Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema

An essential watch for anyone with an interest in cinema. No gimmicks no tricks, just excellent journalism. Reminiscent of the long forgotten BBC2 series Moviedrome with Alex Cox, and a similar programme introduction by Mark Cousins. It would be nice if it was followed directly by a double bill of examples of the genres covered, but you can't have everything.

I was very disappointed with this series. He seems to only consider genres that are currently hyped as if that were the history of cinema. The most glaring example is nothing on Westerns. One can make a cogent argument for all movies being Westerns. The first frickin' movie was a Western. How can you leave that out of the history of cinema? The biggest stars of the 1950's all had to be in a Western. Romcoms? I don't think so.

Besides that he selects about 5 over hyped films and talks about them for an hour as if nothing else existed. Simple hypotheses from small data sets. And I found him very uninteresting personally and as a presenter. This is only the second BBC documentary series I have not liked in 22 years of watching the BBC.

Loved this series. Hope for a second with more genres.

All he does is play endless clips of film with little comment apart from stating the obvious. Any 'critic' is usual bland and unthought through. Don't bother.

It's just a boring list of movies in a particular genre. The odd interesting fact about the production is given but the series is let down by its constant denigration of older movies in favour of its championing of similar, newer movies that have more women and poc.