College circuit is a form of motion picture

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

where old films as well as new ones are shown on college campuses, usually in the evening. The selections range from art house fare to

wide release In the American motion picture industry, a wide release (short for nationwide release) is a film playing at the same time at cinemas in most markets across the country. This is in contrast to the formerly common practice of a roadshow theatrical r ...

films and cult classics (also see

midnight movies The term midnight movie is rooted in the practice that emerged in the 1950s of local television stations around the United States airing low-budget genre films as late-night programming, often with a host delivering ironic asides. As a cinematic ...

for a similar practice).

Origins

Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, classes in

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

theory and history began to be taught at colleges across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. To facilitate the growing interest in film, prints were screened for a reduced price for students. Several movies have been salvaged thanks to this practice, including most notably '' Citizen Kane''.

Criticisms

Some of the movies popular on college circuits throughout the years have been either controversial, or of specious

artistic merit Artistic merit is the artistic quality or value of any given work of art, music, film, literature, sculpture or painting. Obscenity and literary merit The 1921 US trial of James Joyce's novel '' Ulysses'' concerned the publication of the ''Naus ...

. The content of the movies often appeal to college-age sensibilities. Critics like Roger Ebert have expressed suspicion of such films when deemed "artistic", and instead charges them as misleading by presenting exploitive material (such as sex, violence, and drug use) by means that are more aesthetically-pleasing to those educated in

cinema studies Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for und ...

, and therefore they become more acceptable to an "intellectual audience". This is an argument sometimes leveled against '' Blue Velvet'' or the ouvre of Ken Russell.

References

{{Reflist Cinemas and movie theaters