IOC Fhe Michigan Daily Weekend gazne -Thursday, April l , 1997
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The Mvitchigan DIy Weekend M
State of the Arts
THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD: CINEMA GUILD
1Sound and Fury
ENLIGHTENMENT, OR'LIBERATION
BY DEAN BAKOPOULOS
Last Thursday,
Cinema Guild
sponsored a free
screening of
"Grosse Pointe
Blank," the new
film starring cutie
John Cusack. Even
though I couldn't
attend the event at
Lorch Hall, I can
envision the scene
Jennterydetlnskt
Daily Ars Editor
in my mind perfectly.
Fifty million sweaty, cranky, movie-
hungry, looking-for-a-cheap-date stu-
dents waited on a line for two hours to
receive passes to the event.
Those who were turned away proba-
bly didn't go quietly; instead, they
made a scene right outside the
entrance of the auditorium, rattling the
nerves of Department of Public Safety
officers on movie-duty and annoying
the few students who actually did
make it into the event fair and square.
(Note: This scene has been constructed
from the depths of my imagination and
my experience at the November
screening of "Ransom.") Students in
the screening probably then had to
answer silly trivia questions, while,
anxiously waiting for "Grosse Pointe
Blank" to begin.
After the film ended, students proba-
bly trudged out of the auditorium, back
into the world of term papers, exams
and oral presentations with The
Mystery of the evening still unan-
swered.
What is The Mystery, you ask?
Why, The Mystery of Cinema Guild,
of course. While hundreds of students
attend these sneak previews and Nat.
Sci. screenings on the weekends, most
(I am willing to bet), have no better
concept of what Cinema Guild is than I
do.
The Introduction
Me: Hello, Cinema Guild. As you
may know from the byline of this col-
umn, my name is Jennifer - but you
can call me Jen. Would it be OK if I
called you CG?
CG: (No response)
Me: Well, whatever ... CG. Anyway,
I was just wondering - maybe we can
get to know each other a little better, if
you know what I mean. I live here in
good ol' Ann Arbor, and I have a phone
number where I can be reached during
the day. Do you?
CG: (No response)
Me: You see, the reason I'm asking
is because I don't know a whole lot
about you. And I think I speak for a lot
of students here at the University. We
attend your screenings - mostly the
free sneak peaks on Thursday night -
but we really don't know exactly where
you are located and what you are
about.
CG: (No response)
Me: OK, well, you know how you
always have posters up all over the
University right before one of your
free films? And they specify that stu-
dents always come to Cinema Guild
to pick up their passes and that stu-
dents should call your phone number
for more information (994-0027)?
This number is listed everywhere on
campus, on all of these posters, in
Daily advertisements and even in the
Current - but if you call it (as I tried
on my exploration to find out more
about you yesterday), you find out
that the number has been disconnect-
ed. So what do you -have to say to -
THAT?
CG: (No response)
Me: Take last week, for example. On
Thursday, a preview advertisement for
"Grosse Pointe Blank" appeared in the
Daily on page 3A. The ad highlighted
this movie's particular sponsor, which
was Metro Tracker, a lovely photo of
Cusack and costar Minnie Driver, the
time and place and that mysterious
phrase - "Pick up passes at Cinema
Guild." Well?
CG: (No response)
Me: Don't you see! Nobody knows
where Cinema Guild is. Rumor has it
that the University keeps moving your
office. But if that is the case, then why
do you keep putting that phrase in your
advertisements? On days that these ads
run in the paper, students constantly call
the Daily Arts Office or stop by, asking
us where they can pick up their passes.
And each time, I feel less and less help-
ful because I just don't know what to tell
them. Sometimes, I give them your
phone number, which I know is wrong,
to make it look like I know what I'm
talking about. But really I don't.
WHERE ARE YOU, CINEMA
GUILD?
CG: (No response)
Me: Total silence (cheap "Fargo"
plug). Two can play at that game.
CG: (No response)
Me: Agghhhhhhh!
S - eSolution
While this scenario might seem like a
slightly overdramatic representation
(which it is) of students' relationship to
Cinema Guild, its point rings true.
While most students continue to
attend these screenings, they have a
hard time figuring out how to get in --
simply because they could not pick up
their passes at the Cinema Guild, a
place that just seems impossible to pin
down.
The Mystery lives on.
But hopefully, something will
change.
Next week, Cinema Guild will pre-
view "Eight Heads in a Duffle Bag."
The film stars Joe Pesci as a mobster
whose luggage (containing his vic-
tims' heads) gets switched with some-
one else's. Next week, we will all
probably see the advertisements up
around campus, directing students to
Cinema Guild for their personal tick-
ets.
But, oh, dear Cinema Guild, students
want to know more. Hear my plea for
more information.
CG, come out, come out wherever
you are.
If not for 'U'- for me?
Jen can be contacted via e-mail at
petlinsk@umich.edu.
Four years ago, after my father and I
lugged the last crate of books up to the
third floor of Alice Lloyd;he handed me
a card.
"It's a welcome to Ann Arbor pre-
sent," he said. I took the blue envelope
and opened it. Inside was a certificate
proclaiming that I had been given a gift
subscription to the National Review.
Oh, my poor father, how astray from
the trail I've wandered.
Obviously, Dad is a conservative.
Now, he's not one
of those Pat
Buchanan loving, T
Rush Limbaugh
listening ditto- U j
heads; but iin w
nonetheless, he's i
conservative.
And me, well;
... you know ... .
Left-leaning pinko, to get straight to
the point.
So how does this happen? I mean, I
read a lot of those National Reviews
that came to my dorm room. Even taped
what I thought was a particularly funny
cover of the rag to my door, and wrote
for this campus' imitation of the
Review.
And then the changes came.
I can't pinpoint the moment of trans-
formation. But somewhere near the end
of my first year here, I found that there
was something profoundly false in my
beliefs. Despite my father's gift of a
m
subscription to the "National Review,"
that conservatism stuff just wasn't jiv-
ing with my conscience. It didn't make
sense anymore. Could I mix that politi-
cal conservatism with the ideals of
social justice I believed in? No. Could I
tolerate belonging to a political party
that rallies against the arts and free
expression? No. Could I stand to belong
to a movement that puts itself on a
moral highground and spews intoler-
ance? No.
Suddenly,
one trip to
wOrVats$M Europe (full of
hard thinking,
reading and
LE- MYwandering)
and several
Cex hundred pints
of Guiness
later, I became,
if you must put a label on it, a liberal.
Somehow, the books I read, the
courses I took, the stories I wrote, the
late-night discussions at the Brown Jug
- they all added up to this inner revo-
lution. Plus, I have to thank a certain
local poet and projectionist who hound-
ed me to justify my beliefs, and I sud-
denly realized that I couldn't. I have to
thank my friend "AM,' the leftist, who
asked me how I could be an artist, and
yet oppose the funding of the arts? I
have to thank Newt Gingrich, Rush
Limbaugh and the University's chapter
of College Republicans for all-too-
clearly showing me the anti-intellectual
arrogance and coldness that lies at the
heart of the conservative ideology.
And it wasn't only a political ideolo-
gy shift. In fact, the shift encompassed
everything in my life, and some of the
shifts happened very gradually, almost
going unnoticed. But looking back at
how I was four years ago, I see how
much my education and experiences at
the University changed me - from my
spiritual beliefs to my artistic sensibili-
ties, from my career aspirations to my
very personality.
This is not a unique experience. To
me, it represents the epitome of what a
liberal arts education is all about: We
read, think, write, discuss, create and
listen. And when the dust settles, we
somehow emerge differently, more
complete.
Despite the mountain of debt this edu-
cation has put me under, I'm entirely
grateful (thank you President Clir
student loan programs) that I've ha
experience. We somehow forget
privledged we are to be here, to be
dents. To spend several years bett
our minds, our spirits, our hearts.
I had a wonderful fiction wi
teacher here who used to always as
about the characters in my short sto
"What's at stake here? What do
characters want? What are they a
of?"
These seem to me to be approp
questions we can ask of ourselves a
Yearbooks
are coming
Available for pick-up on the Diag
or in the Fishbowl
ENSIAN
,ear ook
April
17
r
K .