The warehouse that became The Alchemist Hall was a storage area for an old government agency that had left behind crates of old movies and books. The boxes were dusty and some of the movies were damaged and beyond repair but in the end the time spent watching them and deciding which should be shown first was time well wasted.
The idea of a museum is to have displays or screening rooms that allow visitors to pick the movie they want to watch when they want to watch it and so it is in The Strange Museum. Here are the first movies to be seen categorized ... because I like to catergorize.
| Movie of the month | ||
 |
Saving Grace |
Brenda Blethyn stars as Grace Trevethen, whose late husband jumped out
of a plane without a parachute. Grace has been left with a manor on the
Cornish Coast - and the massive, suffocating mountain of debt her
husband had been secretly amassing.
Now, with creditors and repossessors on her heels, Grace is faced with
the prospect of losing everything.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, so when Grace is asked to
tend an ailing, if illicit, plant she gets an outrageous idea. |
 |
Keeping Mum |
Walter Goodfellow (Rowan Atkinson), vicar of the British village Little
Wallop, is busy composing the perfect sermon.
So busy, in fact, that he fails to notice his bored wife's (Kristin
Scott Thomas) flirtation with her American golf instructor (Patrick
Swayze), his daughter's revolving set of boyfriends, or his son's status
as the favorite target of bullies.
Enter Grace Hawkins (Maggie Smith), the new housekeeper, who has a
drastic solution to the family's problems. . |
 |
Quadrophenia | a 1979 British drama film, loosely based on The Who's 1973 rock opera of the same name. It was directed by Franc Roddam in his feature directing début. Unlike the adaptation of Tommy, Quadrophenia is not a musical film, and the band does not appear live in the film. The film stars Phil Daniels as Jimmy, a young 1960s London-based Mod who escapes from his dead-end job as a mailroom boy by dancing, partying, taking amphetamines, riding his scooter and brawling with the motorcycle-riding Rockers. After he and his friends participate in a huge brawl with the Rockers at the seaside town of Brighton, he is arrested and his life starts to spiral out of control; he loses his love interest (Leslie Ash), gets kicked out of his house by his parents, and discovers that his idol, the popular mod nicknamed "Ace Face" (Sting), is actually a bell boy at a hotel. |
 |
The Birdcage 1996 |
In this remake of the classic French farce "La Cage aux Folles" engaged couple Val Goldman (Dan Futterman and Barbara Keeley (Calista Flockhart) shakily introduce their future in laws. Val's father Armand (Robin Williams), a gay Miami drag club owner, pretends to be straight and attempts to hide his relationship with Albert (Nathan Lane), his life partner and the club's flamboyant star attraction, so as to please Barbara's father, controversial Republican Sen. Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman). Diane Weist stars as Sen. Keeleys wife Louise and Hank Azoria as Agador. |
 |
The Commitments |
Jimmy
Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), a self-proclaimed promoter, decides to
organize an R&B group to fill the musical void in his hometown of
Dublin, Ireland. The band comes together but ends up consisting entirely
of white musicians who have little experience with the genre. Even
though their raw talent and lofty aspirations gain the group notoriety,
the pitfalls of fame began to tear at their newfound friendships as they
prepare for their big show. Based on the novel by Roddy Doyle. |
Music videos
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Florence and The Machine - Teenage Cancer Trust - Live at the Albert Hall, London |
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Tragically Hip - The last show 20 August 2016 - The K-Rock Centre, Kingston |
| Exploitation Movies | |||
Exploitation filmmakers hoped to capitalize on the taboo subjects of venereal disease, sex before marriage, lesbianism, etc. while skirting the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 which forbade a film from containing such content. Films like this would tour the United States for years - mostly being shown in rundown, skid row theaters. This film has been re-edited and re-titled ("Human Wreckage", "They Must Be Told", "Trial Marriage", "About Trial Marriage") many times to attract the same audience to film, to take advantage of a taboo subject which may have gotten press recently or to appease local censors who disapproved of the film's content. Also, if you are interested in the rich, uniquely American history of exploitation films, there are two excellent books on the subject: "Forbidden Fruit - The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film", Felicia Feaster and Bret Wood, Midnight Marquee Press, 1999. "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True! A History of Exploitation Films, 1919 - 1959" Eric Schaefer, Duke University Press, 1999 |
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|
Reefer Madness (1938) |
Considered THE archetypal sensationalized anti-drug movie, but it's really an exploitation film made to capitalize on the hot taboo subject of marijuana use. | 1 hour 08 mins |
|
Sex Madness (1938) |
This is a typical sex exploitation film from the early 1930s - complete
with wild parties, sex out of wedlock, lesbianism, etc. A chorus girl's
exposure to the "casting couch" also exposes her to syphilis. |
51 mins 57 secs |
 |
What To Do In A Zombie Attack |
A series of 1950 short films on how to survive a Zombie Holocaust. | 15 mins 31 secs |
Ephemeral Film
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| Feature Film | ||||||||
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Dishonored Lady (1947) |
Madeleine Damien is the fashion editor of a slick Manhattan magazine by
day and a lively party girl by night. Unfortunately, the pressures of
her job, including kowtowing to a hefty advertiser, and her bad luck
with men are driving her to a breakdown. She seeks the help of a
psychiatrist, and under his orders, quits her job and moves into a
smaller flat under a new identity. She becomes interested in painting
and a handsome neighbor. He soon finds out about her past when an
ex-suitor implicates her in a murder. |
1 hour 24 mins | |||||
|
Suddenly (1954) |
Three gunmen, who have been hired to assassinate the President, hold a family hostage while waiting for their target. Interesting B film which focuses on psychopathic killer well-portrayed against type by Frank Sinatra. | 1 hour 15 mins | |||||
|
The Stranger (1946) |
Set Connecticut after World War
II, The Stranger is a cat and mouse game between Wilson (Edward G.
Robinson), a member of the Allied War Crimes Commission and Franz
Kindler (Orson Welles), a Nazi who has assumed the false identity of Dr.
Charles Rankin. To complete his new intelligentsia disguise, Kindler marries Mary Longstreet, daughter of a Supreme Court justice. |
1 hour 35 mins | |||||
| Film Noir | |||
|
Beat The Devil (1953) |
This movie has not become a
cult classic for nothing. Among its other merits, it is one of the few
films where a film noir is mixed with a comedy. 'Beat the Devil' is a fine piece of work by Houston, Capote, and Bogie. Its totally enjoyable. Good pacing, snappy dialogue, plenty of atmosphere and unusual locales. The plot has a half-dozen twists and surprises--and more than a few chuckles are to be had, at the wild antics of the outlandish cast of characters. |
1 hour 40 mins |
) |
Detour (1945 |
In a classic poverty-row noir,
the protagonist struggles helplessly in the grip of inexorable fate. This was the first poverty-row film chosen by the Library of Congress for its National Film Registry, in 1992. Don't miss it. |
1 hour 8 minutes |
|
Scarlet Street (1945) |
"Sultry woman's boyfriend has
her hook middle-aged clerk for his money, leading first to ironic and
then tragic complications. Second of a pair of closely related middle class nightmares directed by Fritz Lang. (Remake of Jean Renoir's 1931 French film, La Chienne.)" - noir expert Spencer Selby |
1 hour 42 minutes |
|
He Walked By Night (1948) |
Gripping film noir crime drama about a manhunt for a ruthless killer who
plays a deadly cat and mouse game with the police. Starring Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Whit Bissell, and Jack Webb, this movie was the basis for "Dragnet". Watch for Whit Bissell, the unsung but solid bit player who has appeared in hundreds of films and TV shows |
1 hour 18 minutes |
| Sci Fi/Horror | |||
 |
Carnival Of Souls (1962) |
Atmospheric 60s B-horror film
with a cult following. Mary Henry is enjoying the day by riding around with two friends but everything goes wrong when challenged to a drag race and their car gets forced off of a bridge. The car sinks into the murky depths, and all three women are assumed drowned. Some time later Mary emerges unscathed from the river. She tries to start a new life by becoming a church organist but Mary finds herself haunted by a ghostly figure that instills fear and dread into her. |
1 hour 22 mins |
