Weird Movie Club Twin Cities

NEW MEETING FEATURE: At 8 p.m., let's see if we can "mingle" a bit. Let's try to get every other person to move a new spot, to mix up who's talking to whom.

Michael John has volunteered to host this showing of "Hellzapoppin'," an anarchic, absurdist comedy that might surprise you with its "meta"-ness. It was released in 1941 and in some ways seems of its time and in others seems way ahead of its time.

I'll get to the library around 1:30 p.m. and try to set everything up in time for a 2 p.m. start. Get there early so you don't miss a minute. The library closes at 5, so we'll have to wrap up discussion before then. Discussions tend to last no more than about half an hour, but maybe it will last longer this time if we break into smaller groups and make it feel less like a classroom.

It's all free. We'll be in the Andy Boss Community Room on the 4th floor of the George Latimer Public Library in downtown St. Paul.

Street parking is possible, but you might consider using the light rail. A great place to park and ride is the Western Avenue stop of the Green Line. There's always parking on Aurora Avenue, one street south of University.

"Close-Up" (1990) is weird in some ways, but isn't weird enough to be on the 366 Weird Movie list that I usually draw from. I thought it was worth diverging from the list to spread awareness of what I think is a brilliant and fascinating film.

I also hope to foster interest in Iranian cinema in general, which can provide a very important counterpoint to the typical Western conception of Iran. The Iranian films I've seen are very far from the dull propaganda for fundamentalist ideology that you might expect. Instead, they are complex, gently humorous, and often fascinatingly "meta" stories of compassion and empathy for ordinary people and their daily struggles. I believe Iranian films give the world a glimpse of the majority of the Iranian people, who are nothing like the fanatics who run the government (as of this writing, anyway).