The Reel McCoy Film Group
Screening world cinema and forgotten gems since 1990
Screening world cinema and forgotten gems since 1990
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The Reel McCoy Film Group is a not-for-profit film society that since 1990 has been catering for people interested in cinema, particularly those who like to see timeless classics and overlooked gems at low cost. Our membership fees are:
$50 for 12 months
Membership runs from the date of joining.
$35 for 6 months $20 for 3 months
With very grateful support from
 Canberra Museum and Gallery Members of CMAG are welcome to join the Reel McCoy at a substantial discount: membership for a year for only $20. Screenings are held in the Theatre of Canberra Museum and Gallery (corner of London Circuit and City Square, Canberra City), usually on the second and last Sundays of each month at 12:30 pm. Next screening: Sunday, 13 April 2025 at 12:30 pm
SMOOTH TALK
Adapted from a short story by Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk explores the fast developing maturity of 15-year-old Connie Wyatt (Dern). Connie's life of days at the beach with friends, flirting with schoolboys. and shirking chores takes an unexpected turn with the appearance of a mysterious stranger, Arnold Friend (Williams). Certainty and assurance yield to anxiety. A masterpiece of realism, Smooth Talk conveys the confusion and emotion of Connie's experience with extraordinary skill. Alternately straightforward, ambiguous, and suspenseful, this is a forgotten gem with uniformly strong performances and a very strong script.
For more information, e-mail us or come along to a screening The Reel McCoy Film Group is a member of the Australian Film Societies Federation. Contact them to learn how to start and run a film society or group of your own. Programme for the first half of 2025:
Sunday 2 February 2025
THE WEDDING BANQUET Taiwan / USA · 1993 · 106 min. Director Ang Lee Cast Gua Ah-Leh, Lung Sihung, May Chin, Winston Chao, Mitchell Lichtenstein Wai-Tung and Simon are a happy gay couple living in Manhattan. When Wai-Tung’s parents pester him to get married and have grandchildren he decides to enter into a marriage of convenience with Wei-wei who needs a green card. Things get more complicated when his parents fly in from Taiwan to attend the wedding. Director Ang Lee’s first international hit proved he could master any genre. Here he combines comedy, both subtle and raucous, with acute social asides by reinventing the screwball comedy. Along with the usual farce, secrets, and disguises he adds ideas about modernity and tradition, globalisation, and cross-country manners.
Sunday 23 February 2025
THE CONVERSATION USA · 1974 · 113 min. Director Francis Ford Coppola Cast Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford, Frederic Forrest Harry Caul (Hackman) is a professional wiretapper wracked by guilt for his complicity in a previous job that ended in three deaths. Hired by a mysterious client to monitor a couple as they walk through Union Square in San Francisco, Caul records a statement rich in menace: "He'd kill us if he got the chance." Tormented by the prospect of again incurring responsibility for the death of others, Caul descends into a spiral of paranoia and intrigue. It is a masterpiece that unites the sensibilities of the European New Wave cinema with classic American crime.
Sunday 9 March 2025
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS USA · 1944 · 113 min. Director Vincente Minnelli Cast Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Lucille Bremer, Tom Drake, Mary Astor, Leon Ames This enchanting musical focuses on an American family in St. Louis in the year of the World Fair, 1903. The family is more than comfortable (father is a banker) but still faces all the problems that would soon become staples of American sit-coms, including the raising of four precocious daughters. One is Judy Garland who has a ball singing wonderful songs such as The Boy Next Door, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and The Trolley Song. The youngest is scene-stealer Margaret O’Brien who won a special Oscar® for Best Child Actress. It’s beautifully directed by Vincente Minnelli who typically explores the emotions from melancholy to ecstatic.
Sunday 23 March 2025
DIVA France · 1982 · 117 min. Director Jean-Jacques Beineix Cast Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, Frédéric Andréi, Richard Bohringer, Thuy An Luu, Jacques Fabbri This is Jean-Jacques Beineix’s directorial debut, after his being an assistant director for years. It was worth the wait, becoming a huge hit in France and screening in Paris continually for 12 months. It was also a cult favourite in the USA and Australia. Its mixture of suspense, wry humour, cool fashion, beautiful music, and exquisite cinematography was irresistible. Film critic Pauline Kael wrote: "Beineix has a fabulous camera technique and understands the pleasure to be had from a picture that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Every shot seems designed to delight the audience." The plot: a young postman makes a bootleg recording of a famous diva and finds himself in hot water.
Sunday 13 April 2025
SMOOTH TALK USA · 1985 · 96 min. Director Joyce Chopra Cast Laura Dern, Treat Williams, Levon Helm, Mary Kay Place Adapted from a short story by Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk explores the fast developing maturity of 15-year-old Connie Wyatt (Dern). Connie's life of days at the beach with friends, flirting with schoolboys. and shirking chores takes an unexpected turn with the appearance of a mysterious stranger, Arnold Friend (Williams). Certainty and assurance yield to anxiety. A masterpiece of realism, Smooth Talk conveys the confusion and emotion of Connie's experience with extraordinary skill. Alternately straightforward, ambiguous, and suspenseful, this is a forgotten gem with uniformly strong performances and a very strong script.
Sunday 27 April 2025
WILD TALES Argentina / Spain · 2014 · 121 min. Director Damian Szifron Cast Ricardo Darin, Oscar Martinez, Erica Rivas One promotional slogan for this film confessed that we can all lose control. The pressures of modern life drive some to depression, but this portmanteau film with its six blackly comic tales shows those who explode. The stories are connected by the threads of revenge and catharsis with the added spice of coincidence and absurd misunderstandings. The film's wicked humour endeared it to the critics. It received many awards and nominations and its popularity was further enhanced with the participation of the Almodóvar brothers as producers. It also holds the record as the most-seen Argentine film of all time.
Sunday 11 May 2025
GUN CRAZY USA · 1950 · 87 min. Director Joseph H. Lewis Cast Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Berry Krueger Gun Crazy follows the gun-obsessed Bart (Dall) who falls in love with Annie (Cummins), a sharpshooting carnival performer. When times become hard, the couple start committing crimes together and Bart is dragged deeper into crime and destruction, torn between his love for the bad-but-beautiful Annie and his moral compass. A forerunner to films like Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands, Gun Crazy is a landmark in film noir, blending romance, suspense, and action. It is directed by Joseph H. Lewis, a highly regarded B-movie director, and written in part by blacklisted Dalton Trumbo.
Sunday 25 May 2025
THE MARRIAGE CIRCLE USA · 1924 · 85 min. Director Ernst Lubitsch Cast Monte Blue, Florence Vidor, Marie Prevost, Adolphe Menjou Dr Franz Braun (Blue) and his wife Charlotte (Vidor) have an ideal marriage until he is aggressively pursued by her best friend, the unhappily married Mizzi Stock (Prevost). Mizzi’s husband Josef (Menjou) is delighted with Mizzi’s increasingly brazen efforts to seduce Franz because he wants evidence for a divorce. This silent film by Ernst Lubitsch was the model of sophisticated comedy that influenced every romantic comedy made since. It has been praised by Jean Renoir, Yasujiro Ozu, and Alfred Hitchcock who described it as pure cinema – his highest praise.
Sunday 8 June 2025
LOLITA USA · 1962 · 147 min. Director Stanley Kubrick Cast James Mason, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers On its initial release, the film came with the tagline: How did they ever make a movie of Lolita? It was a fair question. The book concerns a literary academic who becomes obsessed with his landlady’s teenage daughter, and invites us to see the resulting tragedy from his point of view. In 1953, no reputable publisher would touch the book, but it became a bestseller anyway; and by 1962, MGM was more than eager to distribute the movie. After close collaboration between the book's author, Vladimir Nabokov, and a soon-to-be-legendary director, the material translates brilliantly to the screen, far better than could have been hoped for.
Sunday 29 June 2025
WASTE LAND Brazil / UK · 2010 · 99 min. Director Lucy Walker Cast Vik Muniz This uplifting documentary follows Brazilian artist Vik Muniz in his attempts to artistically engage a handful of recycling trash pickers. The impoverished catadores (literally collectors) are a part of the many thousands working in Rio de Janeiro's Gramacho, the world's largest landfill mountain. They're initially bemused by the eccentric, enthusiastic Muniz, but the beauty he helps generate from their garbage opens doors into their world, with all its intended, and some unintended, consequences. The director, Lucy Walker, documents the lives of these socially shunned workers with sensitivity and compassion, with the mood ably supported by a soundtrack from Walker's occasional collaborator, Moby. Please note that programme details are subject to change without notice
List of films screened by Reel McCoy Film Group and
Big House Film Society, |