This month, UF students are flocking to theaters to see films released up to 80 years before they were born.
As part of the “Month of Masterpieces” program, Regal Butler Town Center and Regal Royal Park are showing a new “fan-favorite film” every day for the month of September. The films range from black-and-white classics like “Citizen Kane” to more modern works like Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.”
Many of these movies were released well before current college students were alive. Nevertheless, Regal Butler Town Center general manager, Alex Rojas, said young adults and older folk alike have made the trip to cinemas to see classic movies on the big screen.
“Crowds that grow up in the most recent couple of years would have never seen ‘Casablanca’ or ‘The Godfather,’ certainly not on the big screen,” said Mark Grove, the 32-year-old general manager of Regal Royal Park. “This gives them a chance to relive that magic.”
One of those younger fans, Andrea Caceres, got to see a favorite masterpiece in a new medium. As an avid horror fan, the 19-year-old UF art sophomore couldn’t wait to see the 1982 sci-fi classic “The Thing” in theaters.
After being underwhelmed by the 2011 prequel, which relied on CGI, she said the ingenuity of older films' cinematography can get overpowered by modern technological innovations.
For Caceres, seeing “The Thing” in theaters felt like she was watching the film for the first time.
“When you have that huge screen in front of you, all your senses are overwhelmed by the film and by the colors, the audio, the composition, everything,” she said. “I found a new appreciation for those aspects of the movie now that they were so large and blown up.”
Another classic work, “Dog Day Afternoon,” a 1975 bank robbery thriller, was a favorite among many students, including 21-year-old UF computer science senior Leo Graham. He said the film garnered enthusiastic audience reactions and contained a great script and performance from Al Pacino.
Movies like “Dog Day Afternoon,” Graham said, are much more powerful to watch on the big screen.
“A lot of the time with older movies, you're not really afforded the opportunity to see them in theaters, so you lose a lot of the intention with how the director meant to convey the information on screen,” he said.
Still to come during the “Month of Masterpieces” are films like “Vertigo,” “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” showing Sept. 25 through 27. Though the special effects in the latter sci-fi flick may not be impressive by today’s standards, Graham adds that it’s important to not disregard old cinema because of its age.
“I feel like people wouldn't ignore Van Gogh and favor more modern art just because it's old,” he said. “Even though film is always evolving in technology, the artists that make those movies happen are very intentional of the medium to choose and the time to choose to do it in.”
John McDonald, a 23-year-old UF alum and former member of University Film Society, was eager to finally experience films like “Paper Moon” and “Dr. Strangelove” in the theater.
“There are these great films that I've been putting off for a long time that I now get to watch because I have the proper viewing experience,” he said.
Contact Isabel Kraby at ikraby@alligator.org. Follow her on X @isabelgkraby.
Isabel is a general assignment reporter for The Avenue and is starting her first semester with The Alligator. She is a junior journalism student and transferred to UF from Daytona State College after her freshman year. When she's not writing for Ave, she loves going to concerts, crocheting and designing spreads for Rowdy Magazine.
