And the final list is:
Start Time Title
8:00pm(ish) Independence Day: Resurgence (2016, PG-13, DCP)
10:45pm      Metropolis (1927/2010 restoration, NR, DCP)
1:30am      Surprise 1 (????, PG-13, 35mm)
4:00am      Gulliver's Travels (1939, NR, Blu-ray)
5:30am      Death Race 2000 (1975, R, media TBD)
7:00am      Have Rocket Will Travel (1959, NR, 35mm)
9:15am      Akira (1988, R, Blu-ray)
11:30am      Surprise 2 (????, NR, DVD)
1:15pm      The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984, PG, 35mm film)
3:00pm      The Little Prince (1974, G, DVD)
4:45pm      Surprise 3 (????, PG, 35mm)
7:30pm      Arrival (2016, PG-13, DCP)
9:45pm      The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005, PG, 35mm)
11:45pm      Ghostbusters (2016, PG-13, 35mm)
I am going.
However with the exceptions of Three Stooges "classic" Have Rocket and possibly some Surprise, I share the experience of most people here of having seen every film listed.
Perhaps they've given up on the long term Thon audience and are programming for the students?
Since to the best of my memory the Surprises are always oldies, they probably won't change the experience.
The first & last are decent and recent. A couple are historic classics. Arriva is excellent (but I wish they'd stayed closer to the original short story.) Hitchiker is amiably flaky. You can rate Death Race, Buckaroo, & Akira yourselves.
But as a poster on the Columbus board said, CWRU has it's own charm. And the popcorn is still cheap.
I have seen fewer movies than most fans here, or many longtermers in Cleveland. Even with this level of familiarity the list is disappointing. Sad that CWRU has gotten so mundane.
A fair number of the selections, including two of the Surprises are 35 mm. I expect to attend both Boston and Columbus this year. I can only hope for a little more creativity in the programming.
Happy New Year from Cleveland!

pogo wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2017 at 12:18am:

I share the experience of most people here of having seen every film listed. Perhaps they've given up on the long term Thon audience and are programming for the students?

Well, you know that particular "long-term Thon audience" better than me, I expect, but I don't know that it's necessarily correct to presume that the regulars don't want a reasonably dose of familiarity; as much as new discoveries are part of the fun, a lot of people might feel they want assurances if they're going to carve out that much time and money for an event.

That's a pretty decent lineup, with a couple interesting eyebrow-raisers:  A bit surprised by the 35mm print for Ghostbusters '16 and the older version of The Little Prince; I've heard good things about the recent one that wound up getting buried theatrically in the US because Netflix bought it, and it seems like that would be something recent/underseen to put on the schedule.

I know there's 'controversy' over our tag as the 'longest-running genre marathon' with this Cleveland fest apparently beating our debut by a few weeks.

But, the one big advantage Boston has is that it is an ongoing organism that doesn't turn-over a good portion of it's audience every year (or every four years as it were). I think some of these choices reflect that. How many folks are clamouring for INDEPENDENCE DAY Part Deux at our event?

LA,
ALL HAIL BOSTON!!!
Not a controversy. I actually took great pleasure in the back & forth on the subject a couple of years ago.
Cleveland was first, but it is and was a much smaller and different sort of event.
Coming originally from Boston, my pointing out of their relative ages was just an attempt at a mild deflation of our Bostonian tendency to assert our natural superiority. For a real deflation I'll rely on the Cleveland Indians. ::)

To Jay's comment.
I agree with the thrust of your comment, familiarity does not necessarily breed contempt, but rather assurances of positive experience. It was the seeming uniform choices of the lineup that got to me. Even Death Race is well known shlock. And I have seen the Gulliver's many times.  Perhaps I have been around too long.
Since posting a friend commented that he had not seen the two newbies. Again, perhaps I overstated what was a very personal  reaction

Pogo, I did put controversy in quotes. It's all in good fun.

Even though I've known about Cleveland for decades it still amazes me that the two events could have started within weeks of each other. Talk about a cosmic coincidence!