The Hunting Ground (March 16 at the Night Light Cinema in Akron)

[THE HUNTING GROUND screens Thursday March 16th at 7:00 pm at the Nightlight Cinema in Akron.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Call it urgent victim-culture programming for Women’s History Month, or call it (as I would prefer) a warning to anyone seriously thinking of sinking a fortune into a college education, when diplomas are largely worthless in today’s no-jobs economy. But Kirby Dick’s incendiary feature THE HUNTING GROUND will stick with you, and prove that feminism and sexism are no match for the biggest “ism” of all – tuitionism.

The documentary is a blistering expose about how "sexual violence has always been part of the college experience," as one interviewee puts it.

But in Great Recession America, the filmmakers charge, universities are so greed-driven and desperate as to resist expelling known sex predators - especially if the violators are student athletes crucial to sports success/largesse, and brothers in powerful fraternities.

Rape victims, meanwhile (including male ones), find themselves facing unsympathetic campus law enforcement and open hostility from peers (particularly when a BMOC football hero is accused).

22 Jump Street

Review by Pete Roche

We didn’t catch 21 JUMP STREET in theatres in 2012.  Sure, we saw all the posters advertising the Jonah Hill / Channing Tatum police comedy, but didn’t think in a million years that a farcical movie adaptation of FOX’s hip late ‘80s crime series would fly.  

After all, the TV show (1987-1991) was a dark, edgy drama starring an up-and-coming Johnny Depp.  Both Hill and Tatum had already racked up some hot-shot cinema creds (Hill for SUPERBAD and MONEYBALL, Tatum for STEP UP and G.I. JOE:  RISE OF COBRA), but what were the chances their buddy cop caper would hit with audiences?

The 39th annual CWRU Film Society Science-Fiction Marathon invades Jan. 17-18

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Ever since LeBron left, the only thing significant about Cleveland, we can all agree, is the Case Western-Reserve University Science-Fiction Marathon, a customary kickoff to the winter-spring series of the CWRU Film Society.

Each year, on a weekend, an estimated 250 people are in Strosacker Auditorium, on the CWRU Campus, for the student film society's January science-fiction Marathon. Put on since 1975, it's been a campus tradition even before STAR WARS (the first one, the real one) came out. In the movie-fanatic world, the CWRU Sci-Fi Marathon has a national reputation as an endurance test for fans of SF and fantasy, immersed for a day and a half in nonstop fantasy features, shorts and trailers.

At Berkeley (December 5th and 6th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[AT BERKELEY screens Thursday December 5th at 6:45 pm and Friday December 6th at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I've been starting to Tweet my dreams, when they can be summarized to 180 characters (and if I remember them, and if they're at all entertaining). You can follow and psychoanalyze me at "#cassxdy" if you care. And I'll save you the trouble and bandwidth at present by telling you my most recent odd dream right here and now.

In the dream I was newly hired at some kind of TV production company, one behind a popular British CSI-crime drama. These studios were located near or in downtown Cleveland. There was no glamour; the reception-area looked like an old concrete garage or repurposed warehouse, with a few other businesses leasing space. There was a constant stream of delivery folks, of acting and crew hopefuls and my job, part-time and rudimentary, seemed to be as a doorman or something. I wasn't even certain what my working hours/days were, making it worrisome how I was to fit this in between my other minimum-wage going-nowhere part-time jobs. Oh, and for some reason as I came to work I had no pants on. I was hoping nobody would notice.