Arts

Offering a spectrum that runs from whimsical to meticulous, Columbus College of Art and Design's Impact-Influence exhibit opened to the public Jan. 16 in the Carnegie Gallery on the second floor of the Main Library. The show is co-sponsored by the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Friends of the Library, Ohio Arts Council and CCAD and features the talents of the school's Continuing & Professional Studies instructors. “Columbus Metropolitan Library is proud to showcase the incredible works of so many talented CCAD instructors and faculty,” says Gregg Dodd, director of marketing for CML. “CML’s Carnegie Gallery provides a public forum for the community to interact with the visual arts created by both emerging and established artists. The talents and techniques highlighted through this diverse exhibit shouldn’t be missed.” The work that immediately confronts the viewer on entry to the gallery is Esther Chung's Alexie, a sculpture composed of end of mill upholstery cotton. While simplistic in construction it is flamboyant in display.

On Tuesday, January 28, the Columbus Film Council, The Free Press and RadioactiveWasteAlert will present a Free Fourth Tuesday Double Feature of both Gasland at 5.30 p.m. and Gasland Part II at 7.30 p.m. Both screenings are at the Drexel Theatre, 2254 E Main St in Bexley. The screenings are one night only and admission to either or both films is free. Donations are encouraged. Director Josh Fox will be skyping in after the screening of Gasland Part II to talk with the audience. In 2008, filmmaker Josh Fox was offered $100,000 for mineral rights from a company interested in hydraulic fracturing, better known as “fracking,” on his family’s land in rural Pennsylvania. Curious (and perhaps sensing a great story) he took off around the country in his 1992 Toyota Camry with very little money, a banjo and a lot of charm.

The title of Shadowbox Live’s latest sex-and-relationship show—Foreplay—reminds me of a comment I made about one of its predecessors. In a long-ago review, I said watching it was like experiencing really bad foreplay that miraculously led to really good sex. You can’t make a comment like that these days, as Shadowbox no longer puts on theme shows that ricochet between really bad and really good. True, they may have segments that are kind of weak or bland, but the directors, writers and performers have honed their ability to keep the audience interested until the good stuff starts. The upshot is that at the end of Foreplay, I felt like I’d seen a basically decent show. But I also realized that only a few of the skits had really stood out—far fewer than in the last two versions of Shadowbox’s annual sex-and-relationship show. Coincidentally or not, two of this year’s top skits feature veteran performers Tom Cardinal and Stacie Boord.

Over the holiday week I sat down via Facebook to catch up with Columbus’s #1 BB Girl, the comic book and performance artist Left Handed Sophie. We discussed the internet, gender evolution and the super hero within everyone. AJ. What kind of art you do? LHS: I consider my art sincere modern pop art, my foundation is cartooning and performance art which I consider very similar. I also incorporate the social network as a medium which i think is exciting and new, all to create an aesthetic I call "Left Handed Sophie." I see it as almost a multimedia mythology. AJ. Who is Left Handed Sophie? LHS: She's The Albino Queen of The Jungle, which has multiple meanings, but basically she's a young girl with advance psychic abilities who's been under surveillance her whole life by a shadow government who specializes in creating superhumans. They abduct her and attempt to harness her energy, she escapes and uses what she's learned against them becoming a super-heroine by transforming to an adult "super version" of herself...that's basically who she is. AJ. How long have you been making this character? LHS: I’ve had her in my head for about 10 years now. AJ.

Relationships can be tough. I think we’d all accept that as a given, whether we’re talking about the family kind of relationship or the lovey-dovey kind. In two movies opening in Columbus this weekend, people face various kinds of relationship problems. In the better of the two, a lonely man actually tries to make a computer program his “significant other.” But before we visit that late-arriving piece of 2014 Oscar bait, let’s look at a far more traditional entry.

Things aren’t OK in Oklahoma

August: Osage County, directed by John Wells and adapted by Tracy Letts from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, delves into the lives of the dysfunctional Weston family. When the alcoholic father (Sam Shepard) suddenly disappears, its far-flung members are forced to return to their Oklahoma homestead. There they try to comfort each other in a time of crisis, but they’re too consumed by their own problems and neuroses to be successful. Did I call the Westons dysfunctional? Actually, that doesn’t begin to describe them. Before their tale is over, we’ve witnessed drug abuse, infidelity, incest and even attempted statutory rape.

Located in the Short North, in a renovated historical building across from Goodale Park, the Pizzuti Collection houses world renowned artwork from the collection of Rob and Ann Pizzuti. The artwork varies from underrepresented contemporary artists from around the globe to some of the biggest names in the art canon. These artists are not afraid to speak about the politics of the world around them and Pizzuti gallery is not afraid to share their voices with Columbus. One of the walls of the gallery state “Politics and other host issues are not avoided; rather difficult, challenging and tough are adjectives that describe many of the important works in the collection.” The Cuban Experience exhibition on the main floor displays a spectacular assortment of the various Cuban voices and political points of view. Teresita Fernandez’s piece “Stacked Smoke” is a wall of frosted plexiglass blocks stacked six feet by six feet. Images of clouds or billowing smoke are printed in browns and light blue. At first the piece gives a sense of both beauty and dreamy view of a digital blocked sky. It is clean and stacked in a minimalist style. That mood changes upon closer viewing.

 At a pivotal point in Saving Mr. Banks, Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) explains that the purpose of storytelling is to supply the happy endings that real life often denies us. Of course, you can’t say that about all storytelling. The Coen brothers, for instance, revel in stories in which happiness is a rare commodity. Inside Llewyn Davis is but the latest example. Other filmmakers may leave their characters happy, but they don’t necessarily leave their viewers happy. In American Hustle, director David O. Russell supplies a denouement that can be celebrated only if you share his peculiar conception of right and wrong. But the average Disney film leaves everyone happy. Saving Mr. Banks—a Disney film about the making of another Disney film, 1964’s classic Mary Poppins—stays true to form. That helps to explain why, while it may not be the best film opening this pre-holiday weekend, it may well leave the most people the most satisfied. To find out whether you’re “most people,” read on: Inside Llewyn Davis When we first meet folk singer Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), he’s holding forth in a Greenwich Village club in 1961.

A few Decembers ago, I wrote a column complaining that Columbus had no local productions of A Christmas Carol. I went so far as to suggest that people travel to Cincinnati or Cleveland to catch the heartwarming holiday chestnut. No need for that this year. We now have no fewer than three local shows that spread Charles Dickens’s timeless message of generosity and redemption. One is a musical (Shadowbox Live’s Scrooge), one features a female Scrooge (Columbus Civic Theater’s A Christmas Carol), and one is a new adaptation that amounts to a play within a play. Written by Patrick Barlow and presented by CATCO, this version begins as a small group of British actors gather in a deserted London theater during World War II. After one of them passes out copies of the script, they begin acting out the familiar story of the 19th century skinflint who considers the Christmas season an affront to rationality. In other words, “humbug.” How do World War II and the German blitzkrieg dovetail into Dickens’s morality tale? Well, they don’t. After doling out the parts, the fictitious actors simply go about the business of leading us through Scrooge’s spiritual journey.

You wouldn’t expect a revenge thriller from the director of 2009’s Crazy Heart. But if you got one, you’d expect it to be as grittily atmospheric as Out of the Furnace. Co-written and directed by Scott Cooper, the tale unfolds against the backdrop of an Appalachian Pennsylvania steel town filled with grimy poverty and despair. It’s here that Russell Baze (Christian Bale) works extra shifts at the mill in hopes of building a life with girlfriend Lena (Zoe Saldana). Meanwhile, family keeps demanding his attention. His father is dying, and his brother, Rodney (Casey Affleck), keeps piling up gambling debts. Warm-hearted and nurturing to a fault, Russell tries to protect Rodney from his own mistakes until a traffic accident changes everything. Russell ends up in prison and doesn’t get out until Rodney—now a former soldier and current bare-knuckle fighter—is in three times as much trouble as he was before. All this sounds like the makings of a touching family drama, but Cooper never lets us forget where it’s going. Before the credits even roll, we’ve already gotten an eyeful of the evil that’s lying in wait for the Bazes.

Going to Holiday Hoopla is one of Columbus’s scarier annual traditions. You never know just what to expect. When Shadowbox Live presented its first Hoopla 21 years ago, the highlights were a touching one-act play and a flaky lounge act called the Santa Babies. Other than bringing back the comical Babies each year, the troupe has been tweaking and re-tweaking the show’s formula ever since. In recent years, it’s tried tying the whole evening together with one plot line (bad idea) and dropping such beloved elements as the gorgeous harmonized tune Children Go Where I Send Thee (terrible idea). But rest assured, Hoopla fans. The 2013 version is one of the best. Things do slow down a bit toward the end, but most of the show strikes just the right balance between laughs and music, edginess and sentiment. The Act 1 skits are particularly clever, starting with Christmas Tree Plea, which pits a jaded hipster (Jamie Barrow) against a talking evergreen (Stacie Boord).