With one year of Penn State's out-of-state tuition, you can buy about 5,333 movie tickets at a movie theater.
But Penn State students and State College community members have free and convenient access to more than 100 movies each semester sponsored by various campus-affiliated organizations.
Campus lecture halls, home to many of the university's introductory courses during the day, serve as prime movie-viewing venues during the evening.
The Graduate Student Association (GSA) is once again running the Critically Acclaimed Film Experience (C.A.F.E.) for its 18th semester.
The C.A.F.E committee has organized the showing of 28 movies over 14 weeks -- two movies a week, beginning at 6:30 or 7 p.m. each Friday and Saturday night. For a complete schedule of times and locations, visit www.clubs.psu.edu/up/gsa.
Each film is a recently released foreign film or independent American film. C.A.F.E. chair Pouyan Amirshahi (graduate-electrical engineering) said the films are underrepresented or have never been shown in State College.
"We want more people to get involved so that we can bring movies [to State College] that we haven't thought of yet," Amirshahi said.
Anyone can suggest a movie for the C.A.F.E. lineup, including other Penn State clubs. Most of the films planned for this semester are critically acclaimed, Amirshahi said, and have received various film festival awards.
If moviegoers are interested in a specific type of film, they can choose from other campus series shown by groups such as Penn State's French department, the Earth and Mineral Sciences Library and the science, technology and society (STS) department.
The "Recent Films from France and the Francophone World," presented by the French department, will premiere the first movie in its series, Les Choristes, with English subtitles, at 6:30 tonight in 113 Carnegie.
"We want to provide greater awareness of the vitality and diversity of French culture," department head Thomas Hale said.
If the crowd can't catch the evening shows, the Earth and Mineral Sciences Library will display one of its many scientific films at 12:15 p.m. every Wednesday. The average length of each movie is only about 30 minutes, series coordinator Linda Musser said, so those who want to attend can view the entire show during their lunch hour.
"It's an opportunity to drop in and do something different over lunch," she said.
Most of the videos that the library shows are related to topics such as weather, geology, natural disasters, oceanography and geography.
"Of all the things, the disaster series was the most popular," Musser said. "Maybe because it is so visually engaging."
For a mixture of Hollywood and science, Penn State's science, technology, and society faculty put together a new group of films this semester that represents various aspects of the department. Until this year, STS had hosted a lecture series but has decided to switch their focus to films instead.
"The whole mission of STS is to gain public awareness ... so we thought that one of the things that does capture the public's attention is film," said Steve Walton, assistant science history professor.
Although all of the movies are major Hollywood productions, they all revolved around some type of science and technology. A new movie will be shown at 7 p.m. the first Thursday of every month in 113 Carnegie.
For additional information, search through the Penn State homepage, www.psu.edu.
