HONORS FILM FESTIVAL
Launched in spring 2005, the Honors Film Festival was developed based on student suggestions for a Program activity. Approximately once month a film is shown in the Hoff Theater, with a faculty member introducing the film (providing historical or artistic context, commenting on themes of the film, etc.) and leading a discussion following the film. Free popcorn and soda are provided. The Honors Film Festival is supported by the generous donations contributed by Honors parents, friends, and alumnae. Some previously shown films include:
Quinceañera
Hosted by Dr. Trevor Parry-Giles
A pregnant teen is forced from her home prior to her 15th birthday when her parents discover her secret. Abandoned by her family and her boyfriend she moves in with her eccentric great uncle and her gay cousin. Set against the backdrop of Echo Park, Calif. this family of outsiders struggles to make a life for themselves as the gentrification of their neighborhood threatens their already precarious situation.
The Lives of Others
Hosted by Senior Lecturer Dr. Howard Smead
Winner of the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, The Lives of Others contrasts the drab existence of an East German state security captain with that of a Bohemian playwright. The two never share a scene but their lives intersect when the captain is asked to spy on the playwright and his actress girlfriend and must choose between duty, career and the destruction of these free and attractive lives. Echoing post- 9/11 security issues in America, The Lives of Others paints a chilling picture of a totalitarian Cold War society where surveillance becomes its own end, justice is a mockery and freedom is a bureaucratic whim.
The Good Shepard
Hosted by Dr. John Newman
The first movie directed by Robert De Niro, The Good Shepard was nominated for a 2007 Oscar. Inspired by the real-life story of CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Jesus Angleton, protagonist Edward Wilson struggles to solve the failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion. As the plot unfolds, the early history of the CIA is chronicled in flashbacks. Part fact and part fiction, the movie has an unexpected ending.
Dr. Strangelove
Hosted by Michael Hall and Peter Losin (HONORS 269J — Seminar: The Beat Begins: American Culture in the 1950's)
In "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," director Stanley Kubrick's 1964 satiric commentary on nuclear weapons, a deranged American general sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R., unwittingly unleashing a secret Soviet doomsday machine that will destroy all plant and animal life on Earth. The film received 4 Academy Award nominations, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor (Peter Sellers).
Peter Losin and Michael Hall have chosen this particular film for two reasons. First, it fits well with one of the major themes of their honors seminar on 1950s America. By the time the movie appeared in 1964, the absurdity of the nuclear arms race was ripe for the kind of black comedy that Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter Sellers so effectively exploit. But the second reason for choosing this particular movie for the Honors Film Festival is to remind ourselves that such absurdities as the movie depicts can sometimes return in different guises to find a new relevance.
