The Movie Appreciation Club (MAC), founded last year by current seniors Chase Clements ’07 and Kamsen Lau ’07, hopes to expand its influence in the upcoming year. This year it has held screenings of such movies as “Run Lola Run” (a German thriller), “Hotel Rwanda,” “Monsoon Wedding,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Nausicaä” (a Japanese “animé” film), and “Grizzly Man.” From this wide selection, it is clear that the club has a broad spectrum of ambitions: entertainment, education, and art.
But Andrew Dominguez ’08 and Eden Ellis ’08, the club’s current leaders, hope to follow an even more ambitious program in the near future. “The club is undergoing changes this spring,” said Dominguez in an email to MAC members, “so that we will be able to show more films and make the MAC a truly important club on campus.” During the rest of the spring term, the MAC hopes to work in conjunction with other Choate groups—with CALSA when it shows “Boyz ‘N the Hood,” a film about “social problems in inner-city Los Angeles,” and with the CKFA when it shows the Korean film “Old Boy.” The club’s leaders hope that these co-operations will help MAC members gain more insight into the cultures behind the films.
The MAC also hopes to improve its planning and logistics. In the past, according to Dominguez, the club’s heads have usually decided what movie to show on a given Friday only a week or so beforehand—possibly causing delays, since the movies must be ordered from the online movie-seller Netflix. For this spring, though, the club’s heads have written out a detailed schedule in advance. So far, they have stuck to that schedule, showing “Diva” on April 4, “Paradise Now” on April 13, “Koyaanisqatsi” on May 4, and “Boyz ‘N the Hood” on May 11.
Nevertheless, the club’s climactic event of the spring term is still to come: an outdoor movie. On May 25, Dominguez says, the MAC is projecting a movie on the underside of a tent on the football field outside the SAC. The club will use projectors and speakers, and students will lie on blankets and sleeping bags. It will be somewhat like an old-fashioned drive-in movie.
So, what movie will it be? Since the club would like to draw an especially big crowd for the event, the leaders are considering a comedy—possibly “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” They have not yet made a definite decision. No matter what movie the club chooses, though, this represents quite a new frontier. Dominguez says, “We have big plans for the spring.”
When asked about club plans for next year, Dominguez responded with great enthusiasm that the club will show a movie “every single weekend.” He added, more cautiously, that of course that did not include the special cases of academic Saturdays, long weekends, and exam times. Also, he and Ellis hope that the outdoor movie will become an annual tradition.
As for how the club makes its movie selections, Dominguez explained, “Part of it is showing films people aren’t going to see otherwise.” This is clearly one reason for many members’ enthusiasm. Laura Stephenson ’09 says, “I enjoy watching films that I might not have picked out myself.” According to Dominguez, the club also tries “to keep an even balance of movie-movies, art films, and documentaries.” But, of course, the club’s ultimate goal is simply “to show good movies.”
