Cheap campus flicks fire up Fridays

There's nothing like the freedom that Fridays bring to college students all over the nation. With a long stretch of weekend ahead, the bliss of Friday night makes Monday morning seem distant, and a great way to spend a Friday night is by heading out to the cinema. Unfortunately, a lot of people share the idea that long lines and sold-out shows make it difficult to see movies. The UO Cultural Forum has a solution to this problem: Friday Nite Flicks.

With popular box-office hits such as "Shrek 2," "Anchorman" and "Spiderman 2," Friday Nite Flicks gives students the opportunity to see movies at a low price in a convenient location: Prince Lucien Campbell 180. Not only that, but viewers have the power to decide what movies will be shown, with choices such as "The Bourne Supremacy," "The Village," Jet Li's "Hero," and "Troy."

The movies featured are fresh out of the box-office theater and haven't hit the local Blockbuster quite yet. This gives students the chance to see pre-home video movies in a movie-theater-style atmosphere at a discounted price: $1.50 for students with ID and children, and $3 for general admission. And Friday Nite Flicks provides two showtimes a night -- one at 7:30 p.m. and again at 10 p.m.

Friday Nite Flicks is new to the University. A special program set up by movie distributing company Swank, for college campuses across the U.S., made Friday Nite Flicks available to the University as a fun, safe and inexpensive way to spend a Friday night without having to leave campus.

Freshman biology majors Amy Quinn and Alex Freauff attended Friday's showing of "Shrek 2." "I hadn't seen it, and it looked like a fun thing to do," Quinn said. "I'll probably come back again."

"I'll definitely be here for 'Anchorman' next week," Freauff said.

Although it's a good way to spend a night with the family, Friday Nite Flicks is aimed and intended for students. The movie companies prevent the University from advertising off campus, which can create road bumps for publicity. "We can only advertise on campus, in the dorms and in the Emerald," UO Cultural Forum adviser Darrel Kau said. "We can't even advertise over the airwaves because it reaches an audience too far from the University."

With a limitation set on promotion, Friday Nite Flicks had difficulty getting off the ground in their first scheduled event. For both showings, they had a total of about 50 in attendance, but Kau remains hopeful. "Our goal is that by the end of this term, we'll have a full house," he said.

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