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In our daily lives we’re often bogged down by things that don’t matter such as cynicism, worry, consumerism, gossip, and fear. In Celine Sciamma’s latest film Petite Maman she reminds us of the childlike innocence we inherit in our early years before we’re ruined by…

Last June I went to a sneak preview of The Northman, and signed one million things saying that I would not let a single word regarding this film pass my locked lips until it opened, and now it finally has!

Of course, I am writing this having seen it again, what with the fact that I…

When people discuss the best Japanese film directors, the three names that often come up the most are Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kenji Mizoguchi.

Kurosawa is of course a foundational figure in the world of film, and Ozu is one of the key names in art house circles, but the one that gets overshadowed among the three is Mizoguchi, which is unfortunate, because he’s maybe…

At this years Oscar ceremony, there were many major moments that were discussed, one moment in particular that if you go on the internet that you can’t possibly escape. But there was one moment during the show that has been overlooked, and that was the 50th anniversary tribute to The Godfather.

I’m not talking about the moment…

Writer and director Pedro Almodovar once said, “The characters in my films are assassins, rapists and so on, but I don’t treat them as criminals, I talk about their humanity.” Rarely is this as true than in…

The past two weeks have seen a number of “experience” movies grace the screen here at the Secret Movie Club Theater. Movies like the 1970 documentary Woodstock, the Who’s rock opera Tommy directed by British maximalist Ken Russell, Pink Floyd’s The Wall directed by Alan Parker, and even David Lowery’s A Ghost Story all employ music in service of narratives that are meant to be more like “journeys” or “trips” then straight ahead storytelling.

You know the experience movie even if…

The week after The Batman opened, there wasn’t a lot new coming out: only X, Umma, and The Outfit. I was going with a friend who does not care for horror, so The Outfit, a film I had not heard one solitary word about before going, won out.

Mark Rylance plays an English Saville Row tailor…

What is the collective noun for a group of percussionists? How about a clattering?

In 2001, the writer / directors Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson created a nine-and-a-half-minute short film called Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers in which a clattering of percussionists break into an elderly Swedish couple’s apartment and performs four songs. Each song is entirely instrumental, percussion-based, and played on found objects specific to one of four rooms. The opening number titled Kitchen, for example, incorporates cupboard doors, wooden spoons on juice glasses, an egg beater, dog bowls, and a food processor. One can – and should – find the short in the usual internet places with ease.

Whatever magic makes a short or a sketch work is not necessarily going to be able to support the weight of a ninety minutes plus feature. Rather than attempt to extend the single concept of the short Sound of Noise uses Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers as a seed to create something…