Five Star Film Club
Welcome to the Five Star Film Club, the movie-watching paradise where we only watch movies that deserve Five Stars! It’s simple, sign up for the group chat at 410-236-0646. Every month, the polls go out where we vote on the movie and the day. Whatever gets the most votes wins! Want to contribute to the Five Star options? Submit your movie below and we’ll add it into the rotation.
The Wachowski sisters follow up the Matrix trilogy with a movie that is somehow even more groundbreaking. You’ve never seen a movie like Speed Racer, a film that single-handedly invents a new cinematic language of editing that combines time and space into a kaleidoscopic orgasm of color and music. Wonderful soap opera plotting meets with genuine themes about surviving as an artist in corporatized times. Also John Goodman dresses like Mario at one point.
The Black Plague is ravaging Europe and families are selling their daughters to the Church in the hopes to lighten their own load and provide them with a better life. The beliefs of true believers, pragmatic nuns and the ambitions of the local Cardinal collide when Benedetta begins to claim that she’s having direct contact with Jesus himself. Also having direct contact with Benedetta? The newly acquired Bartolemea as the two quickly develop their romantic and sexual feelings for each other.
Charles Laughton swagged too hard and they never let him make another film after this. THE most stunning Black and White images you’ll ever see. Robert Mitchum oozes intensity as a serial killer posing as a preacher to ingratiate himself with the wife and children of his former prison roommate. The kids know where $100,000 is stashed, and he’ll do anything to find it. The iconic “Love” and “Hate” knuckle tats first seen here are a cultural touchpoint.
What’s better than a movie with wall-to-wall martial arts fights? A movie with ONE martial arts fight at the end, and then an hour of kick-ass training sequences leading up to it. Liu Yu-de rebels against his government, but after an injury, he is chased onto a monastery. There, he begins 6 years of training to become a deadly enough fighter to free his people. Each chamber teaches you a different martial arts skill, and only by combining all 36 will you become a true master.
As my grandma would say, this is a three-hanky movie, so prepare your belly laughs and your tear ducts for a wild ride. Marcel the Shell is a little shell voiced by Jenny Slate who’s just looking for his family. While the comedy and heart are the core of the movie, the incredible integrations of stop-motion animation and live action photography can’t be oversold.