Alright, alright, alright 101

So, I just looked up "famous alumni of the University of Toronto" and found this list. My favourite is No. 32, where Ian Scott, the politician, is listed, but with a particularly hilarious picture of Scott Ian of Anthrax.

The fucking Internet, man.

Famous University Of Toronto Alumni

 

I've only heard of 4 of the top 10: Lorne Michaels, Donald Sutherland, Graham Bell, JK Galbraith.

Margaret Atwood is 44th, which seems absurd. Then again, I don't know much about the fame meter in Canada.

 

"alright"? It's all right. JFC, this is a board where people presumably know how to spell. Clean it up

 

It's ridiculous. She's hugely famous. She's our most famous living writer of fiction, I would guess, by a long way.

 

Hey, we never claim to not need a copy editor! And we have less of them than ever now.

 

From USC, too many to name. I did take a couple of photography classes, which were held in the Cinema department, and I do remember seeing Ron Howard walking around on campus.

 

So did I.

Had a number of classes from a Marxist who spent most of his classes stressing the importance of "subverting the dominant paradigm." He almost never directly addressed anything about film other than disgust at its value system.

The guy who taught History of Motion Pictures mostly faked his way through it and didn't seem to have much of an interest in the topic. He screened "Stranger Than Paradise" for us and explained why he found it so fascinating: Jim Jarmusch, the filmmaker, was a Hungarian immigrant, and made the film shortly after arriving in America to capture the feeling of being an outsider in a strange land. After the lecture I told him that Jarmusch was born in Ohio and went to NYU Film School. He didn't care. He liked his story more.

 

Has anyone seen The Beach Bum yet?

 

Alice Munro probably gives her a run for her money in that regard, right? And she's not even on the list.

 

Sam Walton: Killing Small Town America in Three Easy Steps

 

Yeah. She lives in my town and people whisper when she passes. But she didn't go to U of T, and Atwood is probably more famous besides, at least among younger generations, if only for The Handmaid's Tale.

 

That can happen in schools where film is more or less under the English department umbrella.