Secret Movie Club Podcast

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

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

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!

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.

SMC Pod #138: SPELLBOUND + Romantic Thrillers!

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) cozies up to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 Spellbound, starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck with a famous and startling dream sequence by Salvador Dalí! Hitchcock, our director of 2023, is a progenitor of the romantic thriller, so the Team also looks at other romthrills. Connor analyzes their split lineage that leads to both erotic thrillers but modern action movies as well. Craig nominates Pedro Almodóvar as his favorite descendent of Hitch, while Daniel goes with Park Chan-wook. Edwin needs his romantic thrillers done right, by which he means 1991’s Shattered and NOTHING ELSE.

SMC Pod #137: BEING JOHN MALKOVICH + Spike Jonze!

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) enters the mind of skater-auteur Spike Jonze and his directorial debut, the darkly comic Being John Malkovich, written by Charlie Kaufman. BJM is one of Connor’s favorite films and he gushes about its existential horror and daring style! Edwin prefers Jonze’s follow-up Kaufman-collab, Adaptation. Craig admires his shorter work, including an Apple ad he made with FKA Twigs and his incredible music and skateboard videos. Daniel talks about how inspiring Jonze’s wild approach was to him as a young filmmaker!

SMC Pod #136: JACKASS + high art and low art!

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) rides the bull for the full eight seconds with the Jackass series, co-created by Johnny Knoxville and Spike Jonze, featuring Knoxville and a group of other knuckleheads doing ridiculous and vulgar pranks and stunts! The Team also analyzes high art and low art, the dubious distinction between the two, and whether or not these terms are even valid. Daniel and Connor bond over their adolescent obsessions with skater culture and recreating their own Jackass-style stunts. Craig doesn’t understand why people have to gatekeep art. Edwin gatekeeps art.

SMC Pod #135: JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES + Sight & Sound 2022!

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) sits down to talk about Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which just topped Sight and Sound’s “Top 100 Greatest Films” critics’ list in 2022! The movie’s ascendance to number one was controversial for multiple reasons and the film itself splits our heroes. They also exchange a few words about the full list published by BFI, what they think about lists like this, and finally give their own top ten lists that they would have submitted to the poll! #potatogate

Connor’s favorite films: https://tinyurl.com/connorsfavoritefilms

SMC Pod #134: Winter Break ‘22/’23 Catch-Up!

The Secret Movie Club Team (Connor Lloyd Crews, Edwin Gomez, Daniel Ott, and Craig Hammill) reconvenes to detail what they’ve been up to for the last five weeks while they weren’t recording and what they’re hoping to bring into 2023. Connor is stoked about his big, cool box! Edwin brags about “watching” a lot of films and gaslights the others. Daniel went road trippin’ around the country. Craig deals with the technical aspects of editing a movie. And considering this is the Secret MOVIE Club Podcast, a few films are also discussed: Blood Beat, Surf Nazis Must Die (sorta), and Avatar: The Way of Water. Welcome back, Secret Movie Clubbers!

DEFEND THIS MOVIE #10: INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

Screenwriter Steve Grest (originator of the Defend This Movie idea) returns to the pod to debate Secret Movie Club programmer and founder Craig Hammill about Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, starring Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, and Ke Huy Quan! The 1984 sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark was controversial upon release for its dark content, and Steve agrees that it is a joyless, annoying slog. Craig admits that Temple has its problems, but he also thinks the film is a nightmarish joy brimming with classic Spielbergian cinema. Listen, and we’ll let you decide who wins!

SMC Pod #133: Celebrating John Ford, Our Director of 2022

Secret Movie Club programmer and founder Craig Hammill is joined once more by SMC blog writer Patrick McElroy to start 2023 with a recap of our director of 2022, John Ford, maybe the most important American filmmaker of all time. Craig and Patrick love the old man and his films, which include classic westerns like The Searchers and Stagecoach as well as acclaimed dramas like The Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley. Along with diving deep into his movies, Craig and Patrick also delve into Ford’s Catholicism, his Irish heritage, his belief in America, and his incredible grasp of the art of cinema.

 

Check out Patrick at: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.mcelroy.3726 or his IG: @mcelroy.patrick