It’s not every day students are immersed in a universe ranging from body-snatching aliens to bug-eyed monsters from Mars to trips to the Moon by space capsule. However, Instructor Glenn Lovell takes his students beyond the confines of Earth into a world only limited by the imagination. Lovell teaches Science Fiction Cinema (F/TV-041) in room AT 120 and said that sci-fi is one of his favorite genres. He grew up during the “Movie Generation” when critics “came of age watching low-budget sci-fi and horror on TV.” “Psycho,” by Alfred Hitchcock, remains his favorite film, revealed Lovell, “because movies are about manipulation, and that one manipulates the audience better than any movie I’ve seen.” Not only is he knowledgeable about films, he was also a movie critic for the San Jose Mercury News and has interviewed some of the greatest Hollywood producers and directors, such as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, George Lucas, Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino. One of Lovell’s memorable interviews was the “colorful” Tarantino during his early days of filmmaking. In an article Lovell wrote for the Mercury News in 1992, Tarantino said, ”I write like an actor acts. What I do is just get the characters talking to each other and jot down what they say. It’s like I’m playing the parts. I’m good at dialogue. I like word plays. I just have a good memory. It’s not so much jotting down the exact things I overhear at Denny’s, but the rhythm in which things are said.” Lovell’s experiences and passion for film further enhances the classroom experience. He likes to teach at De Anza College because he gets to develop courses, such as sci-fi cinema, and work alongside such dedicated F/TV professors as Susan Tavernetti and Zaki Lisha. “I also like the fact that it’s an intimate campus,” said Lovell. “For me, every class is a two-way street. I learn as much from students as they hopefully learn from me.” Lovell will continue to teach film in the spring quarter with a new Film Artist class (F/TV-043). It will combine directors Sam Peckinpah and Tarantino, “a perfect twosome because of their controversial styles involving blood, gore, and violence. This course will not be a typical class memorizing dates and terms but dedicated more to psychoanalyzing the directors based on what they’ve said in interviews. I like to put filmmakers in context, take a close look at who influenced them.” Lovell is also finishing up a book that he has worked on for 10 years about John Sturges, who directed such action classics as “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape.”

“If you teach something you’re passionate about, it’s not work. It’s a good time,” said Lovell.