Fall fun film preview: College cult classics semester

Off-beat, dark, different, yet movies many watched over and over. For the fall of 2008, the MU Cine club will bring to public view a series of film, that may not be on the top-10 list of film critics, but are often movies we watch. Movies with unusual off beat qualities that draw in audiences with diverse taste.

For the spring of 2008 the film club showed a series of classic romance movies. For the fall, a series of cult classics popular with college students will be the selections to kick off the 2008-2009 school year. “This is a series of films popular with college students.

They show views counter to popular mainstream ideologies and tastes through critiquing and reacting to the society around them. Showing the movies in a public setting will help bring back that group dynamic of movie watching not experienced at home,” said Dr. Jill Craven of the MU Cine Club. “Plus they are really fun,” she said.

Film club kicked off the series on September 9 with Tim Burton’s 1994 biography film, “Ed Wood” the life and times of eccentric filmmaker famous for cheesy schlock such as “Plan Nine from Outer Space” and “Bride of the Monster.”

Showing September 25, is the 1971 love story “Harold and Maude” a classic, touching and unusual love story about Harold, a young man needing meaning in his life, and Maude, an older lady full of passion for life. They are two people who needed each other in their lives. The film shows that age is not a barrier to finding people who bring meaning and joy to life.

On October 9, Rob Reiner’s classic rock and roll mockumentary, “This is Spinal Tap” of 1984 will be shown. The life and times of fictional British metal band “Spinal Tap” the glitz and glory that is the rock and roll life are satirized throughout. We see the band’s triumphs and their failures. Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer, prolific voice actor of The Simpsons fame star.

October 14, film club will show Terry Gilliam’s Sci-Fi movie “Brazil” of 1985. In a future where every movement is monitored and people live in an extreme state of bureaucracy and inept government, Sam Lowry, (Jonathan Pryce) is fingered as a terrorist, turning his life upside down as he works to prove his innocence.

October 21, Film club will show the 1993 low budget dark comedy “Army of Darkness”. In this third installment of the “Evil Dead” trilogy, Ash (Bruce Campbell) is sent back to medieval times and embarks on a quest to find the book of the dead, the Necronomicon. After mis-reciting the chant, Ash unleashes the evil deadite army, lead by his evil counterpart. The movie climaxes with a battle between good and evil.

Around the corner from Halloween, on October 28, film club will show the horror flick “Night of the Living Dead”. A group of people barricade themselves in a farm house attempting to escape the hordes of flesh eating zombies coming for them.

The humans fight off the zombies to keep from becoming part of their ever growing army of mindless flesheaters. “Night of the Living Dead” a horror film steeped in tradition, shot in black and white, right in time for Halloween.

Showing November 6, The last person you expect to be a serial killer, Beverly Sutphin, (Kathleen Turner) middle class, stay at home mom, loves her family, but also takes it upon herself to swiftly end the lives of people she finds detrimental to the livelihood of her beloved family in 1994’s “Serial Mom”.

Wrapping up the Fall 2008 lineup, film club will show “Donnie Darko” of 2001. Jake Gyllenhall plays troubled, time travel obsessed teen Donnie Darko. Blending the real and the surreal, hallucinations with reality, in a Richard Kelley movie not just touching on what is uncomfortable and taboo, but outright dives into it.

All films will be shown free of cost, at 6:30 p.m. at Myers Auditorium in McComsey Hall. More information including schedules and information on the movies shown this semester can be found on the Cine Club’s website,     www.millersville.edu/english/community/filmclub.php.