|
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
$35 for 6 months
$20 for 3 months
Membership runs from the date of joining.
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
(on the corner of London Circuit and City Square, Canberra City)
at 12:30 pm on two Sundays of each month from February through November.
Next screening:
Sunday, 8 February 2026 at 12:30 pm
FANFARE
USA · 1958 · 94 min.
Director
Bert Haanstra
Cast
Hans Kaart, Ineke Brinkman, Bernard Droog
After a quarrel within the brass band in Brederwiede, Holland, the village finds
itself with two brass bands.
Each is determined to win an upcoming musical tournament;
each is even more determined that the other should not win;
and each approach the same composer to write a piece that will secure victory.
Meanwhile, neither bandleader realises that their offspring have fallen in love
with one another.
Haanstra, the director, was most acclaimed for his short documentaries,
but the mix of irreverence and affection he brought to those hit the right
note in his first, and by far most successful, fictional work.
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 early 2026:
Sunday 8 February 2026
FANFARE
USA · 1958 · 94 min.
Director
Bert Haanstra
Cast
Hans Kaart, Ineke Brinkman, Bernard Droog
After a quarrel within the brass band in Brederwiede, Holland, the village finds
itself with two brass bands.
Each is determined to win an upcoming musical tournament;
each is even more determined that the other should not win;
and each approach the same composer to write a piece that will secure victory.
Meanwhile, neither bandleader realises that their offspring have fallen in love
with one another.
Haanstra, the director, was most acclaimed for his short documentaries,
but the mix of irreverence and affection he brought to those hit the right
note in his first, and by far most successful, fictional work.
Sunday 22 February 2026
DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME
USA · 2016 · 120 min.
Director
Bill Morrison
Dawson City, in the far Yukon Territory, was a remote but flourishing gold
mining town in the early years of the 20th century.
As the entertainment hub for the region, it also had several cinemas showing
silent films, delivered there at great cost.
The cost of return was unfeasible so many of the films were simply buried.
During later construction work the films were unearthed, including many that
were thought lost forever.
This documentary explores the history of the town, the dangerously flammable
nature of the nitrate film stock used, and the ultimate restoration of the films.
Sunday 8 March 2026
1945
Hungary · 2017 · 91 min.
Director
Ferenc Török
Cast
Péter Rudolf, Tamás Szabó Kimmel, Dóra Sztarenki
Two Orthodox Jews arrive in a small remote rural Hungarian village which is
getting ready for the wedding of the magistrate's son.
They're accompanied by two coffin-like wooden crates supposedly filled with
perfumes and soaps.
Is this the start of a Jewish influx, reclaiming properties?
Histories resurface, rumours spread wildly, paranoia reigns, and the villagers
behave accordingly.
This subtle and nuanced film is atmospherically shot in black and white
with the mood of the film ably enhanced by Tibor Szemzö's soundtrack.
The filmmaker has sensitively examined the European war's postscript,
a period of history that everyone quickly wanted to forget.
Sunday 29 March 2026
A TOWN LIKE ALICE
Sunday 13 April 2026
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 2026
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 Argentinian film of all time.
Sunday 11 May 2026
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 2026
LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN
USA · 1925 · 89 min. · Silent with music
Director
Ernst Lubitsch
Cast
Irene Rich, May McAvoy, Bert Lytell, Ronald Coleman
Lady Windermere (McAvoy) discovers that her husband Lord Windermere (Lytell)
is having an affair with the notorious Mrs. Erlynne (Rich).
She leaves her husband for another man, the ardent Lord Darlington (Coleman).
However, all is not what it seems and when Mrs. Erlynne finds out,
she needs to move fast to prevent a scandal.
Lubitsch's decision to make a silent movie out of the most famous play by
Oscar Wilde without using a single line of Wilde's dialogue was called
a mad stunt, but Lubitsch was able to replace verbal wit with visual wit
and created an enormous hit that captures the essence of Wilde's play.
Sunday 8 June 2026
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 2026
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 Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill site.
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
her occasional collaborator, Moby.
Followed by our
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Come along and have your say
Sunday 13 July 2026
THE GO-BETWEEN
UK · 1971 · 116 min.
Director
Joseph Losey
Cast
Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Dominic Guard
A young boy (Guard) becomes a messenger for a secret love affair between
a wealthy young woman (Christie) and a farmer (Bates).
This British period drama explores themes of social class, innocence, betrayal,
and the impact of the past on the present.
Joseph Losey is known for his collaborations with playwright Harold Pinter
who wrote this screenplay.
The cinematography, by another long-term collaborator Gerry Fisher, is noted
for its lush portrayal of the English countryside.
The musical score was composed by the well-known musician Michel Legrand.
The film won the Palme d’Or at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
Sunday 27 July 2026
OUR LITTLE SISTER
Japan · 2015 · 126 min.
Director
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Cast
Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose
Three sisters attend the funeral of their estranged father and meet their shy
teenage half-sister Suzu, the daughter of the now-deceased woman who stole
their father away.
They quickly decide to adopt her and take her back to their seaside village.
What follows is a heart-warming portrayal of grief and acceptance that explores
themes of family loss and connection with quiet elegance.
Kore-eda focuses on the very different characters of the four sisters
and the interactions between them, portraying their everyday lives,
feelings, and thoughts as they start their new life together
and support each other through thick and thin.
Sunday 10 August 2026
NITRAM
Australia · 2021 · 112 min.
Director
Justin Kurzel
Cast
Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Anthony La Paglia, Essie Davis
This important film deliberately never mentions the name of the deeply
disturbed man responsible for the Port Arthur massacre.
It does not intend to be a biography of that man but to examine what's
known of his life using known facts to create a psychological drama.
It aims to reconstruct his journey to the point of, without depicting,
the brutal finale.
Caleb Landry Jones' performance in the title role earned him best actor
at Cannes and the film and its extraordinary cast took out nearly all the
major film awards at the 2021 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television
Arts Awards.
Sunday 31 August 2026
BONJOUR TRISTESSE
USA · 1958 · 94 min.
Director
Otto Preminger
Cast
Jean Seberg, David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Mylčne Demongeot
Seventeen-year-old Cécile lives an idle, luxurious, and pleasant life with
her widowed father in the French Riviera.
One summer they are visited by Anne, a friend of her late mother –
whom Cécile sees as an intruder into their feckless Eden;
so when Anne and her father appear to be falling in love, she determines
to put an end to it.
Cécile was conceived by novelist Françoise Sagan who was also a teenager
at the time;
as is Jean Seberg, the actress playing her.
But it's perhaps David Niven who breathes most life into the film
as Cécile’s rakish – yet genuinely loving – father.
Sunday 14 September 2026
THEY’RE A WEIRD MOB
Australia · 1966 · 112 min.
Director
Michael Powell
Cast
Walter Chiari, Claire Dunne, Chips Rafferty
Italian journalist Nino arrives in Sydney, to take up a job on a magazine
that turns out not to exist.
Instead of going home, he sets out to carve out a new life in the strange
land he finds himself in, and to make sense of the weird mob living in it.
This film, about the Italian experience in Australia, based on an Australian
novel, adapted by a Hungarian-British screenwriter, and directed by an
Englishman, was hugely popular in Australia (if nowhere else), and more than
any other single work helped bring about the 1970s renaissance of the
Australian film industry.
Sunday 28 September 2026
CABARET
USA · 1972 · 124 min.
Director
Bob Fosse
Cast
Lisa Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Joel Grey, Marisa Berenson
This blockbuster film version of the ground-breaking Broadway musical
went on to win eight Academy Awards.
A young American woman (Minnelli) is attracted to the musical life of
1930’s Berlin, while her English companion (York) finds himself
increasingly disturbed by the continuing breakdown of German society.
Six songs from John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Broadway score were transported
to the movie and several new numbers were added.
Joel Grey reprised his unforgettable live performance as the emcee of the
atmospheric Kit Kat Club.
The film was directed by legendary Broadway choreographer and director Bob Fosse.
Sunday 12 October 2026
MEDEA
Italy · 1969 · 118 min.
Director
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Cast
Maria Callas, Giuseppe Gentile, Massimo Girotti, Laurent Terzieff
Euripides’ tragedy of love and revenge, starring the magnificent Maria Callas
in her only film role.
Jason (of Argonaut fame) betrays the sorceress from Colchis who helped him seize
the Golden Fleece and gave him children.
Medea revenges herself.
An adaptation by a master of cinema at the peak of his creative powers, filmed
shortly before Italy descended into the violence of the 1970s,
Pasolini’s Medea depicts a very archaic world that remains as
recognisably human and relevant for us as it was for the Athenians.
Extraordinary performances, scenery and music – an unforgettable film.
Sunday 26 October 2026
Please note that as CMAG will be upgrading
their theatre at this date, we will not be having a screening.
Sunday 16 November 2026
Please note that this screening
has been rescheduled from its original date.
B-MOVIE DOUBLE!
OUTRAGE
USA · 1950 · 75 min.
Director
Ida Lupino
Cast
Mala Powers, Tod Andrews, Robert Clarke
A young woman, happily engaged and newly employed, is stalked one night and raped.
The police are unable to find the perpetrator.
The film follows her mental and emotional struggles in trying to overcome the
experience.
A brave film since the Hayes Code wouldn't even allow the use of the word "rape".
+
MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS
USA · 1945 · 65 min.
Director
Joseph H. Lewis
Cast
Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, George Macready
Desperate to find employment, Julia Ross accepts a position as the live-in
personal secretary to a wealthy widow.
The job, however, is not what it seems.
The film's rapid pacing, its gothic psychological atmosphere, and the quality
of the cast result in a film with a Hitchcockian feel.
Sunday 30 November 2026
EATING RAOUL
USA · 1982 · 83 min.
Director
Paul Bartel
Cast
Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Robert Beltran, Ed Begley jr, Susan Saiger
Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov deliver wonderfully dry performances as Paul
and Mary Bland who dream of opening a restaurant.
To raise funds, they begin luring swingers to their apartment and killing
them for their money.
This film was so low budget that it was filmed in Bartel's own apartment
but it became a hit at film festivals and then a cult classic with audiences
loving this satire of the sexual revolution, swingers culture, and the pursuit
of the American Dream.
Eventually, it became so popular that it was picked up by 20th Century Fox
for distribution.
Sunday 14 December 2026
THE MORE THE MERRIER
USA · 1943 · 104 min.
Director
George Stevens
Cast
Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines, Bruce Bennett
Connie Milligan (Arthur) reluctantly sublets part of her apartment to the
elderly Benjamin Dingle (Coburn).
Dingle then rents part of his space to a handsome young man, Joe Carter (McCrea)
and then he attempts to play matchmaker for the two.
This romantic comedy is worth watching for its razor-sharp script co-written
by Garson Kanin from his original story, delightful pacing from the director
George Stevens, and unforgettable performances from its three stars.
The film was nominated for 6 Oscars® with Charles Coburn winning one.
Stevens also won for Best Director at the New York Film Critics Awards.
Sunday dd month 202y
Country · year · mm min.
Director
Cast
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,
2000 - 2022 (PDF format)
|
