FEATURING: ANGRY BIRDS!
Never mind.
My visions of seeing a recently released, stimulating movie and discussing it with the people that live so close to me vanished, replaced with the vision of a crowded room, filled with noisy children with no concept of personal space. This isn't the first time I've been let down by the promise of a movie night. As a teenager, my parents and I traveled to Arizona almost every year and we stayed at a resort in Sedona. If memory serves correctly, Wednesdays were the designated movie night, with a projector set up near the edge of the pool for swimmers and loungers to enjoy equally. There, too, the selection of movies was, for lack of a better word, lame: children's movies that barely cracked 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, movies that were so inconsequential that they vanished from recent memory, movies that were easy (and probably cheap) to obtain and show.
It's because of these disappointing movie nights that I've come to really, really, really enjoy German movie night on campus. My first movie night at my alma mater, Montclair State University, was in 2011 or 2012, and the movie was a classic: Lola rennt (Run Lola Run (1998)). It was also my first encounter with a professor who was head of the German department, and would later become something of a mentor to me, an inspiration at the very least. He tried to begin a discussion afterward the viewing, but the event was so poorly attended (if I remember it correctly, I and three other people, not counting the professor, showed up), that the discussion didn't go very far beyond, "I liked it," and, "It was interesting." Thankfully, German Film Night has grown in popularity at MSU. Here at UMD, German movie night has great attendance, and the films tend to be more artsy than what was shown at MSU, where the movies tended to be pop films.
Film nights on either campus are simply a delight, and in comparison to the film night at my apartment complex or at that Sedona resort, I appreciate the efforts that the professors put in to choosing films that are intellectually stimulating, well made, and with plenty of useful examples of language or culture. Some professors bring in DVDs or VHSs from home, sometimes they stream the movie from an online source; it's rare that a professor won't be able to find the desired movie, and the lengths they'll go to have always impressed me. Perhaps the discrepancy between campus and living community is the motivation to show the movie. Professors want us to grow, to appreciate art and our subjects, but they also want us to enjoy ourselves while we put in the time to get that extra credit point; business owners want to forge stronger communities, but aren't necessarily looking to give us the intellectually nutritious art films that only a few will appreciate, choosing instead the brain candy that are children's films, which are easily consumable at any age.
Although I immediately dismissed the email, a flyer advertising the event hangs in the hallway, reminding me each time I walk past; maybe I'll go to the event after all. It is being shown tonight, and I could definitely use the distraction from Inauguration Day and my term paper. Perhaps it will be worth it.
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