Red Rose Film Club

For this episode, we did a double-feature of horror(ish) movies dealing with the Chile in the shadow of Pinochet's coup. First up: Pablo Larrain's 2023 horror-comedy El Conde, which sees Pinochet, as an undead vampire, wrestling with his own legacy. And then we watched The Wolf House by directors Cristobal Leon and Joaquín Cociña, a surreal stop-motion fable about the infampis Colonia Dignidad cul...

Costa-Gavras' 1982 political thriller MISSING tells the true story of Charles Horman, an American in Chile who was disappeared during the days after Augusto Pinochet's 1973 coup. While his wife (Sissy Spacek) and father (Jack Lemmon) search Santiago, they uncover American involvement in the overthrow of Chile's democratically elected President Salvador Allende. This is the first movie in our new s...

We watched Ryan Coogler's 2025 horror hit SINNERS, starring Michael B. Jordan (twice), Hailee Steinfeld, and Delroy Lindo. We discuss Coogler's career trajectory from the modest success of his first film, FRUITVALE STATION, to the massive studio hits (CREED and BLACK PANTHER) which paved the way for him to make Sinners, Coogler's ambitious, genre-blending, passion project. Discussions also include...

After a hiatus, we are back! And we're finishing our series on the Spanish Civil War. We watched the 1996 film Libertarias (dir. Vicente Aranda) about the Free Women of Spain, an all-female column of anarchist resistance fighters who fought on the frontline of the Spanish Civil War. We discuss the Catholic Church and its role in the revolution and how anarchism rose from leftist movements in Spain...

The 1942 film RAZA is a Spanish propaganda film written by THE Fascist Supreme himself Francisco Franco, showcasing the rise of Spain's Nationalist Movement through the eyes of a single family. RAZA checks all the boxes of fascist propaganda: an obsession with a "noble death" in the name of empire, ahistorical interpretations of rival political movements, and absolute terrible filmmaking. We discu...

We start a three episode series discussing movies that depict the Spanish Civil War and Francisco Franco's fascist rule in Spain. First up is Guillermo Del Toro's 2006 fantasy Pan's Labyrinth. Discussion includes: Recent watches: Wolf Man (2025), Heart Eyes (2025), Presence (2024), Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), Let's Start a Cult (2024), and The Tarnished Angels (1957); The brave people in federal...

For our fiftieth episode, we welcomed burlesque and sideshow performer extraordinaire Indie Sinclair to discuss THE cult film of all cult films: THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. We discuss the film's lasting legacy and the community its builr over the last fifty years. Discussion also includes: This year's Oscar nominations; The passing of David Lynch; Indie Sinclair gives us some behind the scenes...

In our first episode of 2025, we discuss the Godfather of Filth John Waters and his rollicking 1988 film about integration in Baltimore: Hairspray. Discussion also includes: Other recent watches: NOSFERATU (Robert Eggers), THE LAST SHOWGIRL (Gia Coppola), FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (Russ Meyer), and ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (Don Siegel); Farm labor in Florida; Craig's New Year's Resolution Watchlis...

It's the end of the year, so it's our end of the year wrap-up special! Hal and Craig discuss their favorite new movies of 2024, as well as some of their favorite first time watches! Discussion also includes: A new entry in Hal's favorite sub-genre: NUN movies! Kendrick Lamar's new album "GNX"; Shotime's excellent series Yellowjackets; Quentin Tarantino's book Cinema Speculation (and his unfotunate...

We did one of Craig's favorite kind of episodes: making Hal watch a terrible conservative movie! This time, we watched Sean McNamara's 2024 film, and shameless hagiography, REAGAN. Discussion also includes: Recent watches: CONCLAVE (2024), HERETIC (2024), ANORA (2024), KAMIKAZE HEARTS (1986), ALTERED STATES (1980), and THE NIGHT PORTER (1975) Matt Gaetz nomination for (and subsequent withdrawal) A...

Spooky season concludes with Nia DaCosta's 2021 sequel Candyman. We discuss America's legacy of violence against black bodies and the undue burden put on black artists to represent black pain "the right way".  Discussions also include: Our two-year pod-iversary. Hal's book club reading of D.H. Lawrence's WOMEN IN LOVE; Craig saw Damien Leone's Christmastime masterpiece: TERRIFIER 3; How Candyman b...

We had a delay recording our next episode. So in lieu of a new episode (coming soon, but after the election...), here's Hal encouraging you to VOTE YES ON 4 for REPRODUCTIVE JUSTIVE in Florida. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/desantis-administration-florida-amendment-4-abortion   https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article294142144.html https://www.msnbc.com/top-sto...

Spooky season continues and Hal and Craig watched Wes Craven's 1991 horror-comedy The People Under the Stairs. We discuss how the economic policies of Ronald Reagan (and his putrid Wormtongue Milton Friedman) led to our current housing crisis. Discussion also includes: Our favorite Wes Craven films; The bombing of the Al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza and Palestinian martyr Shaban Al-Dalou; Some books we'r...

We start spooky season by discussing Brian Yuzna's 1989 body-horror satire SOCIETY. We use this film (where a man's face emerges from his own butthole) to have a serious discussion about Reaganomics and how America subsidizes the rich at the expense of the poor. Discussion also includes: Our other recent watches: The Substance, Rebel Ridge, Blink Twice, and Oddity; Feeling collective despair over...

For the final episode in our series on Fascism and Italian Filmmakers, we watched Pier Paolo Pasolini's controversial 1975 film SALO, OR 120 DAYS OF SODOM, and discuss the depravity of 1940s fascist Italy. (TW: this film, and our discussion of it, features graphic depictions of sexual assault and human degradation). Discussion also includes: How does Paosolini define fascism; Fascism and Nietzche;...

It's the second episode in our series about fascism and Italian filmmakers. This time, we watched Bernardo Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST. We discussed the fascist desire for "normalcy" and the fascist's urge to supress their sexuality. Discussion also includes: Tallahassee Film Fest; Ecuadorian AG attempts to blame leftists for a cartel assassination; Terrible A.I. in ALIEN: ROMULUS; and Why does Ni...

We begin a new three episode series on Italian filmmakers and their depictions of fascism. We start with Luchino Visconti's 1969 film THE DAMNED about an industrialist German family and the depravity they engage in as they navigate a working relationship with the ascendant Third Reich. Discussion also includes: Homosexuality during the rise of the Nazis; The United Auto Workers who are suing Trump...

For our final episode discussing films about Ernest "Che" Guevara, we watched Walter Salles 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries, an acount of Guevara's eye-opening journey through South America that inspired the revolutionary ideals Che would soon bring to all of Latin America. Also: Other recent watches: Love Lies Bleeding (2024), Dune II (2024), Bones and All (2022), Jodorowsky's Dune (2013), and R...

Hal and Craig watched Steven Soderbergh's Che: Part Two (2008), chronicling Che Guevara's time fighting in the Bolivian Revolution and his eventual capture and execution. Discussion also includes: Craig's recent trip to Chicago (lots of Cubs and White Sox talk!); The Black Panther Cubs and Fred Hampton's legacy of community action; Hal's letterboxd list of movies about artistes ;  Our recent movie...

Hal and Craig watch Steven Soderbergh's Che: Part One (2008), chronicling the life of Argentine Revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and his time leading guerilla fighters in the Cuban Revolution. Discussions also include: Kendrick Lamar's Pop-Out Concert; Yorgos Lanthimos' new film KINDS OF KINDNESS; Paul Schrader and his sad, broken men; Hal breaks down some troubling new legislation regarding SN...

It's the final episode of our series The Reds, White, and Blue, looking at films about the red scare and a fear of a communist menace. This time, Hal & Craig watched Armando Iannucci's (Veep, In the Loop) satire "The Death of Stalin". We discuss Stalinism, how it diverges from Leninism, and whether or not the film is an effective satire. Discussions also include: Some new movies we've been watchin...

We continue our series on the Red Scare with Phillip Kaufman's 1978 adaptation of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" starring Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy, and Jeff Goldblum. In our previous episode, we discussed the machinations of the Red Scare, and in this episode we talk about the paranoia and lives ruined in the wake of the Communist Panic. Discussion also include: The Kendrick Lamar v. Dra...

In this episode, Hal & Craig discuss John Frankenheimer's 1962 political thriller THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, and Janet Leigh and the cynical, political use of a vague Communist Menace. We discuss the history of the Red Scare, the legacy of McCarthyism, and the lives upended in its wake. Discussion also includes: Craig finally watched Hal's fa...

We welcome Daniel Harper and Jack Graham, co-hosts of the excellent anti-fascist podcast I Don't Speak German. We watched Spike Lee's incendiary 2018 thriller BlackKklansman. We discuss the history of the Ku Klux Klan, Hollywood's complicity in its rise, and Spike's reckoning with making a quasi pro-police film. Discussion also includes: David Duke's bizarre diet and exercise regiment; We discuss...

Hal & Craig watched EARTH MAMA, the debut feature from writer-director Savanah Leaf. Discussions include The United States history of using Child Protective Services to police low-income and black Americans The OSCARS (we talk OPPENHEIMER, Lily Gladstone vs. Emma Stone, and Jonathan Glazer) We celebrate Hal's birthday by discussin their favorite directors; Our favorite films from A24 Follow us onl...