When students got the Cinema Group’s poster with this fall’s movie listings against a Spider-Man background, they probably found a few listings that looked out of place. Between the latest Tom Cruise action movie and a drama starring a member of “Friends” is a film called “Baran” about social conflict in Tehran.
This year, movies will be shown on Fridays and Saturdays ? except for one Sunday in October, when the movie “Young Frankenstein” will be playing.
The greater variety in movies shown is partly an effort to offer “richer, more original” programming, according to chairperson of the Cinema Group, junior Josh Veazey.
The Cinema Group also hopes that these changes will help boost attendance. They expect that variety and originality will prove more popular than simply showing what was recently in theaters.
New programming is only part of the changes to the Cinema Group this year. A new position has been created on the executive board of the Cinema Group ? the director of alternative programming.
Senior Grace Fong, who served as the programming director last year, occupies this position and is in charge of the Mel Brooks series, which will feature classic comedies by the popular director.
The series will include “Spaceballs” on Oct. 20, “Young Frankenstein” on Oct. 27, “Blazing Saddles” on Nov. 3 and the period film spoof “History of the World: Part 1” on Nov. 10.
Fong also was in charge of last Wednesday’s sneak preview of “Red Dragon.” Sneak previews are shown on campus days or weeks before the movies can be seen in commercial theaters and are usually much more popular than the usual fare, if only because they are free, Fong said.
Fong is pleased with her new role in the Cinema Group. “I’m really enjoying it,” Fong said. “More variety and originality are always great in movies, and I’m glad our group will be providing them.”
The Cinema Group has also taken steps to fix last year’s problem of breaks in the middle of movies.
According to Veazey, those problems were caused by old and faulty projectors, which were replaced over the summer. “We think they were just old and breaking down, but maybe they weren’t working right in the first place,” Veazey said.
Improvements were also made to the sound system in Hoyt over the summer, when a Dolby Digital 5.1 sound processor was installed. “We’ve been getting upgrades and getting more used to the machinery,” Fong said.
“It’s probably going to keep getting better for years,” Fong said.
The new sound system features frequency and dynamic ranges, which will improve sound quality, according to Dolby Laboratories.
The Cinema Group has made some improvements that should make Friday and Saturday nights even more entertaining this year than they have been in the past.
The question remains if students will respond to the changes, and make the screenings more popular and succesful.
Levesque can be reached at clevesque@campustimes.org.
