A current trend in Hollywood films this season seems to be the biopic, based on “true” lives, but often manipulative of those stories toward particular social ends. Some are less directly about “real” people than creating possible representative lives and characters, but the intents seem similar: to characterize a segment or aspect of society and […]
by David Schloss It was a rather good year for films, to my pleasant surprise. I found myself making meta-value judgments to sort out all the contenders, so many of which had many serious merits. It was a pleasure. 1. American Hustle. Great serious screwball script that sustains its complicated logic throughout. Great ensemble cast, […]
Film Reviews for January – March 2013 – David Schloss I had the flu for 6 weeks, so saw comparatively few films during this time. The standouts were Zero Dark Thirty by Kathryn Bigelow, with Jessica Chastain; Rust and Bone by Jacques Audiard, with Marion Cottillard and Matthias Schoenaerts (now On Demand, and reviewed in […]
Other Films of Note from 2012 –David Schloss There were many films I saw in Cincinnati last year that I thought deserving of honorable mentions. My best of 2012 list from last month was based on the same pool as the Golden Globes and Oscars Best Picture nominees, with a few exceptions: Django Unchained and […]
Best films lists of 2012 — David Schloss I’m considering films that showed in Cincinnati this past year, so here are my lists, in order of their playing here– a kind of top 20 playlist of films worth seeing. For the near future, Zero Dark Thirty, by Kathryn Bigelow, and Rust and Bone by Jacques […]
Goodbye Dragon Inn, by Tsao Reviewed by David Schloss Ming-Liang Tsao’s “Goodbye Dragon Inn” (2003), is a very odd film, indeed. Nothing much “happens” in this 90-odd minute film, but an atmosphere of regret, elegy and surprising surreal tension is often evoked and sustained. It was shown twice, years ago, at the Cincinnati Art Museum […]
By: David Schloss The best films I saw in the Cincinnati area in April were in the annual Tournees Francaise series at NKU, plus one at the Carnegie through Cincinnati World Cinema. The Tournee presents the best of recent French cinema that hasn’t played commercially here. Five films played twice each week at the new […]
There were a number of films that engaged “family matters’” shown in Cincinnati these past two months, most significantly the long-running Academy Award-winning Iranian A Separation, which truly deserved such acclaim. This heartbreaking drama of well-intentioned people drawn into conflicts over their differing agendas shows the difficulties of accommodating others’ (and one’s own) sincerely held […]
Films in Review: Some New Uses of Technology in the History of Film as Art: Color and 3D – with recent examples: Pina (Wim Wenders); Hugo (Martin Scorsese); The Artist (Michel Hazavicous) The use of color for serious artistic expression has a long history in film, with hand-tinting, (from the beginnings and into the late […]
Editor’s note: Some of my most interesting conversations about ÆQAI columns and/or issues raised therein occur between me and Dennis Harrington, the Director of The Weston Art Gallery in The Aronoff Center. In the fall, we were discussing a review that ÆQAI had published about Alison Crocetta’s exhibition and attendant video at The Weston. Dennis […]
