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Reviews
August '16 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 10 August 2016 12:36
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Female Prisoner Scorpion—The Complete Collection
(Arrow)
These four cult films following the travails of Scorpion, who after her time in prison vows to get back at the powerful man who sent her to prison (Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion; Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41; Beast Stable; #701’s Grudge Song), were made in a flash in 1972-73, and if that shows in the slightness of the story and characters, there’s so much action and gleeful stylistic flourishes that this set is nothing less than trashy, frenzied fun—not least with the stunning Meiko Kaji in the title role.
It’s too bad, however, that the new hi-def transfers are problematic, with some of the colors off, occasionally muting some of the visual excitement. Plentiful extras include interviews new and old, visual essays, appreciations and a lavish booklet.
(Starz/Anchor Bay)
The original Girlfriend Experience,which failed to make a mainstream star of porn veteran Sasha Gray in 2009, was one of director Steven Soderbergh’s most disposable works, and that same feeling permeates this inert 13-episode mini-series.
Although Riley Keough is far more plausible as a student who becomes an upscale escort for often-loathsome older men, creators Lodge Kerrigan and Amy Seimetz never really do much original or interesting with the material, which promises insight and titillation but provides too little of both. The hi-def transfer is first-rate; extras comprise three on-set featurettes.
The Tunnel—Complete 1stSeason
(PBS)
This 2013 French-British remake of the original 2011 Danish-Swedish series The Bridge (which is currently shooting its fourth and last season) is more credible and absorbing than the 2013 American-Mexican dud, also named The Bridge.
Stephen Dillane and Clemence Poesy are superbly mismatched—then later, equally well-matched—as British and French detectives who pair up to solve a series of increasingly bizarre and lurid crimes. The 10 intelligently constructed episodes build to a creepy climax. The series looks sumptuous on Blu, and extras are interviews and behind-the-scenes featurettes.
Careful What You Wish For
(Anchor Bay)
In this tepid knockoff of Body Heat, a sleepwalking Nick Jonas plays a young man who has an affair with the impossibly gorgeous young wife of the older rich businessman who takes the vacation home next door to his family.
That she is played by the impossibly gorgeous Isabel Lucas is one of several hard-to-believe twists, with my favorite (aside from the twist ending) the quickie the couple has behind the local convenience store just as hubby walks up to the back door to have himself a smoke—but ends up deciding not to.
Dark Diamond
(First Run)
In Arthur Harari’s twisty and elegantly-shot thriller, a young man decides to avenge his father’s death on the rest of his wealthy, diamond-dealing family by infiltrating the business and plotting the perfect heist.
Although Harari doesn’t bother with a subtle approach in this convolutedly plotted thriller, he smartly shows the intricacies of the diamond business just enough to prepare us for the ramifications—personal and moral—when his protagonist’s imaginative revenge slowly but inexorably takes shape.
(First Run)
In directors-writers Arthur DeLaire and Quentin Reynaud’s meandering road-trip comedy, an occasionally amusing but most often exasperating dysfunctional family travels to attend the mother’s estranged father’s funeral.
Although there are nicely understated performances by Isabelle Carre and Stephane de Groodt as the matriarch and patriarch of a brood of mix-and-match stepchildren, after 80 minutes of forced melodramatic whimsy, the whole thing completely dissolves from memory.
Broadway Review: "Cats" Returns
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 10 August 2016 01:32
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Cats
Music & lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber; directed by Trevor Nunn
Opened July 30, 2016
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| The cast of Cats (photo: Matthew Murphy) |
Sure, it’s cheesy and dated, but something about Cats keeps it from becoming wincingly awful: whether it’s the large, lively cast of human felines; the eye-catching direction of Trevor Nunn; the clever, even witty, sets and costumes by John Napier; Natasha Katz’s luminous lighting; or the famous score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who already had Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita under his belt when Cats premiered in 1982 (and still had The Phantom of the Opera in his future).
It’s partially all of those, but it’s mainly what happens at the end of the first act. After an hour of synthesizer-pulsating songs (even the catchiest, like the opener “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” are afflicted with the disease) that sound like bizarre Emerson, Lake and Palmer outtakes, suddenly a sumptuous melody wells up and Grizabella sings “Memory,” one of the greatest Broadway ballads and one of those instantly memorable tunes that Webber had to hand: at least in his early musicals.
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| Leona Lewis (photo: Matthew Murphy) |
Like “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from Superstar and “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from Evita, “Memory” bowls over the rest of the score and show, something which even Webber realizes: in Act II, we not only get two reprises but also variations on and hints of that hummable melody throughout. Webber, knowing he’s written his own “Yesterday,” unapologetically milks it for all it’s worth. British pop star Leona Lewis sings the hell out of it during its final incarnation at the end of the show, but the rest of her performance is stiff and wooden, which says more about her stage inexperience than about Grizabella’s aloofness.
Best of the rest of a harmonious cast are Quentin Earl Darrington’s dignified Old Deuteronomy, Eloise Kropps’ agily tap-dancing Jennyanydots and Ricky Ubeda’s astoundingly athletic Mr. Mistoffelees. It’s too bad that choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler merely spiffs up Gillian Lynne’s original choreography, which survives in the cast’s cat-like poses and movements. Why bring such an inventive—and award-winning—choreographer on board only to handcuff him?
That ultimately is the curse of this new Cats: despite Trevor Nunn’s protestations to the contrary, this is old fur in new bottles, and however entertaining, there was a missed chance to make it resonate for a new generation of theatergoers, not simply traffic in nostalgia for the older ones.
Cats
Neil Simon Theatre, 250 West 52nd Street, New York, NY
catsthemusical.com
Off-Broadway Review—Richard Strand's “Butler”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 05 August 2016 21:54
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Butler
Written by Richard Strand; directed by Joseph Discher
Performances through August 28, 2016
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| Williams and Adamson in Butler (photo: Carol Rosegg) |
On the heels of J.T. Rogers’s Oslo—a splendid three-hour historical drama as riveting and absorbing as the best thrillers—comes Richard Strand’s Butler, which, though more modest in scope (and length: it’s about two hours), is an accomplished dramatization of actual events that’s exciting and immediate.
Although his subject—the Civil War—is more remote than the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and Palestine, Strand invests Butler with passion and incisiveness, and his good old-fashioned dramaturgy makes for an intelligent and thought-provoking play.
Butler’s eponymous Union Major General protagonist—who has just taken over Virginia’s Fort Monroe at the beginning of the War Between the States in the spring of 1861—must immediately deal with a burgeoning crisis: should he return three slaves who escaped from the Confederate army and came to the fort to find shelter—and, they hope, freedom—in the hands of the Union army?
Strand is able, in the space of two hours, to bring to life each of his characters—Butler, escaped slave Shepard Mallory, Butler’s adjutant Lieutenant Kelly, and the Confederate Major Cary, who arrives to take the slaves back—and allow them to argue succinctly (if at times wrongheadedly) about their own points of view on slavery and property, secession and the war, and President Lincoln’s directive governing the return of escaped slaves.
At times, Strand doesn’t entirely trust his material, allowing his characters to banter aimlessly like a TV sitcom, but such occasional flat stretches don’t hurt the drama’s forward momentum. For the most part, the dialogue feels real and true, not simply sounding like mouthpieces of the author, who finds levity enough to balance the serious subjects under discussion.
Smartly, Strand does not bend his subject matter to shoehorn in obvious parallels to our own continuing racial divide; audiences will tease out connections for themselves, as when Butler refuses Cary’s demand to return the slaves with a comment about the Confederacy’s hypocrisy: “Virginia has claimed to be no longer a part of the United States. She has made that claim and I will take her at her word.”
On Jessica L. Parks’s wonderfully detailed small-scale set of Butler’s office, Joseph Discher’s straightforward direction is complemented by a quartet of marvelous performances: David Stitler’s amusingly arrogant Major Cary, John G. Williams’ simultaneously confident and desperate Shepard Mallory, Benjamin Sterling’s likably bemused Kelly, and Ames Adamson’s enjoyably larger-than-life Major General.
Butler
59 E 59 Theatres, 59 East 59th Street, New York, NY
59e59.org
August '16 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 02 August 2016 14:09
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Confirmation
(HBO)
Although she is front and center as Anita Hill in this alternately rote and involving biopic about the controversial 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, Kerry Washington gives a generously understated performance that’s structured to emphatically not steal the show.
The rest of the cast—especially Greg Kinnear as Joe Biden and Wendell Pierce as Thomas himself—is also strong, despite Rick Famuyiwa’s routine direction. There’s a solid hi-def transfer; extras comprise cast interviews.
(Film Detective)
Francis Coppola’s directorial debut was this middling 1963 attempt at terror about a madman who begins murdering members of a family long mourning the premature death of a young daughter.
A scant 75 minutes, at least it doesn’t drag on too long, but in Coppola’s neophyte hands, it stumbles and bumbles its way to a not very startling conclusion. Even accomplished actors like Patrick Magee come off stilted in a film that’s of little interest except to die-hard Coppola fans. The hi-def transfer is good.
The Knick—Complete 2nd Season
(HBO/Cinemax)
The second season of this Steven Soderbergh-directed series about a drug-addicted doctor, his colleagues and patients in turn-of-the-last-century Manhattan consolidates its credentials as a persuasive and absorbing trip through Gotham’s checkered and always colorful history; acing the lead performances are Clive Owen, Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson, Andre Holland and Juliet Rylance.
All ten episodes are included; the visuals look splendid in hi-def, and extras include commentaries, featurettes and episode “post-ops.”
Marguerite
(Cohen Media)
In this fictionalized and Gallicized version of the true story of a rich dilettante who loved to sing in public even though she had no talent for it, Catherine Frot gives a delicious portrayal of a woman willing to remain clueless about her own manufactured reality because she loves being around art and artists.
Director Xavier Giannoli—whose marvelous debut film, 2003’s Eager Bodies, never got released here—keeps a sure but light touch in this often exhilarating study of seriocomic lunacy. The film looks excellent on Blu; extras are a Giannoli interview and deleted scenes.
Mother’s Day
(Universal)
Garry Marshall’s final directorial effort was another multi-character melodrama that stays strictly on the surface when it isn’t burrowing toward silliness and worse: Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Jason Sudekis are never able to rise above the stereotypes, cheap jokes and sentimentality that the movie wallows in.
Sad to say, Marshall made a lot of unimpressive movies, but his legacy as one of the great TV titans (Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley) remains. The film has an excellent hi-def transfer; extras are deleted scenes and a gag reel.
(Weinstein/Anchor Bay)
Director-writer John Carney already consolidated his music bona fides with his previous Once and Begin Again, both of which wedded insightful sequences of music-making with saccharine relationships, and his latest film follows suit. This story of teenagers in Dublin in 1985 has its indisputable charms, notably when Ferdia Walsh-Peelo as Conor meets and falls for adorably intelligent Raphina, played with impossible charm by Lucy Boynton.
But since there’s a lot of dross that one must wade through, Sing Street is of a piece with his earlier work. The film has a first-rate hi-def transfer; extras are a making-of featurette, Carney conversation and cast auditions.
To Have and Have Not
(Warner Archive)
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made their first screen appearance together in Howard Hawks’ loose 1944 adaptation of Earnest Hemingway’s novel, with a screenplay co-authored by William Faulkner. As an American amidst the French resistance on the island of Martinique during World War II,
Bogie is his usual strong but silent self, and Bacall—in her film debut—shows remarkable poise for a 19-year-old, glamorous, tough as nails and with a sultry singing voice. The hi-def transfer is superb; extras comprise a vintage featurette, vintage cartoon and Bogie-Bacall radio broadcast.
Tristan und Isolde
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Even though director Katharina Wagner’s staging at her great-grandfather Richard Wagner’s own shrine to his operas at Germany’s Bayreuth Festival is dramatically wobbly, the performers in what is essentially a two-character, four-hour romantic drama—tenor Stephen Gould and soprano Evelyn Herlitzus—are up to the task and, coupled with Christian Thielemann’s rigorous leading of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, make this a musically vital performance.
Both hi-def visuals and audio are superb; extras comprise interviews with Gould and Thielemann. But it’s too bad that the director herself didn’t discuss her (and her great-grandfather’s) work.
DVD of the Week
In Country
(Warner Archive)
Norman Jewison made this earnest, occasionally treacly 1989 melodrama about a Vietnam vet whose teenage niece wants to know about the father she lost over there when she was too young to remember him: it ends with a powerful visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Bruce Willis gives a sympathetic performance as the uncle, but stealing the film—par for the course during her too-brief career—is Emily Lloyd as the niece. Lloyd disappeared far too soon, but her remarkably authentic, true-to-life portrayals always elevated whatever she was in, including this scattershot but touching drama.
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