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[pantryslut]

From "The Film Snob's Dictionary v.2":
"Doc Films. The film society of the University of Chicago, founded in 1932 as the Documentary Film Group. Hardcore beyond words and lay comprehensibility, the society is populated by 19 year olds who have already seen every film ever made, and boasts its own Dolby Digital-equipped cinema and an impressive roster of alumni that includes Snob-revered critic Dave Kehr (cf. v.1)."

Um.

Has Doc Films changed in the last decade? "Hardcore beyond words?" I smell hyperbole.

Nonetheless, it is in the Doc Films theater that I fell asleep watching Solaris. (Tarkovsky's version, obviously.) Some of you have heard this story. I nodded off in the Russian Winter Sports Mural scene, and when I awoke, it was still the same scene. Trapped in a movie and not even sleep is escape! The horror!

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[dnereverri.livejournal.com]

One of my cow-orkers, who is still associating with Doc after 10+ years, says that there are two major factions in Doc: The Cinema Studies grad students, who have seen every movie made and are hardcore beyond words, and the undergrads, who just wanna see cool movies for free. The power of each group waxes and wanes according to how much money they have -- when Doc is flush, the grad students seize control and show increasingly obscure films until they've burnt through the money; then the undergrads seize control and show more populist movies until there's a bankroll again. Sounds like the undergrads were in charge when you were here. :)

Right now, the grad students are in charge. Some of the stuff they've been showing on the weekends is just... *weird*.

Re:

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

This makes much more sense. Thank you.

I think that it's possible that we were in a transition period when I was living in Hyde Park. Friday and Saturday were always second-run popular movies, but some of the weekday series were indeed esoteric and obscure. In a good way, mostly. Mostly. But I have a higher tolerance for that than most.

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[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

P.S. I just realized who you are. Duh! Sorry.