Are you looking to earn extra credit in some of your tough political science classes? If so, the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs has your free ticket to a better grade: “Dinner and a Movie.”
Last month, the school kicked off the first “Dinner and a Movie” with Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove,” a movie set in the 1960s during the communist scare in America. “Dr. Strangelove” features the hard decisions foreign policy leaders were making 46 years ago when the world was being threatened with nuclear war.
Every couple of weeks, the school will play a political movie, serve pizza and popcorn and host a discussion after the movie by one of the faculty members. For extra credit, students will be expected to turn in a paper that creatively ties one of the movies in with an ongoing political issue.
Ashley O’Donnell, a senior, attended the first “Dinner and a Movie” hosted by instructor Christopher Saladino.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to get to see a movie and understand it better in a setting with other people our age,” she said. “Also, you get free pizza, and it’s a great learning experience.”
Oula Al-hussaini, a junior, hoped the discussion after the movie would tie in with North Korea’s nuclear testing program going on now.
“I hope that professor Saladino will connect this to what’s going on in North Korea and maybe draw some interesting parallels,” said Al-hussaini.
Saladino hopes to help students link today’s issues with yesterday’s problems by putting his education of foreign policy and his hobby of being a war-movie buff to good use.
He said the North Korean detonation last month “may be 10 percent of the explosion from one of the atomic bombs in 1945. And yet, the world is pretty riled up because the North Koreans have detonated a half a kilo ton device.”
That’s the kind of intellectual thought students may chew on at the new, biweekly “Dinner and a Movie” events. Students now have the chance to raise their GPA while kicking back and watching a good movie.
Look for these movies this fall
Here are some of the movies to be shown by the Wilder School. The school does not have a schedule of show times. For that information, you can contact the VCU commons student desk or e-mail instructor Christopher Saladino (cjsaladino@vcu.edu) or associate professor Judy Twigg (jtwigg@vcu.edu). The Wilder School plans to continue the “Dinner and a Movie” sessions during the Spring 2007 semester.
“No Man’s Land,” an Academy Award-winning film by Danis Tanovic. Using a satirical spin, it shows the brutality and horror of the Kosovo War in the Balkans during the early 1990s.
“Welcome to Sarajevo” by Michael Winterbottom. It highlights the international negotiations that were working to end the Kosovo War.
“The Last Just Man,” Steven Silver’s account of the Rwandan genocide as told by Canadian Lt. General Romeo Dallaire.
“The Manchurian Candidate.” This is the original 1962 film by John Frankenheimer, starring Frank Sinatra. It follows a U.S. platoon in Korea that was captured and brainwashed in China during the Korean War.
“Hearts and Minds,” a documentary that examines the psychological aspects of why America went to war in Vietnam. The film includes interviews with Robert Kennedy, Gen. William Westmoreland, American Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese leaders.
“Fahrenheit 9/11,” the documentary by Michael Moore that examines the current Bush administration and its link to the Iraqi War.
“Hotel Rwanda.” This 2004 movie shows the harrowing experience of a hotel manager in his experience during the genocide in Rwanda.
“The Killing Fields,” an adaptation of New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg’s reports during the 1975 takeover of the communist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.