Category Archives: Saturday Matinee

Saturday Matinee: The Brotherhood of the Bell

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The Brotherhood of the Bell is a 1970 made-for-television movie produced by Cinema Center 100 Productions and starring Glenn Ford. The director Paul Wendkos was nominated in 1971 by the Directors Guild of America for outstanding directorial achievement in television.

The film relates how a successful Economics professor, Dr. Andrew Patterson, discovers that an elite fraternity he had joined 22 years before in college is really a callous banking and business cabal that obtains wealth and power for its members through nefarious practices.

Saturday Matinee: Kim Dotcom – Caught in the Web

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The larger-than-life story of Kim Dotcom, the “most wanted man online”, is extraordinary enough, but the battle between Dotcom and the US Government and entertainment industry, being fought in New Zealand, is one that goes to the heart of ownership, privacy and piracy in the digital age. Three years in the making, this independent film chronicles a spectacular moment in global online history, dubbed the ‘largest copyright case’ ever and the truth about what happened.

Watch the full film here.

Saturday Matinee: Land of the Blind

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“Land of the Blind” (2006) is a British-American political satire directed by Robert Edwards and starring Ralph Fiennes, Donald Sutherland, Tom Hollander and Lara Flynn Boyle. The story is set in an unnamed place and time where an idealistic soldier named Joe strikes up an illicit friendship with a political prisoner who involves him in a coup d’etat. But in the post-revolutionary world, Joe and his former friend have a bitter feud which escalates until Joe’s co-conspirators conclude they must erase him from history.

Saturday Matinee: Rare Exports

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“Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale” (2010) is a Finnish holiday horror satire written and directed by Jalmari Helander. Combining Santa folklore with “The Thing”, the film explore the dark side of Christmas through the eyes of  Pieteri, a kid who discovers not only that everything he’s been told about Santa was a lie, but the truth is stranger and more horrific than he could have imagined.

Watch the full film here. (Video may be slowed by pop-up ads.)

Saturday Matinee: The Loved One

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“The Loved One” (1965) is a satire directed by Tony Richardson with a screenplay by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood based on a novel by Evelyn Waugh. The plot centers on the journey of young English expat Dennis (Robert Morse) who struggles to navigate the more confusing aspects of Los Angeles culture, particularly politics, romance and the Hollywood cemetery industry. The film was shocking and offensive for audiences of its time and though it may seem tamer from today’s perspective, it retains a cleverly subversive quality and much of the satirical humor holds up well. Features a great supporting cast including Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer, Rod Steiger, John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, James Coburn, Milton Berle, Dana Andrews and Liberace.

Watch the full film here.

Saturday Matinee: The Filth and the Fury

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“The Filth and the Fury” (2000) is the definitive documentary about the punk group “The Sex Pistols” directed by Julian Temple, who directed a previous film featuring the Sex Pistols called The Great Rock and Roll Swindle (1979). While Swindle featured the perspective and narration of the Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren, The Filth and the Fury is the story of the Sex Pistols told from the point of view of the surviving members of the band using interviews, archival footage, and clips from Swindle. The film does an excellent job placing the band in the socio-political context of 1970’s Britain and conveying the personalities behind the band, making it a must-see for fans of the group, punk rock and rock history in general.

Watch the full film here.

Saturday Matinee: Soldier/Demon With a Glass Hand

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“Soldier” and “Demon With a Glass Hand” (both 1964) are two classic Outer Limits episodes with screenplays by science fiction author Harlan Ellison. Both take place in the shared universe of the Earth-Kyba War, a backdrop Ellison also used for a series of stories compiled in the graphic novel anthology “Night and the Enemy” as well as the short story “The Human Operators” which became an episode of the New Outer Limits. Soldier is notable for being the screenplay for which Ellison filed a lawsuit against producers of The Terminator for plagiarism. Demon With a Glass Hand features an excellent performance from Robert Culp as a man who carries the burden of being the last chance for humanity’s survival. Most of the episode’s action takes place in the Bradbury Building (most famous for the final scenes in Blade Runner) which adds to its creepy atmosphere.

Saturday Matinee: The Twilight Samurai

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“The Twilight Samurai” (aka Tasogare Seibei たそがれ清兵衛, 2002), is a realist Samurai drama co-written and directed by Yoji Yamada set in mid-19th century Japan. It stars Hiroyuki Sanada as Seibei, a low-ranking samurai widower struggling to support his daughters and dementia-afflicted mother, who is forced by his clan’s leaders to kill a skilled rogue samurai. The film was inspired by the short story “The Bamboo Sword” by Shuhei Fujisawa and was groundbreaking for its approach to the genre; a samurai equivalent to a revisionist western.

Watch the full film here.