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CD Review: Paul McCartney—New (Hear Music)

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Thursday, 07 November 2013 20:26
Written by Kevin Filipski
Whenever Paul McCartney puts out a new album, the usual trolls come out of the woodwork to tell us that he’s done, he’s over the hill, he hasn’t done anything good since Band on the Run, he hasn’t done anything good since the Beatles broke up, he never did anything good, he should have stayed “dead.” Har har.

 

 
Of course, some of this nastiness is self-inflicted since McCartney is sometimes his own worst enemy: saccharine songs like “My Love,” “Ebony and Ivory” and “Freedom” are what detractors trot out when they try to knock him down. But for those listening closely to a half-century’s worth of music know better, and a new album, cheekily titled New, provides more ammunition.
 
For his first album of entirely original material in five years—his superb 2008 Fireman collaboration with producer Youth, Electric Arguments, was preceded by a solid 2007 solo album Memory Almost Full—McCartney sought out outside producers, deciding to keep it partly in the “family” by having Beatles producer George Martin’s son, Giles Martin, to be executive producer. Of the album’s 16 tracks—12 official songs and 4 extra tracks, depending on the configuration one gets—Martin produced 7, with Paul Epworth producing 4, Mark Ronson 2 and Ethan Johns 3.
 
But as always with McCartney, his own musical vision and personality add up to a wholly cohesive album despite the disparate musical personalities he worked with. When 1997’s Flaming Pie was produced by Jeff Lynne—who made a cottage industry of turning the likes of George Harrison, Tom Petty and the Travelling Wilburys into sound-alikes—I was worried that Paul too would become Lynne-lite. Instead, Flaming Pie is the only Jeff Lynne-produced album that happily retains its own character.
 
So New, while shot through with an aural eclecticism courtesy of his four collaborators, remains a McCartney record through and through. The opening “Save Us,” a straight-ahead riff rocker, and the bouncy “Queenie Eye,” a hummable piano-driven sing-along, were both helmed by Epworth, along with “Road,” a dramatic ballad that falls just short of bombast. Those are the only songs where McCartney takes a co-writing credit (with Epworth): apparently they were improvised in the studio by the two men.
 
The rest of New is a glorious mélange of styles and sounds that finds Paul at his most effortlessly melodic and adventurous. The title tune is a joyous love song harkens back to “Penny Lane”-era Beatles, “Hosanna” and “Looking at Her” marry naked emotions with sly arrangements, while the haunting piano ballad “Scared” (relegated to “hidden cut” status) shows Paul opening up in a way rare for him. On these songs—none of them in any sense “silly love songs”—Paul sings in the plaintive, cracking voice of a 71-year-old, which fits with their melancholic but hopeful optimism.
 
On “Alligator,” “Appreciate” and “Struggle,” Paul’s Avant-pop leanings show through in the intricately busy rhythms, but those who say that he’s trying to keep up with contemporary sounds hasn’t been listening to albums like McCartney II (“Temporary Secretary,” “Secret Friend” and “Check My Machine”), Press to Play (“Pretty Little Head”) and Flowers in the Dirt (“Ou Est le Soleil?”)—to just pick three from the decade of the ‘80s—where Paul mashes up rhythm tracks and tape loops with heavily processed vocals: it’s just Paul being Paul.
 
This wouldn’t be a McCartney album without an explicit nod to that other band he was in (no, not Wings): the earnest acoustic number “Early Days” harks back to when the Fab Four scrambled for gigs long before they were on top of the world. But on an album so consistently good, even filler like “Everybody Out There,” “I Can Bet” and “Get Me Out of Here” remains cheeky fun. On New, McCartney composes and performs with nothing to prove: he loves what he does, and he’ll keep doing it until the end.

Film Review: "Ender's Game"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Monday, 04 November 2013 18:30
Written by Matt Oakes

"Ender's Game"
Directed by Gavin Hood
Starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley, Moises Arias, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin
Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
114 Mins
PG-13

Ender, a natural born strategist, waxes philosophy like he's Sun Tzu. Taking "The Art of War" to its next logical step, Ender believes it's not enough to understand his enemy. For him, truly understanding your enemy comes hand-in-hand with loving them. When you know someone well enough to predict their moves militarily, you glimpse into their soul. All at once, this zen of inter-connectivity gives Ender an upper hand in battle but also puts him in a constantly state of moral dread. He knows he can be a mighty conqueror the likes of Caesar but doesn't know if he should be.  

Read more: Film Review: "Ender's Game"

November '13 Digital Week I

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Monday, 04 November 2013 05:11
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Beauty of the Devil
(Cohen Media)
This deviously funny 1950 take on the Faust legend perfectly sums up director Rene Clair: a light touch that approaches, but never crashes into corny sentimentality.
 
Here, helped by a pair of smashing lead performances by Michel Simon and Gerard Philippe as Faust and Mephistopheles at various ages, Clair has created a dazzling allegory that works as comedy, drama, romance, cautionary tale and even a sort of tragedy. The Black-and-white classic looks superb on Blu-ray; lone extra is a 50-minute Clair documentary.
 
Byzantium
(IFC)
In Neil Jordan’s latest vampire drama—he made Interview with a Vampire in 1994—scenes of sultry Gemma Arterton and Atonement’s Saorise Ronan, a mother-daughter bloodsucking team, in a rundown resort hotel are intercut with glimpses of them since the Napoleonic wars.
 
It’s often pretentious and jarringly violent, even if Jordan’s visual style remains sophisticated and unsettling. Arterton is always luminous and Ronan’s unique look serves her well as an eternal teenager. The Blu-ray image is excellent; extras include an hour of interviews with Jordan, Arterton, Ronan, et al.
 
Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert
(Eagle Vision)
The 1992 tribute concert to Queen singer Freddie Mercury (who died in November 1991) is a glorious, glitzy three-hour extravaganza that the flamboyant frontman would have loved: everyone from David Bowie and Annie Lennox to Elton John, Axl Rose and Liza Minnelli enthusiastically sing Queen songs with band members Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.
 
Although Robert Plant’s rendition of “Innuendo” is still missing—apparently Plant hated it, so it’s been suppressed for 21 years—the Blu-ray includes the concert and extras (retrospective doc, rehearsal footage) from the 2002 DVD release. The image is decent, the sound extraordinary.
 
I Give It a Year (Magnolia)
and As Cool as I Am (IFC)
These ensemble-driven comedy-dramas can’t transcend built-in clichés. Year depends on the delightful Rose Byrne for comic gravitas; although writer-director Dan Mazer’s rom-com roundelay isn’t as subversive as he thinks it is, his cast (co-starring with Byrne are Rafe Spall, Anna Faris and Simon Baker) displays enough chops to put the whole thing over.
 
As Cool has fine performances by Claire Danes as an emotionally absent mom and Sarah Bolger as a confused but smart teenager; their intelligent acting makes an otherwise routine movie worth a look. Both hi-def transfers are fine; Cool extras are a making-of and blooper reel, and Year extras are outtakes, deleted scenes and a making-of.
 
Just Like a Woman
(Cohen Media)
Although she’s usually the best-looking actress in a movie, in Rachid Bouchareb’s trite drama about two women who leave troubled marriages and discover fleeting moments of freedom as belly dancers, Sienna Miller burns a hole in the screen with her fiercely committed portrayal of a woman wronged by a cheating, no-good husband.
 
Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani nearly matches her in a less showy role, but they are both undermined by a pedestrian script and familiar plot beats. The hi-def image is top-notch.
 
Morrissey—25
(Eagle Vision)
In this early 2013 concert at the Hollywood High School Auditorium, Morrissey plays hits from a quarter-century long career including The Smiths and solo stuff.
 
His tight band churns out classics like “Meat is Murder,” “You Have Killed Me” and “Throwing My Arms Around Paris,” with intense audience participation from fans ecstatic to see and hear their idol in such an intimate venue. The Blu-ray image and sound are good and crystal clear; extras include an in-studio glimpse at recording four new songs, Russell Brand’s concert intro and a glimpse behind-the-scenes of the concert.
 
La Notte  
(Criterion Collection)
Following his masterwork L’Avventura, Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1961 follow-up stars Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau as a married couple in a disintegrating relationship, their mutual isolation visualized by the director’s innovative use of locations that comment on psychological states.
 
Despite its lack of plot or vivid characterizations (neither star is in “star mode”), this insightful drama remains indelible. Criterion’s Blu-ray transfer looks immaculate, which bodes well for eventual releases of L’Avventura and the final film in this trilogy, L’Eclisse; extras include contextual interviews.
 
Springsteen and I
(Eagle Vision)
This homemade documentary splices together contributions by fans professing their undying love for Bruce Springsteen. I’m no fan of the Boss—an electric live performer, his records don’t have that magic—so I’m not the audience for this, but for those who are, a selection of unreleased footage should sate them, like unseen live versions of “The River” and “Thunder Road.”
 
The Blu-ray image is OK, considering the variable quality of the footage; extras include six songs from Springsteen’s 2012 London performance (including a Paul McCartney duet on “I Saw Her Standing There,” hilariously mistitled “When I Saw Her Standing There” on the disc and back cover) and more fan love letters.
 
DVDs of the Week

In a Town This Size

(First Run)
Himself a child abuse victim, Patrick V. Brown has made a devastating emotional chronicle of how one man—a pediatrician in Bartlesville, Oklahoma—ruined many lives by abusing young boys and girls in the 1960s and ‘70s.
 
Through interviews with victims and their families, we discover again that the worst people to prey on innocent children are those marked with the authority to be alone with them. This pedophiliac doctor’s abuse, as seen in hindsight, was as much psychological as physical. Extras include deleted scenes, an epilogue and Brown interview.
 
Nine for IX
(ESPN)
In honor of the 40th anniversary of Title IX—which made college sports gender-neutral—ESPN commissioned nine films by nine female directors to extol the achievements of women in sports, and the results are enlightening, exciting and even touching.
 
Standouts are Let Them Wear Towels, about women reporters fighting for equal access to pro locker rooms, The Diplomat, a portrait of East German skater Katarina Witt, and The 99ers, the story of the famous U.S. women’s soccer team. Extras comprise an additional film, Abby Head On, about soccer player Abby Wambach, and a short, Coach, about Vivian Stringer.
 
The Rose Tattoo and

This Property Is Condemned

(Warner Archive)
These vintage dramas are based on Tennessee Williams plays. 1955’s Tattoo has Anna Magnani in a role Williams wrote for her (she declined the original play because her English wasn’t good enough). Her earthy intensity as Williams’ sympathetic heroines is the best thing about Daniel Mann’s decent adaptation.
 
1966’s Property, director Sydney Pollack’s second feature, is a colorful version of a one-act Williams play: Robert Redford and Natalie Wood, as a couple fated to not be together, are at their most glamorous in Pollack’s sometimes arresting adaptation.  
(available on warnerarchive.com)
 

Shepard & Dark
(Music Box)
This left-field documentary intriguingly examines a half-century-long friendship between playwright Sam Shepard and deli clerk Johnny Dark, maintained over the years by the men’s letter-writing.
 
Treva Wurmfeld’s film not only recounts a truly eccentric friendship but also chronicles their early times together, when Shepard was an up-and-coming New York playwright and Dark his partner in crime (so to speak). It’s more quixotic than insightful, but that’s a small quibble. Extras include deleted scenes and added interviews.
 
Spiral—Season 2
and Antigone 34
(MHZ Networks)
These French policiers are far more memorable than their American TV counterparts. Spiral follows a group of Parisian cops trying to discover the complex criminal ring behind a burnt-out body in a car trunk, and Antigone 34 follows detectives in the southern French city of Montpelier tracking down the brutal killer of a female college student.
 
Both of these unflinchingly (and extremely) violent dramas have arresting acting, hard-hitting storylines and gritty locations, and are addictive from beginning to end.
 
War of the Worlds—American Experience
(PBS)
This look at Orson Welles’ brilliant 1938 Halloween Eve radio show—when he scared millions of listeners out of their wits because they thought the Martian landing he and his actors were broadcasting was real—brings little new to the table, but the tale is so delicious, and damning of Americans’ sheep mentality, that it’s worth recounting anyway.
 
The recreations of interviews with people affected by the broadcast are an unnecessary intrusion, the lone blemish on an otherwise skillfully paced hour.

American Ballet Theatre's Fall Season at Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Sunday, 03 November 2013 18:36
Written by Jack Angstreich

The lamentable departure of New York City Opera from the precincts of Lincoln Center has had one surprising and welcome consequence — the invitation of other dance companies, besides the wonderful New York City Ballet, to perform there, often with live orchestral accompaniment.

As a result, New York dance enthusiasts have recently had the privilege to enjoy splendid performances at the Koch Theater by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Royal Ballet of Denmark, the National Ballet of Australia, the Paris Opera Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet.

The announcement that American Ballet Theatre would move their fall season from City Center to Lincoln Center was delightful news. The new season of American Ballet Theatre, capping their terrific spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, follows right on the heels of the fabulous appearance of the San Francisco Ballet, itself immediately succeeding New York City Ballet in its exciting fall season. 

The program on the evening of Friday, November 1st, 2013, was a triumph, opening with the final, 1940 version of legendary choreographer Michel Fokine's exquisite 1909 work,Les Sylphides,a veritable time-capsule of 19th-century classical ballet, set to the lush piano music of Frederic Chopin.

Fokine's ballet is something of an hommage to the great Taglioni and Bournonville story-ballet, La Sylphide, but since Fokine choreographed for Diaghilev and for all its retrospective cast, Les Sylphides, in its abstraction, it looks forward to the peaks of high modernism as represented by such later figures as George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton. 

The current performances are special for presenting the rediscovered, sparkling orchestration of Chopin's music by the estimable Benjamin Britten, just in time to coincide with this year's centennial of the composer's birth.

It was heard to magnificent effect under the baton of conductor David LaMarche. Standouts in the cast included, among others, the excellent ballerinas Hee Seo and Isabella Boylston but I'd also like to draw particular attention to the extraordinary precision of the corps de ballet here.

Twyla Tharp's hypnotic Bach Partita matched expectations and featured a strong cast including Marcelo Gomes, James Whiteside, Polina Semionova and, above all, Gillian Murphy.

Mark Morris's colorful, exuberant Gong, set to Colin McPhee's stunning proto-minimalist score from 1936 largely inspired by Indonesian gamelan music, Tabu-Tabuhan,concluded the program on an triumphant note. Morris's choreography engagingly references Indonesian dance forms and, in its central section, evokes Balinese shadow-plays, although two interludes without music produce an odd effect.. With its symphonic, often propulsive, approach to dance as endlessly self-renewing movement, the work is reminiscent of that of Twyla Tharp. 

Gong,too, boasted a superb cast, with Gomes, Whiteside, Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo — whose athleticism and agility here typify his consistent endurance as one of the strongest dancers in the company — as well as, once again, the outstanding Murphy, who dazzled with her solo in the final movement.

The program on the evening of Wednesday, November 6th opened with a repeat of the unutterably beautiful Les Sylphides,with the same — or at least substantially the same — cast. It was glorious to get a chance to see this again, a masterpiece that could surely sustain innumerable viewings. This was followed by José Limón's lovely The Moor's Pavane, subtitled "Variations on a Theme of Othello", another rare treasure from a bygone era of classic choreography, set to a magnificent score drawn from the work of the great Henry Purcell.

This piece is partly a witty pastiche of Renaissance and Baroque dance but, for all the levity of its ironic stance, it does achieve an authentic, unexpected note of tragic inexorability. The fine quartet of dancers here were Roman Zhurbin, Cory Stearns, Veronika Part and Hee Seo.

The program concluded with a repeat ofGong— although this time without Gomes — which, in its celebratory postmodernism, proved to be an elegant foil for the performative stylizations of The Moor's Pavane.

American Ballet Theatre
October 30 - November 10, 2013

20 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY  10023
212 870 5520

www.abt.org

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