GUADALAJARA FILM FESTIVAL & SECRET MOVIE CLUB present
Part of our SURREAL SUMMER series! Thursday, June 2, 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 EL ANGEL EXTERMINADOR/THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962, wri & dir by Luis Buñuel, Janus, Mexico, 93mns, digital presentation)
SPECIAL NOTES: We're excited to continue our monthly partnership with the GuadaLAjara Film Festival (GLAFF.ORG, @glafilmfest) where we present a Latinx Spanish language classic, promote cross-cultural filmmaking community, have exciting speakers from the LatinX filmmaking community, and just have an all around great time.
We try to make each event a blast often with beer, drinks, music, dancing, and more. Help us grow our Pan-American filmmaking community!
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. We want to make sure.
Tonight, we continue with our Surreal Summer and mini-Luis Buñuel series with one of Buñuel’s greatest films ever and one of his most hilarious (and brutal): his 1962 Mexican masterpiece El Angel Exterminador/The Exterminating Angel.
A group of seemingly enlightened and civilized upper-middle class and upper-class friends return to a mansion for dinner, desert, music, and conversation only to discover that they are imprisoned in the drawing room by some unexplainable and unseen force.
Meanwhile the servants, staff (and even a goat and a bear) seem able to come and leave the house at their leisure.
As the situation grows dire and extends across days, the facade of civility drops as the party-goers descend into back-biting, naked sexuality, violence, rage, racism & despair.
And believe it or not, the entire thing is one of the most hilarious and strange and surreal comedies you will ever see.
For this programmer’s money, this is the movie where Buñuel achieved the absolute pinnacle of his ability to synthesize surrealism and social critique into a nevertheless wildly gripping and engaging rebellious work of cinema.
There are several other Buñuel masterpieces that are JUST AS GREAT but this is the one where the surreal conceit (that the rich can not leave the party they are attending) and the satirical comedy somehow achieve a kind of sublime clarity about the ridiculousness of human attitudes towards social class.
Buñuel has the clear-eyedness and audacity to point out that there’s nothing inherently “better” about people who are born into money or live affluent lifestyles. In fact, he reminds us that they are just (if not sometimes more so) fallible, ignorant, confused, impulsive, scared & lost as anyone else.
A cinematic work as stunningly daring 60 years later as it was upon its release, join the GuadaLAjara Film Festival and Secret Movie Club in celebrating one of the KEY works of LatinX cinema.
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.