Who knew the Seventh Moral Tale took place in Korea? This is my first Hong Sangsoo film and to call it’s even more Rohmersque than Hamguchi’s Asako I and II which plays with a lot of the same themes.

For a country with some of the world’s most beautiful women, Hang Sangsoo’s Korean men are wholly wrapped up in anxieties of inadequacy and emasculation. But the film makes it clear that does nothing to excuse cruelty or avarice, even if the main character firmly embraces the Seinfeld credo of “No hugging, no learning”

Looking forward to more of this director’s films. This is a very good one indeed.

Duvivier lets you feel the heat and the stink of the Casbah, pervading like the rot gut whiskey Pepe Le Moko so prefers. This film has Von Sternberg levels of mood and vibes of decadence and degradation. His Morocco is a world of low-lifes, ex-pats and two bit gangsters.

All the shine that Bogey and Bergman and Lorre would put on Casablanca a few years later completely absent. This is a hopeless film for an era that proved to be hopeless. In our own decadent and degraded era, it feels as relevant and modern as ever.

Duvivier is fast becoming one of my favorite early French directors. Like Renoir, he knows how to get the best out of Gabin - who gives an incredibly dynamic performance that never quite tips into melodrama.

Well worth catching on Criterion.

Movies!

Sixty True Believers on a Thursday Night in August

Greetings, True Believers!

On Thursday, August 27th, sixty people came to the Gold Theater at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library to watch a seven-year-old animated movie about a kid from Brooklyn.

Better than the number was the room itself. Kids. A lot of kids, and a lot of teenagers — which is not always what happens when a film society programs something four days before school starts.

“Wait — What Do I Have to Watch Before Doomsday?”

The conversations afterward were almost entirely about the Mighty Marvel Multiverse.

How incursions work. Whether the Spider-Verse counts. Where Loki fits, and what the TVA has to do with any of it. Whether the Fox X-Men are real now. And over and over, from kids and adults both, some version of the same question:

What do I have to watch before Doomsday comes out?

I have been collecting since the mid-eighties. I lived through Inferno, Acts of Vengeance, the Clone Saga and both Secret Wars.

The honest answer is complicated. Why? Some of these movies are not good. But then again neither were many of the comics — for every Kraven’s Last Hunt there was a Clone Saga. For every Dark Phoenix saga, there was a Heroes Reborn

With more than eighty films and series, its inevitable that the films would mirror their source material in more ways than one. And for OG comic heads, we know that you don’t get the triumphs without sitting through the failures.

So we made the ultimate guide through all of it.

The Ultimate Nerd’s Guide

The Cognitive Film Society is proud to present the Mighty Marvel Rewatch! A 20-page checklist laid out like a 1970s newsstand book — cover banner, corner boxes, splash pages, a Bullpen Bulletin, the works.

There are eighty-four entries across four books. Every one has a checkbox, a line for the date you watched it, and five empty stars to fill in yourself.

Our guide is for True Believers and card-carrying members of the Merry Marvel Marching Society only! We’ve organized each “Phase” as a comic book run, with each film as a single issue. You don’t have to complete each “run” in order, but you’ll find that they’re thematically linked - both by source material and how they start to move the larger Marvel Movie project forward.

Each of the four Sagas opens on the classic comic book series it is adapting — Amazing Fantasy #15, The Infinity Gauntlet #1, Hickman and Ribić’s Secret Wars, and Fantastic Four #5, the first appearance of Doctor Doom — with creators and dates printed right on the page.

All four are still in print. Tes and Jim at LI Comic Shop can get you every one of them, and the library has the rest.

’Nuff said.

Two Versions, Both Free

As Doomsday approaches, we hope you’ll use this guide as an opportunity to revisit some old favorites, reconsider past loves (and past hates) and generally lose oneself in the world beyond your window.

The PDF is print-ready — letter size, full color, built to come out of a home printer and end up on a refrigerator.

The CBZ is the same 20 pages as an actual comic file, so it reads page by page on a phone or a tablet.

The Mighty Marvel Rewatch Cognitive Film Society Checklist

4.74MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

The Mighty Marvel Rewatch Cognitive Film Society

6.4MB ∙ CBZ file

Read now

Read now

Print it. Photocopy it. It’s perfect for the completist Marvel maniac, or the Superhero neophyte in your life.

Excelsior!

What’s Next for the Cognitive Film Society

We’ll have more specifics soon on our next events, but we’re incredibly excited about our Fall slate of programming.

• Sunday, September 27, 1:00 PM — Sydney Pollack’s The Way We Were (1973). Streisand and Redford, and all the misty water-colored memories you can bear.

• Thursday, October 22, 6:30 PM — The Met Opera: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. A CFS first — the Met’s comic-book opera, on our screen.

Screenings at the Gold Theater, Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library, 1125 Broadway, Hewlett. Free admission, as always.

The Cognitive Film Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to cultivating film culture through educational programming and community engagement.

Hard to think of a better or more influential animated film of the last 15 years. Spectacular. Amazing. Superior. The best Stan Lee cameo of all time.

Miles Morales is the Ultimate Spider-Man. And while I fear even greater tragedy in his future (uhm his girlfriend is literally Gwen Stacy) - seeing him embrace his great power and great responsibility is always thrilling.

*Incredible to share this on the big screen at the Hewlett-Woodmere public library with 50+ of our Amazing friends

Is there a better movie about sheep?

One of the more moving meditations on life, loss, memory and belonging of recent years - and the best cloud animal ghost since the Lion King. 

Reminded me of Wes Anderson in all the best possible ways. Great voice and “human” performances throughout.

At the premiere of 9 to 5, Roger Ebert was given 30 minutes with Dolly Parton, and left a changed man.

“As we spoke, I found myself enveloped by her presence. This had nothing to do with sex appeal. Far from it. It was as if I were being mesmerized by a benevolent power. I left the room in a cloud of good feeling. Next day, Siskel and I were sitting next to each other on an airplane. “This will sound crazy,” he said, “but when I was interviewing Dolly Parton, I almost felt like she had healing powers.”

This film remains hysterical and does not work without Dolly Parton’s presence and goodness. There are pacing issues, and significant leaps of logic in the third act - but the iconic performances, and physical comedy make it an absolute classic.

Also not winning the Academy Award for Best Song has to be one of the great Oscar cheats.

I’ll admit it. I cried during Brand New Day.

It’s my favorite of the MCU Spider-Man films and the first one that actually feels like reading an Amazing Spider-Man comic — overstuffed IP trappings and all.

Spidey has always been the most emotionally resonant superhero — Marvel, DC or otherwise. Ever since he swung onto the pages of Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962, Peter Parker has represented the best of American youth, with truths that resonate across generations. He’s the kid who gets the powers and still can’t make rent. The affordability and loneliness crisis is nothing new to Peter Parker, and his good old Parker luck.

And despite being rather long in the tooth (webs?), Spider-Man is having the single biggest year any character has ever had at the movies. Brand New Day took the largest opening weekend in history — passing Avengers: Endgame, which needed the entire roster to do what one kid from Queens just did by himself. It crossed $2 billion worldwide in three weeks and now sits sixth on the all-time list, still climbing.1 Strongest Avenger indeed.

So during this Summer of Spidey, the Cognitive Film Society is proud to present Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) this Thursday, August 27th, at the Gold Theater at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library.

The Film

Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman — and written and produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, most recently of Project Hail Mary — Into the Spider-Verse is both one of Spider-Man’s greatest adventures and a genuine turning point in the art form.

Detailing the first days of Miles Morales, the film delves deep into the values of power, responsibility, family, love and the temptation of vengeance that define the best Spider-Man comic runs.2

As part of our Anime August series, Spider-Verse wears its manga influence openly, right down to Peni Parker and SP//dr, a straight-up anime mecha and her pilot.

The film opened in the crowded week before Christmas 2018 and quietly made its mark. It had the best December opening ever for an animated feature and grossed $395 million worldwide against a $90 million budget, winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Only Spider-Man could break that category open - when it had belonged almost entirely to Disney and Pixar.

But it was streaming that truly turned the film into Spider-scripture, with a new generation of fans finding it at home, putting it on repeat and making it their own.

Which is exactly why it belongs back on a big screen, in a dark room, with the sound up!

The Evening

We’ll open with a short introduction and an interactive discussion we’re calling “Spider-Cinema” — a survey of the room on your favorite Spider-Man films, performers and characters. Bring your arguments. There are no wrong answers, but some answers are definitely more wrong than others.

So let’s talk Raimi vs Watts. Garfield vs Tobey vs Holland. The MCU vs self-contained universes. Whatever the hell was going on with the Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man 2. We want to hear it all!

7:00 PM — Program begins: “Spider-Cinema,” an introduction and audience survey

7:15 PM — Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) — 117 minutes

~9:15 PM — Out the door

Location: Gold Theater at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library — 1125 Broadway, Hewlett, NY 11557

FREE ADMISSION. Free and open to everyone, as always.

We hope you’ll join us for one last swing with Spidey before school starts on Tuesday.

And save the date: we’re back at the Gold Theater on Sunday, September 27th at 1:00 PM for Sydney Pollack’s The Way We Were (1973).

Anyone can wear the mask.

See you Thursday night.

The Cognitive Film Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to cultivating film culture through educational programming and community engagement.

A Rohmer-esque trip into the Twilight Zone. If the kids were up to this, maybe it’s better they’re now addicted to social media. Truly a disturbing examination of misanthropic American youth, and the dangers of peer pressure and too much unfulfilled leering. 

Barbara Hershey is just preternaturally evil in this film, but each of the characters seduces and is seduced by the heat of the summer and not knowing what to do with it.

Beautifully shot and meaningfully felt. An incredible restoration.

Your average war of Samurai and demons, giant spiders, severed demon arms and misperceptions of cuckoldry. 

This film is a lot! It is beautiful, kind of hard to follow and filled to the brim with pathos about masculinity, violence, and misogyny - but it’s also extremely human.

Deeply intimate despite the grand scale.

1. The Odyssey

2. The Invite

3. Chronovisor

4. The Drama

5. Spider-Man: Brand New Day

6. Blue Heron

7. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

8. Obsession

9. Disclosure Day

10. The Bride!

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Plainly the best deconstruction of the Slasher genre since the original Scream. It's phenomenal to see a new generation embrace Freud's central insights (everything is about sex, and your childhood) with such style and panache.

Jane clearly loves slashers, but Miasma also brings a great deal of the visual language of Twin Peaks -- as well as just a love of the movies and watching movies and being into movies.

Not everyone is going to be into an exploration of repression and generational media trauma and neurosis through the lens of Friday the 13th, Sleepaway Camp and the Twin Peaks Season 2 finale -- but I definitely am.

Major kudos for the production design, Alex G's incredible score, and killer (uhm literally) performances of Hannah Einbinder and the immortal Gillian Anderson.

A perfect slice of early 2000s sleaze entertainment. It manages to cover every cliche, trope and stereotype, yet it still rises to the sublime. Sure it’s essentially Point Break with cars and an incoherent last act - but who cares?

We all live our lives a quarter mile at a time. 

RIP Paul Walker - who is actually quite good in this film and might’ve made a solid Avenger.

Ja Rule received (by far) the biggest reaction from the audience at my screening.

“I am beyond embarrassment” - the koan of Marty Mauser

Probably best to leave the Westerns to the Americans and the Italians. This is aa existential as you would expect a French Western might be. It’s beautifully shot and fairly compelling - but notably lacking the genre’s soul.

Dark, madcap and eminently quotable, Better off Dead holds up better than any 80’s teen comedy other than Heathers. Lane Meyer probably grows up into the assassin in Grosse Point Blank (Lloyd Dobler wasn’t nearly as dark), as the film shows American teenage alienation has always had a violent streak.

Despite the film’s surrealism, it’s one of the more honest about the self-serious nature of American youth - 40 years ago or today.

Before the phones ruined everything, even the lonely people had people to be with, if only to share miseries. Aside from the atomization, maybe we’ve also lost some of the characters that used to hang out at places like Trees Lounge.

Life seems a lot less colorful without them around.

*Screened at the reopening of the Malverne Cinema and Arts Center, with Steve Buscemi in attendance

I knew it all along… I mean they make it pretty obvious. But still.

A tour de force of acting, directing, cinematography and subject matter. It defined (and still does) the way we think of teenagers in that era, and the strange new development of adolescent angst.

One of the best of these 1950s melodrama and morality plays. A film that’s somehow even better than its reputation.

Robert Wagner is the worst date ever in a film that could easily be American Psycho Minus One. Both Joanne Woodward and Virginia Leith should be way smarter - but come on - it’s the original Number 2!

So glad that Baylon from Gilda made it out west and into copper mining. By the mid 1950s a former German err…industrialist would fit right into the center of the new prosperity - and the pathos of the mid-century. 

And while I’d like to think that modern tech makes this sort of insane story completely unrealistic in 2026, I’ve also seen the 8am hour of GMA a few times as well. 

Great and twisted stuff. No wonder Lynch mined this material so closely.

Ernest Borgnine as an Amish action hero is just one of the bonkers twists and turns in this Western/Bourgeois bedroom/social melodrama. CinemaScope is somehow never better than when it transitions from a hushed discussion of an affair into a gun fight. This has several of both and in a glorious Arizona setting.