The International Cinema

If you are a BYU student, and if you like movies, and if you speak another language, and if you are short on cash and you don't know what ANWR stands for, then boy do I have the place for you! The International Cinema! The International Cinema is self-described as "The world's largest and longest-running university foreign film program," which I personally find a little dubious. I mean, how can they make the claim that they are the 'largest foreign film program' in the world? What defines largest? Does that refer to the amount of movies shown or the number of personnel invovled in the production? And then there is the question of what defines a foreign film? Morgan Freeman is African-American; does that make Batman: The Dark Knight a foreign film? Adding to its case, there was a scene from Hong Kong, plus no one really knows where Gotham City is, so it could technically be qualified as 'foreign' to every country. And then you have to consider that the majority of films are made in the US, so every other country has a leg up on us in terms of sheer quantity of films classified as 'foreign.' For those reasons and a few others, I would not think that The International Cinema lives us to its claim. Having said that, I Love The International Cinema! I have seen a Spanish, German, English and French film there and enjoyed them all. This past weekend I saw The Legend of 1900 about a boy who spends his entire life on an ocean liner. He never sets foot on land, but he does find out that he is an exceptionally fantastic piano player. Quite strange, but nothing I wouldn't expect from The International Cinema. If you ever want to go, let me know and I will be pleased to translate for you, at least as long as it is in English or Swahili.