Movie Madness University (MMU) offers a number of Single-Session Classes and one Multi-Session Class in July. The Single-Session Classes are offered on different days of the week, making it easier to find something that will fit into nearly any schedule.
Starting right off Tuesday, July 1, 6:30 pm is Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway. The 2019 film, the second from filmmaker Miguel Llansó, is set in the year 2035 and is delightfully audacious in concept and execution. The class will discuss how subversion and remixing of expectations can yield a truly unique and blissfully bizarre film.
The Celluloid Closet is the focus of the Thursday, July 3, 6:30 pm class. It will go through the complex journey from book to documentary and celebrate the life and work of film historian, gay activist and Iconic Queer Ancestor Vito Russo.
Monday, July 7, 6:30 pm is a deep dive into the Hong Kong blockbuster, Internal Affairs. The class will include a brief discussion of the making of the film, the assembly of cast and crew, the identity and politics of Hong Kong and its citizens at the time of production and notable remakes.
The only Sunday class is July 13, 12 pm. Eddie Muller, host of Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley, celebrated writer, film historian and founder/president of the non-profit Film Noir Foundation, presents If I Should Die Before I Wake. Muller will discuss the literary roots of the film, the cross-cultural legacy shared by the US and Argentina during the post-WWII era, as well as the rescue, restoration and rebirth of this stunning noir.
Finishing out the Single-Session Classes is John Sayles’ Lone Star, Wednesday, July 30, 6:30 pm. The class will explore the film’s setting in a tiny Texas border town, intertwined cultures, intergenerational trauma and how the past influences the present as well as the film’s subversion of both personal and national myth making.
In the Multi-Session Class, Emotional Pain in Beautiful Places, the class will look at Sideways Monday, July 14 and The Descendants Monday, July 21. Both films follow emotionally adrift characters, struggling to find meaning in midlife, but they are suffering in beautiful locations. Class starts at 6:30 pm each night.
Single-Session classes are $18 members/$22 non-members. The Multi-Session class is $36 members/$44 non-members. Registration and more information found at moviemadness.org.