Secret Movie Club Podcast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.