Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Martin Scorsese mines familiar territory in his latest crime drama, a leisurely study of organized crime through the eyes of Frank Sheeran, who became a confidant to Mafia bigwigs and—or so he says in his autobiography, I Heard You Paint Houses (which is also the onscreen title of the film)—was responsible for the disappearance of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa.

 

 

With unsurprisingly rich and varied performances by Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino, The Irishman is never dull even if it runs for nearly three and a half hours; the iffiest element is the special effects that de-age the leading men so they can play scenes taking places decades earlier: it doesn’t look bad, exactly, but it doesn’t look seamlessly believable either. Criterion’s edition includes a fine hi-def transfer and an extra disc of bonus features, including interviews with Scorsese, Pesci, Pacino and DeNiro; a featurette about the de-aging effects and a making-of documentary; and archival interview excerpts with the real Sheeran and Hoffa.

 

 

 

 

 

Frühlingsstürme

Two musical rarities—one from the 20th century and one from the 17th—are given exemplary productions that might help securing future revivals. Frühlingsstürme (Spring Storms), by Czech composer Jaromir Weinberger, premiered in 1933 but was soon banned by the Nazis; this sprightly operetta may go on far too long but provides delectable roles for its performers, embodied at Berlin’s Komische Opera by the excellent singer-actors Alma Sade, Stefan Kurt, Vera-Lotte Boecker and Tansel Akzeybek.

 

 

Italian composer Pietro Antonio Cesti premiered La Dori in Venice in 1663, and this staging from last year in Innsbruck, Austria, provides its dramatic and musical due. Both discs have first-rate video and audio.

 

 

 

 

 

Sleepless Beauty 

Pavel Khvaleev’s slickly made but gimmicky horror flick might be the last word in torture porn: a kidnaped young woman is forced to stay alive by participating in gruesome killings at the same time as she is subjected to her captors’ demented demands like locking her in a box with several rats.

 

 

Though gleefully sadistic, after the first few bloodlettings and hide-your-eyes moments, the movie becomes routine and even monotonous, notwithstanding the sheer will power of Polina Davydova’s impressively physical performance. There’s an excellent hi-def transfer; extras comprise deleted and alternate scenes and an on-set featurette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still Life 

Chinese director Jia Zhang Ke reached the heights of cinematic brilliance in his best films, 2000’s Platform and 2004’s The World, but this 2006 exploration of the denizens of an old city, Fengjie,  that’s being flooded to make way for the massive Three Gorges Dam also has its moments of vibrancy, incisiveness and insight.

 

 

Following two people who are each searching for an absent spouse, Jia records their quotidian lives and relationships with great compassion. There’s a decent but not superb hi-def transfer; there are also no extras: too bad Jia’s related 2006 documentary, Dong, wasn’t included.

 

 

 

 

 

4K Release of the Week 

Peter Jackson’s towering trilogy of epic adventures based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic Lord of the Rings novels—The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King—finally makes it to ultra-HD in all its visual splendor, especially the loving Middle Earth recreation of Jackson and his army of collaborators.

 

 

The clarity of the images is breathtaking throughout, and both the original theatrical versions and Jackson’s extended cuts—which add an additional 50-60 minutes to each of the three films—are included, although there are no extras. (A larger boxed set including the special features will be released in 2021.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

VOD/Virtual Cinema Releases of the Week

Federico Fellini’s 1987 auto-hommage is as entertaining and playful as anything this irrepressibly self-indulgent filmmaker ever made. For his ostensible tribute to the glorious Cinecitta, the studio where he made so many of his classics, the great Italian director—unsurprisingly—drags in everything but the kitchen sink (elephants, attack dogs, even Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastrioanni, who watch, teary-eyed, their memorable scenes from La Dolce Vita) to elevate this wonderful memory piece.

 

 

Crammed with the usual indelible Felliniesque faces, Intervista is hilarious but also poignant, as its lovely, bittersweet freeze-frame at the end demonstrates.

 

 

 

 

 

The Walrus and the Whistleblower 

Marineland, a popular Canadian tourist attraction near Niagara Falls (I visited several times while growing up in Buffalo), is called out by Phil Demers, who was a trainer there and who quit after blowing the whistle on the animal abuse he witnessed.

 

 

Nathalie Bibeau’s compelling documentary follows Demers as he tries to get a bill passed in Canada’s House of Commons to end the practice of keeping marine mammals in pools while, at the same time, Marineland is suing him for allegedly plotting to kidnap a beloved walrus from the facility. Demers’ love of and forceful advocacy for these splendid creatures is heartwarming, and that there’s a happy ending of sorts is a bonus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CD Release of the Week

Austrian Egon Wellesz (1885-1974) composed this hybrid stage work in 1926: subtitled a “cult drama for dancers, soloists and chorus,” Die Opferung is a curious but often powerful mix of set arias, recitatives and choral sections that are interspersed with alternately beguiling and harsh-sounding dance interludes.

 

 

Despite nearly going off the rails, it holds together dramatically in this superlative 1995 performance led by conductor Fredrich Cerha; the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Concert Choir and five vocal soloists are unimpeachable. The only drawback of this audio-only recording is that the dancers, so important to the overall structure, are missing; here’s hoping that there will be a new staging at some point that be filmed.