SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our SURREAL SUMMER series! Friday, June 3, 2022
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.
8pm NAKED LUNCH (1991, adapted from the novel by William S. Burroughs and directed by David Cronenberg, Fox, USA/Canada, 115mns, 35mm)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
***As of April 1, 2022, masks are now optional for indoor theater events if you're fully vaccinated. Anyone without proof of vaccination will be required to wear a mask for their own safety. We will continue to update our protocols with the dynamic situation. We are working to make sure we make the theater going experience the most enjoyable and safest possible.
HOW TO:
1)PLEASE BRING YOUR VACCINATION CARD (digital cards accepted).
2)PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ANYONE EXHIBITING COVID OR FLU LIKE SYMPTOMS AT THE DOOR, WILL BE OFFERED COMPLIMENTARY TICKETS TO A FUTURE SHOW AND ASKED TO RETURN WHEN HEALTHY. So please, if you’re feeling sick, just write us at community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening when you’re healthy. (Disclaimer under “REFUNDS” applies)
Surrealism is defined as “ a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself” (thanks Google!).
One of its practitioners without peer is Canadian writer/director David Cronenberg. At 79-years-old, his newest body horror Crimes of the Future premieres at Cannes this year and already looks like one of his most extreme forays into disturbing cinema.
In the late 1980’s and 90’s, Cronenberg entered a middle phase where he gradually moved away from the sex and shock of his body horror period to adapting novels everyone considered “unadaptable”.
No one had been able to adapt William S. Burroughs’ 1959 beatnik, junkie, surreal novel masterwork Naked Lunch due to its unrelentingly strange narrative of heroin addiction, marriage dysfunction, hallucinatory sexuality, stream of consciousness writing, and monstrous dreamlike passages.
That is until David Cronenberg made the brilliant (and probably necessary decision) not to so much “adapt” the novel as to find a way to express its ideas, scenes, and themes in a new cinematic re-working.
The resultant Naked Lunch movie is a fascinating hybrid between the novel itself and a fictionalized re-telling of Burroughs’ own life at the time of its writing. Peter Weller plays the Burroughs’ stand-in William Lee and Judy Davis (always underrated and incredible) plays his wife Joan.
Cronenberg then proceeds to tell a story of how such unique novels and works of art like Naked Lunch are created. But at the same time, Cronenberg DOES re-create and enter the “Interzone” from the novel-a place William Lee runs away to to write, do drugs & explore his sexuality.
Typerwriters turn into organically unsettling huge insects, the monstrous Mugwumps appear in bars, and William Lee and Joan seem stuck in a dysfunctional loop in a dysfunctional marriage; but one that nevertheless seems to be filled with mutual respect and creativity.
A movie as hard to explain as the book it’s based on, Cronenberg proves yet again here that a filmmaker should never FEAR to adapt something or swing for the fences.
If cinema has shown us anything, it’s that we should always try especially when a subject, topic, or source is so hard. The results are always fascinating.
Join us for a descent into the subconscious and the surreal. On 35mm!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FOR OUR IN-DOOR THEATER SCREENINGS
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. (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.
HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?
You can follow us on Instagram/Twitter: @secretmovieclub or Facebook: @secretmovieclub35mm
You can also subscribe to our weekly email newsletter at secretmovieclub.com or by writing to us at community@secretmovieclub.com and using the header “SUBSCRIBE ME TO NEWSLETTER”.
HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.