam Neill | Sophie Okonedo | Tony Kgoroge
Jason says: “The laws of nature and the laws of man are almost entirely different beasts. The former are relatively few, and constant, but allow for great complexity and variety; they say what can happen. The latter multiply continually, but
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Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Nina Paley
Starring: Debargo Sanval | Pooja Kumar | Reena Shah | Sanjiv Jhaveri
Jason says: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity. SITA SINGS THE BLUES is an extraordinary independent animated film, and while those are far from a dime a dozen, they have a tough time getting distribution and attention. Even with
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Rating: 3.6
Director: Cary Fukunaga
Starring: Diana Garcia | Edgar Flores | Giovanni Florido | Kristian Ferrer | Paulina Gaitan
Michael says: “Cary Fukunaga’s SIN NOMBRE won the best direction and best cinematography awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The debut features a pair of excellent performances in the lead roles, Paulina Gaitain and Edgar Flores, a young Honduran
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