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Reviews
June '13 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 18 June 2013 01:25
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Emperor’s New Groove/Kronk’s New Groove
and Lilo & Stitch/Lilo & Stitch 2 (Disney)
This quartet of inessential Disney flicks makes a belated hi-def debut. With songs by Sting, Emperor is amusing, but its sequel Kronk isn’t; Lilo, while also clever, lacks the emotional heft of Disney’s classics, while its sequel is nothing to write about home about.
None of the extras from the original DVD releases are included: it’s a shame that Disney won’t release The Sweatbox, Trudie (Mrs. Sting) Styler’s warts-and-all look at the contentious making of Emperor. The movies look impressive on Blu-ray.
(Anchor Bay)
That animation creators are running out of ideas for features is underlined by this derivative flick about aliens stranded on our planet and—you guessed it—must find a way off.
Even with the voice talent involved—Brandon Fraser, Jessica Alba, Sofia Vergara and the always hilarious Rob Corddry—this only rises to the level of those mediocre Disney flicks from 10-12 years ago (see Emperor and Lilo, above). The Blu-ray image is excellent; extras include featurettes, interviews and deleted scenes.
It’s a Disaster
(Oscilloscope)
A cutesy premise—at four couples’ regular brunch, first a relationship then the world starts to end—isn’t sustained by Todd Berger’s clunky, clumsy apocalypse comedy. The game performers include the usually insufferable David Cross—who’s okay here—it’s great to see the delectable Erinn Hayes do something else besides Children’s Hospital.
The most memorable part of the movie is its poster: a person in a survival suit and gas mask toasts us with a mimosa. The hi-def image is good; extras include a commentary, behind the scenes featurette, Comic Con panel and viral videos.
(Warner Bros.)
Zach Snyder’s far from effortless diversion essentially remakes a favorite childhood fairy tale to make it “cool” for today’s kids (are there any adults left?).
Despite Snyder straining to make this beguilingly light, his solid cast (Nicholas Haoult as Jack, Eleanor Tomlinson as the princess, and Bill Nighy, Ian MacShane and Ewan MacGregor) does its best to sell it, despite being bogged down by CGI so that the fakery is evident. Still, it’s decent fun. The Blu-ray image looks superb; extras include deleted scenes and a gag reel.
Killing Lincoln
(Fox)
Based on the bestseller co-authored by Bill O’Reilly, this bizarre hybrid of documentary and docudrama is graced with the presence of Tom Hanks, who earnestly narrates and sits and speaks into the camera very uneasily.
I guess the thought was that, if Hanks is involved, this will be taken seriously, despite wooden acting and a script that turns an American tragedy into an American melodrama. The Blu-ray image looks fine; extras include a commentary, O’Reilly interview and featurettes.
(Disney)
Sam Raimi isn’t the director I would have thought of to turn this Wizard of Oz prequel into an audience-pleaser, and throughout this excessive, bombastic, brightly-colored fantasy—smeared with Danny Elfman’s relentless music—I was reminded of Tim Burton’s goopiest fantasies.
Overall, and especially when the delightful Mila Kunis is onscreen, it works; but as Oz, James Franco grates rather quickly. The Blu-ray looks terrific; extras include featurettes and a gag reel.
Perfect Understanding
(Cohen Media)
In this suitably frothy 1933 comedy, director Cyril Gardner (with an assist from then-neophyte Michael Powell) puts his top-notch cast, led by Laurence Olivier and Gloria Swanson as two lovers who try and keep their relationship “pure” by not getting married, through its sterling comic paces.
The Blu-ray image looks pretty good despite the inevitable blemishes thanks to its source material; extras are two early ‘30s shorts.
A Guy Named Joe and
The Merry Widow
(Warner Archive)
Most people know 1943’s A Guy Named Joe as the source of Steven Spielberg’s Always, but Joe—also a tear-jerker—is nowhere near as sentimental, thanks to the hilarious but believable interplay between Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne as our couple, boosting Victor Fleming’s charming romance to classic status.
Ernest Lubitsch’s 1934 version of Franz Lehar’s beloved operetta The Merry Widow, which stars Norma Shearer and Maurice Chevalier as the unlikely couple, is lively fun, with music that is glorious.
House of Cards
(Sony)
With such a pedigree—a 13-episode Netflix premiere series starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright and co-created and (at least a few episodes) directed by David Fincher—you’d think this political drama would live up to expectations. It does—to a point.
While Spacey and Wright are exceptional as an entrenched Congressman and his lobbyist wife, there’s a gaping hole by the dull Rooney Mara as the supposedly sexy, shrewd ladder-climbing reporter who becomes Spacey’s confidante/mistress.
The Politician’s Wife
(Acorn)
Juliet Stevenson’s magnificent presence as a loyal political wife whose world shatters when her husband’s infidelities come to light dominates this compelling 1995 British TV mini-series. It’s fascinating to watch her go from supremely wounded to stealthily gaining the upper hand in a shifting relationship with her government minister spouse.
A first-rate supporting cast (including Trevor Eve as her slickly, slimily adulterous hubby) and a vast knowledge of insiders’ politics make this three-hour drama whiz by.
2+2 and 4some
(Strand Releasing)
These foreign films treat swinging couples with equal seriousness and frivolity. Argentine Diego Kaplan’s 2+2 builds a credible rapport between couples which are long-time friends, before the inevitable disagreements ensue when they start swapping spouses. Julieta Díaz is a particular delight as a weatherwoman who becomes sexually adventurous with her best friends’ husband.
Czech director Jan Hrebejk’s 4some is more somber in its approach—kind of like French director Antony Cordier’s Four Lovers, which got a DVD release last year—but also finds time for humor in its treatment of couples pairing off.
(Acorn)
This cheeky, chatty mystery series returns with Toby Stephens as a ladies-man detective who is paired with a new partner—an attractive female, of course—for another round of murder cases.
Miranda Raison, as Stephens’ sidekick, has comic and sexual chemistry with her co-star, so even when the cases they solve become routine, the way the leads play off each other provide for a most entertaining divertissement.
Off-Broadway Roundup: “Nikolai and the Others,” “Reasons to Be Happy,” “3 Kinds of Exile,” “The Tutors”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 16 June 2013 03:57
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Nikolai and the Others
Written by Richard Nelson; directed by David Cromer
Performances through June 16, 2013
Reasons to Be Happy
Written and directed by Neil LaBute
Performances through June 29, 2013
3 Kinds of Exile
Written by John Guare; directed by Neil Pepe
Performances through June 23, 2013
The Tutors
Written by Erica Lipez; directed by Thomas Kail
Performances through June 23, 2013
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| Cerveris (right) as Balanchine in Nikolai and the Others (photo: Paul Kolnik) |
Richard Nelson’s plays, which run the gamut from Some Americans Abroad and its clueless tourists to a four-play Apple family cycle (which concludes this fall), are intelligent, uncondescending explorations of ordinary and extraordinary people. The latter comprises luminaries Frank Lloyd Wright (Frank’s House), Brutus and Cassius (Conversations at Tusculum) and, in Nikolai and the Others—a fictional recreation of a summit meeting of expatriate Russian artists one weekend in Connecticut in 1948—composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer George Balanchine, working on their latest project, the ballet Orpheus.
Also present are Vera, Stravinsky’s beloved wife; theater designer Sergey Sudekin (Vera’s former husband); and Natasha Nabokov, former wife of Nicky Nabokov (the Nikolai of the title), a Voice of America functionary who helps his fellow Russian émigrés with their difficulties, especially the nascent Communist witch hunt. The 18 characters, which also include Balanchine’s native American wife Maria Tallchief—a dancer in Orpheus—and an unctuous American, Charles Bohlen, are sympathetically drawn by Nelson on his expansive but intimate canvas.
Nelson’s voluminous research sometimes overwhelms the drama and characterizations of this exquisitely crafted portrait of art intertwining with life. Still, this mesmerizing production—savvily directed by David Cromer, with Balanchine’s own choreography used for the dazzling Orpheus excerpts—benefits most from an accomplished cast fully inhabiting the 18 roles: the standouts are John Glover’s boisterous Stravinsky, Michael Cerveris’ standoffish Balanchine, Blair Brown’s wounded Vera and Stephen Kunken’s Vanya-like Nikolai, a composer who accepts his lesser lot in life—Chekhovian allusions are apposite for this bittersweet work.
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| Fischer, Hamilton and Bibb in Reasons to Be Happy (photo: Joan Marcus) |
The twists in Neil LaBute’s plays range from a student remaking her boyfriend for a school project in The Shape of Things to a grieving widower whose dead wife turns out to be his mother in Wrecks. His new play, Reasons to be Happy, has a different twist: there is none. Instead, it’s a straightforward, moderately insightful exploration of how shabbily men treat women.
This sequel to 2008’s Reasons to Be Pretty—which dramatized how Greg’s offhand remark about his non-gorgeous girlfriend Steph sparked recriminations and soul-searching among the couple and their married friends, beautiful Carly and cement-head Kent—is set years later: Steph is married to someone else and Carly is seeing Greg after breaking up with Kent. LaBute keeps the relationships volatile: Steph is angry when she discovers Greg and Carly are together, Kent’s reaction is even more violent, while Greg and Steph find they still have feelings for each other.
Although LaBute hits perceptive notes about relationships—mostly to the denigration of Greg, Kent and men in general—at other times he spins his wheels, seemingly hoping that by dragging out his two-hour-plus play, he will hit on something truly insightful. All he ends up repeating, though, is the not exactly late-breaking news that relationships are difficult.
Director LaBute once again relies on blasting songs by Nirvana—including the obvious “Dumb” and “Come as You Are”—during scene blackouts: coupled with an obnoxious horn that blasts during the warehouse scenes, the sounds are about as abrasive as the formerly “edgy” playwright gets. Josh Hamilton’s Greg is as intelligent a portrayal as Thomas Sadoski’s in the original; Frederick Weller’s Kent is amusingly banal and Jenna Fischer’s Steph starts out credibly but becomes shrill and profane, weakening her as character and mouthpiece, and Leslie Bibb’s lovely and sympathetic turn makes Carly much more than a very pretty face.
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| Sangare and Guare in 3 Kinds of Exile (photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia) |
3 Kinds of Exile, John Guare’s triptych of plays about people who unwillingly left their homelands, opens with a monologue about a fictional Eastern European living in England, moves onto a duologue about Polish actress Elzbieta Czyzewska, who at the height of her career moved to the United States, and ends with a freewheeling one-act about Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz, who went to Argentina right before Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.
Guare obviously relished transforming these fascinating tales of dislocation into a theatrical event, but what’s onstage isn’t always illuminating, despite director Neil Pepe’s inventiveness. The monologue Karel (well-performed by Martin Moran), a short allegory that sets up what follows, concerns a man whose survivor’s guilt has physicalized itself as a rash all over his body, its twist ending making psychological (if not logical) sense.
Elzbieta Erased consists of Guare himself (gamely making his acting debut) and talented Polish actor Omar Sangare standing at podiums and relating the bizarre life of Czyzewska, on her way to becoming Poland’s biggest star but who left for Manhattan with new husband, New York Times Poland correspondent David Halberstam. Guare and Sangare knew and worked with her, so her story has personal resonance for both, but despite haunting moments from a career essentially wasted, it never resonates for the audience.
Lastly, Funiage, about absurdist novelist Gombowicz, fails to find sensible theatrical equivalents for the Polish author’s playful, multi-layered literary works. With Gombowicz (a befuddled David Pittu) being chased around the stage by annoying Argentines while deciding to remain in Buenos Aries upon hearing of Hitler’s blitzkrieg, Guare ends up trivializing this great 20th century writer’s importance.
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| The cast of The Tutors (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Erica Lipez’s The Tutors is an interesting if superficial look at 20-somethings trying to get a social media startup on its feet just as Facebook hit it big. The year is 2007, and sharing an apartment are Joe, the website’s brains who uses his charisma to get financial supporters, and computer whizzes Heidi and Toby, who take turns working on the site itself.
While Heidi sits around the apartment improbably conjuring up a fantasy man of her own named Kwan, Joe and Toby—who has a crush on Joe—work as tutors for entitled teenage brats on the Upper East Side, one of whom, Milo, is a typical amalgam of teen naiveté and smarts. These characters interact humorously, but when the real Kwan enters—a foreign student for whom Heidi edited his college entrance essay and who she initially thinks is her fantasy—the comedic returns diminish quickly.
At least Lipez cares enough about her characters to show them working out their problems, her dialogue is peppy, and even when plausibility goes awry, Thomas Kail’s effective direction and engaging performances—especially Aubrey Dollar’s exquisitely wounded Heidi—make The Tutors recommendable.
Nikolai and the Others
Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, 150 West 65th Street, New York, NY
Reasons to Be Happy
Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, New York, NY
3 Kinds of Exile
Atlantic Theatre, 336 West 20th Street, New York, NY
The Tutors
Second Stage Uptown, 2162 Broadway, New York, NY
Film Review: "Man of Steel"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 14 June 2013 20:38
- Written by Matt Oakes
"Man of Steel"
Directed by Zack Snyder
Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Antje Traue, Richard Schiff, Christopher Meloni and Laurence Fishburne
Action, Adventure, Fantasy
143 Mins
PG-13
With a first half that focuses on exposition and a second that's all about the explosions, Zach Snyder and Christopher Nolan have done it... Superman is finally cool. With the whizkid pyrotechnics born of Synder's directorial hand and the tenderly crafted narrative laid out by Nolan and David S. Goyer (the team who wrote Batman Begins) this modern revamping gives the Man of Steel a much needed update into the post 9/11 era with intelligent panache.
What Nolan and Goyer have added to the franchise is a sense of stakes that have never existed before within the context of Superman, particularly on film. Supes has always been too immaculate, too shimmery, and too invincible but with Man of Steel, we meet a very flawed and isolated individual putting on a brave face. Rather than downplay that reclusive nature, it's the forefront of the piece.
June '13 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 10 June 2013 01:58
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Breaking Bad—5th Season, Part I
(Sony)
Throughout these eight episodes (the second half of the final season begins August 11), many loose ends become even looser, like Walter and Skylar’s marriage and Walt and Jesse’s meth making and dealing.
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