The Old Dark House (1932, directed by James Whale) Haunted house films are a staple of Halloween movie delights. They are sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying, with interesting ensembles. They span from the earliest of recorded cinema (look for The Haunted Castle from 1896 on YouTube, it’s tons of fun) all the way up until yesterday. One of the earliest spooky house movies. . .
Read More
We wanted to explore 3 of Cuaron's previous films today. First up is the last movie he made in Mexico before ROMA, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN. It tells the story of two teenage friends on the cusp of adulthood who go on a road trip with a woman in her 30's in the hopes of basically having sex. . .
Read More
BALLAD TO BUÑUEL #3: L'AGE D'OR (1930) Today, we'd like to sing the praises of totally singular auteur Spanish surreal filmmaker Luis Buñuel (1900-1983). Buñuel made early surrealist masterpieces, middle period Mexican surreal yet socially biting dramas, and a final French period that ended with one of the greatest "last" movies this programmer has ever scene. In his first phase. . .
Read More
Guest writer Stephanie Sack on the giallo masterpiece of loneliness Footprints on the Moon (Bazzoni, 1975, Italy)
I have never been lonelier than when I have been with other people.
That is one of the worst feelings in worlds both known and unknown. If you are anywhere in or near or approaching that corridor of aching cold, for whatever reason, right now, I got you. I get it. It's horrible. No thank you.
Read More
GUEST BLOG BY MITCHELL NAGY: Two Japanese Anime Classics Whisper of the Heart and Galaxy Express 999
Directed by the late Yoshifumi Kondo, Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart is based on a shojo manga with adapted screenplay from master animator Hayao Miyazaki. Together they created a film with inviting textures and multilayered depth set in Western Tokyo. . .
Read More
This programmer will post about some of the foreign language movies that made a deep, profound impact on him in his teenage years and a bit later. There's something very powerful and intense that happens with those first few movies on your journey of cinema. You start to discover whole worlds you never knew existed…
Read More
The doc is such a plastic and malleable art form and genre. Though the ones that stick with us seem to really reveal something about reality, true life that fiction can't, documentaries are every inch as manipulated, crafted, structured as fiction movies…
Read More
It might be a mistake to think a Western can only be a movie with cowboys, 19th century American landscapes, horses, gunfights, etc. The Western almost certainly is a state of mind with universal archetypes that date back to Homer’s THE ILIAD (and almost certainly even before that). Here are three great movies from other cultures that are almost certainly Westerns. . .
Read More
Like so many evergreen genres, the gangster genre adapts and evolves to fit the times. While it always focuses on those folks who choose a life of crime, the genre is surprisingly expansive in its focuses, concerns…
Read More
As a way of getting the mental juices flowing, we wanted to look at great movies that embraced the technological, economic, or industry-wide shifts that would become the new norm rather than trying to avoid them…
Read More
Humbly, we submit to you dear Secret Movie Clubber that many of the greatest cinematic inspirations are not cinematic at all but come from the masterworks of the other varied arts. One of the great mysteries of creative alchemy is how a work in another art form (painting, music, literature, drama, poetry) can often create even more exciting ideas than watching or studying movies themselves. Here we put forward a few of our own personal favorites. Not to convince you but to encourage you to seek out your own favorite painting, album, book, etc to spark some new ideas. First up is Beethoven’s 7th Sympthony, this symphony. . .
Read More