Well the semester is finally in full swing and Cult Movies is really taking off.  We didn’t do too much the first week as it was syllabus week, but one thing to note is the time we spent on trying to define a “cult movie”.  We were all given a handout with a checklist to let us know what fell under the guidelines of cult movie, but most of the movies I could think of that I’d consider cult didn’t meet all the criteria.  This was a really confusing start that actually had a wonderful payoff and made the learning experience of what could have been a boring first-week lecture (syllabus lectures I call them) really mean something.  It turns out that you don’t have to have your favorite movie fit all of the criteria.  A cult movie is a movie that just is one.  There’s certain things that I’d argue are more important than others when it comes to a cult movie such as whether or not the movie has stood the test of time and still holds up to this day or whether or not there’s a big audience following for the movies.  One thing I found myself wondering is where the line is for determining what makes a cult movie.  The example I used in my head was Star Wars.  Obviously the franchise has a near cult like following and had a stigma that it was something that only nerds liked, but now I feel as though a lot of that “accidental” cult-like energy is gone.  Now it’s totally normal to like, even love Star Wars.  There are more fans than ever and the original trilogy are hailed as American classics.  But I still found myself wondering whether or not they really fell into the cult films category.  Hopefully I can get the opinions of my fellow classmates.

Moving on to this week, we started by having a brief lecture wrapping up what we finished talking about the week before on Maniac, and while I could say a few things about the movie, I’d rather not.  I get why it’s important but after seeing it twice now (yes I for some reason subjected myself to that movie once before) I can say that it still did nothing for me and it was a bad movie.  We can move on to other movies now though with the knowledge of how it all started.  We had a couple of students talk a little about Maniac and cult film definitions and it really cemented in the readings, that was a job well done.  Later in the week we had our screening, American Grindhouse.  It’s been a little while since I’ve seen it and I forgot how much fun it is.  I think it was a great way for the whole class to not only learn about the history of grindhouse and what it’s importance was on the movie industry but also it’s a great introductory piece for everyone to watch so that they know what they’re getting themselves into.  I’m excited for next week and to watch Detour!