Secret Movie Club Podcast

SMC Podcast #223: Movie Structure-The 3 Act, 5 Act, Symphonic structure & beyond

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 22:14:26 -0700

Aristotle in his POETICS made a simple yet incisive claim-good dramatic work has a 3 act structure-a beginning, a middle, and an end. Horace in classic Rome expanded this to a 5 act structure. In the age of cinema, a slightly modified three act structure has been the dominant approach in American screenwriting. Yet many, if not most movies, actually deviate from this structure. And filmmakers like Kurosawa and Kubrick embrace other structures like the symphonic structure-4 movements. Yet, ultimately, many variations can still be harmonized to a progression of 3 distinct parts. Secret Movie Club programmer.founder Craig Hammill looks at Pulp Fiction, Memento, The Thin Red Line, 2001, Mad Max and many others to discuss all the different kinds of successful and discovered structures. And what that might say about an even more profound structure in successful cinematic work.

SMC Pod #222: 2025 Movies Pt 2 & Disclosure Day

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 11:08:33 -0700

Lesson learned. Each year produces so many fascinating movies; it's better to wait and see as many as possible before recording a pre-emptive "Movies of 2025" podcast. So Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill to make up for this mistake records "Movies of 2025 Part 2". SIRAT, THE SECRET AGENT, MARTY SUPREME, SOUND OF FALLING get discussed. And Craig enters the fray with his thoughts on Spielberg's new release DISCLOSURE DAY (spoiler, ultimately he liked it).

SMC Pod #221: Internal vs. External Horror: Monsters Without and Within

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:52:26 -0700

John Carpenter explained it best. We're all seated around a campfire. The storyteller says, the evil is. . .out there and points into the darkness. That's external horror. Think Jaws, The Birds, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now same scenario but the storyteller says the evil is. . .in here and points to us, our own hearts. That's internal horror. Think Black Swan, Psycho, Twin Peaks etc.

Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill talks about the interesting differences and rhymes between external and internal horror movies. And how, ultimately, most great horror movies are a combination of both.

SMC Pod #220: Inverting one movie to make another (Gemini movies)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 22:03:31 -0700

One of the most clever ways moviemakers make new movies is to take a movie they love and invert it-do the opposite of key aspects of the movie and problem solve how to make that work. Peter Jackson famously took George Romero's zombie classic Night of the Living Dead where zombies are outside trying to get into a house and made Dead Alive where zombies are inside a house and the hero is trying to keep them from getting out. The first three Indiana Jones movies are all clever inversions of classics like Casablanca, Gunga Din, and From Russia with Love. And Casablanca gets another crazy inversion in the form of the 1946 classic Gilda starring Rita Hayworth. Secret Movie Club founder Craig Hammill dives into this fascinating way of flipping a movie on its head to make a totally new movie.

SMC Pod #219: The Music Video Movie Director Generation

Thu, 28 May 2026 19:10:35 -0700

In the 1980's and 1990's, David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Sofia Coppola, among many others honed their craft and proved their vision directing 3 minute music videos for MTV. While the "music video" aesthetic was sometimes attacked as hurting cinema, in retrospect, the best directors of that generation brought a much needed innovation to movie language from which we can still take inspiration. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at this video work and notes how often the master moviemakers of a generation come out of a looked down upon medium.

SMC Pod #218: From the stage to the screen-Adapting plays into movies

Thu, 21 May 2026 22:39:19 -0700

Adaptation is a tricky thing no matter the source in cinema. Novels, life stories, historical events, original ideas, short stories. Adapting live theater plays is an especially tricky business. Something written to be performed live, often in 1 location/set, with concentrated poetic dialogue, plays different as a movie. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at everything from Sidney Lumet's adaptations of 12 Angry Men and Long Day's Journey into Night to all the various Shakespeare adaptations to experimental one location minimalist adaptations like Richard Linklater's 2001 Tape. His conclusion? It might help moviemakers to direct some plays to be better prepared to adapt them to the big screen.

SMC Pod #217: Directing the Action Film

Thu, 14 May 2026 18:22:48 -0700

The precision, patience, and technical know how needed to sell action filmmaking is underrated and under appreciated. Action directors like Michael Curtiz, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, George Miller, John McTiernan, even. . .Michael Bay get treated differently than art house canonically revered moviemakers. Yet what is accomplished in action hits like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Aliens, Die Hard, Mad Max Fury Road, even Bad Boys II is a cinematic miracle. Very carefully planned illusion becomes reality. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a filmmaking-centric approach to talk about the technical tools and tricks used to sell stunts, sequences, cinematic danger.

SMC Pod #216: Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Russian Sci Fi Hard to be a God, and our family field report

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 23:40:24 -0700

Oh boy. This one is a movie hodge podge stew. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill announces the first dates of the SMC 2026 season. 8 movies, 5 on 35mm! Then we talk about one more Russian sci-fi classic, 2013's HARD TO BE A GOD by Aleksei German to round out SMC Pod 215. And finally, the Hammill family ages 2 to 48 talk about their thoughts on THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE and going to the theaters in 2026.

SMC Pod #215: Soviet Sci‑Fi: Hidden Masterpieces from Solaris to Silver Globe

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:08:00 -0700

Soviet Sci fi is an undiscovered ocean of incredible cinema for folks here in the west who may not know many of these masterpieces exist. While Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker are frequently screened, amazing sci-fi works like Dead Man's Letters, Kin Dza-Dza, and On The Silver Globe are just as powerful. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill also takes a survey look at other works from the Soviet Union's first sci-fi, the silent film Aelita-Queen of Mars all the way to a crazy Polish sci-fi sex comedy SexMission that may have partly inspired Mike Judge's Idiocracy.

SMC Pod #214: Casablanca: A case study of how a Studio Team Built a Masterpiece

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 20:28:21 -0700

1942's Best Picture winner CASABLANCA, made at Warner Brothers, is ultimately the best evidence one could produce for how the old studio system of the 1920's through the 1940's was set up to occasionally produce a masterpiece that could not have been made any other way. Defying the auteur-centered way we often appraise movies, CASABLANCA really was a team effort with critical contributions from writers, the producer, the composer, the cast, the director, the production designer, the cinematographer. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill using amazing books like Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca by Aljean Harmetz for research does a deep dive into the pre production, production, and release of one of Hollywood's most beloved movies. While we've moved on from the studio system, often for the good, there is still a lot we should reconsider that might help bring that magic to our current work.

SMC Pod #213: Ken Loach & his 1969 masterpiece KES

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:15:50 -0700

British filmmaker Ken Loach has been committed to socially minded cinema for over six decades. From early 1960's TV work to his most recent (and possibly last feature) in 2023, Ken Loach has been one of world cinema's most reliable productive practitioners. So why did it take Secret Movie Club programmer.founder Craig Hammill so long to finally see Loach's 1969 masterpiece Kes? An incredible film that follows working class British teen Billy who suddenly discovers his passion when he trains a baby hawk using a library book on falconry. It's a deeply felt honest look at childhood, the British class and school system, and the socio-economic tensions that can trap a boy like Billy as much as Billy traps Kes. SPECIAL NOTE: We'll return in 3 weeks on Fri, April 17, 2026 with our next podcast, SMC Pod #214: CASABLANCA, a movie case study.

SMC Pod #212: Luis Buñuel, L'Age d'Or

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:08:15 -0700

Episode 212 of Secret Movie Club dives into the life and work of Luis Buñuel, tracing his surrealist beginnings with Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or, his powerful Mexican period (Los Olvidados, The Exterminating Angel), and his later French masterpieces (Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire).

Founder and programmer of Secret Movie Club, Craig Hammill, shares biographical context, thematic through-lines—religion, class, dream logic and satire—and personal memories of discovering Buñuel, while recommending key films to watch for newcomers and longtime fans alike.

SMC Pod #211: Movies & AI

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 20:39:13 -0800

The AI disruption for movies is here. Poor movies, battered on the choppy seas of digital, streaming, COVID, and now AI, have yet another challenge to contend with. But we've been here before with sound, color, television, home video. In fact, if anything, the history of movies and the history of technological innovation and disruption are forever intertwined. And movies, at least so far, have found a way to innovate and to endure. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at where AI is in 2026 and what that may mean for cinema, movie jobs, and the art form going forward.

SMC Pod #210: Frederick Wiseman-Master Documentarian

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 22:20:20 -0800

Frederick Wiseman (1930-2026) is a master documentarian who across 60 years made doc masterpieces about systems and institutions like TITICUT FOLLIES, HIGH SCHOOL, HOSPITAL, ESSENE, WELFARE, MULTI HANDICAPPED, IN JACKSON HEIGHTS. Although not as widely known as some of his narrative feature contemporaries, Wiseman is one of the greatest moviemakers who ever practiced the craft. His ability to find profound, ironic, incisive stories within his material and then to edit the material into a novelistic experience is auteur level. Secret Movie Club founder and programmer Craig Hammill talks about Wiseman's movies, working methods, and impact. And he begs you to get a library card so you can watch Wiseman's masterpieces on kanopy.com.

SMC Pod #209: The movie repertory theater, the video store, and the streamer

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 16:40:29 -0800

Across the age of cinema, the way a movie lover has been able to consume movies has changed. The movie repertory theater, the video store, and now the streaming channel all have pros and cons on how they expose cinemagoers to great cinema and the cinema experience. Secret Movie Club programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at each, gets the Secret Movie Club community in on the conversation to share their thoughts, and suggests a hybrid of all three may be the wave of the future.

SMC Pod #208: Charlie Chaplin & Buster Keaton-the start of two cinematic traditions

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 23:14:21 -0800

Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are now often universally viewed as the two great silent film movie comedians. And their personal biographies, even their physical characteristics (they were both 5'5), rhyme in a fascinating way. They both made some of the towering comedies-The Kid, The Gold Rush, The Great Dictator, Seven Chances, Sherlock Jr., The General. Most intriguingly, Chaplin can be viewed as the grandfather of the art film tradition and Keaton the grandpappy of the action film. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill offers an initial overview of these two movie giants' biographies, body of work, and legacies.

SMC Pod #207: The Character Actor

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 22:33:35 -0800

The character actor is one of the most important yet least discussed aspects of cinema. Whether it's Thelma Ritter as a no nonsense feisty nurse in Hitchcock's Rear Window, Eli Wallach as a captivating roguish bandit in Leone's The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly or Tilda Swinton in almost about anything, character actors provide a rhythm, contrast, opposite color that provides shape, dynamism, form to a film. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at why the character actor is so critical to a movie's success and some of the greatest practitioners of the craft.

SMC Pod #206: Movies that capture what it means to be Jewish-American

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:46:54 -0800

Like all American tribes in the melting pot, Jewish-Americans express their identity in their art. Maybe nowhere as strongly as in cinema. Secret Movie Club founder Craig Hammill, who has a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, looks at just a few of the many great movies that get at being Jewish-American. Movies like the 1980's hit Dirty Dancing, Woody Allen's Annie Hall, the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man, Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans, Mike Nichol's The Graduate, and Claudia Weill's Girlfriends among many others. If you've ever had a heated debate at an engaged Jewish-American table, you know what it's like to dig into these things. This podcast can only be a prologue to the many complex issues that could be discussed. But hey. . .at least it's a start.

SMC Pod #205: The movies of 2025

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 19:37:33 -0800

Today we talk about 12 fascinating movies from 2025. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer starts with the movies he still needs to see (The Secret Agent, Marty Supreme), the movies he felt were essential (Sinners, Mission Impossible 8, Cover Up, Sentimental Value) and what other 2025 movies (Highest 2 Lowest, Train Dreams, One Battle After Another, Weapons) might say about our current cinematic moment. Craig is fighting the flu so he tries to keep everything mercifully to the point. Please let us know your thoughts and the 2025 movies you loved that you think we need to see by emailing us at: community@secretmovieclub.com

SMC Pod #204: The Two Stevens-Steven Spielberg & Stephen King

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 18:39:20 -0800

Yes, they're connected by name. Yes, they're connected by being born within 9 months of each other. Yes, they're connected by their crazy talent to bring the best out of the sci-fi, horror, fantasy genres. But filmmaker Steven Spielberg and best-selling writer Stephen King are most connected by being in the rarefied extremely small subset of creative artists who have both climbed to the top peak of commercial AND artistic success. Spielberg movies like Duel, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. and King works like Carrie, The Shining, It, The Stand, Wizard and Glass have had blockbuster success while also being genuine explorations and expressions of their creators' obsessions. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill devotes the last podcast of 2025 to a deep dive into what traits and characteristics unite the two artists and what we might learn from them. (We'll be back with our next new pod, SMC Podcast #205-The Movies of 2025 on Friday, January 9, 2026). Happy holidays and happy new year.

SMC Pod #203: Classic Hollywood Christmas

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 19:56:14 -0800

Christmas movies are a genre unto themselves. And Classic Hollywood Christmas movies are a special part of that genre. Holiday movies made in Hollywood's heyday of the 1930's-1940's. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at five favorites-Frank Capra's 1946 It's A Wonderful Life, Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 The Shop Around the Corner, Preston Struges' 1944 The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Vincente Minnelli's 1944 Meet Me In St. Louis, and W.S.Van Dyke's 1934 The Thin Man. Interestingly, all these classic use dark subject matter-contemplated suicide, financial stress, murder, small town scandal-to contrast and thus emphasize Christmas themes of redemption, family, second chances. We also take a look at two modern classics-Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can and Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa and how they share much the same DNA as their classic Hollywood counterparts.

SMC Pod #202: The Italian Stylists

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 22:53:54 -0800

What is it about the Italians? The rich food. Thousands of years of incredible art and sculpture and music. Something's in the blood over there that produces a high concentration of moviemakers with incredible lush styles: Sergio Leone, Federico Fellini, Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava, and Dario Argento to name just a few. This week, Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill riffs on what it means to be a "stylist". And why Italian masters like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica don't quite feel like part of that category because other traits of their moviemaking dominate. Craig also tries explores why, even if your aesthetic is different, studying stylists is key to the craft.

SMC Pod #201: Blade Runner & dystopian sci-fi movies

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 16:11:10 -0800

Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi dystopian noir Blade Runner where a disillusionedd private eye/cop/robot hunter Harrison Ford tracks down and falls in love with "Replicants" or robot cyborgs made to look like humans is a pinnacle of the sci-fi dystopian genre. Blade Runner presents a disturbing, overpopulated, megalopolis Los Angeles and explores sci-fi questions of what it means to be human, to exist, to live. Dystopia movies like Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, Mike Judge's Idiocracy, show humanity and society hanging on but everything falling apart. These are movies just before the apocalypse. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at many of these movies and how years like 1971 and 2006 when the US was at war both internally and internationally produced dystopia sci-fi classics that mirrored our own anxiety and worry.

SMC Podcast #200: Lightning Bottle Movie Masterpieces

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:33:10 -0800

To celebrate our 200th podcast, we take a look at some of the less screened and spoken about movie masterpieces that give us "that feel". Movies like Chaplin's The Gold Rush, Renoir's Boudu Saved From Drowning, Forman's The Fireman's Ball, the Coens' Barton Fink, Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire among many others are what Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill calls "lightning bottle movie masterpieces". Movies that give you "that feel" of electric, exciting "I want to do this" moviemaking. We discuss 15 movies in all, including asserting that Citizen Kane, as discussed as it is, is taken for granted and underrated now. Our hope here is that you'll go check out or re-watch a few of these movies and seek out cinema that gives you "that feel" to make amazing movies.

SMC Pod #199: The Toronto Film Festival 2025 1st Person POV-Blake Winston Rice & his short DISC

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 21:33:09 -0800

Filmmaker Blake Winston Rice returns to the pod to talk about his most recent short, DISC, starring Victoria Ratermanis & indie phenom Jim Cummings and how it premiered at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival (TIFF). Blake joined us on SMC Pod #182 to talk about how his short TEA got into the Cannes Film Festival and what it was like to actually attend the world's greatest film fest in person. Now Blake returns to talk about Toronto which is in the Top 5 world film fests and often viewed as the springboard for moviemakers ahead of awards season. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill and Blake talk about what a moviemaker needs to do these days to keep the needle moving forward towards feature work, financing, and career-building.

SMC Pod #198: 10 horror movie discoveries

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 12:40:03 -0700

October is Halloween season. And Halloween season is always a good time to discover (or re-discover) some of the more hidden yet just as brilliant horror gems in the genre. From Carl Theodor Dryer's 1932 dreamlike VAMPYR to Lucio Fulci's 1971 blunt yet Hitchcockian LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN to Zach Cregger's 2022 breakthrough comedy-horror freakout BARBARIAN to Don Siegel's & Clint Eastwood's 1971 slice of Southern Gothic fever revenge THE BEGUILED to Bill Gunn's 1973 black politics, power, and sexuality art horror GANJA & HESS, these are the movies that will blow your mind. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes you on a spooky tour through the shadow galleries of the vast crypt of horror movie masterpieces.

SMC Pod #197: Is this Cinema Part Three: A Serbian Film

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:05:26 -0700

In the final part of our three part 2025 series, Is This Cinema?, we look at the 2010 boundary pushing shocking controversial A SERBIAN FILM co-wri & directed by Srdjan Spasojevic which has its advocates like moviemaker Eli Roth and its detractors (many many others). Actor, moviemaker, musician Andras Jones (who did NOT see the movie) and Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill (who did) use the movie (which did play big festivals around the world) as the launching point for the third part of their conversation about what actually defines cinema. Andras and Craig work to dig down on what the basic elements are that define cinema. Citizen Kane and Pink Flamingos both come up. And surprisingly Andras and Craig do ultimately come to a definition that works for both of them.

SMC Pod #196: The Godfather trilogy & why it's a true trilogy

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 11:44:01 -0700

One of the greatest American movie trilogies has been right under our eyes for decades. Francis Ford Coppola's & team's The Godfather Parts 1, 2, and 3 form one of the most impressive three part movie projects ever attempted. It's easy to overlook this since The Godfather 3 came out 16 years after The Godfather 2 and is not considered at the same level as the first two movies. And yet, despite its definite shortcomings, The Godfather 3 is still one of the best movies of the 1990's and a fascinating and FITTING conclusion to the tragedy of Michael Corleone. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at what it took to make the three movies (it was always a fight) and how they fit together to form one of the few great Shakespearean level tragedies of American cinema.

SMC Pod #195: Paul Thomas Anderson's ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER & the 2025 theater experience

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 20:38:06 -0700

Sometimes you have to go see a movie in a theater no matter what. That's a great thing. Auteur moviemaker Paul Thomas Anderson's just released One Battle After Another, shot on the 35mm Vistavision format, starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Sean Penn about a stoner Dad ex-revolutionary trying to save his daughter is just such a movie. What's illuminating, for better and worse, is realizing even with a dynamite movie like this one, the 2025 theater experience needs work. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill talks his theater experience, his admiration for Anderson's movie, and his thoughts-good, bad, ugly-about what where theater going is at in 2025.

SMC Pod #194: Pixote, Come and See, and the real horror movies

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 21:42:04 -0700

It's one thing to be scared by a ghost story, vampires, or masked killers menacing horny teens in summer camps. It's another thing when you see a movie that forces you to confront horrors that happen everyday around the world. Movies like Hector Babenco's 1981 Brazillian neorealist Pixote about a 10 year old juvenile delinquent struggling in the corrupt reform schools and even more brutal streets. Movies like Elem Klimov's 1985 Come & See which follows wide-eyed Florya as he joins Belurusian partisans in World War II to fight invading nazis only to witness humanity's capacity for limitless atrocities. Movies like Lee Daniel's Precious about a teen girl who has to assert her own dignity in the face of rape, incest, and societal neglect. Movies like Lucas Moodysson's Lilya-4-Ever about how teens can suddenly find themselves being sex-trafficked. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at these and other movies in a search to define what exactly makes these movies so powerful and unbearable.

SMC Pod #193: Star Persona vs. Great Actors and everything in between

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 21:07:51 -0700

A movie star has "it". You can't learn it. You can't fake it. The camera loves you. The audience wants you. Great actors may never be movie stars but they often have long, rewarding careers filled with powerful work even if they never get that huge paycheck. What's interesting though is how often big stars are determined to be recognized as great actors or vice versa. And it's that grain of sand that often makes a dynamic career. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at movie stars, great actors, and everything in between like Louise Brooks, Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Paul Newman among others and tries to figure out. . .what exactly makes a movie star.

SMC Pod #192: Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown, & movies that capture the real Los Angeles

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 16:57:41 -0700

One of the fascinating ironies about Los Angeles is that it is often movies in heightened genres like noir that best capture what the city really feels like to those born and raised in it (like this podcaster). Movies like Billy Wilder's acidic Hollywood takedown classic Sunset Boulevard and Roman Polanski's & Robert Towne's 70's new cinema classic Chinatown show sides of the city with a denizen's inside baseball knowledge. But there's also a neorealist strain in the films of John Cassavettes, Charles Burnett, and others that shows Los Angeles from a working class and middle class ground level. The way we actually live our life here. And finally, oddly, 60's and 70's B movies like 1977's totally couldn't be made today "The Van" show LA as it is because the moviemakers couldn't afford a budget to dress it up. They just shot what they could and captured LA without any soft lighting or makeup. Join Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill (a 4th generation Los Angelino) as we discuss some of the known and underground gems that shine a real light on the city we who live here love.

SMC Pod #191: Lorne Michaels & The Movie Impressario

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:37:03 -0700

The Impressario is an archetype the movie industry sorely needs right now. Lorne Michaels, co-creator and longtime producer of Saturday Night Live offers a template and some surprising subtle lessons in what characteristics are needed to thrive in the long game. Michaels is one of the last of a breed that started at the very beginning with boy genius MGM studio head Irving Thalberg and includes folks like agent Sue Mengers, producer Kathleen Kennedy, manager Bernie Brillstein among others. Folks who can aggregate talent, people, power to make a mind boggling body of work. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at the characteristics these folks share in the hopes we can learn something for the next chapter of cinema.

SMC Pod #190: The Children of Caligari-Persona, 3 Women, Mulholland Drive

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 21:05:49 -0700

1920's German expressionist The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari did more than inspire a whole kind of cinema-it also became the great-grandparent of a genre. The mind-bending dive into the psyche genre that saw three of its greatest examples all influence each other: Ingmar Bergman's 1966 Persona which begat in many ways Robert Altman's 1977 3 Women. And all those movies consciously or unconsciously begat David Lynch's 2001 masterpiece Mulholland Drive. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at the journey of inspiration of all these movies as well as side trips to other great examples of the genre like David Fincher's Fight Club, Roman Polanski's Repulsion, and Darren Aronovsky's Black Swan.

SMC Pod #189: The Val Lewton RKO horror unit of the 1940's & Jacques Tourneur

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 21:53:48 -0700

RKO needed money fast in 1943 and they brought on David O Selznick protege Val Lewton to head a unit devoted to cheapie horror movies. The rules-use their titles like Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Leopard Man-then figure out the rest. Lewton miraculously created a cycle of incredible atmospheric literate horror movies, several masterfully directed by genre master Jacques Tourneur, that helped revive the career of Boris Karloff, introduce subtexts like repressed sexuality, acceptance of death, compulsion, and influence many artists like Martin Scorsese and Harlan Ellison. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a deep dive into a cycle of movies that prove you can make greatness if you accept your limitations and turn that into the engine of your creativity.

SMC Pod #188: Marlon Brando's ONE EYED JACKS (1961) & the eccentric Western

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 13:34:41 -0700

The Western genre is a home grown art form like jazz and rock and roll. And it occasionally produces really strange and wild movies. Marlon Brando's incredible 1961 One Eyed Jacks is a western that takes place on California beaches with a psycho-sexual Oedipal focus on a rebel, a father figure, and a step-daughter. Other eccentric westerns like Budd Boetticher's minimalist 1956 Seven Men From Now, John Huston's & John Milius's counter-culture The Life & Times of Judge Roy Bean, Clint Eastwood's supernatural revenge High Plains Drifter, and S. Craig Lawler's near Cormac McCarthy unbelievably gory yet gripping Bone Tomahawk are all beautiful bizarre outliers. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a deep dive and looks at around a dozen of the most eccentric westerns ever made.

SMC Pod #187: The complex American character through 100 years of American cinema

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 22:26:31 -0700

On any given day, you could pick 20 American movies that would show a different cross section of the complex contradictory conflicting aspects of the American character. Today, Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill picks 20 including 1928's King Vidor directed The Crowd, the biting 50's satire Ace in the Hole, 70's masterworks like Husbands, Girlfriends, Nashville, Killer of Sheep, Black Caesar, and more recent works that wrestle with American identity like He Got Game, Better Luck Tomorrow, Nomadland, and Killers of the Flower Moon (+many more). On this 4th of July, Secret Movie Club tries to aid the American experiment by taking a look at how our national character has expressed itself in our cinema.

SMC Pod #186: Rossellini's 1940's War trilogy: Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero & the thematic trilogy

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 11:49:29 -0700

Thematic trilogies are fascinating and exciting. Though characters may reappear, they are really trilogies around a theme or fascination or concern. Italian master Roberto Rossellini rose to the top of world cinema in the 1940's with his trilogy of movies focused on World War II and its immediate after effects: Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), and Germany Year Zero (1948). The first two movies deal with the war and the occupation of Italy first by Nazis then by American soldiers. The last movie suddenly jumps into the belly of the beast and examines immediate post-WWII deprivation from the point of view of a German boy and his struggling family in a bombed out Berlin. These movies helped create and define Italian neo-realism and shared a singular focus on war's effects on everyday people. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill talks about these movies and other interesting thematic trilogies like Wong Kar Wai's Love trilogy and Steven Spielberg's 9/11 trilogy along the way.

SMC Pod#185: Steven Spielberg's JAWS & Why it's the exception to the rule

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 16:15:38 -0700

As everyone and their cousin is telling you these days, it's the 50th anniversary of Steven Spielberg's classic monster movie blockbuster Jaws (1975). Directed by wunderkind Spielberg when he was only 28 years old (yet had already been a professional director in the TV & movie game at least 8 years), Jaws set the template Hollywood is still chasing: promising young director, huge recognition with a pre-existing IP (intellectual property), massive opening weekend on the most amount of screens, etc. Yet Jaws is still a classic 50 years later (unlike the majority of summer blockbusters) because of how it differs from the rules it established. Secret Movie Club programmer Craig Hammill waxes rhapsodic and caustic about the moviemaker, the movie, the team, and the phenomenon that casts a shadow on the ocean floor over everything so many decades later.

SMC Pod #184: The Fantasy, Sci-Fi, & Horror genres (and how they are reflected in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings)

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 22:29:59 -0700

That's a mouthful! Today, Secret Movie Club programmer talks about the wonders and possibilities of the fantasy, sci-fi, and horror genres and how those wonders/possibilities are beautifully realized in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. To narrow it down, Craig explores 1939's The Wizard of Oz (fantasy), 1972's Solaris (sci-fi), and 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Then Craig takes an element from each genre and how it affected or was expressed through Peter Jackson's genius in LOTR. This podcast was a lot to bite off and chew so Craig decided to focus in on three movies.

SMC Pod #183: Francesco Rosi's SALVATORE GIULIANO (1962, Italy)

Thu, 29 May 2025 18:51:24 -0700

Every now and then, you have to deep dive an amazing movie to celebrate it. Today, Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill sings the praises of journalist turned moviemaker Francesco Rosi's 1962 Italian masterpiece Salvatore Giuliano. It tells the story of famed Sicilian outlaw Giuliano not from his POV but from the POV's of everyone around him-townspeople, police, the Italian government. Shot by master cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo (Fellini's 8 1/2), Giuliano is a cubist Citizen Kane, using film form to tell a political story. Filmmaker Rosi makes a damning movie about political power without being simplistic. Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg have all been deeply influenced by this must-see world classic.

SMC Pod #182: The Cannes Film Festival with someone who's been there!

Thu, 15 May 2025 21:47:18 -0700

Blake Winston Rice @blakewrice had his life turned inside out when he found out his short film Tea had been accepted for competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Suddenly after years of shorts submissions and rejections, he had less than a month to get ready for the biggest opportunity of his life. Blake talks with Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill about the crazy ride he had last year, what Cannes is really like for those who experience it, and advice he has for everyone fighting the good fight.

SMC Pod #181: Recent movies that give me hope

Fri, 09 May 2025 11:08:12 -0700

Recent movies like the Latvian animated instant masterpiece Flow, the hilarious and well thought out parody.satire.personal journey indie The People's Joker, the formally daring subjective POV two-hander Nickel Boys, the Romanian dark comedy of the moment Do Not Expect Too Much From the End Of the World, and the musical political horror of the documentary Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat among many others show that cinema still has new frontiers to cross, new voices to regenerate the medium, a new chapter for all of us. Secret Movie Club founder.progammer Craig Hammill digs into why these movies feel like beacons of light in the wilderness. And also what may need to happen on the marketing.advertising.exhibition side to re-ignite cinema as pop culture necessity.

SMC Pod #180: Is This Cinema Part 2 Part 2! Conversation on what is cinema

Sat, 03 May 2025 12:37:23 -0700

A movie podcast so expansive, so intense, it took several weeks to edit! Actor.musician.cinephile Andras Jones (Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-rama, https://previouslyyours.com) and Secret Movie Club founder Craig Hammill have part 2 of their conversation about what exactly defines cinema? Andras challenges Craig on Craig's definitions of simulation, artifice, consent since many great movies, documentaries ignore those things. Craig puts forward that trust and shared vision among cast & crew are critical to getting the best out of a movie, especially when the subject matter is unsettling. Everything from Coppola's Apocalypse Now to Fassbinder's In a Year of 13 Moons to Gallo's The Brown Bunnny gets discussed. And we try to get closer to that obscure object of definition "What is cinema"?

SMC Pod #179: Is this Cinema Pt II: The Human Centipede

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 12:29:20 -0700

We return to our Is this Cinema series to look at one of the 2000's most divisive horror movies: Tom Six's The Human Centipede (2009). The concept was so shocking (three humans sewed together by a mad doctor to make a...well you guessed it...) it became a pop culture phenomenon. Comedy shows like South Park devoted whole episodes to it. But was it cinema or just an edgelord eyeball grab for money? Actor, musician, artist Andras Jones (Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-rama) who can be found at https://previouslyyours.com/ joins Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill to hash it out. Andras has a totally different definition of cinema than Craig that helps broaden the conversation. This is Part 1 of 2, the conversation was so epic. Part 2 which digs into the challenges of defining what is cinema comes out next time as SMC Pod #180. Here we go...

SMC Pod #178: Gene Hackman - A helluva actor

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 15:53:02 -0700

The strange and still not fully understood deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife of 30+ years Betsy Arakawa may unsettle us for awhile or for always. But Gene Hackman's contribution to cinema is undeniable. From 1967's Depression-era gangster movie Bonnie & Clyde through Wes Anderson's 2001 comedy The Royal Tenenbaums, Gene Hackman captivated audiences with his always truthful electric performances. Secret Movie Clubber Edwin Gomez and SMC founder.programmer Craig Hammill talk the Hackman filmography from The French Connection to Unforgiven. Edwin singles out 1973's Scarecrow and Craig highlights how Hackman was great even in underrated genre movies like Sam Raimi's 1995 western The Quick and the Dead. Simply put: Gene Hackman is one of the greatest actors movies have ever produced.

SMC Pod #177: Roger Corman's Rules 2: The Spawning!

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 16:24:38 -0700

The one and only Edwin Cesar Gomez of @physicalmediasociety returns to the Secret Movie Club podcast fold to discuss American cinema producing legend Roger Corman. When SMC did its first Corman tribute a few months back, Edwin said "Hey! I shoulda been on that pod!" And he was right. Very few folks have seen as many Corman pictures as the ECG. Today, Edwin and SMC founder.programmer Craig Hammill, discuss three more movies that give a fuller picture of how influential Corman was to late 20th century cinema: the 1967 Roger Corman directed LSD movie THE TRIP, the 1976 Roger Corman New World Pictures released HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, and the 1979 Roger Corman produced SAINT JACK.

SMC Pod #176: Adaptation Pt 2-The Haunted House movie

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 19:23:24 -0700

It's fascinating to see how the adaptation of a single novel, here Shirley Jackson's 1958 haunted house masterpiece The Haunting of Hill House, can have such a profound impact on sixty years of moviemaking. First adapted by master Hollywood director Robert Wise in 1963 as The Haunting, Shirley Jackson's novel would then inspire Stephen King to write The Shining and Stanley Kubrick to adapt The Shining in 1980. The Shining movie would influence the styles of everyone from Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg to French moviemaker Coralie Faraget. And when Faraget made 2024's body horror The Substance starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, she would use The Shining's film grammar. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a deep dive look at how movie adaptations can have long lasting effects on moviemaking itself.

SMC Pod #175: Adaptation Part 1: Frankenstein (novel) to movie (1931, James Whale, Universal)

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 20:15:46 -0800

Adaptation from one storytelling medium to another is key to cinema. Be it a novel, a play, a TV show, an opera, or beloved legend, the work adapted MUST be molded and changed to suit the strengths of cinema. Ironically, faithful adaptations are often the least successful. Today, Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at the classic 1818 romantic Gothic horror novel Frankenstein and how subversive clever film director James Whale adapted it in 1931 for Universal Studios. Whale even injects an LGBTQ+ subtext not present in the novel. And yet the key spark, soul of the original is in the film. Check out the pod and let us know what you think (in comments on our socials or by writing us at: community@secretmovieclub.com).

SMC Pod #174: Dialogue-less Movies (Pure Cinema)

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 21:17:47 -0800

Today, we look at some of the great "pure cinema" movies with little to no dialogue. Now listen-dialogue is great. Dialogue is cinematic. But to scale the heights, a moviemaker needs to know how to communicate cinematically (image + sound) without using dialogue as a crutch to convey information. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at F.W. Murnau's 1924 masterpiece The Last Laugh (with only two intertitles for the entire movie), avant garde master Stan Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes, Ron Fricke's 70mm essay movie Baraka, the incredible Ukranian movie all in sign language The Tribe, and Phil Tippet's stop motion mind blower Mad God as examples of movies whose power comes from their commitment to what Alfred Hitchcock called "pure cinema".

SMC Pod #173: The state of cinema, 2025 (it's rough)

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:34:05 -0800

Movies have always had their ups and downs. Every time it looks like cinema is gonna give up the ghost, it somehow roars back and a new era is born. But is that true in 2025? Or has cinema finally come to the end of the line? Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes stock of the state of cinema. He tries not to pull punches or manufacture a conclusion. Where are we? Do we have a future? Take a listen and let us know what you think.

SMC Pod #172: Is this Cinema? I: Pasolini's Salo or 120 Days of Sodom

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 16:28:58 -0800

Today, we inaugurate an occasional series "Is this Cinema?" in our podcasts. We'll look at a controversial, shocking, and/or divisive movie that divides cinephiles. There may be no better place to start than famed Italian moviemaker Pier Paolo Pasolini's final film, 1975's SALO or 120 DAYS OF SODOM adapted from shocking source material written by the Marquis De Sade. Pasolini adapted the movie to World War II fascist Italy. Four fascist libertines imprison 18 youths in a villa for the fascists' violent perversions and depravity. SALO is shocking, even by today's standards. And yet the movie is also a rigorous exploration of exploitation, abuses of power, corrupt governments, the hypocrisy of the wealthy, etc. There are also scenes of near unbearable coercion, perversion, and violence. Secret Movie Club founder, programmer Craig Hammill looks at it all to ask....is this cinema?

SMC Pod #171: Watershed movies

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 21:48:48 -0800

Today, we look at watershed movies: movies that changed the culture. That became juggernauts. Where cinema was clearly changed/different AFTER the movies. These movies aren't always enjoyable still to watch. OR. . .they were so big, it's hard to enjoy them as movies. They have become markers on the road of cinema. Yet some still offer up endless joys. While others have not aged well at all. We look at everything from 1915's Birth of a Nation to Citizen Kane, Rashomon, Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, Barbie,and many in between. Founder.programmer Craig Hammill riffs across these movies trying to figure out what it means to be a watershed movie. And if such movies can ever be made again in today's fractured, niche, scattered entertainment landscape.

SMC Pod #170: Bill Murray, the Agony & The Ecstasy

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 17:59:07 -0800

Of all the Saturday Night Live TV actors who have gone on to the movies, Bill Murray has had possibly the most fascinating, long lasting, unpredictable run. Murray is complex, known equally for great performances, hilarious in-real life stunts, endless restlessness, and difficult personal behavior. Yet, very few actors have built up the reservoir of good will Murray has with his fans and the movie community due to his clear love of cinema. From early comedy hits like Caddyshack and Stripes to mid-period masterpieces like Groundhog Day to career reinvention with Rushmore, Lost in Translation, Broken Flowers, Bill Murray has always been pulled by a spiritually seeking restless voice to always keep it fresh and unpredictable. In this podcast, Secret Movie Club programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at Bill Murray's career from his Second City & SNL start through his near 50 year career.

SMC Pod #169: David Lynch, an appreciation

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 22:43:17 -0800

On January 16, 2025, cinema lost one of its greatest lights. David Lynch passed away in Los Angeles at 78 years old. Like all master moviemakers, Lynch contained multitudes. The writer/director behind Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and many other films crafted a dreamlike, surreal, spiritual, emotional tone with intense lights and darks that was impossible to imitate. Only David Lynch could make a David Lynch movie. And David Lynch LOVED movies. He understood that cinema is a language that can go beyond words and many other art forms. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill offers an appreciation on this podcast of Lynch the moviemaker and of Lynch movies.

SMC Pod #168: The Lubitsch Touch, a prologue

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 11:42:42 -0800

First and foremost, Secret Movie Club sends everyone affected by the Los Angeles fires (this podcast is posted January 2025) the best. We're here as a community to help rebuild. If it can bring a smile to your face in a helpful way, we offer this podcast on "The Lubitsch Touch". Master classic Hollywood filmmaker Ernest Lubitsch developed a cinematic shorthand storytelling style full of visual, verbal, and cinematic grace/flair. If he could convey character or information cinematically rather than through clunky dialogue, he did it. This style, the essence of what cinema can do, inspired countless moviemakers most notably master moviemaker Billy Wilder. Today we look just at Lubitsch's 1932 pre-code sophisticated sex comedy masterpiece Trouble In Paradise and the examples of his subtle touch therein.

SMC Pod #167: Akira Kurosawa, Master Filmmaker, 2025 Edition

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 22:59:16 -0800

Realizing we've all ready done several podcasts on Akira Kurosawa, we're treating this like an addendum to a revised edition. Today, we work to fill in some of the gaps by focusing on some of Kurosawa's amazing but lesser seen works like his 1943 debut feature Sanshiro Sugata, his incredible I Live in Fear (1954)where actor Toshiro Mifune plays an aging industrialist who loses his mind thinking about nuclear war, and Kurosawa's 1993 final feature Madadayo which features some of Kurosawa's best ever editing. We also look at Kurosawa's 1930's apprenticeship as assistant director to Kajiro Yamamoto (Yamamoto-san) and some of the best books to read if you're a Kurosawa-phile.

SMC Pod #166: 2024, the year in movies

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 22:42:52 -0800

Furiosa, Hundreds of Beavers, I Saw the TV Glow, Anora just to name a few showed that 2024 had lots of genius, fight, promise, vitality, relevancy still for cinema. And movies like Dune Pt II, Hit Man, Conclave, Juror #2 were worthwhile, stimulating additions to the annals of moviedom. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at the year in movies 2024...and finds there's mercifully, blessedly still a beating heart at the center of it all.

SMC Pod #165: Stanley Kubrick, Director of 2020

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 11:27:47 -0800

Stanley Kubrick may be one of the key patron saints of all cinema (even if he himself was an ardent athiest). Born in the Bronx, New York, a mediocre student, Kubrick followed a monofocused drive to make movies. From making low budget features to cut his teeth in the mid 1950's to becoming one of the only true Auteur American moviemakers to work in the studio system yet be on a level with moviemakers like Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick created a cinema of ideas and iconography. And he never settled until he got it right. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at Kubrick's career and the rules he developed to make his wildly ambitious films. These rules allowed Kubrick to make masterpieces in almost every genre: sci-fi 2001, period drama BARRY LYNDON, horror THE SHINING, war PATHS OF GLORY, psychological interrogations of marriage EYES WIDE SHUT, and more.

SMC Pod #164: Alfred Hitchcock, Director of 2023

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 17:35:52 -0800

Has any moviemaker made more out and out hits, influenced 20th century cinematic pop culture iconography, or so married the pop, commercial, and artistic into one as Alfred Hitchcock? Hitchcock directed 53 movies, 10 of which are arguably unqualified masterpieces (39 Steps, Lady Vanishes, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds). Hitchcock is the rare director whose name alone could finance a picture, so synonymous was it with suspense and popcorn brilliance. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill gets into it-from the profound influence of German expressionism on Hitchcock, to Alma Reville, Hitch's lifelong wife and creative partner, to Hitch's techniques and understanding that suspense is an emotional state. And that's what makes it so powerful.

SMC Pod #163: Roger Corman's Rules

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 17:22:36 -0800

With the passing of the "Pope of Pop Film" Roger Corman at 98 this year, a key era of American moviemaking left us. Producer/Director Roger Corman famously made hundreds of movies without "ever having lost a dime". He did this by shrewdly making very low budget genre pictures catered to what was hip at the time (monsters, drugs, motorcycles, sharks, aliens...) with super talented hungry young moviemakers. Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdonavich, Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron just to name a few all come out of the unofficial "Roger Corman film school". And Corman himself directed or produced key indie genre movies including the Edgar Allen Poe series of the 1960's, Monte Hellman's COCKFIGHTER from the 1970's, etc. Secret Movie Club programmer Craig Hammill looks at some of the "rules" a moviemaker can still learn from the maverick master who made daring movies while also protecting the bottom line.

SMC Pod #162: Thanksgiving special-Giving thanks for the Bravo Channel (early 1990's)

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 14:38:01 -0800

And. . .we're back. After almost a year of radio silence, the Secret Movie Club podcast returns with SMC Pod #162! Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill gives thanks (Thanksgiving 2024 weekend) for the Bravo Channel in the early 1990's. Way back then (Craig was 12-15 years old), the Bravo Channel was devoted to idiosynchratic world cinema and American indie movies. Sneaking to the tv room late at night, to watch these movies when his family was asleep, Craig saw Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table (1990), Ildikó Enyedi's Hungarian My Twentieth Century (1989), Aki Kaurismaki's Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989), Hal Hartley's Trust (1990), and (possibly) Jean Claude Luzhon's French Canadian Leolo (1992). Plus, some hints and reveals about the full reopening of the Secret Movie Club theater and programming...

SMC Pod #161: What is a masterpiece & masterpiece inflation

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 11:45:37 -0800

Secret Movie Club team members Edwin Gomez and Craig Hammill hash out what really IS the criteria that makes a movie a masterpiece? Although they easily agree on JAWS, they split when Edwin calls AIRPORT 77 and KING KONG 1976 masterpieces while Craig views Ingmar Bergman's WINTER LIGHT and PERSONA as masterpieces. Craig also is concerned that the term "masterpiece" gets used way too much these days. He fears the term is losing its important meaning as an indicator of a movie that truly rises above all others. Is there a fix? Is there a problem? Listen to see where Edwin and Craig ultimately land. We'd love to hear your thoughts. (You can always write us at: community@secretmovieclub.com. We might even read your comments in an upcoming pod!).

SMC Pod #160: CRUMB & The dark documentary (A deeper doc dive Part II)

Fri, 24 Nov 2023 10:48:09 -0800

Today, Secret Movie Club Team Members Edwin Gomez and Craig Hammill discuss Terry Zwigoff's breakout 1990's documentary CRUMB about underground comic book artist R. Crumb and his dysfunctional brothers. Both Edwin and Craig talk about how a second viewing really emphasizes how heavy Crumb's home life was. We nominate some other powerful "dark" documentaries. Edwin name checks the Maysles' 1960's key work SALESMAN and Errol Morris's 1980's THE THIN BLUE LINE. Craig talks about Claude Lanzmann's 1980's masterwork SHOAH and Joshua Oppenheimer's 2012 THE ACT OF KILLING. Edwin talks the re-opening of the Vista and Craig mentions how much he likes David Fincher's new movie THE KILLER. (This Pod acts as a kind of Part II to SMC Pod #94 which looked at AMERICAN MOVIE and the documentary genre).

SMC Pod #159: Communicating cinematically or ”An idea in every shot”

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 12:09:55 -0700

As part of our final season wrap up on Alfred Hitchcock director of the year, we look at Hitchcock's late career advice to film schools to make sure that young filmmakers knew how to tell their stories visually/cinematically without needing to rely on dialogue. SMC founder.programmer Craig Hammill talks about how this approach has come to mean for him the goal of "an idea in every shot". Today we talk about examples from Murnau's The Last Laugh, Renoir's La Chienne, Stan Brakhage's The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes, Coppola's The Godfather I baptism cross-cutting scene, Kurosawa's High and Low among other movies to show how production design, framing, editing, cross-cutting, "gags" can all become tools in the tool box to communicate cinematically.

SMC Pod #158: Why PSYCHO is the 2001 of Horror movies

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 10:54:54 -0700

For as popular and perennial as Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO is, 62 years after its initial release, Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill feels it is still underrated. In many ways, Craig feels PSYCHO is the 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY of horror movies. That is-a movie which changed the cinematic form, created new film language, and in many ways, has never been surpassed. We take a look at the history of PSYCHO including Hitchcock's own doubts that it worked. We also look at how Hitchcock micromanaged brilliantly hiding the twist until its opening weekend and how Hitchcock used his five decades of film craft to take his "Subjective POV" style to its zenith. Finally, we discuss the unsettling and surprisingly complex world view of the movie which is neither optimistic nor cynical but stranger. A worldview that approximates the complexities of our own world.

SMC Pod #157: Filmmaker Sensibilities: Blockbuster vs Art House

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 11:27:45 -0700

When you love cinema, it's fascinating how some of your favorite moviemakers are beloved by a small passionate group of "in the know" fans and other of your favorite moviemakers appeal to the entire world including your grandparents who know nothing about the film world. What defines the "art house" versus the "blockbuster" sensibility? If you're a moviemaker, where does your sensibility ultimately land? Does it help to be know? Is it even productive to think in these terms? Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at a number of filmmaker sensibilities including those of Peter Greenaway, James Cameron, Satyajit Ray, Kelly Reichhardt, and Francis Ford Coppola. All have achieved success and longevity to wildly different audiences.

SMC Pod #156: Sex in American Cinema and the X & NC-17 Rating

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 21:48:36 -0700

While the team re-assembles, Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill goes solo to discuss the history of sex in American cinema and the X and NC-17 rating. Craig marvels that 50 years ago X-rated movies like MIDNIGHT COWBOY were winning Best Picture and THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES were mainstream, making the equivalent of $100 million dollars, and getting 3 star ratings from Roger Ebert while now American studios, filmmakers, and films seem to have no idea how to deal with sex scenes (and so avoid them). For the societal health of the country, Craig advocates for the emergence of the "adult sex movie" as a mainstream genre like action, horror, fantasy & sci-fi, and the superhero. It would help bring conversations about sex and sexuality back into the light and mainstream.

SMC Summer Podcast #10: Twin Peaks:The Return Parts 9-18 & SMC Pod #115: Tom Cruise

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 09:20:11 -0700

And so, finally, we get to Summer 2023 Pod #10. The number of completion. We look at Parts 9-18 of Twin Peaks: The Return. We discuss how David Lynch managed the seemingly impossibly by matching Part 8 with the sheer brilliance of Part 18. And we discuss all the grace notes throughout. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer feels that TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN ultimately is the greatest movie of 2017, one of the greatest features of the 21st century, and that TWIN PEAKS as a whole is one of the key cinematic works of the last 50 years. We also re-post SMC Pod #115 where the team discusses the mystery and marvel that is Tom Cruise, one of the most interesting and complicated of America's movie stars.

SMC Summer Pod #9: When Hitchcock experiments & SMC Pod #108 Repost The High Concept Low Budget Film

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 11:39:34 -0700

Alfred Hitchcock is one of American cinema's most daring risk-takers and experimenters. His filmmography is filled with wild experiments from single location movies like LIFEBOAT, ROPE, REAR WINDOW to rule breaking near avant garde stunners like PSYCHO and THE BIRDS. Today, Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at 1948's ROPE (comprised of only 11 shots and filmed to look like one continuous take) and 1963's THE BIRDS (in which seemingly docile everyday birds attack a small Northern Californian town with little to no explanation). Craig marvels at ROPE's technique and THE BIRDS secondary, less talked about subtext about the chaos of lust and desire. We also repost SMC Pod #108 about the wonderful Spanish time travel movie TIME CRIMES and the low budget high concept feature.

SMC Summer Pod #8: Twin Peaks The Return Parts 1-8 & SMC Pod #10000 Repost Favorite pre 23rd Century Movies

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 11:41:45 -0700

Today we continue our TWIN PEAKS masterwork series by looking at 2017's TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN Parts 1-8. Founder.Programmer Craig Hammill talks about how David Lynch and Mark Frost telegraphed their ambition with the VERY FIRST Twin Peaks episode/pilot in 1989. Lynch's expanded vision which encompasses all of America married to Kyle Machlachlan's commitment to 5 different roles (!!) married to avant garde masterpiece parts like Part 8 make THE RETURN the greatest movie of 2017 and one of the great 21st century masterworks for Craig. We also repost SMC Pod #10000 recorded April 1, 2021 which was our first attempt at an April's Fool's episode where we wanted to make ya' laugh.

SMC Summer Pod #7: Personal Favorite movies of the 21st century & SMC Pod #96 re-post Speed Racer

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 13:09:55 -0700

SMC founder.programmer Craig Hammill talks about his personal favorite movies of the 21st century including Catch Me If You Can, Zodiac, No Country For Old Men, Un Prophete, Boyhood, Lovers Rock among several others. He notes how watching recent masterpieces can help give a current moviemaker the faith and belief necessary to commit to cinema in the current strange moment. David Lynch's and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks: The Return (which Craig considers one of the great 21st century movies) will get talked about at length next week in SMC Summer Pod #8. We also repost SMC Pod #96 about the Wachowski's Speed Racer and the wonderful phenomenon of movies that get re-appraised, re-considered over time.

SMC Summer Pod #6: David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me & The Missing Pieces + SMC Pod #86 repost

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:02:42 -0700

SMC founder.programmer Craig Hammill continues the podcast summer mini-series deep dive into David Lynch's & Mark Frost's TWIN PEAKS. Today we talk about Lynch's 1992 feature film TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME and the 90 minutes he cut out that he later released in 2014 as THE MISSING PIECES. Fire Walk With Me was initially met with near universal dislike. Now it is considered one of Lynch's greatest and most essential movies. Craig also notes how strangely the changes Lynch had to make to get the movie across the finish line helped the movie get more focused and more intense. Then we repost SMC Podcast #86. In this pod, we get to hear the "lost podcasts" recorded in 2018-2019, with friends of SMC that include screenwriters Matt Olsen, Steve Grest, and fellow USC film school grad Brian Hatfield. They represent the kind of wide-ranging movie conversations that great movies can kindle. Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, and possibly the greatest of all Star Trek movies Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan get discussed. There's also lots of laughter.

SMC Summer Pod #5: Twin Peaks Season 1 & 2 Deep Dive + SMC Pod #85 repost: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 16:25:57 -0700

As our Summer podcast series heads into the back stretch, founder.programmer Craig Hammill decides to devote the remaining 4 summer pods to a deep dive into each phase/cycle of David Lynch's magnum opus Twin Peaks which now comprises two tv seasons, a movie, and a limited series on cable. If last week was a kind of general prologue, this week Craig deep dives into television seasons #1 and #2 which aired on ABC 1990-1991. Craig specifically focuses on how the poorly received back half of season 2 when Lynch stepped away from the series set the gears in motion for Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost to re-focus/re-center the show with the Season #2 finale. This in turn set up the 1992 Lynch directed feature FIRE WALK WITH ME which in turn set up 2017's TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (all of which will get discussed in the next few episodes). Then we re-post SMC Pod #85. This was our first pod devoted to a long form conversation of a Secret Movie Club filmmaker of the year-here ultra prolific German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Editor Andrew Groves joins the conversation and adds deep rich detail.

SMC Summer Pod #4: David Lynch, Twin Peaks, & the nexus of TV and Cinema + Defend This Movie #1 repost

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 17:48:02 -0700

Today in our ongoing August "summer break series" something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. . .Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill talks about season one of David Lynch's and Mark Frost's revolutionary TWIN PEAKS. Arriving in 1990 on network television, TWIN PEAKS was like nothing anybody had ever seen. Disturbing, unsettling, cinematic. It's also a fascinating case study in what a movie director brings to TV versus how a show runner trained in television would handle a series. Craig talks Lynch's stylistic imprint on the episodes Lynch directed including the still shocking pilot. Then we re-post the very first "Defend This Movie" posted in June 2021 in which Craig defends his love of the 1969 James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" against the withering scorn heaped by Craig's friend Steve Grest who finds it one of the worst of the Bonds.

SMC Summer Pod #3: William Friedkin, the passing of the 70’s guard, and SMC Radio Hour #4 repost

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 23:19:58 -0700

Today, we continue our SMC Summer Pod hybrid series of new material and a repost of one our favorite earlier pods by honoring 70's maverick moviemaker William Friedkin. Founder.Programmer Craig Hammill talks about how he actually got to interview Friedkin for two hours in the 1990's. How very few moviemakers get a movie like THE EXORCIST that changes pop culture forever. And how Friedkin's passing really begins the passing of the guard in a way. We also re-post SMC Radio Hour #4 which is a fun (we hope) horror omnibus radio hour we did in our first year with great voice actors as a way to be creative at the height of COVID.

SMC Summer Pod #2: Box Office, Critical Success, Longevity + SMC Pod #15: Spike Lee Repost

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 00:02:42 -0700

Craig riffs on the Barbie/Oppenheimer current pop culture juggernaut but also notes how strange it is that a movie like Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 which will gross at least $500 million worldwide is considered underperforming. Craig also celebrates a summer where movies are again driving the pop culture. Then we repost Secret Movie Club Podcast #15 where we talked about Spike Lee, Da 5 Bloods, Malcolm X with special guests Ajarae Coleman and Kevin Johnson in the age of George Floyd and the horrific police brutality against black Americans in the summer of 2020.

SMC Summer 2023 Pod #1:When you have to reshape a movie & SMC Pod #1 Repost

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 17:27:36 -0700

As we work feverishly to prep our remaining Summer and Fall 2023 seasons, we're going to do a month of new-repost hybrid podcasts. The first 10 minutes or so will be new and on a short subject. This week, Craig talks about fascinating classics like Apocalypse Now, Dr. Strangelove, Sexy Beast, and Annie Hall that had to be severely reworked in production and post production because some element didn't work. And how strangely the brainstorming that went into fixing the problem created classics. Then we'll repost a great podcast from our vaults so folks can hear topics they may never have realized the team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, other SMC Team Members, Craig Hammill) covered when we started way back when in 2020. Today, we re-post our first ever podcast! SMC Podcast #1 (recorded just a few weeks into the pandemic in March/April 2020) focuses on the team's personal top 10 favorites lists. And the reexamination if such a list even makes sense when there are so many great movies.

SMC Podcast #155: David Lynch’s THE STRAIGHT STORY & Directors’ Oddball Entries

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 22:38:02 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) talk about David Lynch's 1999 G rated Disney movie The Straight Story. It is agreed that it is one of Lynch's greatest movies yet oddly one of his most underseen because it defies many folks' surface expectations of what is a David Lynch movie. The team also offers up their own oddball director movies. 1941, Gloria, Brewster's Millions, Spike Lee's Old Boy, among many others get discussed. Connor notes how some directors are allowed to branch out and others can get imprisoned in a certain genre. Edwin bristles and swears more than usual. Daniel brings up Francis Ford Coppola's Jack too late. Craig talks Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

DEFEND THIS MOVIE #11: William Friedkin’s CRUISING

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 20:49:44 -0700

The return of our side podcast Defend This Movie! Secret Movie Club team member Edwin Gomez has long loved William Friedkin's controversial 1980 police thriller Cruising about Al Pacino going undercover to find a serial killer in New York's underground gay S&M leather bar scene. Founder.Programmer Craig Hammill has long felt uncomfortable about the movie for what he feels is a lurid, uncomfortable use of a gay sub-culture in a slasher/edgelord kind of way. But upon re-watching the movie, Craig's feelings have become more ambivalent. Head projectionist Alex Olivier feels the movie has incredible merit and is far less problematic then some of the other movies Craig has programmed for Secret Movie Club. The three meet for an Oxford style debate about one of the 1980's most controversial movies.

SMC Pod #154: The Fourth of July and Other Summer Holiday Movies!

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 21:15:36 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) gets beach-ready with films for the summer! The Team agrees that Jaws is the quintessential Independence Day (the holiday) movie! Edwin salutes Patton as the greatest American movie ever made. Daniel reports on All the President’s Men and how much he likes watching people be good at their jobs. Connor half-heartedly endorses Mars Attacks! as an Independence Day (the movie) alternative. Craig celebrates “last day of school” movies, like American Graffiti, and camp films, like Wet Hot American Summer! Stay cool out there, Secret Movie Clubbers!

SMC Pod #153: SEVEN SAMURAI Special!

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 22:00:00 -0700

On the heels of Secret Movie Club’s biggest screening to date, SMC programmer and founder, Craig Hammill, sits down with Team member and head projectionist (AND samurai aficionado), Alex Olivier, to spend nearly an hour talking about one of the best films of all time, Craig’s desert island film, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai! Alex and Craig go into the movie’s themes, the legendary cast, the difficult production, and the enormous influence the film and Kurosawa has had over cinema since its release. Edwin makes a brief appearance.

SMC Pod #152: Comfort Food Movies + WE BOUGHT A ZOO!

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 22:00:00 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) returns with some tasty comfort food movies that’ll make you feel warm inside! Craig recounts the way the ending of Thelma & Louise made him feel as a kid. Daniel doesn’t mind sitting with Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson. Connor is somehow comforted by the Saw franchise. And there’s the main event, The Trial of Edwin Gomez, where the Team tries to understand what compelled Edwin to watch Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo five times in two months!

SMC Bitesize Pod 4: The Heirs of ”The Wizard of Oz”

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:40:07 -0700

1939's The Wizard of Oz (dir by Victor Fleming, MGM) was not only one of the greatest movies in what is considered Hollywood's greatest year but it also has had a sonic boom cultural influence on almost all pop culture of the last 90 years. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at all the amazing creative folks influenced by Oz including Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, James Cameron, as well as folks like Stanley Kubrick who claimed to hate it. Craig powers through the podcast as the pre-focus for Top Gun happens in the background. He also shares a story about how his Jewish great-grandfather, Sam Levin, a tailor at MGM, and Craig's Bubbe (Yiddish for grandmother) are connected to The Wizard of Oz.

SMC Bitesize Pod 3: The ”Perfect Movie”

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 10:54:16 -0700

Secret Movie Club Bitesize Pod #3 (final bitesize pod #4 next week then the gang returns 6/23/23) finds programmer.founder Craig Hammill looking under the hood of the concept of the "perfect" movie. What elevates movies like The Gold Rush, The Godfathers I & 2, Jaws, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Goodfellas, The Big Lebowski, In the Mood For Love, Mulholland Drive, Mad Max Fury Road, even 2017's Into The Spiderverse to the rarefied air of the "perfect" movie. And what actually happens behind the scenes in the sausage making to get there. Craig discovers a lot of the pictures are unified by the suffering, constant revision, and problem solving of its stressed out makers. A strange distinction between the "perfect" movie and a "great" movie also gets noted. Plus Craig manages to keep this pod more bitesize through some ruthless editing of his preambles and caveats.

SMC Bitesize Pod 2: The Life Cycle of Lord of the Rings as cinema

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 13:17:23 -0700

Part #2 of our four part "Bite Size Pods" series finds founder.programmer Craig Hammill looking at the cinematic life cycle of LORD OF THE RINGS. Craig considers the 2001-2003 Peter Jackson movies to be the greatest blockbuster trilogy of the 21st century. But he also wonders why so many great movie series must go through birth-growth-renaissance-decadence-death. Craig starts with the roots of LORD OF THE RINGS in Norse and Germanic mythology, looks at the JRR Tolkein books of the 1950's, the attempts to adapt the books (including one by the Beatles in the 1960's directed by Stanley Kubrick (!!), Peter Jackson's ultimate adaptation, then the works like THE HOBBIT trilogy and the recent Amazon series THE RINGS OF POWER that came after. Ultimately Craig feels hope lies in the final part of the cycle: rebirth.

SMC Bitesize Pod 1: Lars Von Trier’s EUROPA/ZENTROPA (1991)

Thu, 25 May 2023 21:00:35 -0700

While the Secret Movie Club team takes a much needed one month break (SMC Pod #152 returns June 23rd), founder.programmer Craig Hammill hosts a mini-four part series of "bite size" pods. This week, Craig finally watches Lars Von Triers' third feature EUROPA/ZENTROPA (1991), a movie he's wanted to see since he was a teenager. Craig notes how all the elements of Von Trier's cinema are here without yet coming to full blossom. He also feels it's key to tap into your "young person" style no matter what age you are. Plus he blows his intro.

SMC Pod #151: The 2023 Palm Springs 70mm Getaway Recap!

Thu, 18 May 2023 22:00:00 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, and Craig Hammill) welcomes podcast newcomer, Team member, and singer/songwriter Marina Sakimoto to recap their Second Annual Palm Springs Getaway and SMC’s 70mm screenings of Paul Thomas Anderon’s The Master, James Cameron’s Titanic, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey! Connor’s mind is blown by a 35 to 70mm switch. Marina scoops Edwin on some choice lobby cards. Edwin gets drunk and Craig tells an adorable story about it. The boys are in the band.

Check out Marina’s band, Shunkan, and their new EP, She Nods, streaming everywhere!

https://lnk.bio/iamshunkan

SMC Pod #150: BILL & TED’S BOGUS JOURNEY + Sequels That Are Better Than the Original!

Thu, 11 May 2023 22:00:00 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, A.J. Grier, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) buddies with animation writer (Daniel Spellbound) and returning guest, Anne Mortensen-Agnew, and makes a most unprecedented expedition through realms ethereal with Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, a bizarro sequel to Excellent Adventure – both starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter – that two thirds of this podcast like more than the first! More superior sequels are discussed. A.J. and Anne think Top Gun: Maverick and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, respectively, are better than their originals! Craig and Daniel weigh the different merits of the Before films. Edwin defends Die Hard with a Vengeance with a vengeance.

SMC Pod #149: Martin Scorsese’s SILENCE + More Passion Projects!

Thu, 04 May 2023 22:00:00 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, A.J. Grier, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) does NOT keep quiet about Martin Scorsese’s powerful adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s Silence. Finally made in 2016, Silence was a passion project that Scorsese pursued for nearly thirty years! The Team also obsesses over other passion projects. Craig counts John Huston’s long-gestated The Man Who Would Be King as the beginning of the director’s late and great period! A.J. reckons that filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and James Cameron ONLY make passion projects. Also, Connor and Daniel tell a story about Edwin.

SMC Pod #148: Russ Meyer’s BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS + Roger Ebert!

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 22:06:47 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) freaks out with Russ Meyer’s kaleidoscope of Hollywood, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and its surprising co-writer, iconic film critic, Roger Ebert! One of his favorite movies, a fiery passion erupts from Edwin, especially when he hears Connor’s more muted reaction to the film! Craig appreciates Roger Ebert’s voice even if he didn’t always share his opinions. Daniel recalls the love he felt for Ebert surrounding him during his time in Chicago.

SMC Pod #147: CLERKS + Kevin Smith!

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 22:00:00 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) makes a pit stop in Jersey with native son, Kevin Smith, and his debut feature, Clerks! While Smith came running out of the 90s indie scene, he’s had a rockier road than many of his contemporaries, but the Team has a lot of affection for him and his first film! Daniel delves into what Smith’s movie9os meant to him as a young filmmaker. Connor and Craig recount stories about Jason Mewes and Jon Peters that Kevin Smith has told better elsewhere. Edwin prefers Mallrats.

SMC Pod #146: Spring Holiday Movies!

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 21:23:28 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) springs into the season with a menagerie of films for holidays from January to May (that AREN’T Valentine’s)! Edwin honors our country for Presidents’ Day with Clint Eastwood’s Absolute Power. Daniel cracks open Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit for Easter! Craig keeps it kosher with Uncut Gems’ Passover sequence. Connor gets lucky with Irish martial arts film, Fatal Deviation, for St. Paddy’s Day AND challenges his cohosts to discover the perfect spring holiday film for a holiday not mentioned here!

SMC Pod #145: PURPLE RAIN + Musicians in Film!

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 20:48:00 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) takes stage with Prince’s seminal rock musical, Purple Rain, featuring a bevy of incredible songs by Prince and the Revolution! Daniel and Connor trade stories about Prince, including how he ended up doing the Batman soundtrack. The Team also jams with musicians in cinema! Craig notes the vast topic of blaxploitation films which feature incredible music (and some performances!) from artists like Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield. Edwin gets mad when everyone can’t read his mind about David Byrne’s True Stories.

SMC Pod #144: Body Swap Movies!

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 22:00:00 -0700

Sorry this is a day late, it has been a wild one. Here’s the description: “The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) was set to talk about body swap movies like Freaky Friday, but they all touched a cursed VHS tape and swapped bodies themselves! Craig (as Connor) reminisces about the body swap movies of his childhood like Vice Versa and Like Father Like Son. Edwin (as Craig) yells about the “one true” film in this subgenre, Face/Off! Connor (as Edwin) talks about a TV show. Daniel (as Daniel) feels left out.” Also, sorry about all the bleeps!

SMC Pod #143: Our 3rd Anniversary + Movies That Our Opinions Have Changed On!

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 21:59:41 -0700

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) celebrates the third anniversary of the pod by reflecting on their possibly changed feelings about the show and with a dialogue about how our opinions on movies change over time! Craig understands why Casablanca is the classic it is the older he gets. Daniel’s feelings on Michael Mann’s filmography have shifted in recent years. Connor explains how his favorite movies of any given year are often not his favorites years later. Edwin is a static man. Happy Anniversary, Secret Movie Clubbers!

SMC Pod #142: The 3rd Annual Secret Movie Club Podcast Oscars Special!

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 22:40:36 -0700

It’s the big night and the Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) gets all gussied up for a discussion on the 95th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film of 2022, including Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once! The Team also presents you their favorite films of 2022 and what they’re looking forward to in 2023. Connor adored EEAAO, but has mixed feelings about its wins. Edwin is just mad about the one category that didn’t go the way he wanted. Craig laments his current lack of connection to the Awards. Daniel keeps things lighter than these other three!

SMC Pod #141: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY + Non-Bond Spy Films!

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 22:00:00 -0800

The Top Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) goes undercover with Tomas Alfredson’s masterful adaptation of John le Carré’s dense spy thriller, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, starring Gary Oldman, which the whole Team loves except for a mole who hates it! The Team also surveils spy films that are NOT part of the Bond franchise. Craig infiltrates the WWII subgenre with Army of Shadows, Black Book, and Lust, Caution. Dad-iel reignites his love for The Hunt for Red October! Connor informs everyone about the little-seen Hanna. Edwin spills about two movies: one isn’t a spy movie, the other is a Bond movie!

SMC Pod #140: Hitchcock’s Disciples

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 23:02:01 -0800

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) worships at the temple of cinema and SMC’s director of 2023, Alfred Hitchcock, by canonizing the filmmakers that have followed in Hitch’s incomparable footsteps! Connor goes obvious and talks Brian lDe Palma. Daniel goes obvious (for him) and talks Park Chan-wook. Edwin invokes Gus Van Sant and his possibly heretical remake of Psycho. Craig beatifies both Steven Spielberg and David Fincher, who he proposes have the same fundamental understanding of cinema that Hitchcock had. The Team also sermons on when filmmakers wear their influences on their sleeves. Glory to Hitch!

SMC Pod #139: NOTTING HILL and LOVERS ROCK + Movie Pairings!

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 22:00:00 -0800

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) gets together to discuss SMC’s recent double feature screening of romcom classic Notting Hill and modern gem Lovers Rock! Programmed by Team member Joshua Oakley, Notting Hill and Lovers Rock are paired because, while they are wildly different films about romance, they both take place in West London. The Team also dives into the art of movie pairings, a huge part of programming films at SMC. Connor “shares” some of his ideas. Craig and Daniel wax Eisensteinian about the collision of films when watched together. Edwin makes a startling confession.