'Russo Bros. Pizza Film School': 'Avengers' Directors Launch Weekly Instagram Series Talking About Classic Films

If we were to ask the /Film readership what their ideal version of "living the dream" might look like, I imagine that "watching movies and eating pizza" would be one of the most popular responses. Now Anthony and Joe Russo, the directors behind the biggest movie of all time, will be doing exactly that in a new Instagram Live show called Russo Bros. Pizza Film School. Get the details below.

For the next few weeks, the Russos will be spending their Friday nights broadcasting on Instagram Live with this new show, which is designed to "educate and spread some love to favorite classic films." Each week, they'll announce a movie that inspired them to become filmmakers and give audiences one week to watch it; then they'll spend the following week's episode talking about that movie with a special guest, talking about "how different flicks have transformed their relationship to cinema, while enjoying pizza from a local pizzeria."

You can tune in on their page on Friday nights at 5 P.M. PT/8 P.M. ET. starting on May 15, 2020. Here's how the brothers describe the new show in their own words:

The Russos, of course, started out in the indie world making films like Welcome to Collinwood and established themselves as go-to directors of intelligent television comedies like Arrested Development, Happy Endings, and Community. They were hired by Marvel Studios to direct Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and eventually became that studio's pride and joy by helming Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the latter of which is now the highest-grossing movie of all time. They became emblematic of a type of studio filmmaker over the course of the past ten years – so much so that I named them the filmmakers that defined the 2010s. (And that's not a dig, either: I have a lot of love for Avengers: Endgame.)

The first movie they chose to spotlight in their new show is La Haine, a 1995 French drama directed by Mathieu Kassovitz (Gothika, Babylon A.D.) and starring Vincent Cassel (Ocean's Twelve, Westworld), Hubert Koundé (The Constant Gardener), and Saïd Taghmaoui (Wonder Woman, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum). I couldn't find an official English-language trailer, but here's an extended clip:

The movie was added to the Criterion Collection several years ago, and leading up to that release, the company put out this video explaining three reasons why they chose that film to be a part of its prestigious collection. Here's what they highlighted: