As a special sneak preview tonight, the film “Biker Boyz” is being screened for the students of Ohio State at the Ohio Union. The film, staring Laurence Fishburne, Orlando Jones, Lisa Bonet and Kid Rock, centers around a black-only motorcycle club and its president Manuel (Fishburne) trying to retain his championship title.
So, in other words, its a movie about sex, violence and fast bikes — “The Fast and the Furious” for the motorcycle crowd.
To put it a third way, it’s a movie for the stupid.
But this column isn’t about why “Biker Boyz” should never have been made. It’s not even about the joke of Kid Rock trying to act. Instead, this is about why it’s being screened here, on our college campus.
Dreamworks Pictures, the distribution company, and its associated and independent promotion companies think we are complete idiots. They think we’ll buy anything wrapped up in shiny paper and a rock star. If it’s flashy and full of nudity, they think we’ll gobble it up.
Before I place all of the blame on the studios though, the average college student plays right into the studio’s hands, rushing to see the mediocrity they dump on college audiences. Last year, some of the most popular advance screenings were of “How High” and “Sorority Boys,” two films with so few redeeming elements, they should be burnt and forgotten forever.
Over the past few years, the studios tested OSU with other types of films, but they have been massive flops. The Cuban Missile Crisis drama “Thirteen Days” won massive critical appeal and deserved much more acclaim than it got. The screening in the Union only had a smattering of people in attendance. The same was true for Christopher Nolan’s thriller “Insomnia” and the Nicolas Cage war film “Windtalkers,” both fairly decent films.
If the movie studios are going to profile us by lumping college students into a collective bunch, let’s at least make it so they send good movies to be screened on campus. Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire teamed up to make a great college movie, “Wonder Boys,” the character study of an author and writing professor and his disfunctional and misguided student.
While it may not have college students dressing in drag or taking the walk of shame after a night of sex like “Sorority Boys,” it is a poignant tale of the two men’s relationship, often mirroring the darker and more realistic side of college life.
In high school, a friend once told me “I go to movies so I don’t have to think.” I understand that deeper films like “Wonder Boys” may not work for everyone and sometimes movies should exist as a way to escape the hectic nature of real life, but we, as college students, need to change the way we’re perceived.
We’re not all just a bunch of sex-crazy, beer-drinking slobs who want nothing more than to watch gross-out humor in between the sex and the drinking — some of us actually want to think during a trip to the movie theater, and the movie studios need to remember than before planning their next advance screening.
Todd LaPlace is a junior in journalism and The Lantern arts editor. He would like to dedicate this column to Carolyn, for being such a fan of his work. He can be reached for comments at [email protected].
