Friday 3/23 & Saturday 3/24: Cremaster 2 @ MMoCA

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art will be screening Matthew Barney's legendary Cremaster 2 (1999) twice this weekend. Personally, I've only watched a low-quality bootleg on a small television back when I was a freshman in college—and given the intentional rarity of the film, I imagine this is how most people have seen it—so a proper viewing is necessary to do it justice.

The Cremaster series has been described as "one of the most imaginative and brilliant achievements in the history of avant-garde cinema." For the uninitiated, MMoCA's preview will give you some idea of the "plot":

Part of Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle, Cremaster 2 is a visual re-telling of The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's story of convicted killer Gary Gilmore. Filmed in the style of a gothic Western, Cremaster 2 features Mailer as Harry Houdini and Barney as Gilmore.

Let's be clear: it's a weird film. If you didn't know, the cremaster muscle is responsible for raising and lowering the testes in response to temperature, and each of the five films in Barney's cycle "corresponds" to some level of ascension of the testicles. Right. Check it out anyway!

Friday 3/23 at 7pm, Saturday 3/24 at 2pm. Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. 227 State Street. Free for MMoCA members, $7 for nonmembers.

Trailer for the entire Cremaster series after the jump.