An absolute MUST for Silicon Valley film lovers, the Cinema Club is wrapping up its 22nd season this weekend and looking forward to 2019. A 2019 Club membership can also be a treasured Holiday gift.
It’s your chance to see ten as-yet-unreleased films for $160. There’s usually an post-screening Q&A with a filmmaker, either live or via Skype. It’s like seeing ten movies at a film festival – except it’s a manageable one per month instead of all at once.
Here’s how it works. The club meets monthly on Sundays (you can choose between the morning or afternoon screenings) in downtown San Jose’s 3Below. The house lights go off and a movie appears on the screen. Until this moment, we don’t know which movie it is. The mystery is part of the club’s appeal, and, as a result, I’ve seen some wonderful films that I otherwise never would have chosen to see. Afterwards, there’s a discussion about the film – almost always with at least one of the filmmakers.
The movies range from indie gems to Oscar Bait and are selected by Alejandro Adams and Sara Vizcarrondo. Alejandro is a noted filmmaker (scroll down this NYT article). Sara is a film writer and film professor.
I first saw my pick for the top movie of 2010, Winter’s Bone (four Oscar nominations, including for Jennifer Lawrence’s breakthrough performance), at the Cinema Club. Here are some other Cinema Club films that have made my Best of the Year lists:
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, I’ll See You in My Dreams, Two Days One Night, Alive Inside, Bernie, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Rabbit Hole, Project Nim, The Messenger, The Tillman Story, Wendy and Lucy, Goodbye Solo, Taxi to the Dark Side, Shotgun Stories, American Splendor, Maria Full of Grace.
Cinema Club members get to see (before their release):
- Crowd pleasers like Meet the Patels, Cloudburst, Once and Mad Hot Ballroom;
- Challenging cinematic ground breakers like Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color and Gus Van Zant’s Last Days;
- Unknown gems like The Grief of Others and In the Family by the as yet undiscovered genius Patrick Wang, the hitherto forgotten neo-noir The Woman Chaser and the delightful Bay Area indie Colma: The Musical.
And I have to admit that, otherwise, I never would have seen The September Issue (I have no interest in the fashion world) or The Tillman Story (I thought I already knew the whole story). Both were rewarding movie experiences.
Cinema Club members also get invited to special previews and events. This year, Alejandro and Sara curated:
- The Bay Area premiere of the documentary Dark Money featuring appearances by two of the film’s subjects – Obama-appointed Chair of the Federal Elections Commissions Ann Ravel and journalist John S. Adams; and
- A double feature of Dennis Hopper’s lost film The Last Movie and the Hopper documentary Along for the Ride with a panel of critics and the doc’s director.
In a rare revival showing, the Cinema Club also screened an almost lost film, the 1981 They All Laughed – and I found myself sitting next to its director, the legendary Peter Bogdanovich!
Alejandro and Sara are building on the work of previous club programmer Tim Sika, host and producer of the movie magazine radio show Celluloid Dreams, movie reviewer for KGO radio and recent president of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.
I’ve been a Club member since its 2003-04 season. If you love movies and live in Silicon Valley, you need to be in the Cinema Club. Sign up for the new season here.
