Invite-only film downloading clubs hide in the darkest, most exclusive corners of the internet. Writing for Film Comment, a writer known as Quintín ventured into a clique he pseudonymously calls “Black Crow” and discovers the hidden cost of a place “where all cinephilic fantasies can come true.”

Though Black Crow grants access to all the 1940s Hungarian cinema that a film buff could ever want, members must contribute back to the community in uploaded material. “The goddess of Black Crow demands that the faithful pay tribute,” Quintín wrote. The community’s obligations were nearly impossible for the writer to fulfill, and he began obsessively checking his upload to download ratio. “From feeling like a billionaire, I began to act like a high-stakes speculator who bets his last penny on Wall Street during a financial crisis.”

Unable to sate the demands of Black Crow, Quintín was eventually kicked out of the illegal downloading community. “I learned that there is something worse than being denied entry into an exclusive club,” Quintín wrote, “and that is to enter the club only to be kicked out.”

Source: Film Comment (article not available online)

For many film buffs, there are no “guilty pleasure” movies. If you think a film is good, then preach it proudly, even if that film is Road House or Purple Rain. But that doesn’t mean people can’t change their minds. Phillip Lopate writes for Film Comment about a few films he’s seen in a new light, for better or for worse.

After an initial distaste for Annie Hall, Lopate eventually came to view Woody Allen as “an American Master.” On the other hand, it took him seven times viewing The Third Man with Orson Wells to see it as “tinny and calculating and shallow.”

For my part, I loved the Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn film The African Queen the first time I saw it, at the age of 17 while trying to impress a woman with my knowledge of classic films. Now I think it’s overwrought and ultimately unsatisfying. Dumb and Dumber, however, distracted me at first blush with its physical comedy, before I realized how funny the writing was in the film.

For a more juvenile take on the issue, read a list of “Five Shitty Movies that Everyone Loves,” including Braveheart and the Karate Kid.

Image from the film Dumb and Dumber.

Source: Film Comment