IOC Fhe Michigan Daily Weekend gazne -Thursday, April l , 1997 0 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 .