SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our EARLY PROMISES and BIRTHDAY GUEST PROGRAMMER: STEPHEN BROWNLEE Series, Thursday, March 16, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate.
7:30pm CLERKS (1994, dir. Kevin Smith, Miramax, USA, 92mns, Digital)
9:20pm SWINGERS (1996, dir. Doug Liman, Miramax, USA, 96mns, Digital)
Tonight, we’re proud to present two key feature movie debuts from the 1990’s, guest programmed by our very own Stephen Brownlee for his birthday.
The 1990’s were one of the last times that an independent movie made for an extremely low budget could catch fire with the public, the press, the world and launch a filmmaker for the rest of her or his life.
Those days may yet return but it’s instructive to look back at the 1990’s-pre-streaming, pre-Covid, pre-1000 niche television channels-and the kind of movies that were getting noticed.
More so, the 1990’s now strike us as a time of less stress, less anxiety, less overall global fear. One of the last moments of relative global calm and peace.
First up we screen Kevin Smith’s Clerks. Made on credit cards for $30,000.00, Clerks is a thinly veiled semi-autobiography of Smith’s time as a convenience store clerk and all the strange and weird characters he would meet in the course of his day. Filled with Smith’s trademark foul mouthed yet strangely intellectual pop culture dialogue, Clerks follows Dante and Randal, two friends, through one day of their monotonous jobs.
It’s hard to overstate how important and inspiring Clerks was to an entire generation of moviemakers. Smith proved if you had a voice and a creative way to come at your personal story, you could make a movie that would catch fire around the country.
This Programmer had a Clerks poster in his teenage bedroom in high school and even made one of his first high school shorts ("Things Happen" about a grocery store at midnight) out of clear Clerks love and inspiration.
We follow this with the Doug Liman directed, Jon Favreau written Swingers. Swingers catapulted a whole group into the Hollywood limelight including Favreau, Vince Vaughn, and Jonathan Livingstone as actors/filmmakers and Doug Liman as a big budget filmmaker. It follows twenty something actors and comedians as they struggle to make it at their careers during the day and go out to have fun at retro-clubs in Los Angeles’s Silver Lake, Los Feliz, and East Hollywood scenes at night.
Swingers has the almost enviable innocent energy of a by-gone era now. But what it did showcase was Favreau’s incredible story sense and talent, Vince Vaughn’s dynamic comedic presence, and Doug Liman’s genius with a camera.
It’s always instructive to see the debut movies that made a splash in their time. What unites them, across generations and taste and culture, is that their makers put it all on the line to make something because they believed in themselves. And thus made that terrifying trek across the desert that may or may not lead to the ever-illusive dreamed of career of “Filmmaker”.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
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