Correction Appended
With Halloween quickly approaching, it seems to be an appropriate time to watch movies about death. In the Dartmouth Film Society's series for the Fall term, "Six Feet Under," zombies, suicides, terminal illnesses and murders began hitting the Spaulding Auditorium screen at the Hopkins Center last month.
The film series, the brainchild of Sarah Maxwell Crosby '04 and Dan Maxwell Crosby 02, has "something for everybody," according to A.J. Fox '09, director of the Dartmouth Film Society. The goal of the series, Fox said in an interview with The Dartmouth, is to "try to get something from all around the world."
Fox is a former member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff.
The series commenced on Sept. 23 with the critically acclaimed horror film "Drag Me to Hell" (2009), directed by Sam Raimi. Also playing in the first weeks of the term were "The Hurt Locker" (2009), about a U.S. bomb squad team in Iraq, and "Funny People" (2009), the Judd Apatow original in which Adam Sandler stars as a washed-up comedian who is diagnosed with cancer.
The series continues Wednesday night with "Dead Man" (1995). Johnny Depp stars in this story of a love triangle gone wrong. On the run for his life, he meets the enigmatic Nobody, an American Indian, whom he joins on a spiritual journey.
"The Barbarian Invasions," the 2003 Best Foreign Language winner, will be shown on Oct. 14. "Invasions" is a poignant French comedy about a French-Canadian professor who tries to get a grip on life after a diagnosis of brain cancer.
The Quentin Tarantino movie "Inglorious Basterds" (2009) follows on Oct. 18. In this dark comedy, Brad Pitt plays the commander of a Jewish battalion of soldiers in Nazi-occupied France. Their main objective is quite bluntly to kill Nazis.
The classic "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928) will screen on Oct. 21. The film previously thought have been destroyed in a fire was rediscovered in 1981 in perfect condition. The screening in Spaulding Auditorium will feature live musical accompaniment by Bob Merrill.
Despite the film series' morbid theme, many of the selected films are rather comedic, as with "Shaun of the Dead" (2004). Showing on Oct. 31, "Shaun" is a satirical British film in which Simon Pegg, a no-good employee and a neglectful boyfriend, must save the day after the flesh-hungry undead rise from the depths.
"Jennifer's Body" (2009), playing Nov. 15, also has a comedic take on death. In the film, a demonic appetite for boys overpowers a teenager (Megan Fox) who must be controlled by her best friend (Amanda Seyfried) before it's too late. Although there were initially high hopes for the film, "Jennifer's Body" failed to do well at the box office, despite the dual draws of Fox, whose "Transformers" series is one of the highest-grossing franchises of all time, and writer Diablo Cody, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "Juno" (2007).
The DFS series will come to a close with the film "The Loved One," a 1965 satire directed by the Oscar award winner Tony Richardson. It tells the unexpected story of a poet who finds himself entangled in the local politics of a Hollywood funeral home. Among the many colorful characters in the film is an unusual coffin salesman played by Liberace.
