San Diego Reader

The second would direct your attention to something I have never before mentioned in print, nor seen mentioned, which goes by the name of the Secret Cinema Salon, convening every other Sunday night since I don't know when. Part of the "secret" of the thing is the identity of the film -- meaning the DVD or video -- to be shown and discussed, an identity only hinted at in the cryptic clues dispatched by the Secret Curator. (Write shadowcinema@yahoo.com, to get on the mailing list.) I myself have never attended, but I have been intrigued. A cabal of cineastes gathering together without fanfare, to watch and to talk about "films that might not otherwise find their way to this sleepy town of ours," conjures up something of the glamour of the French Resistance or the Book People in Fahrenheit 451. To give you some idea: last month's offerings -- the secret is now out -- were two films championed by the late Susan Sontag and presented in tribute to her, Alexander Sokurov's Moloch and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. For this current month the Secret Curator has opted to break his own code in the greater interest of a Tsunami Relief fund (suggested donation: $10) and to disclose in advance the identities of two scheduled Thai films, Mysterious Object at Noon on the 13th and Last Life in the Universe on the 27th. (By the mere sound of them, they must be slightly tonier than Ong-Bak.) The time and location, as ever, will be seven o'clock at the Media Arts Center, 921 25th Street, in Golden Hill. A bit off the beaten path, but then that's the whole idea.

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