SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our MARCH MUSICAL MADNESS Series, Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Also Playing On Tuesday, March 21st
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 PURPLE RAIN (1984, dir. Albert Magnoli, Warner Bros., USA, 111mns, 35mm)
9:45pm UNDER THE CHERRY MOON (1986, dir. Prince, Warner Bros., USA, 100mns, Digital)
It just wouldn’t be March Musical Madness without Prince. It’s been almost 6 years since Prince Rogers Nelson left us to be one with the Purple Rain and his absence can still be keenly felt in the karmic energy of the musical atmosphere.
Like Bowie, Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Prince is a musical miracle. And we’re extremely lucky that he also loved cinema. Because he left behind several cinematic documents of his most fruitful incandescent musical periods (both of the movies we’re showing produced platinum level soundtrack albums).
First up is the one and only Purple Rain. A thinly veiled semi-autobiography of Prince’s time growing as an artist in Minneapolis with his band The Revolution, the movie also explores Prince’s well documented troubled home life with his parents.
Purple Rain is also a wonderful tribute to the legendary First Avenue nightclub around which almost the entire movie revolves.
After the breakout success of Prince & The Revolution’s double album 1999, Prince demanded that his manager get him a starring role in a studio movie or get fired. The Manager couldn’t find any takers and so ultimately funded the movie himself.
Prince, as he often did his entire life, wrote all the music for the movie including all the songs for the movie’s other bands-Morris Day and the Time and the Apollonia 6. This creates a surreal mind melter in the movie’s third act when Prince and Morris Day and the Time face off in a kind of battle of the bands at First Avenue and Prince had to write banger after banger to adequately help us suspend disbelief and guess who would actually win.
The movie has aged beautifully, maybe even more so since Prince’s passing, because it offers us the purest cinematic version of what it must have been like to attend a Prince concert at one of the heights of his genius (Sign O’ The Times comes pretty damn close as well).
We follow this with the movie Prince himself directed two years later, Under the Cherry Moon. Shot by Martin Scorsese's cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and famous for introducing Kristen Scott Thomas to the movie scene, Under the Cherry Moon definitely has problems. In fact, it tied with Howard the Duck in 1986 as the year’s worst movie according to the Razzies. But it has actually been re-appraised by many since as a fun, interesting experiment with a killer soundtrack.
It did produce Prince’s Parade album which is filled with banger after banger including "Kiss" and the beautifully melancholic "Sometimes it Snows in April".
Under the Cherry Moon is Prince’s version of a 1930’s black and white screwball comedy with sex, sophistication, and soul. It may not always work but it’s still a joy and treat to see creative work from Prince at the pinnacle of his talent. Like the works of David Bowie and Bob Dylan, a work by Prince that isn’t 100% is still better than 99% of everything else anyone has ever done.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
*Please note that though we strive to always show titles on 35mm film if advertised, we may have to screen digitally if the print we receive is in such bad shape or if we don't receive the print in time because of a shipping delay. We will do our best to alert the audience. When this does occur, we will offer each ticket holder who chooses not to attend a complimentary ticket to a future event in exchange. (Disclaimer: Good for 90 days – Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
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.
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.