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Boston Symphony Orchestra at United in Sound: America at 250, Part 1

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 16 April 2026 14:30; Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, April 9th, I had the exceptional privilege of attending the first of two outstanding concerts on consecutive days—presented by Carnegie Hall as part of its festival, United in Sound: America at 250—performed by the splendid musicians of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the brilliant direction of Andris Nelsons.

The event started strongly with an impressive realization of John Adams’s marvelous concert suite, Three Scenes from Nixon in China, excellently sung by the now legendary soprano Renée Fleming—she wore a fabulous gown—and baritone Thomas Hampson, along with the superb Tanglewood Festival Chorus conducted by Lisa Wong. Robert Kirzinger provided some background in a useful note on the opera from which the selections were drawn:

Composed between 1985 and 1987, Nixon in China grew out of a suggestion from the director Peter Sellars, who, along with librettist Alice Goodman, collaborated with Adams on most of his stage works. Adams has also worked frequently with Nixon in China choreographer Mark Morris. The plot of Nixon in China is based on historic events that took place just 15 years before the opera’s premiere.

The music is written in the minimalist idiom forged by artists like Philip Glass and Michael Nyman.

The second half of the evening was even more remarkable, consisting of a terrific account of Antonín Dvořák’s magnificent Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, “From the New World,” completed in 1893. The composer was quoted in an interview as saying the following about the United States of America:

The future of music in this country must be founded upon what are called the Negro melodies … These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil [with] nothing in the whole range of composition that cannot be supplied with themes from this source.

The main theme of the initial, Allegro molto—which has a solemn, Adagio introduction that ushers in a highly dramatic series of statements—is stirring, as is the movement on the whole, but there are subdued, often very beautiful, quasi-pastoral passages—the composer’s prodigious melodic invention is on full display here and throughout the work. The music builds to measures of climactic intensity more than once before finishing forcefully.

Annotator Steven Ledbetter explains:

According to the composer, the two middle movements were inspired in part by passages in American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, on the subject of which he had considered writing an opera. The slow movement was suggested by the funeral of Minnehaha [ . . . . ] (His student William Arms Fisher later wrote the lyrics to the song “Goin’ Home” to fit the melody.) Dvořák’s image for the third movement was the dance in the scene of Hiawatha’s wedding feast.

The ensuing Largo at first recalls the gravity of the first movement’s introduction, but with the articulation of the exquisite primary theme, a predominantly lyrical inspiration becomes manifest; a lovely, contrasting motif that emerges later has a more wistful quality, but a brief, bucolic interlude momentarily summons back some of the portentous grandeur of the symphony before the movement’s haunting, if gentle, conclusion. Much of the succeeding Scherzo, which is also marked Molto vivace, has a suspenseful, seemingly inexorable, forward momentum, but again there are alternating, charming, leisurely, dance-like sections that exude a cheerful spirit; the movement ends abruptly and emphatically. The Allegro con fuoco finale begins dynamically but again there are quiet passages that project a graceful affirmation that differs from the powerful exuberance that ultimately triumphs before it closes softly.

The musicians deservedly received a very enthusiastic ovation.

April '26 Digital Week II

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 16 April 2026 12:56; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Hamlet

(Vertical Releasing)

Updating Shakespeare has become such a mania that it’s rare to find an adaptation that takes the text at face value—unfortunately, director Aneil Karia and writer Michael Lesslie’s modern take, set among London’s South Asian upper-crust, is not that adaptation.

If English colonial history of subjugation over South Asia is a subtext, it has little to say about it, while eye-rollingly literal tropes like our hero (a game Riz Ahmed) speeding on a highway in his sports car while contemplating the suicidal “To be or not to be” are misguided. Morfydd Clark makes a perfectly pitiable Ophelia, but her sincere performance might have had greater resonance in a better film.

Fiume o morte!

(Icarus Films)

In this endlessly fascinating history lesson, Igor Bezinović’s documentary about Italian fascist writer Gabriele D’Annunzio’s year-long occupation (1919 to 1920) of what is now the Croatian city of Rijeka. Actually, the irony is that most of those who live there today barely know anything about D’Annunzio and what ideas and actions wrought.

So Bezinović tells the whole cautionary tale through their eyes—locals reenact the takeover and its aftermath with a combination of bemusement and good humor, which is what Bezinović has said he was looking to do, present history in an entertaining but not dumbed-down way.

Steal This Story, Please!

(Elsewhere Films)

Journalist Amy Goodman has been fighting the good fight for decades as founder and main face of Democracy Now, one of the few self-sustaining news organizations grappling with tough issues here and abroad. Carl Deal and Tia Lessin’s rage-inducing documentary portrait shows that Goodman’s doggedness and fairness are being increasingly marginalized by a hostile media environment.

Several well-chosen clips include one that shows Goodman’s legendary ability to remain independent and hold leaders’ feet to the fire: then-President Clinton is so upset by her tough questions that he stays on the phone talking to her but his team blames her for ambushing him. Of course, the Trump administration’s assault on all norms sweeps away all who came before, but Goodman will continue to fight.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Macbeth

(Dynamic)

Giuseppe Verdi’s first adaptation of a Shakespeare play came in the middle of his career, and although it’s a tautly told operatic transposition, it’s nowhere near the later masterpieces Otello and Falstaff. Pierre Audi’s absorbing production, from Parma, Italy’s Verdi Festival in 2024, uses the 1865 French version that’s more spectacular and includes ballet music that are among the opera’s highlights.

Ernesto Petti is a fine Macbeth but Lidia Fridman steals the show as Lady Macbeth—hers is the juicier role, of course, but Fridman is gripping every time she appears onstage. Roberto Abbado persuasively conducts the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini and Parma Teatro Regio Chorus; hi-def video and audio are well-done.

DVD Release of the Week

The Divine Sarah Bernhardt

(Icarus Films)

The famous French dramatic actress Sarah Bernhardt was a larger-than-life character, and Guillaume Nicloux’s frisky biopic has an actress equal to the task: Sandrine Kiberlain, who hams it up mightily but—crucially—always in character, so her Sarah is not simply a blustering diva but a woman who loved the spotlight even when it came to her own offstage relationships (which were legion).

There are many entertaining gossipy moments like her love affair with actor Lucien Guitry and the appearance of his son Sacha, who would later become a great theater and film director in own right. Nicloux also gets credit for well-chosen music of the era by the likes of Chopin, Franck, Ravel and Debussy, which appropriately underscore Kiberlain’s boisterous scenery-chewing.

In The Horror Film, “They Will Kill You,” Zazie Beatz Battles a Cult of Rich Satanists To Save Her Sister

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 09 April 2026 19:34; Written by Brad Balfour

Film: “They Will Kill You”
Director: Kirill Sokolov,
Cast: Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Patricia Arquette, Tom Felton, Heather Graham

In “They Will Kill You,” Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) takes a maid job at The Virgil, a 100-year-old apartment building in the heart of New York City. Long a place where the elite, the one percenters, have called it “home,” she’s not there for simple employment but for a deadly purpose. Her true motives for taking the gig are soon revealed.

Not unlike the Continental in The John Wick series, the building may seem like just another impressive piece of Gilded Age architecture built for the wealthy. But it’s really housing something much more: a devil-worshipping cult that has been granted immortality in exchange for finding human sacrifices for Satan.

In the opening sequence, Asia abandons her younger sister Maria (Myha’la) after the two run away from their abusive father. He tracks them down and Asia shoots him, but he survives and takes her sister away to endure further years of abuse.

Meanwhile, Asia goes to prison for the next decade. While in prison she’s hardened up and has trained to defend herself through whatever means is necessary.

Once she’s freed, Asia tracks down her long-lost sibling to the building, which has a dark history of the help going missing. It soon becomes clear that the building’s tenants have nefarious plans for her, intending to make her an offering to Satan in exchange for continued immortality. But, Asia comes prepared with a bag full of weapons and the determination to save her sister. Little does she know that her sister isn’t quite on board for being rescued as she had planned.

Underpinning the movie’s high-octane action sequences, the film features an iconic ensemble cast, from Patricia Arquette‘s Irish building superintendent Lilith to wealthy tenants Kevin (Tom Felton) and Sharon (Heather Graham.) Each brings unhinged performances to their characters as cult members in this high-octane, adrenaline-pumping flick. Given her Irish background, Lilith provides a bridge between the wealthy owners and the ethnic staffers — having married a Black man a century ago before coming to the building and gaining immortality.

For example, Asia blows Graham’s head away, splattering blood, bones and brains everywhere. What remains is a stump where the head was, with the body still flailing about. But because she’s immortal, the next scene shows a tiny head regrowing where the shoulders were. It’s bizarre, sort of funny and repulsive as ever.

Director Kirill Sokolov is quite a student of filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and even earlier ones like Sam Peckinpah. He spares no blood throughout the film, with red spraying from wounds and viscera everywhere. He uses some creative visual tricks that test the limits of his villains’ invincibility.

With nods to samurai films and shoot-'em-ups, Beetz gives the physical performance of a lifetime, wielding swords, machetes and shotguns while firing at a gang of evil residents. Asia and Maria also pack an emotional punch with their tragic story of complicated sisterhood, pushing the pair to reconnect and make things right. Although Satan prefers blood, it turns out the most impactful sacrifices come from love.

Sokolov offers his genre-driven take on satanic cults, with touches of humor and heart and lots of red. Thanks to a stellar cast, led by this pair of newly minted ‘Scream Queens’, audiences will root for them to eliminate the one percent. Obviously, the movie appeals to audiences beyond just the horror film fans due to its underlying political message -- that the wealthy willingly sacrificing anyone beneath them for fealty to Satan. Though I'm not sure it was a conscious notion to express this socially conscious element -- beat down the rich because they have no moral rudder -- that certainly makes the film more relevant than ever in this day and age.

April '26 Digital Week I

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 09 April 2026 12:56; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Forbidden Fruits

(IFC)

In this bumpy but often stylish ride, a secret witch coven among employees at a flashy clothing store in a Dallas mall is filled with bitchy adrenaline that helps it overcome the more risible moments of ruthlessness.

Director Meredith Alloway (who also cowrote the script with Lily Houghton based on the latter’s play) has gleeful fun showing the switching allegiances among these young women, and if the showdown on the mall escalator is too excessively bloody, there’s much fun to be had in the performances by Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain and—in the film’s standout portrayal—Lili Reinhart.

Kontinental ’25

(1-2 Special)

Romanian auteur Radu Jude is definitely an acquired taste: his deadpan absurdism has taken on many obvious but necessary targets from hypocrisy to consumerism to the weight of history, and his new film, which centers on Orsolya, a bailiff who’s wracked with guilt after the homeless man she evicts from an empty building in Transylvania commits suicide, continues that trend.

Jude’s dark sense of humor shines best on the insanity of modern life as his heroine (played with mordant humor by Eszter Tompa) interacts with an array of freakish but recognizable characters.

Our Hero, Balthazar

(Picturehouse)

For his directorial debut, Oscar Boyson (who cowrote the script with Ricky Camilleri) has chosen a difficult if timely subject: how young people deal with a world in which school shootings are not only normal but normalized by classroom drills and social media disinformation. When Balthazar thinks an online acquaintance is planning to shoot up a school, he travels from Manhattan to Texas to confront Solomon—they become friends, against the odds, but they also discover some uneasy truths about themselves.

There are some good, perceptive moments but also a certain glibness in how Boyson treats such a serious subject. Still, the acting by Jaeden Martell as Balthazar and Asa Butterfield as Solomon helps smooths over the bumpier roads Boyson travels.

Streaming Release of the Week

The Mortuary Assistant

(Shudder)

Another movie based on a video game, this at least has a properly creepy premise: mortuary assistant Rebecca finds herself involved in a weird supernatural world that finds her navigating traumatic situations that may or may not be dreams, while her boss Raymond seems to know more about it all than he should.

Willa Holland’s committed performance as Rebecca makes the crazier aspects of Jeremiah Kipp’s film more palatable, if not more believable, while Paul Sparks has little to do as Raymond.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Greenland 2—Migration

(Lionsgate)

As unnecessary sequels to lumbering disaster epics go, this one fills the bill decently by not getting overly bogged down in anything more than getting the lead family—stars Gerard Butler (dad), Morena Baccarin (mom) and Roman Griffin Davis (teenage son)—to somewhere safe in a little over 90 minutes.

There are a few over-the-top set pieces, such as climbing rickety ladders over the dried-up English Channel that precipitates many deaths, but for the most part, director Ric Roman Waugh keeps his focus on the family with the result that there’s more heart here than in the previous spectacle. There’s a good Blu-ray transfer; extras include featurettes and interviews.

New Year’s Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic

(Sony Classical)

For its annual New Year’s concert, the Vienna Philharmonic plays its usual repertoire of classical baubles, polkas and other dance pieces that gets the Vienna audience in a festive mood; led by conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the memorable performance includes a work by Black American composer Florence Price—her Rainbow Waltz—for the first time, and it fits snugly among the Strauss family standards that are the orchestra’s bread and butter.

The hi-def video and audio are first-rate; extras include complete ballets performed with two of the evening’s pieces along with an entertaining featurette that combines art and music, The Magic of Art—250 Years of the Albertina Collection.

Reviews

Boston Symphony Orchestra at United in Sound: America at 250, Part 1

April '26 Digital Week II

In The Horror Film, “They Will Kill You,” Zazie Beatz Battles a Cult of Rich Satanists To Save Her Sister

April '26 Digital Week I

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