KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #7: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (India, dir by Aditya Chopra,1995)
I think it’s time to bring Bollywood Club to Secret Movie Club! Two great clubs that go great together.
Once a month, my friend Amber, who is a Bollywood fan, carefully curates a film for us Bollywood newbies to enjoy. So far, after half a year or so, we are big fans of Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), who has been one of the biggest stars of Bollywood for the past thirty years.
In Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (which translated from the Hindi as basically “The good hearted will take the Bride”), he is…
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POP CULTURE BLOG: How the original and rebooted SAVED BY THE BELL pilots reflect changing societal norms
For this week, I decided to compare the original Saved by the Bell to the recent reboot. I always wanted to watch the show with the revival of the ‘90s culture. For this battle, I am going to be watching the pilot (the first episode) for both. I am going to be comparing the plot, how society reflects what is being shown, along with how I feel about it.
The original is…
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Writer Jared Watson on Inarritu's BIRDMAN OR THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE (2014)
How did we end up here? This place is horrible. It smells like balls. We don't belong in this shithole. What does one do once they learn that the universe is uncaring, and life has no ultimate meaning?
Well, one can lay down and give up, accept the harsh reality and persist, or assign life your own meaning while basking in the glory of the absurd…
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WORLD CINEMA MUST SEES: M (1931, dir by Fritz Lang, Germany) by SMC Founder.Programmer Craig Hammill
When Fritz Lang made M in 1930-1931 just outside of Berlin, he must have already begun to sense his days in Germany were numbered…
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KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #6: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973, dir by Norman Jewison, USA)
In the year 2000, my friend Mo was going to see the Broadway revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. We chatted about the show, and she mentioned how famously terrible Ted Heely is in the movie. After she saw it, I asked. "How was it?" "Bring back Ted Heely."
When I saw that same production, my takeaway was…
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STRIPPERS, PSYCHE, SOUL: Film writer Paris Sewell on Katori Hall's dynamite P-VALLEY
I finally decided to watch P-Valley after seeing the trailer for the upcoming movie Zola (I am so excited for that movie, you don’t understand). Something about content involving strippers is just *chef’s kiss*. I think the reason why I love them is because they represent who I want to be: confident, strong, talented and beautiful.
This show revolves around stripper culture. The main character, “Autumn Night”
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INTO THE ZONE PART 2: ANNHILATION (adap/dir by Alex Garland, 2018, USA) by film critic Jared Watson
The color that arrives on earth by way of meteorite in Lovecraft's 1927 short story isn't just one color, but described to be a spectrum of colors. Colors that infuse themselves into the very chemical makeup of life, altering it, contorting it into something alien. A spectrum of color can be achieved by fracturing light into its individual attributes. A process that Alex Garland's 2018 sci-fi horror Annihilation explores…
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ODE TO BARBARA STANWYCK by Craig Hammill
Today, just a humble song of praise to classic Hollywood actress Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990).
There are the movie stars that still burn bright in our imaginations partly because they became (willing or unwilling) a cog in the visual American iconography machine-Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Charlie Chaplin. Hell, you probably saw or knew someone who bought a poster with all of them on it.
But then there are the Hollywood stars and actors who everyone knows but don’t get their praises sung enough. In this programmer’s opinion. . .
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KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #5: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1959, dir by Terence Fisher, UK)
The film starts in a place where other versions do not, with the terrible Sir Hugo upon whom the curse of the Baskervilles justly falls, doing his terrible deeds. But that all turns out to be a reading of the legend to Holmes and Watson (appearing for the first time in colour!) by Dr. Mortimer (aka the Spirit of Christmas Present from the Alistair Sim Christmas Carol). Mortimer is a friend to the latest Baskerville to die of the curse, here to beg Sherlock Holmes to protect Sir Henry, the newest Baskerville to become Lord of the Manor from possibly being ripped up by a hell hound…
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ALMOST FAMOUS. . .almost great by film writer Paris Sewell
Let’s take a trip through memory lane. It is the 1970s. Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are on the radio. Your parents are screaming at you for your frivolous rebellious nature because all you want to do is immerse yourself in the world of rock n roll. Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000, Sony) concocts 1970’s youth culture in a semi-autobiographical period piece about a teenage journalist who gets catapulted into the big leagues writing about the lifestyle of famous rock stars for Rolling Stone magazine…
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INTO THE ZONE PART 1: STALKER (Tarkovsky, 1979, USSR) by Jared Watson
In 1927, H.P. Lovecraft wrote a short story called “The Colour Out of Space”. The tale accounts the events of a farm and it's inhabitants after being struck by a meteorite in the late 1880’s.
A color seemingly hitched a ride on the meteorite, a color never before seen by the human eye. This color, behaving almost like an organism itself, a virus if you will, spreads throughout the flora and fauna, wreaking havoc and destruction. The surrounding area becomes a hotbed of bizarre, otherworldly occurrences, unexplainable by science.
This idea of a geographical area. . .
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AFTER HOURS (1985): THE MARTIN SCORSESE MOVIE YOU NEED TO SEE by Craig Hammill
In 1983, Martin Scorsese was at the end of his rope.
He was growing tired of the increasingly slow, obstacle strewn way Hollywood pictures got made. More painfully, his dream project, The Last Temptation of Christ, had been cancelled by Paramount at the eleventh hour just before he was to start principal photography.
Out of this dispiriting morass, came a movie miracle…
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