Arts

To begin with let me give a disclaimer. This review is going to be really hard for me to do. I ought to admit that I really like the producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra's filmmaking sensibilities. When a movie stays with you for almost 30 years and if you still feel like you haven't gotten over it, like his film Parinda, then I guess you really like the filmmaker. If the only movie that you went to the theatre on two consecutive days, 3 Idiots, is made by the same filmmaker, then you really know that you really, really like this filmmaker.

My second reason is that I find it difficult to review someone's life. "Sanju," showing at AMC Village 18, is a movie based on a Indian actor Sanjay Dutt. Even though it is touted as a biography, it revolves only around two major life-altering experiences in the actor's life: his addiction to drugs and his legal battle for carrying illegal weapon. 

TRANSIT ARTS, a program of Central Community House (CCH) and the Columbus Federation of Settlements, is a youth arts development program working in partnership with the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education. TRANSIT ARTS transports young people to a place of discovery -- where creative abilities expand & doors open to a world of possibilities. Our team of inspiring professional artists guide and learn from young people as we travel together to reveal and nurture our talents and entrepreneurial abilities.

TRANSIT ARTS engages young people, ages 12-21, with a wide variety of interactive, multi-disciplinary arts workshops. Workshops are FREE for youth members. TRANSIT ARTS activities are made possible through support from: United Way of Central Ohio; Franklin County Board of Commissioners, The Ohio Arts Council, and The Puffin Foundation through the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education; the Alfred L. Wilson Charitable Fund of The Columbus Foundation, and individual contributors. *The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Franklin County Board of Commissioners

Shortly after the Columbus Community Pride festival started on Saturday, June 16 at Mayme Moore Park in Columbus, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy – an activist for more than 50 plus years fighting for Black Tran’s Liberation – gave a speech on stage to kick things off. She talked about how the LGBTQIA+ Community needs to continue to be more inclusive for the sake of Stonewalls Pride Festival and the importance of staying true to what the festival stands for.

The physical toll that football takes on athletes has been a source of controversy in recent years. A new and offbeat movie looks at the toll paid by an athlete who practices an even more dangerous sport: rodeo.

The Rider has garnered attention not only because of its absorbing tale but because the cast consists of people who experienced nearly identical events in the real world. Rather than relying on professional actors, writer-director Chloe Zhao tells her fictionalized version of Brady Jandreau’s life with the help of Jandreau and his friends and family.

Jandreau plays Brady Blackburn, a Native American horse trainer and bronco rider who suffered a nearly fatal head injury after falling under a horse’s hooves. We meet him as he’s attempting to get his life back—to the extent that’s possible. Providing a mixture of encouragement and insults is his alcoholic father, Wayne (Tim Jandreau), while more consistent moral support is offered by his intellectually challenged sister, Lilly (Lilly Jandreau), and a host of friends.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Already a surfeit of books about the two men are in the stores. Indeed, books about the sixties in general and 1968 in particular are now in high demand.

Kennedy and King looks at the herculean battle over civil rights through two of its larger-than-life protagonists: President John F. Kennedy, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The junior senator from Massachusetts was working double time to be chosen as the Democratic nominee in the 1960 presidential election. Wealthy, handsome and charismatic, Kennedy was only one of many Democrats interested in running that year. His record in Congress was thin, and he was seen as a dilettante and playboy. Liberals such as former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt found him wanting; his pragmatism generally won out over idealism. And while not a dyed-in-the-wool racist, Kennedy was like millions of northern, urban whites who seemed to be uninterested in and untouched by northern de facto racism.

Tuesday, May 8, 5:30-8:30pm
Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant
Photojournalist Sahar Fadaian and journalist Leticia Wiggins created Dreamers of Columbus to showcase DACA recipients living in Columbus. Sahar initiated this project to portray an intimate face of Dreamers that goes beyond the headlines we've all seen and into their personal lives. Free. 

When the mother of an Israeli soldier finds dour-faced people in uniforms at her door, she doesn’t have to be told why they’re there. Her grief is immediate—and immediately quashed. The visitors plunge a hypo into the woman’s leg and send her into a coma-like slumber.

Thus begins Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot, a three-part tale set in a country that has spent most of its seven decades in something resembling a state of war.

The first part focuses on Michael Feldmann (Lior Ashkenazi), father of a young soldier who reportedly was killed in the line of duty. Though Michael reacts to the news with more control than wife Daphna (Sarah Adler), his outer calm only masks a growing sense of panic and outrage.  

Due to a plot twist and a shift in time, the second (and most effective) part of the film takes us to the outpost where the Feldmanns’ son, Jonathan (Yonatan Shiray), guards a remote road along with three comrades. The young soldiers’ days consist of long stretches of boredom relieved by tense exchanges with Palestinian motorists waiting to be approved for passage.

Just hours before attending a preview screening of I Feel Pretty, I happened to be riding a stationary bike at my gym when the nearest TV showed Amy Schumer plugging the flick on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

DeGeneres praised the comedy, as you might expect, but she had especially kind words for the Schumer character’s final speech. She hinted that the consciousness-raising moment is the best part of the film.

Judging from the early reviews, many agree that I Feel Pretty has an important message, but they also seem to feel it undermines that message in a way that’s clumsy at best, unconscionable at worst. So when I say I actually enjoyed the flick, maybe I need to stress that I did not fall off that stationary bike and hit my head before seeing it.

Written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein—and engagingly performed by Schumer and the rest of the cast—the comedy takes on society’s obsession with physical perfection and the damaging effects it has on the self-esteem of women and girls.

La La Land was pelted with jokes galore for its alleged depiction of a white man who wanted to “save” jazz. Personally, I thought the attacks were unfair. The way I saw it, Ryan Gosling’s character was simply a white musician who idolized and was inspired by black jazz icons.

So why do I have such an uncomfortable feeling watching Flock of Four, the story of a white high school student who idolizes and is inspired by a black jazz icon? Maybe because the modest little film tries to tackle the issues of race and cultural appropriation head on, and it does it in a way that’s sometimes awkwardly self-conscious and embarrassingly naïve.  

Directed and co-written by Gregory Caruso, Flock of Four partially makes up for this shortcoming by taking us on a pleasant journey through a pivotal era in Southern California’s musical history.

The good news: By 2045, Columbus has bucked its opioid addiction. The bad news: It’s replaced it with something far worse.

Our hometown is depicted as the headquarters of a virtual playground called the Oasis in Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg’s new sci-fi blockbuster. So seductive is this escape from reality that most of the world’s population spends its days donning interactive gear, creating avatars and sending them off on mind-blowing adventures.

The phenomenon has turned Columbus into the planet’s fastest-growing burg, but the growth spurt has been a painful one. Many residents—including our teenage hero, Wade (Tye Sheridan)—live in the “Stacks,” a slum consisting of mobile homes piled on top of each other. Impoverished by the Oasis’s demands on their time and money, they have little hope of ever bettering themselves.

We enter this dystopian future at a time when the mogul behind the Oasis, a man named Halliday (Mark Rylance), has died after launching a contest to choose his heir. Wade, with the help of his avatar, Parzival, is confident he’s up to the challenge.