Cineclube Ersatz for Sept. 29, 2026

For I don't know how many years, a friend in Los Angeles and I have watched a movie together once a week. At first, it was in my home, enjoying each other's company and conversation throughout the selected feature. We alternate weeks picking the movie and tend to enjoy the same stuff: science fiction, horror, monster movies, gialli, spaghetti westerns, and other outre cinema. When the global pandemic hit, we took to each watching the same movie on a streaming service we both used, at the same time, texting throughout. It wasn't the same as hanging out, but it maintained the tradition. And when I moved overseas, we did the same, but watching movies that have been uploaded to YouTube, still texting throughout.

In recent months, I've started curating more of a complete program instead of just picking a feature. I choose trailers—new and old—cartoons, horror shorts, experimental shorts—just recently—as well as a feature, creating playlists for us to play and watch together while texting. That's been a really fun experience, and it's a practice I'll continue when it's my week to pick.

Here's what we watched this week:

• Trailer: Beyond the Black Rainbow—A 2010 Canadian psychedelic science fiction horror film
• Trailer: The Blood of a Poet—1932 avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau
• Trailer: The Colour of Pomegranates—a 1969 Soviet Armenian avant-garde film originally titled Sayat-Nova
• Short: Étude cinégraphique sur une arabesque—1929 French film directed by Germaine Dulac
• Short: The Contraption—A 1977 short film by Richard O'Brien, writer and star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Cartoon: Skeleton Frolic—1937 Technicolor animated short film directed by Ub Iwerks for Columbia Pictures' Color Rhapsodies series
• Feature: The Ship of Monsters—a 1960 Mexican science fiction comedy

File under: Social Movies.