Wexner Center Review

Last night’s Wexner Center screening was a success! Thank you to all who attended, especially those who decided to ride the chartered bus over. I’ve heard for years that many people had a desire to attend but were unable due to transportation issues and wished we provided it like in years past. This year we took a chance and tried it out, and I think it went well. I felt like the teacher on a field trip, taking roll and guiding my students on a fun experience.

The films were fun, but you have to have a taste for the ridiculous to fully enjoy them. The first movie was The Maze, an atmospheric but often ridiculous movie about a couple weeks away from their wedding who parts after he inherits a spooky old estate and has a complete change in personality. The abrupt end of the relationship causes her to go to him to win him back and overcome whatever obstacles he feels are in place, and her desire is understandable thanks to some excellent exposition scenes of them at a nightclub and a pool. The 3D is our to good use in this film, and it makes the movie seem very real and alive; I kept thinking how film truly keeps people who have been dead for decades alive as long as the film exists, supporting the important of restoration and preservation. The plot of this movie hinges on secrecy. If the new Lord has been honest about what was going on at the estate from the beginning, a lot of stress could have been avoided (but then we would have no movie). The unexplained deaths don’t make much sense either but it is a fun ride and the ridiculous reveal gave the audience a good belly laugh.

Gog was in color, but made less effective use of the 3D technology. For most of it I felt I was watching a 2D movie, and the few uses of the 3D felt exploitive rather than useful to moving the plot. It is one of those sci-fi movies that spawned out of the fear of the atomic bomb.