Students interested in building their film and pop culture knowledge can join a new club at Mill Valley High School.
Earlier this month, the USD 232 Board of Education signed off on the school’s first-ever movie club, paving the way for the student-run group to start holding meetings.
The club had its first meeting last week, bringing a movie-focused discussion to the school’s media center.
It’s like a book club but for movies
- Reagan Swartz, a sophomore and the student founder, is the club’s first officer and Ashley Agre, the media center specialist, serves as the club’s faculty sponsor.
- They say the inspiration for the new club came from Mill Valley’s student book club, which recently read “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown.
- During the discussions about the book, many of the students talked about their experiences watching the movie and its sequels.
- From there, an idea for a movie club was born, and Swartz ran with it.
- “The idea kind of came to me that it’d be fun to do the same thing we do for book club but with movies,” Swartz said.
‘The Princess Bride’ is their first movie
- Members decide together which movie they want to watch, then view it individually, as you would read book for a book club.
- Then, after three weeks, they come back to discuss the film together after school.
- At their first first meeting — at which about 10 students attended — the club settled on the 1980s cult classic “The Princess Bride” to be their first movie.
- Ultimately, the plan is to cover a wide variety of films in many genres, all within the G to PG-13 rating range.
- “I know there’s a lot of kids who are very interested in movies they need to watch that are culturally needed so they understand references,” Agre said. “They want to talk about it.”
Movie snacks are also important to the club
- There will be time dedicated in each meeting to talking about the snacks each club member enjoyed while watching the movie, as well, Agre said.
- Plus, snacks are likely to make an appearance at the meetings as well.
- The goal, Swartz says, is to “get people together and have something fun to do after school.”
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