SCIENCE ON SCREEN
| pairing hard science with entertaining films
This pilot program is an initiative of The Coolidge Corner Theatre with major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Science on Screen
Science on Screen creatively pairs area scientists with entertaining films.
- Films in the series will be accompanied by lively talks from notable experts in the fields of science, technology and medicine.
- Each film serves as a jumping off point for the speaker to share insights from scientific research or discuss technological advances in a way that engages popular audiences.
Little Shop of Horrors
Rick Moranis plays nebbishy Seymour Krelborn, who works in a rundown flower shop on Skid Row. While his boss (Vincent Gardenia) bemoans the lack of business, Seymour seeks a way of bringing the shop -- and himself -- fame and fortune. He purchases a strange plant from an even stranger oriental street vendor (Vincent Wong), naming the plant after his girlfriend Audrey (Ellen Greene). Gradually, Seymour learns to his horror that "Audrey II" craves blood and flesh. With each of Audrey II's "FEEED MEEE"s, Seymour must scare up human food to satisfy the plant's appetite. One such victim is dentist Steve Martin, a leather-jacketed Elvis type. The lighthearted tone of the film darkens as Audrey II grows in monstrosity.
(1986, USA, 94 mins)
Sir Peter Crane is Dean of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and a Professor of Botany at Yale University. His work focuses on the diversity of plant life: its origin and fossil history, current status, and conservation and use. Dean Crane has been the director of the Field Museum in Chicago and the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, one of the largest and most influential botanical gardens in the world. Dean Crane was elected to the Royal Society (the U.K. academy of sciences) in 1998. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a member of the German Academy Leopoldina. He was knighted in the U.K. for services to horticulture and conservation in 2004. Dean Crane currently serves on the Board of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas, and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.
Topic: Carnivorous plants.
