Old Regime movie cult gains ground

Dirty, disgusting films popular among college students

MADISON, Wisc. (RWN) - It takes a password to get in. You have to be recommended by two different members of the group before you even get a tryout. And you have to have a strong stomach.

Welcome to "The Starlings," a University of Wisconsin underground club. There are, roughly, 25 of them and they meet in old theaters, in basements of houses, wherever they can set up DVD players without being caught. They have codenames such as "Batman," and "Hudson Hawk," and "Misty."

And they indulge in sin - watching the movies of the old regime.

"If you look at it just from the standpoint of being time capsules, the films are invaluable," said a student who goes by the name of "Quint the Shark Hunter," a reference, he says, to the 1978 film Jaws, which is about a shark that eats people off the coast of New York.

"Just look at the beach in Jaws," Quint says. "Look how scantily clad the people are, and how they bathe together in the town of Amity. Then compare that, to, say, 2 Fast 2 Furious, which was done a little more than 20 years later. The people in that movie are far more sexily dressed, there's onscreen sex. You can see, in graphic terms, why the old regime declined.

"Also, the films just kick ass."

A female student, who goes by the name "Tank Girl," put her opinion in.

"The movies today are all geared towards making the authorities happy," she said. "Allah forbid that you offend the Black Robes or the government. The old regime movies may have been sinful and violent and stupid, but they least exercised a freedom of expression."

The group has theme nights - screenings of films followed by conversations about the films. Tonight, the theme is "Goldie Hawn - Feminist or Setback to the Cause," a discussion of an actress of the mid- to late-old regime who starred in a series of mediocre comedies. The three movies are Private Benjamin, The First Wives Club and The Banger Sisters.

"I think that we're engaging in a legitimate form of study and criticism here," said a student with the nickname "Indiana Jones," a reference to an action-adventure series of movies. "I don't think I'd want the Black Robes here to join in the conversation, but by seeing the past, we're really illuminating the future."



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