Movies for July 2016: My Own Private Idaho and The Lobster

Joe is hosting for July and the movies to see are:

My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Two best friends living on the streets of Portland as hustlers embark on a journey of self discovery and find their relationship stumbling along the way.

Director: Gus Van Sant

Writers: William Shakespeare (play),  Gus Van Sant

Stars: River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, James Russo

The Lobster (2015)

In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods. 

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos  

Writers: Yorgos Lanthimos,  Efthymis Filippou  

Stars: Colin Farrell,  Rachel Weisz,  Jessica Barden

Special Guest Speaker: Dr. Mario Falsetto

Joe has arranged for a special guest to speak to us: Dr. Mario Falsetto, Professor Emeritus in Film Studies at Concordia University (Montreal) where he helped build one of the most highly regarded Cinema Departments in North America.

He received his Ph.D. from New York University in Cinema Studies where his teachers included such prominent artists and scholars as Stan Brakhage, Annette Michelson, Peter Kubelka, William Rothman, P. Adams Sitney, Manny Farber, Noel Carroll, Dusan Makaveyev, Noel Burch, William K. Everson, Ted Perry and many others.

As Professor in Film Studies at Concordia University, Falsetto developed over 20 different film courses, and is considered a specialist in avant-garde cinema, the films of Stanley Kubrick, American narrative film of the 1960s and 1970s, contemporary independent filmmakers, and key film auteurs, including Gus Van Sant, Federico Fellini, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, John Cassavetes, and many others.