Film Screenings

Sun 2 – Sun 30 Oct

Four films which reflect media pioneer Marshall McLuhan’s prescient predictions about technology and society and Annie Hall where the man himself makes a famous cameo appearance.

Fee: £4.60 full/£3.60 concs.

Still from Annie Hall by Woody Allen

Annie Hall 15
Sun 2 Oct 12:00
Dir: Woody Allen 1977 USA
1hr 33mins
Woody Allen plays the neurotic comedian who recalls his failed love affair with ditzy singer Annie (Diane Keaton) and attempts to get her back in perhaps his most quintessential film. McLuhan makes a memorable (and hilarious) cameo as a man who magically appears in a cinema queue to settle an argument. Vintage Allen.

Still from ExistenZ by David Cronenburg

ExistenZ 15
Sun 9 Oct 12:00
Dir: David Cronenberg 1999
Canada/UK 1hr 37mins
McLuhan argued that technology is an extension of human consciousness, an idea Cronenberg played with in this darkly funny, intelligent film where gamers are able to organically enter products and connect in a ‘global village’-style instant.

Still from The Social Network by David Fincher

The Social Network 12A
Sun 16 Oct 12:00
Dir: David Fincher ’10 USA
2hrs
In the 1960s McLuhan envisaged that changes in technology would shrink the world to create a network of people who would have a heightened sense of their collective identity. Sound familiar? Yes, he anticipated the 21st century’s ‘global village’: Facebook (500 million users and counting).

Still from by Life In A Day by Kevin Macdonald

Life In A Day 12A
Sun 23 Oct 12:00
Dir: Kevin Macdonald
’11 USA/UK 1hr 35mins
This patchwork of YouTube clips made on a single day (July 24, 2010) is a compelling look at the way we live today through the lenses of tens of thousands of people around the world. The YouTube global village in one film!

Still from Videodrome by David Cronenburg

Videodrome 18
Sun 30 Oct 12:00
Dir: David Cronenberg 1983
Canada 1hr 29mins
When television executive Max Renn (James Woods) discovers the Videodrome, a pirate signal which broadcasts snuff TV, he quickly becomes obsessed – and thrown into a technological conspiracy to remake the human race in its own image.