I have never used these posts to review films that I actually see at Secret Movie Club, but today that tradition changes, because this was a very particular movie experience.
Edwin, a staff member at SMC, got to program a movie…
Read More
Last week we screened John Cassavetes’ Husbands (1970, Columbia). Three people walked out. The rest stayed.
Walk outs are fairly rare for us but it got this programmer thinking. What does it mean when people walk out? How much should that be looked at as a good sign? That is-that the movie really touched a nerve and is still vital, confrontational, provocative? How much should it be looked at as a bad sign? That is-it was so offensive and/or boring and/or poorly made and/or out of step with the current times that people just would rather leave than see it through to the end?
This programmer…
Read More
I must say that I’ve always been a big fan of Wes Anderson. I haven’t seen every single one of his movies, but of course I adore Rushmore, like everybody else, and Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel and Isle of Dogs I thought were just absolutely wonderful. The Royal Tenenbaums never quite grabbed me like it did many others, but I greatly enjoyed The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which is one of his more polarizing films.
All this is to say that I am not new. I am familiar with his somewhat arch style and boxy, square, fussy production design. But…
Read More
I saw the trailer for Last Night in Soho some months back, and I’ve been gagging to see it ever since. Could it possibly live up to the trailer? Would it be one of those situations where the trailer is a perfect short film unto itself and adding a whole film around it actually lessened the experience then added to it?
Pfft, don’t be silly, Edgar Wright wouldn’t…
Read More
We’re in the homestretch. Two more, and Jamie Lee Curtis is back from the dead. Again. Please, please be good.
Miramax still existed in 2018? The worm had yet to turn, huh.
It starts out in Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, with Michael Myers having been there for forty years, and…they are about to transfer him, having not learned the main big lesson of the ten previous Halloween films, never ever transfer Michael Myers.
But if he has been there for forty years…does that mean that they again retconned everything after the first Halloween II? The great H20 never happened? This is crazy. But, open mind, open mind, let’s try…
Read More
So, after Halloween 8, a.k.a. Halloween: Resurrection, where are they going to go from there? It’s a mystery!
Nobody knows what could possibly happen after the events of…OH MY GOD! IT’S A REMAKE!
This is going to be an utter disaster, and that is me putting the best spin possible on it.
Why do they ever remake perfect films? I mean, I know, it’s because…
Read More
David Cronenberg’s body of work is one of the most fascinating in its tension of a creative spirit constantly pushing itself in new directions while always somehow being true to its initial spirt and obsessions.
In Cronenberg’s now 50+ year career (his first movie STEREO was made in 1969), he’s moved through very noticeable phases. His initial…
Read More
After six Halloween films, we arrive at the seventh where they retcon the previous four! I mean, they sort of wrote themselves into a corner on the last one. They killed off…
Read More
Hey Secret Movie Clubbers!
I’m back for another Voidoween recap! This week we’ve got two foreign language films, two broken families, werewolves, vampires… Cat People…
Read More
Tonight we screen famed French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot’s horror suspense thriller LES DIABOLIQUES (1955). The legend goes (and it very well may be fact) that Clouzot had beaten none other than Alfred Hitchcock by mere hours to option the source novel and the resulting masterpiece so infuriated Hitchcock (because it was as brilliant as Hitchcock knew it would be) that Sir Alfred immediately optioned the novelists Boileau-Narcejac’s D’Entre Les Morts which became Vertigo.
So in that weird cosmic way that never quite makes sense to us mere mortals…
Read More
“We’re not talking about any ordinary prisoner, Hoffman! We’re talking about evil on two legs!”
Okay, so, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers takes place a decade after Halloween and Halloween II, when, as you remember, Michael Myers gets shot 13 times, including twice in the eyes, and also gets exploded and burned to death on camera, mask and all. Dr. Loomis, who set the explosion, totally exploded in that explosion. No more Michael, no more Loomis, definitely the end forever no take backs.
Now here we are, ten years later, and Donald Pleasence has top billing! Can we but hope that he is the twin brother of the exploded Dr. Loomis? I fear ‘tis not to be. And, when it comes back down to it,
Read More
Happy October, Secret Movie Clubbers!
If you’ve been to a few of our in-person screenings, you’ve probably seen me, and if you’ve seen any of our recent social media posts, you’ve probably read my name. If you’ve done neither of those things…
Read More