{"id":6852,"date":"2017-10-17T09:24:40","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T13:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6852"},"modified":"2018-05-29T07:03:13","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T11:03:13","slug":"columbus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6852","title":{"rendered":"Columbus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cA lot of today\u2019s Hollywood films don\u2019t have a lot of patience. They sort of expect the audience to get bored really quickly, so they\u2019re like, \u2018We\u2019ve got to have an explosion every 10 minutes.’\u201d That was said about the dystopian science-fiction sequel Blade Runner 2049<\/em>. It\u2019s hard then to imagine how a film like Columbus, <\/em>the debut film of writer\/director Kogonada, \u00a0<\/em>got made at all or that American audiences would sit through it. I liked it.<\/p>\n

Set in Columbus, Indiana, home to an astonishing collection of modernist architecture, the buildings speak to a young city resident, Casey (played by Haley Lu Richardson). She\u2019s been offered a chance to go to Boston to work and study with a prominent woman architect, but has decided to stay where she is, shelving books in the local library. She lives with her mother, recently recovered from a bad meth habit, and is afraid to leave her. They treat each other like thin-shelled eggs that require constant vigilance. She has an admirer at the library (Rory Culkin), who, like her mother, urges her to go.<\/p>\n

This stasis changes when she meets Jin (John Cho), the New York-based son of a prominent Korean architecture scholar who suffered a stroke while visiting the town. He\u2019s in the hospital and may never recover consciousness. He and Jin have had a distant relationship and Jin feels little connection now. He wants to get back to his life. The father is probably closer to his long-time assistant (Parker Posey), who, like Casey, has given up her individuality to play a supporting role.<\/p>\n

Richardson and Cho bring great depth to their parts, and it\u2019s a pleasure to watch them\u2014indeed, the entire cast\u2014work. There\u2019s not a lot of yelling or acting out. And not one explosion.<\/p>\n

The example of Casey, denying herself so much to protect her mother, weighs on Jin, just as his encouragement to follow her dream inspires her. This sounds simple, but the movie never drifts into the banal. The healing power of architecture is often referenced and the Columbus buildings, lit from inside at night or seen from odd angles, are stunningly beautiful. They loom over the characters studying them like benign watchmen. Arty, and satisfying\u2014as Sean P. Means<\/a> said in the Salt Lake Tribune<\/em>, \u201ca tender, beautiful gem that should not be overlooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics rating: 97%; audiences 84%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cA lot of today\u2019s Hollywood films don\u2019t have a lot of patience. They sort of expect the audience to get bored really quickly, so they\u2019re like, \u2018We\u2019ve got to have an explosion every 10 minutes.’\u201d That was said about the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Columbus - a movie about friendship & responsibility, with a surprising, stunning setting.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[366,682,57,104],"tags":[1103,1153,1152],"class_list":["post-6852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-fine-arts","category-movies","category-the-morgue","tag-architecture","tag-columbus-indiana","tag-kogonada"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-columbus","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6852"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7273,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852\/revisions\/7273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}