Part of our CINEMA IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS series. Friday, June 19, 2020 @ 9p, Netflix Streaming Service: DA 5' BLOODS (2020 , Netflix, dir by Spike Lee, streaming, 154 mns)
HOW TO: While we all work to be socially responsible during the age of coronavirus, Secret Movie Club is experimenting with news ways we can all come together as a community and watch great movies.
We want to keep this very reasonable since folks have to have Netflix to start with. So donate whatever works for you. $1 is fine with us.
Just make sure you download NETFLIX PARTY on a Chrome Browser. You'll see the initials NP in the upper right hand corner of browser after a succesful download.
Secret Movie Club will email the link for the Netflix Party at 30 minutes before showtime using the email you provide here. Click that link then click the NP in upper right hand corner. This will synch you to our screening. We will start the movie at exactly 5 minutes after the hour.
There will be a chat function that allows everyone to comment as we go.
The Secret Movie Club team will be offering trivia, history, insights, articles, deep dives throughout the movie(s). We're going to work to make this as rich a feast as possible utilizing the technology at hand.
Then we'll want your feedback immediately on how we can improve/make it better! This also will allow Secret Movie Clubbers from all over the world to join in on a virtual screening!
From Spike Lee's feature debut SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT at 7p, we move to his most recent movie DA 5' BLOODS. Since the movie hasn't even been released as of this writing, it would be a bit presumptious to say whether it's a masterpiece, a misfire, or somewhere in between.
What's been fascinating in Spike Lee's career right up to this very moment is how his movies whether they're successes or not always engage 110% with whatever topic he's taking on. Sometime Lee crams a movie with too many ideas or ideas that don't completely work well together. But there's always something in his movies that gets you thinking VISCERALLY about race, America, humanity.
DA 5' BLOODS is a story of a group of black Vietnam veteran war buddies who return to Vietnam to find a stash of gold they hid during the war. They also return haunted by memories of their squad leader (played by Chadwick Bozeman) who sacrificed so that they all could live.
Like many of Lee's movies, the trailer feels like a mashup between an investigation into the loyalties and betrayals Black Americans have felt to and by a country they've served that has often not served them. At the same time, the trailer looks like Lee is making a kind of Apocalypse Now heist movie.
Whatever it turns out to be, there's one thing we know it will not be. . .boring or without a purpose. Lee's cinema is a purposeful cinema. And we look forward to experiencing this movie with our audience together!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
35mm Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer