Editor’s Note: Landon is participating in a top secret experiment this week, so he’s invited colleague Joshua Coonrod to fill in for him. Your usual Culture Warrior and I teach at the same university (Indiana U – home of Breaking Away and the Hoosiers) in the same communications program. Amongst the most interesting things about teaching media studies at a major university is the sense you get of what young film students are interested in, what (few) films drive them into theaters, and how they understand the constantly shifting mediascape around them. While you obviously don’t have to be an academic to watch film, love it, study it and critique it (re: the title of this site), it is intriguing to consider how upcoming film students – who make a decision to invest copious amounts of time, energy, and money into the study of film – approach the medium. With all the end-of-year discussions of 2012’s best films, what have those students been heralding? From my experience – barely anything. I feel like there’s a lot of assumptions as to the answer to that question, though. Film students? They like foreign films, right? Really arty, cerebral shit? Don’t they want to prove themselves by knowing the most obscure, hard-to-find films? My semester began with a student introducing himself in (just about) the following way: “My favorite filmmaker is this director Quentin Tarantino. He made this film Inglourious Basterds. Everyone should really check it out.” People nodded. The student looked proud of himself. I stared blankly, wondering