Why should we care about the end of the world anymore? Big franchise blockbusters and slick streaming series regularly reduce the end times to backdrops of weightless Lego bricks, routinely mistaking CGI enormity for any kind of real or recognizable human gravity. After all, if everything is armageddon all the time, then nothing is ever really armageddon, is it?
Maybe the popular imagination has been numbed by an apocalypse fatigue that profanes something profound and existential which film provides us collective space to encounter.
These movies teeter on the brinks of collapse most people don’t feel coming, sending out signals of what William S. Burroughs called “pre-nova conditions” -- oracular vibes in the ether that warn of imminent doomsdays only the attentively attuned can interpret. Sincere and un-cynical, deeply humane if deathly horrific, these films crackle with a strange hope felt only when cinematic cataclysm comes at heavy -- and human -- cost.
Films:
1/8: GOD TOLD ME TO (1976, 91 min)
1/15: MAD MAX (1979, 88 min)
1/22: MIRACLE MILE (1988, 87 min)
1/29: THE BOOK OF LIFE / THE HOLE (1998, 158 min)
This class will be taught by Matt Fraction, an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of comic books like Sex Criminals, Hawkeye, and Last of the Independents. He co-created, executive produced, and wrote for AppleTV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
Each class will begin with a short lecture, followed by a screening of the film, after which an instructor-led discussion will take place.
Class size will be limited to 18.
Email us at education@moviemadness.org if you have any questions.
In general, the Hollywood Theatre does not provide content advisories about the subject matter shown in our theatre. Films exhibited don’t necessarily reflect the views of the Hollywood Theatre. Information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media and DoesTheDogDie.com.