Podcast appearances and mentions of craig hammill

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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"?

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... 

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. Fom 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. 

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. 

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.

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).

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". 

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. 

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? 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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...

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!).

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). 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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 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 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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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!

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.

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!

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. 

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. 

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.  

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. 

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!