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Despite the closings of several theaters, students can still view obscure films
By Jan Higginbotham
The Battalion
n iudents can experience culture through
.the movies. The MSC Film Society and a
local movie theater are offering a variety
of art movies that expose viewers to mul-
ticulturalism and diversity.
The MSC Film Society attempts
to bring that culture into stu
dents’ lives through its Alterna
tive Film Series.
Danny King, chair of the
film society and a senior aero
space engineering major, said
the series sponsors films that
students would ordinarily
have to go to Houston, Dallas
or Austin to see.
“One of our goals is to pro
vide an opportunity for people
to see film as an art,” King
said. “One goal of the MSC is
to give students a chance to
experience different cultures.
This series kind of combines
those two goals.”
Film society showed the
controversial movie Priest in
September, a movie about a
Roman Catholic priest and
his struggle with the Catholic
Church’s doctrine.
The film society is also
bringing Farinelli, The Last Se
duction and Smoke as part of
the series. Next week, the
group is showing Skin Deep, a
film that brings students — including A&M
students — together to discuss racial issues.
‘We try to bring something for everybody,”
King said.
Hollywood USA started an art series in May.
The theater introduced Priest to Bryan-College
Station as a part of the series.
Kathy Christian, a film buyer for Cinemark,
said the films address more special-
. ized topics that most main
stream movies do not.
“We realized when we
opened the Hollywood
theater there that the
art films needed
special attention,”
Christian said.
“We do this as a
service to the
community, the
students and the
staff at A&M.
These films are
just really good
for the commu
nity.”
Hollywood’s
art film series
is contracted to
continue
through the
end of October,
and Christian
said the com
pany will con
tinue to sched
ule for the se
ries.
Students
have had posi
tive reactions to the two film series.
Alan Harris, a junior management major,
said he has enjoyed the wide variety of movies.
“These art movies have given students an
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opportunity to experience other cultures and
other views,” Harris said. “They give you a lot
more to think about than Die Hard or Batman.
These movies deal with real issues from the
real world — these are issues that we will all
have to deal with at some point in our lives.”
The showing of Priest in September
brought protest from Catholic students at
A&M who disapproved of the film being
shown on campus.
Harris said he was pleased that Film Society
decided to show the film.
“Priest dealt with one of the major issues of
our time,” he said. “It was very educational.”
Beth Rogers, a senior education major, said
the films are a nice break from the movies ordi
narily shown at local movie theaters.
“Too many of the movies we see these days
are fluffy movies,” Rogers said. “These art
movies have real substance. It’s great to have
this type of culture in our lives.”
King said he is often disappointed because
Bryan-College Station does not get some movies.
“Mostly what we get here are the main
stream, blockbuster movies,” he said. “I’m kind
of disappointed that we don’t get some movies
here, for example, Showgirls.”
King said the Alternative Film Series is not
always a money-maker for the film society.
“We tend to lose money on the Alternative
Film Series,” he said. “We rely on our Block
buster Series to make money, but we still think
it’s important to bring these alternative movies
here anyway.”
Christian said Cinemark also tends to lose
money on the art series.
“This is not a big money-making project for
us,” she said, “but we feel it’s important to con
tinue this service to the community. We know
that it will take time for us to develop a crowd
for these movies.”
Photos by Amy Browning, The Battalion
The Manor East Theater (above) and the Carmike Theater (left)
have both shut down, giving movie-goers even fewer choices.
Television makes a spectacle of the judicial system
Editor
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Even when
more than 160
people were
killed in the
bombing, televi
sion viewers still
wanted Simpson
coverage.
Rachel
Barry
Columnist
A1 Gore is not Mark
Fuhrman.
It seems like it would
n’t be too hard to know
the difference between the
vice president of the Unit
ed States and the suppos
edly racist Los Angeles
cop from the O.J. Simpson
trial. However, as fright
ening as it may seem, some people think
Gore is Fuhrman.
In a survey conducted by Dateline
NBC that aired September 27, a Date
line anchor went to the streets with pic
tures of some of the top faces in the
Simpson trial and some of the most im
portant faces in the government. Almost
every person he talked to knew the
names of the people who were major
players in the Simpson trial. Not one
person mistook Bryan “Kato” Kaelin’s
mug, and only a few were stumped
when they were shown a photo of Rosa
Lopez. The people who were shown the
photos correctly identified nearly every
trial personality. But one woman mis
takenly identified a picture of Vice Pres
ident Gore as one of Fuhrman.
When the Dateline correspondent
asked the woman what she would think if
he told her the picture was actually the
vice president of the United States, she
responded by saying there was no way
that picture was of the vice president.
She didn’t even recognize Gore as the
name of the vice president.
Since the slow-speed Bronco chase
last June, television programming has
consumed itself with the
Simpson trial to cater to
the seemingly insatiable
appetite the public has.
David Talley, senior
manager of CNN’s public
' relations department in
Atlanta, said CNN has
shown 909 hours and 31
minutes of Simpson cover
age beginning with the Bronco chase.
That works out to about the equivalent
of 38 days of trial coverage, pretrial
hearings, and other major events in the
trial. He said there is no way, however,
to calculate the amount of time dedicat
ed to additional special programs the
all-news network broadcast on the sub
ject. It would be too great to even begin
to calculate, he said.
The Simpson phenomena has command
ed the attention of television viewers for
the duration of the trial. Although the rea
son behind bringing the trial into the lives
and living rooms of people around the globe
is hard to understand by some, one thing is
apparent — people want the coverage, and
they want a lot of it.
After the first few weeks of Simpson
news saturating our television sets, peo
ple were heard complaining about having
enough of the trial and saying they didn’t
care. However, numbers show that while
a few people may have been sincere in ex
pressing these feelings, there were more
who couldn’t get enough of it.
The Oklahoma City Bombing in April
was the only point in the past year
when something aside from the bicker
ing of Marcia Clark and Johnny
Cochran was on the news. Even when
more than 160 people were killed in the
bombing, television viewers still wanted
Simpson coverage.
Talley said his department normally
receives about 1,200
calls a week asking
questions about
what is going on
with the Simpson
trial. The week be
fore the bombing,
the department re
ceived the normal
amount of calls re
garding the trial.
The week of the
bombing, the de
partment received
about 3,000 calls
asking about the
case. The week after _
the bombing, he
said, the department was bombarded
with 6,000 calls saying, “Enough Okla
homa, we want O.J. back.”
The relative importance placed on the
two events seems perverted. It is hard to
believe that many people would care
more about the soap opera we called a
trial than the tragedy of the Oklahoma
City bombing. Television has distorted
reality and has made a spectacle of the
judicial system.
There have been many people who
have kept up with the trial almost reli
giously. A woman from Grosebeck is one
of them. Marian Connor with KXAS-TV
O.J.
in Fort Worth interviewed Pat Cox, a
woman who has taped the entire trial
and any television show that has had a
segment on Simpson.
Connor said the Grosebeck woman has
almost 2,000 hours of taped programs
and has not turned off her television set,
day or night, for four months. Cox eats,
sleeps and reads in her bed while she
watches the trial.
This woman has become a “bed pota
to,” Connor said.
A “bed potato”? It is discouraging to
think these advances in technology that
allow television cameras to go anywhere
have been made so we can satisfy our
hunger for trash.
Sitting in bed for four months, not be
ing able to tell the difference between
Fuhrman and Gore and whining to CNN
because there’s too much about the Okla
homa City bombing and not enough
Simpson are signs of a sick society. It is
n’t funny. It isn’t strange. It is demented
and shocking, and we should be ashamed
that we let it go this far.
Now that the trial is over, Talley said
CNN will continue its coverage of what is
going on with Simpson for the next few
weeks and possibly the next few months.
It may be soon that we get off of this O.J.
rush and get on with our lives, as we
should have done over a year ago.
However, if we ever need an O.J. fix,
we won’t have to look any farther than
Grosebeck to find a copy of the trial.
Rachel Barry is a junior
journalism major
Texas A&M University Floriculture-Horticulture Society
presents
Fall Plant Fair
r
u
fS
October 7
8:00AM-3:00PM
Horticulture/ForeSt Science Bldg.
West Campus
The Fair Features...
Foliage Plants " ^ ^ Bedding Plants
Dorm-sized Houseplants Vegetables
Planter Boxes
And More!
^est Gun Show the Brazos Valley Jias Ever Seen!
GUN SHOW
October 14th, 9:00 am thru 6:00 pm
October 15th, 9:00 am thru 5:00 pm
Ramada Inn
1502 Texas Ave. S., College Station
Admission $4.00 or 2 Day Pass $6.00
HEY AGS! $1 OFF WITH A&M I.D.
BUY • SELL • TRADE
NEW & USED GUNS
AMMUNITION
SCOPES & MOUNTS •
STUN GUNS • NIGHT VISION
• SURPLUS & MUCH MORE
For More Information Call
409-779-8103
Theater Arts Program
Presents
; .v
‘Sr. / ’ *
Ariel Dorfman's
Death And The Maiden
Fallout Theater 144 Blocker
8:00 p.m.
October 5-7,12-14 & 18-21.
For tickets call 862-2052