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'The Misfits': Marilyn Monroe and the End of American Illusions

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On June 1, 2026, Marilyn Monroe would have turned 100 years old. Few Hollywood stars remain as culturally omnipresent as Monroe, whose image has long since escaped the boundaries of her actual films and entered the realm of myth. For many people, Monroe still exists primarily as an icon: the white dress billowing above the subway grate, the platinum hair, the breathy voice, the tragic early death. Yet revisiting her final completed film, The Misfits , is a reminder that Monroe was not simply a movie star or a symbol. She was also a deeply affecting dramatic actor. Watching The Misfits today feels almost uncanny. Nearly every aspect of the film seems haunted by endings. It was Monroe’s last completed feature film and the final film released during her lifetime. It was also the final completed performance of Clark Gable, who died less than two weeks after principal photography ended. Montgomery Clift appears visibly fragile and wounded in the years after his devastating car accident. M...
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“It’s Alive!”: Revisiting 'Young Frankenstein' for Halloween

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This Halloween, our Cinema Club dimmed the lights and dialed up the laughter with Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein (1974) — the rare comedy as lovingly crafted as the classics it lampoons. Shot in luminous black and white, the film bridges two traditions — horror and farce — and reminds us that parody, when done right, is an act of affection. Brooks and his co-writer and star Gene Wilder clearly adore the Gothic world of James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), borrowing everything from the jagged laboratory machinery to the chiaroscuro lighting and ornate sets that look as though they’ve been lifted straight from Universal’s vaults. Brooks even secured some of the original lab equipment designed by Kenneth Strickfaden for Whale’s film, giving his spoof an authenticity most comedies never attempt. Just as vital to that authenticity is the film’s sweeping score by John Morris, Brooks’s longtime musical collaborator. Morris composed for all of Brooks’s classi...
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'Jaws' at 50: The Shark That Changed Movies Forever

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                                       Half a Century Later  Jaws Still Bites Last spring, our Cinema Club kicked off with Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps —a tight little thriller that showed us the roots of cinematic suspense. For our second screening, our “summer edition,” we went in a very different direction: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975). And really, what better way to mark the movie’s fiftieth anniversary than by revisiting the film that didn’t just terrify beachgoers but transformed Hollywood itself? When Jaws opened in 1975, it redefined what a movie release could look like. Before then, summer was considered a slow season for studios. Universal flipped the script with a wide release, heavy national advertising and a marketing blitz that built anticipation in a way no film had done before. The result was staggering success and a new model: the “su...
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