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"Following the 1964 critically acclaimed commercial hit The Beatles rock film A Hard Day’s Night by American comedy director Richard Lester which coincided with the band’s album of the same name, the Fab Four consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were forever synonymous with cinema.  Considered to be one of the greatest rock comedies in film history playing off of a day in the life of the personalities of The Beatles, it was only natural a year later they’d reunite with director Lester again for the more patently absurdist and satirical spy musical comedy Help! also connected to the album of the same name.  Moving from black-and-white to color over the course of the two Beatles-Lester screen collaborations and on the heels of their 1967 psychedelic album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul McCartney envisioned an experimental film involving unscripted local (and widely popular) coach bus tours called Magical Mystery Tour.

Intended to paint a portrait of Liverpool with hallucinatory leanings, the film was put on hold while they worked on recording songs for the upcoming animated The Beatles film Yellow Submarine.  But when their longtime manager Brian Epstein died of a prescription drug overdose, in the process of grieving the band went ahead with recording the music for what ultimately became their next double-EP (released as LP in the US) with Magical Mystery Tour.  Following this, the band proceeded with what became the Fab Four’s first set of directorial credits with the 1967 short television film of the same name.  Inspired by Ken Kesey’s 1964 American bus tour Furthur with the Merry Pranksters and by the impetus to replace stage shows with television broadcasts, the largely improvised BBC TV film made up by the bandmates, few cast and crew members on board went into production. 

Co-written by their road manager Mal Evans who plays himself in the film alongside the bandmates and featuring uncredited direction by Norman Conquest filmmaker Bernard Knowles, Magical Mystery Tour more or less follows Richard B. Starkey (Ringo Starr) and his widowed Auntie Jessie (Jessie Robins) on their sojourn through England on a surreal and unpredictable bus tour.  Among the members on the bus include the tour director Jolly Jimmy Johnson (Derek Royle), hostess Miss Wendy Winters (Miranda Forbes), conductor Buster Bloodvessel (Ivor Cutler) and the other bandmates.  Over the course of the thinly veiled quasi-surrealist “documentary” film, peculiar things begin to happen as five magicians played by The Beatles and manager Mal Evans start pulling pranks on the unsuspecting tourists.  Making pit stops along the way, the tour includes everything from makeshift drag racing, a drill sergeant instructing in the ways of attacking a stuffed cow and a waiter played by John Lennon shoveling endless piles of spaghetti onto a plate..."

View Full Review by Andrew Kotwicki at https://www.spoilerfreemoviesleuth.com/2025/05/CultCinemaMagicalMysteryTour1967Reviewed.html

"Emmy-award winning television director Ralph Nelson best known at the time for directing both the 1956 Playhouse 90 teleplay and the 1962 feature film version of Rod Serling’s boxing drama Requiem for a Heavyweight maintained steady work in television until 1963 when he began more extensive feature film directing.  Drawing from his economic television experience and working in as many as two pictures per year between 1963 and 1970, the prolific microbudget filmmaker not needing heavy means to make a picture worked quickly yet effectively as he swept numerous film festival awards circuits with his extensive yet quickly rendered oeuvre.  Ultimately Nelson who also served as a part-time character actor would generate two films in 1963: the Jackie Gleason/Steve McQueen buddy comedy Soldier in the Rain and the Oscar winning Sidney Poitier starring dramedy Lilies of the Field.

Based on William Edmund Barrett’s 1962 of the same name which was partially based on the author’s own experiences with the Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of St. Walburga in Colorado, it tells the story of black handyman Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) who is drifting through an Arizona desert when he makes a pit stop at an isolated farm looking for water for his car.  There he meets a group of nuns who have emigrated from former East Germany, spearheaded by the headstrong Mother Maria Marthe (Austrian architect Lilia Skala in a semi-autobiographical role) who are wanting to build a chapel for the Mexican American population nearby.  Initially reticent to commit to the task as Mother Maria refuses payment after quoting the Bible’s Sermon on the Mount, Smith eventually meets with a local café manager named Juan (Stanley Adams) and agrees to construct the chapel after learning of Mother Maria and the sisters’ escape from the Nazis.  As he offers free English lessons at the dinner table and tries to form camaraderie with the Mexican populace, Smith finds himself clashing with Mother Maria’s stern worker-bee outlook on life, threatening to jeopardize completion of the chapel.

Heartwarming, charming and straightforward, Lilies of the Field is very much an actor’s film largely resting on the shoulders of Sidney Poitier who imbues the character of Homer Smith with a larger-than-life presence.  Almost leaping off of the screen spectacularly with energized and wholly confident delivery, it came well into the actor’s filmography following Blackboard Jungle and The Defiant Ones.  While the dramatic conflict of the story itself is somewhat lighthearted if not playfully whimsical, what is hinted at regarding the German nuns’ wartime experiences lands heavily.  Almost equaling Poitier’s prowess is Lilia Skala as the determined and stern Mother Maria who shows no fear of backing down from Poitier as he tries to lay down the law of how he should be compensated for his time.  Stanley Adams as the Mexican bartender, having started out playing that role in Death of a Salesman before moving onto Ralph Nelson’s adaptations of Requiem for a Heavyweight, is a comforting presence and serves up comic relief opposite Poitier when they start dueling over whether or not he’ll accept outside help building the chapel..."

View Full Review by Andrew Kotwicki at https://www.spoilerfreemoviesleuth.com/2025/06/KinoLorberLiliesoftheField1963Reviewed.html

"Belgian film writer-director and teacher Patrice Toye isn’t well known in the global film community but has nevertheless maintained a steady output of stirring dramas usually about disaffected or delinquent youths since the early 1990s.  Still working today including on an upcoming project still trained on the morally nebulous arena of adolescence, Toye’s filmography is posited somewhere between the youth experience of François Truffaut and the contemporary Eastern European alienation of Lukas Moodysson.  Her first real screen breakthrough arrived in 1998 with her disturbing adolescent character study Rosie, a film originally picked up for New Yorker Films for US theatrical distribution and videotape release that has long since been lost to time.  Without a DVD or digital release to speak of save for some VHS cassettes still kicking around, what exactly is this scrappy gritty Flemish language female driven coming-of-age drama?  A difficult, intentionally troubling character study whose closest antecedent is undeniably Peter Jackson’s still searing Heavenly Creatures.

Thirteen-year-old Rosie (Aranka Coppens) has just been placed in a reform school for young girls. What actions could’ve landed her here?  Through a series of flashbacks both real and largely imaginary, we join with Rosie on her self-reflexive journey inward trying to make sense of her situation.  Zeroing in on her dysfunctional, impoverished and broken home life, we find Rosie living with her twenty-seven-year-old “sister” Irene (Sara de Roo) who is in fact her biological mother but that’s their little secret.  Hovering over them is Irene’s deadbeat gambling addict brother Michel (Frank Vercruyssen) who himself has a dubious history with them.  However when Irene meets and takes a liking to well-to-do Bernard (Dirk Roofthooft), it leaves Rosie feeling lonely and jealous.  On a chance bus meeting with a young punk teen named Jimi (Joose Wynant), Rosie starts acting out and getting into trouble leading towards her current stint in juvie hall.  Cross-cutting back and forth between her present situation and the actions that led her there, it becomes an increasingly disturbing portrait of the impact a dysfunctional situation can have on a minor and how people can mix fantasy and reality together to cope.

Heartbreaking, occasionally harrowing and often hard to look at, Patrice Toye’s Rosie is something of an elliptical, Malick-y tapestry of gloomy impoverished youth growing up too fast in a broken home and the degrees with which children will do anything to get the attention of others.  When the titular Rosie is largely ignored by Irene who prefers they maintain that they’re sisters, she pours all her energies into trying to form some kind of connection with Jimi including dolling herself up with makeup like an underage prostitute.  It could well have ballooned into exploitative fare but Patrice Toye keeps the situation innocent and from the misaligned perspective of Rosie who is caught in a difficult transitional period between childhood and young adulthood.  Much of the film’s gloomy power arises from Love & Friendship cinematographer Richard Van Oosterhout’s ornate camerawork of squalid industrial environments such as her apartment building and the barren landscapes and train tracks of Belgium.  Then there’s Past Imperfect composer and The Sum of All Fears songwriter John Parish’s moody soundtrack which underscores the film’s somber environment...

View Full Review by Andrew Kotwicki at https://www.spoilerfreemoviesleuth.com/2025/06/NewYorkerFilmsRosie1998Reviewed.html

"The story of gunslinging Texas American outlaws Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut “Champion” Barrow began in the 1930s amid the Great Depression.  With their crimes amassing everything from burglary to kidnappings, bank robberies and even murders of civilians and/or police officers on their trail, they captured the imagination of American press readership at the height of the ‘public enemy’ era involving a list of criminals wanted by the FBI.  Among them were John Dillinger, George ‘Baby Face’ Nelson, Bonne and Clyde, ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly and Alvin Karpis.  With the notion of the ‘notorious fugitive gangster’ coined by the FBI and used throughout the 1930s by J. Edgar Hoover, the crime sprees committed by America’s #1 public enemies no doubt inspired a whole wave of crime cinema throughout the 1940s and 1950s including but not limited to Gun Crazy and The Honeymoon Killers.

Between those movies began the emergence of what would later called the New Hollywood movement and among their first successes came in the form of The Miracle Worker director Arthur Penn’s biographical crime saga Bonnie and Clyde.  A biographical period piece chronicling the meeting and exploits of Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway), the true crime epic was one of the first to kick the countercultural door wide open for openly blasting away at numerous screen taboos including but not limited to sex and graphic violence.  Unleashed on unsuspecting moviegoers right before Sam Peckinpah’s carnage infested The Wild Bunch sprayed crimson across the screen, the film had a shaky start to the screen with mixed critical reception before word of mouth turned it into a major success in 1967.  Garnering ten Academy Award nominations including two wins for Best Supporting Actress Estelle Parsons and Best Cinematography Burnett Guffey, it eventually moved into the ranks of the Library of Congress as well as coming in at number 27 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest American Films of All Time.

Though featuring composite characters like C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard, a mashup of W.D. Jones and Henry Methvin from the Barrow gang) and some embellishments of the events for dramatic effect, Bonnie and Clyde starts off small with the two Texan based future criminals chance meeting at a restaurant as a half-bored waitress Bonnie decides to shack up with Clyde for their eventual crime spree.  Meeting up with C.W. Moss, his older brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons) who harbors deep seated contempt for the Barrow gang, the group sets out on a cross-country crime spree that catches up with them in Missouri when they attempt a bank heist and getaway from the ongoing pursuits of Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (Denver Pyle).  From here, it becomes something of a crime road movie following the pit stops the Barrow gang makes trying to evade capture and fend off unexpected police ambushes.  Oh and there’s an aside featuring a then-unknown Gene Wilder as a kidnapping victim...."

View Full Review by Andrew Kotwicki at https://www.spoilerfreemoviesleuth.com/2025/05/ClassicCinemaBonnieandClyde1967Reviewed.html

Peter Bogdanovich's masterpiece of small town Americana circa 1951 is the perfect conclusion to our fall season. At once a film of its time, released as it was in 1971, but also a timeless reflection of not just a long gone Hollywood, but of what has been lost by the 'wal-martification' of small town America itself. Created with a cast of actors who were relatively unknown, but with many who would rise to greatness, the films evocative shadow, both literally and figuratively, was cast by western legend Ben Johnson. Having worked for directors John Ford, Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, to name just a few, Johnson had to be cajoled into taking the part of Sam the lion by Bogdanovich, feeling the language and subject matter was at times obscene and 'there are too many lines.' Once he took the role, making it his own within the first minute on screen, Johnson was able reflect the honor, the gravitas and the sorrow of a man whose life was well lived. As Bogdanovich promised in the last of his three separate pitches to Johnson to take the role, Johnson did indeed win an Oscar for his performance.

Worth Reading:

Reprint of Rolling Stone article by Grover Lewis.  The Stacks:  How Peter Bogdanovich Shot "The Last Picture Show"

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls:  How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.  Peter Biskind.

Worth a Listen:

"You Much Remember This-Polly Platt Series" Podcast by Karina Longworth

"The Plot Thickens-Peter Bogdanovich Series" Podcast by Josh Mankiewicz 

Neorealism is Just the Beginning

Italian film has historically moved through cycles, swayed by popular attendance, international acceptance or political scrutiny, each contributing to international cinema in a meaningful way. The spaghetti westerns that began in the mid-sixties, bursting on the international scene, followed the more insular sword and sandals epics that drew filmmakers from Hollywood to catch the wave of popularity. Similarly, the giallo horror films that influenced a generation of filmmakers the world over, overlapped with the spaghetti westerns, but were a wholly different generation of Italian filmmakers. Even while auteurs like Fellini, Rossellini, Monicelli, and Visconti were imprinting their unique visions outside of or adjacent to these movements, Italian film evolved on the world stage. It is even more impressive, then, that one movement shines brightest amongst them all and that is Italian Neo-Realism, which still impacts world film some 75 years after its beginnings.Created through a desire to depict life as it happened, where it happened, and reflecting the poor and working class in Italy after World War II, Neo-realism was unique in its beginnings and its practice. Using location shooting with mostly non-professional actors, Neo-Realism changed the way filmmakers looked at their art. Not only could film depict a non-glamourous environment, based in pure reality, but the people and the stories were personal, yet universal at the same time. Beginning as the French New Wave would a generation later, Neo-realism began within the pages of a magazine Cinema, among critics, in the immediate aftermath of WWII, even though the first neo-realist film is largely credited to Luchino Visconti's groundbreaking interpretation of James M. Cain's noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice, called Ossessione, from 1943. Rossellini's Rome, Open City, released in 1945, really began the cycle in earnest, however, even garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay.It was Vittorio De Seka's, Bicycle Thieves, released in 1948, however, that quickly became viewed as not only the best of the cycle, but as the best film of all time. Just 4 years after its release the British Magazine named it the top film in its inaugural poll of international film critics.

William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, in her feature film debut, heat up the screen in writer/director Lawrence Kasdan's steamy Neo-Noir, Body Heat! In a film that has been credited with reigniting the Neo-Noir movement in the 1980's, Body Heat is a loose reimagining of Double Indemnity, this time without the weight of the puritanical Production Code. While Kasdan shot more sex scenes than made the final theatrical cut, don't think he took short cuts in crafting a twisty plot, with fully drawn out supporting characters, wonderful imagery and whip smart dialogue. Richard Corliss wrote in his initial review that "Body Heat has more narrative drive, character congestion, and sense of place than any original screenplay since Chinatown." While Kasdan may have borrowed, or at the very least paid homage to Wilder's classic, his film all but eliminates empathy for the femme fatale, as she not just ensnares the unsuspecting attorney into her sexual trap, but preys on his professional laziness and ego to seal his fate. Her telling line from an early meeting, "You aren't too smart, are you? I like that in a man," says all we need to know about him and her knowledge of him.

Body Heat helped begin the 1980's Neo Noir cycle that included films like Body Double, Angel Heart, To Live & Die in LA, Blood Simple, Blade Runner and Blue Velvet, among many others. It also foreshadowed a broader cycle of 1980's films with more explicit sexual content, in some cases for better in others for the worse. Perhaps when it was released, just 7 months into the Regan administration's first term and the beginning of a decade filled with political pressure on culture and sexuality, places the film as both a harbinger and a sign post for what would come in an assuredly reactionary environment in America.

The 1973 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winning Scarecrow is an under seen and under appreciated film from 1973 starring Al Pacino and Gene Hackman. Directed by Jerry Schatzberg, Scarecrow is the story Max and Lion, two drifters, one an ex-con and the other a former sailor, as they travel across the US towards Pittsburgh to open a car wash. A film once compared to Of Mice and Men and Midnight Cowboy, in both story and tone, Scarecrow becomes a heartbreaking tale of friendship and tragedy, as it careens through Denver and Detroit on its way towards a melancholy, yet redemptive conclusion.

Scarecrow was born of the Hollywood studios desire to find low budget, yet marketable films, during the New Hollywood era (1967-1974), each looking to recreate the box office and profitability of Easy Rider (1969). Director Schatzberg was a former fashion photographer who had made Panic in Needle Park with Pacino in 1971. At the time of its release the film attained fully mixed reviews and bombed at the box office, but has since found a cult following and renewed regard for the performances of Pacino and Hackman.

French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema called The Night of the Hunter the 2nd greatest film of all-time in 2008, but it was a critical and audience flop when it was released in 1955. What has changed? It's simple really. The appreciation for the lyrical and expressionistic style of the film, compliments of first time director Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution, Spartacus) and cinematographer Stanley Cortez (The Naked Kiss, The Magnificent Ambersons), was overlooked or viewed as out of fashion in its initial release. Robert Mitchum's iconic portrayal of misogynistic serial killer/preacher Harry Powell wasn't fully appreciated for its depiction of evil and the combination of elements of Film Noir, Southern Gothic and horror confused audiences and marketers alike. In retrospect none of this was surprising because the film has the look and feel of nothing that came before or has been released since. it is wholly unique, even as it has inspired several generations of imitators and admirers, including Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, The Coen brothers, and Robert Altman, to name a few.

While Laughton was insecure shooting his first and only film, he relied on technical experts like Cortez to execute his vision and complete shooting in a mere 36 days. Noted film critic and screenwriter James Agee (The African Queen) is credited with writing the screenplay, but in truth Laughton worked with source novelist Davis Grubb throughout filming to weave a filmable whole from the various pieces of the novel and Agee's writing. When the film flopped commercially Laughton blamed himself, sending him into a months long depression and vowing to never direct a film again.

Crafting a fairytale structure of good versus evil, children in peril, and a fairy godmother savior, The Night of the Hunter works on an incredible number of levels, not simply relying on its stunning visuals, haunting performances, and sometimes disturbing black humor, but on a human level crafted by the simple pacing and pitch black story. Mitchum's performance stands alone, but it truly is the detail of everything else that makes this film one of the greatest ever made!

In honor of Producer/Director Roger Corman's death on May 9th, Motor City Cinema Society is proud to present Dementia 13, Francis Ford Coppola's directorial debut! Coppola doubled as the film's screenwriter, riffing on a 'Psycho rip-off' producer Corman demanded. Using sets from the recently completed The Young Racers, Coppola created a gothic infused story, complete with brutal murders, a coverup and the potential for riches doled out in an old ladies will. Shot in Ireland on a budget of less than $150,000, Corman determined the film unreleasable and demanded changes be made. William Campbell (All the Pretty Maids in a Row), Patrick Magee (A Clockwork Orange) & Luana Andrews (Easy Rider, The Last Detail) star in a film that has all the touches of B-movie maven Corman, with flashes of Coppola's autuerism, splashed with blood, gore and a little sex!!

Can anyone ever guarantee that nobody will be disappointed by a movie? Of course not, but if we could tell you this might be the ONLY time to see this movie on this film stock (16MM), you'd be intrigued, right? Well, that's where we are for Monday's mystery movie!! it's not a movie with a mystery, it's a movie that once the credits role you will likely recognize right away, but we're not telling you what it is. No clues, no guesses, no nothing, until we fire up the projector!! It's going to be lots fun and Nick will, of course, have some surprises in the pre-show!! Come out and join us!!

Director Roman Polanski's first English language stars Catherine Deneuve as a woman tormented by repression, delusion and hallucinations. Over the course of a weekend where she is left alone her mental state deteriorates to include self harm and murder. A wondrous psychological horror film, Polanski's camera imbeds itself within the film as he tells the story from Carole Ledoux's (Deneuve) point of view, drawing the viewer into her anguish and confusion.

Deneuve, coming off her international success of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg would have been an odd choice for the role, but Polanski wonderfully guided one of the most important roles of her career.

Join us for a mind-bending journey through some of the most rare and dazzling animated wonders not seen anywhere else! Motor City Cinema directors Nick, John and Darian have curated an assortment of animated shorts ranging from early 20th century stop motion to mid-century propaganda and trippy 1970's dazzlers!! You won't be disappointed and you're sure to be pleasantly surprised ad the shear array of styles and subjects!!

The Appaloosa stars screen legend Marlon Brando, Annette Comer and John Paxon, who was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film tells the story of the theft of a prized horse and its retrieval by any means necessary, including deception, torture, and arm wrestling! Of course there's a girl, who may of may not be acting in good faith, that complicates the proceedings nonetheless. Screened in glorious Color CinemaScope, The Appaloosa crowns itself as the first Western shown in Motor City Cinema Society history!!

New York in the 70's didn't look anything like New York city today. Time Square was the home for pornography, prostitution and drugs, not Disney musicals and costume characters. Urban decay was everywhere and buildings were being torn down, not rehabbed and gentrified. And corruption at all levels of government, real estate and city services was out of control, particularly in the New York Police department. Frank Serpico served in the NYPD for 11 years, but it was a quick 2 years between when he testified before the Knapp Commission on corruption and when Serpico debuted in December of 1973. The near real time presentation on film gave the film a sense of immediacy when it was released, but even watching it today there is little that diminishes the rawness of the film.

Al Pacino, who's performance garnered him his 2nd of four consecutive Best Actor Oscar nominations, embodies the morality of Frank Serpico, particularly as it's reflected in his eyes. Whereas Pacino would later use his voice as the modulator of his performances, here his eyes, darting around a room taking in every corruption, act as reflecting pools of pain, sadness and disappointment. Serpico is as incorruptible as Michael Corleone and Sonny Wortzik are corrupted, yet Pacino never lets him become sanctimonious or cloying.

Otto Preminger's iconic 1959 courtroom drama, filmed on location in Michigan's stunning Upper Peninsula, and based on a 1952 murder in nearby Big Bay, hits all the perfect notes, including a stunning score by Jazz legend Duke Ellington. Jimmy Stewart, in one of his most memorable roles, plays a stand-in for Michigan supreme court justice John D. Volker, who tried the case the film depicts, then wrote the bestselling novel that was adapted for the screen. Preminger, who studied law in Vienna, and was the son of a prosecutor, was acutely aware of how the courtroom and legal proceedings in particular, were the perfect backdrop for narrative structure, never allowed a simple 'gotcha' moment to interfere with the simple task at hand; to convince 12 jurors to agree one way or the other on their belief about what happened. His staging and narrative arc are perfectly aligned to create a serious, yet highly entertaining depiction of trial law at work. In fact, the film is often sighted by legal scholars as one of the best representation of juris prudence in American film.

Condemned in some circles, however, including local censors in Chicago, the film was the first to use very direct and explicit language, most importantly the language of sexual assault, to bring to light the terrible crime that may or may not have led to the crime on trial. Anatomy of a Murder is never simple, instead creating dynamic and flawed characters on both sides of the law and forcing the viewer to determine whether the jurors 'got it right." Preminger, who also acted as the producer of the film, was no stranger to pushing boundaries with censors, and also adept at letting the camera remain a neutral observer. Anatomy of a Murder is perhaps his best film at combining those elements because of his knowledge of the law and his understanding of its language and directness.

Stewart, by this time a Hollywood icon, creates a typically folksy character in the defense attorney, but at its core, he relies on the screenplay, wonderfully adapted by Oscar nominee Wendell Mayes, to emphasize the importance of words, how they are spoken and where they are placed. Video blogger Evan Pershack noted that in Anatomy of a Murder "every word is loaded with history and when you choose a word, you choose its history as well." The film becomes the most dynamic example of the drama of a courtroom because of its frank depiction of the words of assault, its placement of those words with simple, straightforward visuals and rich and engaging performances of flawed people.

Supporting performances by Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott and Arthur O'Connell are stellar, but Boston attorney Joseph N. Welch, playing trial Judge Weaver practically steals the show. Famous for his nationally televised confrontation with Jospeh McCarthy and his infamous "have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" line, Welch was already a folk hero before performing for the first time in Anatomy of a Murder. His homespun line readings, whip smart wit, and amusing facial expressions, bely a deft acting touch and make the courtroom scenes even more dynamic.

Join us on Monday June 17th for a 16mm film presentation of Anatomy of a Murder, including a curated pre-show and lively post-screening discussion of the film, its place in Michigan history, and many other 'social films' of the late 1950's.

Producer Ivan Reitman's (Ghostbusters, Stripes) adult animated science fiction anthology opus has to be experienced! A wonderful combination of Second City sensability, mixed with Ralph Bakshi inspired visuals and Thundarr the Barbarian-like mythology, Heavy Metal is a sensory explosion...and it's back by a righteous Rock-n-Roll soundtrack featuring Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Devo, and the title track from the Red Rocker himself, Sammy Hagar! Co-producer Leonard Mogel, the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine inspired the story based on pieces from the magazine and other sources, capturing the spirit of the graphic violence, sexuality and nudity that populated of the magazine.

Created in Canada, and featuring the voices of John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty and Harold Ramis, among many others, the film's eight vignettes are connected through the battle agains an evil force known as 'the sum of all evils' and includes action and comedy in equal measures. Using different animators due to timing and budget constraints, the vignettes are each unique, yet linked in spirit. Director Gerald Potterton battled producers and animators alike in his effort to stitch together what was largely positively reviewed, with Gene Siskel noting the film isn't meant to be viewed literally, but rather as a trip that 'works quite nicely."

A film perfect for Motor City Cinema Society, Heavy Metal first achieved fame through midnight screenings in the mid-eighties, before being a staple of home entertainment collections and has been the inspiration for such diverse films as Blade Runner, Akira, The Fifth Element and the television show Futurama.

Join us Monday June 10th for a head banging good time, featuring an entertaining pre-show and our always fun post screening discussion of all things Heavy Metal!!

Pinball Summer, or Pick-Up Summer, was a Canadian made teen comedy released in 1980. Directed George Mihalik, who would go on to direct My Bloody Valentine ('82, La Florida ('93), the largest grossing film in Canada for the year, and Black Christmas Legacy ('15). Pinball Summer, as our print is titled, was a bit of a family affair, as screenwriter Richard Zlniker assisted in getting his son Michael one of the lead parts. Firmly placed in the pantheon of 1980's teenage exploitation films, Pinball Summer tells the story of a randy group of high schoolers as they chase sex, summer fun, and more sex!!! It should be a fun time! If you loved Porky's, Hardbodies, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, or Hot Dog! The Movie back in the day, or more recently Superbad, American Pie or Dazed and Confused, you're bound to find enjoyment in Pinball Summer!!