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Reviews
Off-Broadway Reviews—"The Qualms," "Of Good Stock," "The Spoils"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 02 July 2015 23:32
- Written by Kevin Filipski
The Qualms
Written by Bruce Norris; directed by Pam MacKinnon
Performances through July 12, 2015
Of Good Stock
Written by Melissa Ross; directed by Lynne Meadow
Performances through July 26, 2015
The Spoils
Written by Jessie Eisenberg; directed by Scott Elliott
Performances through June 28, 2015
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| Kate Arrington, Jeremy Shamos and Sarah Goldberg in The Qualms (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Having won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for his 2010 world premiere at Playwrights Horizons, Clybourne Park—a play far worthier in theory than in execution—Bruce Norris returns with his latest, The Qualms, again indulging in his predilection for words—mainly, parsing what people say to one another—to the detriment of all else.
Swingers Gary and Teri have invited newcomers Chris and Kristy to a party at their beachfront condo where, after drinks, hors d'oeuvresand small talk, the invitees—who also include friends Deb and Ken, and Roger and Regine—pair off for wife- and husband-swapping. The other couples' relaxed and carefree attitudes intrigue Kristy but unnerve Chris, who starts arguing with the others on the slightest pretext about anything.
If you go to this play for sex or nudity, don’t bother, since Norris isn’t interested: a short scene when each partner pairs off with another is short-circuited by Chris erupting angrily after Regine teases him with face slaps. Chris then insults Deb's weight, Ken's androgyny, Gary's hippier-than-thou temperament and Roger's tough-guy persona, resulting in Ken finally knocking him down and Chris becoming a pariah among a pretty liberal group of people, which embarrasses Kristy, who’s obviously itching for spice in their (her?) life.
After setting up this uneasy situation among normal, everyday people, Norris short-circuits it by having Chris go too far, to the point where it becomes apparent that being aggressively pedantic and jealous would almost certainly have prevented him from even attending this party, however enticing the thought of an orgy might have been in the abstract. Despite such implausibility, Jeremy Shamos plays Chris with such intensity and brilliant bitchiness that he makes us at first root for—then, later, against—him, even when Norris ramps up his reactionary reactions against the others.
Really, there's not much of a play here—a late appearance by a delivery man is designed to extend the flimsy plot for a further few minutes with cheap laughs, while Teri’s final monologue adds little—but Pam MacKinnon's skillful direction and an accomplished cast get the job done. Although Shamos is the stand-out, Sarah Goldberg’s appealingly smoldering Kristy and Noah Emmerich’s hilariously matter-of-fact Roger are not far behind. And it all takes place on Todd Rosenthal’s astonishingly enticing set of Gary and Teri’s condo that’s almost (but not quite) in Ikea-like bad taste.
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| Jennifer Mudge, Heather Lind and Alicia Silverstone in Of Good Stock (photo: Joan Marcus) |
The set is also the thing in Melissa Ross's Of Good Stock, where master Santo Loquasto—winner of 3 Tony awards and 18 Tony nominations, along with 3 Oscar nods for Woody Allen's Zelig, Radio Days and Bullets Over Broadway—has fashioned a Cape Cod summer cottage so warmly enriching and homey that anyone would want to kick the actors out and move in.
Not that Ross's play is totally negligible; far from it. Exploring how three grown sisters have been screwed up by their famous novelist father's legacy—along with how he treated them and their saintly mother while alive—Of Good Stock introduces down-to-earth Jess, the oldest, fighting cancer and living in the family house (now hers) with food writer husband Fred; headstrong Celie, the youngest, who arrives with her latest boyfriend Hunter, one of 13 siblings from Missoula, Montana; and high-strung Amy, the middle one, newly engaged to Josh and flaunting her impending wedding to the consternation of the others, even her fiancé.
Ross, whose characters and dialogue alternate between funny and poignant, acerbic and sentimental, sweet and crude, has engagingly written about a too-familiar subject. But her ear at times turns tin: everyone drops F-bombs as casually as DeNiro and Pesci in Raging Bull, which wouldn't be bad if the play's pivotal scene—the sisters, outside the house at the dock after a night of drinking and arguing, finally let their feelings out by yelling "Fuck Dad," “Fuck cancer,” ad nauseum at the top of their lungs—didn't go over the top with the same expletive. Having the F-word already scattered throughout the play sucks the emotion out of what should be a powerful moment of catharsis for the sisters and the audience.
Slickly staged by Lynne Meadow, the play features several fine performers, with Jennifer Mudge’s Jess as subtle as Alicia Silverstone’s Amy is shrill. Still, a decent production of a decent play on an outstanding set is a not-bad way to spend a couple hours.
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| The cast of The Spoils (photo: Monique Carboni) |
Jesse Eisenberg, who specializes in narcissistic geeks as an actor, has been writing those same parts for himself as a playwright. His last play, The Revisionist, was insufferable; his latest, The Spoils, is less so, but still wears out its welcome long before it ends. It concerns Ben (Eisenberg, of course), a borderline sociopath who enjoys mocking everyone and everything, mainly his roommate Kalyan from Nepal, along with Kalyan's Indian girlfriend Reshma, who at least sees through Ben.
Eisenberg piles incident on top of incident as Ben embarrasses others and himself as he loutishly talks and talks, and insults and insults: it's amusing for a while, but a little of it goes a very long way, as Eisenberg the actor and Ben the character aren’t as charming and Archie Bunker-ishly loveable as Eisenberg the playwright thinks they are. A 75-minute one-act might work, but 2-1/2 hours and two acts don’t.
Not once but twice Ben goes into a lengthy—and unnecessarily explicit—description of a dream he once had about Sarah, a childhood friend he wants to take from Ted, another grade-school buddy with whom he just reconnected; then there’s the entire second act, which comprises another long and unfunny digression, this time of all of the characters punning on the phrase "I can't believe it's not butter," followed by desultory showdowns between Ben and each character in turn.
The final moments—Sarah’s lone memory of Ben as a nice person (albeit in grade school), dragged in out of left field in a belated attempt to bandage his reputation as a jerk—are a playwright’s desperate but failed attempt at meaning. But with Scott Elliott's lively directing on Derek McLane's purloined Manhattan apartment set and finely tuned performances by the cast (even Eisenberg in his motor-mouthed, single-minded way), I can’t believe it’s not better.
The Qualms
Playwrights Horizons, 410 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
playwrightshorizons.org
Of Good Stock
Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 West 55th Street, New York, NY
manhattantheatreclub.com
The Spoils
The New Group @ Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
thenewgroup.org
June '15 Digital Week V
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 30 June 2015 13:14
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Feuersnot
(Arthaus Musik)
Richard Strauss's second opera, while nowhere near as memorable as the masterpieces Elektra and Salome (which followed and made his career), contains enough of the composer's typically sumptuous melodies and signature vocal writing to make it worth hearing, and this 2014 Palmero, Italy, staging does the job.
Thanks to heroic singing by Nicola Beller Carbone and Dietrich Hentschel as the central lovers, it's a pleasantly diverting musical experience. The Blu-ray looks fine, the music sounds tremendou, and the lone extra is a making-of featurette.
(Lionsgate)
If John Travolta isn't very credible as an expert art forger working on a new project (a famous Monet canvas) while dealing with his grumpy father and terminal ill son in Philip Martin's middling melodrama, there's partial compensation in the supporting performances.
Christopher Plummer makes an amusingly grizzled grandfather and Tye Sheridan a believable dying teen, while Jennifer Ehle has a nice cameo as the kid's estranged mother and Abigail Spencer punches up an underwritten detective role. The movie looks sharp on Blu; lone extra is a short featurette.
Get Hard
(Warner Brothers)
When you pair Will Farrell and Kevin Hart in a movie about a rich banker going to prison who hires a thug (so he thinks) to prep him for the big house, you know exactly what you'll get: a lot of racial—if not outright racist—jokes and gags, many going on too long for meager comic returns, especially in the longer uncut version.
Director Etan Cohen knows what viewers want, so lets Farrell and Hart go through their usual shtick, providing hearty laughs amid the dross. The hi-def transfer is first-rate; extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel and Farrell and Hart interviews.
(Arrow USA)
Even by the usual standards of Japanese director Takashi Miike, The Katakuris (2001) is demented and daffy, its surrealist touches, claymation sequences, song-and-dance numbers and even karaoke scenes adding up to a lot of initial delight but, since it shoots its black-comic wad early, it becomes a limping, draggy farce by its end.
Those movie buffs who are on Miike's wavelength will no doubt get more out of it than the rest of us; it must be said that you won't see anything like it, for better or (mostly) worse. The Blu-ray image sparkles; extras include a Miike commentary and interview, making-of documentary and cast interviews.
I Am Evel Knievel
(Virgil Films)
In the 1970s, among the most famous men in the world was a death-defying motorcycle-jumping stuntman who made headlines even when he failed spectacularly, as when he fell into the Snake River Canyon or crushed many bones attempting to jump 13 buses.
Evel Knievel the icon is profiled in this hagiographic but still interesting documentary by directors Derik Murray and David Ray: his sons, wives, fans and friends (like Matthew McCoanughery, Kid Rock and Guy Fieri) attest to his being a rock-solid symbol of the American pursuit of happiness. The hi-def image looks decent; extras are two featurettes.
Survivor
(Alchemy)
This action flick, directed by James McTeigue (who made his debut with V for Vendetta), makes scant sense, but once it gets going—after special agent Milla Jovovich, lone survivor of an explosive attack, is simultaneously tracked by and tracking assassin Pierce Brosnan—it rarely lets up during its diverting 90-minute running time.
The finale, set in Times Square on New Year's Eve, stretches credulity to the breaking point, but so what? This definition of mindless fun looks superb on Blu-ray. Extras comprise a featurette and deleted scenes.
The Who—Live at Shea Stadium 1982
Rolling Stones From the Vault—The Marquee Club 1971
Rolling Stones From the Vault—The Marquee Club 1971
(Eagle Rock)
The Who's final tour as a functioning band—for its underrated It's Hard album in 1982—stopped at Shea Stadium for two nights; this hard-hitting two-hour show, mixing then-new and classic tunes like "Eminence Front," "Cry If You Want" and a Quadrophenia medley, was filmed the second night. Roger Daltrey's vocals had toughness and feel he's since lost, Pete Townshend was in exceptional wind-milling form, and John Entwistle's bass and Kenney Jones' drums were in lockstep throughout. Extras comprise five songs from the first night at Shea.
The Rolling Stones were at their peak at the time of this 1971 London concert, even if it's only 8 songs in 38 minutes (with 4 songs from the yet unreleased Sticky Fingers showcased): Mick's cutting vocals, Keith Richards and Mick Taylor's guitar interplay and the rock-solid rhythm section of bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts take center stage. The accompanying CD includes the same tracks; extras are alternative takes of "Bitch" and "I Got the Blues."
DVDs of the Week
Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard: The Meeting in St-Gervais
(Icarus)
Legendary directors Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard sat down for a discussion in Geneva, Switzerland, which begins by Godard's childhood reminiscences of World War II after seeing Ophuls' classic 1972 documentary epic The Sorrow and the Pity, which prompts Ophuls to candidly discuss the film's initial hostile reception in France.
The two men's engaging 45-minute conversation about their films and their lives remains fascinating throughout, especially for fans of the directors, although it has the feel of a DVD extra rather than its own full-fledged release.
(Film Movement)
Aidan Gillen's excellent portrayal of Tom, a man whose life has unraveled since his beloved teenage son died in a tragic car crash, provides the emotional center of director Simon Blake's atmospheric, hard-hitting thriller.The intensity of Gillen's acting is sometimes difficult to watch, but it's equally difficult to look away from, especially when events spin out of control once Tom becomes embroiled in a local gang feud. Extras are deleted scenes and Gillen/Blake interviews.
Stop The Pounding Heart
(Big World Pictures)In this slow-moving but absorbing hybrid of documentary and unscripted drama, director Roberto Minervini introduces a strictly religious couple and their 12 children who live on a farm in the American South: the kids are home-schooled, and we watch as teenage daughter Sara deals with unknown feelings after she meets a young man.
Sara's confusion over what her own faith and her parents taught her provides Minervini with the heart of his film, and with utmost delicacy he creates a low-key, uncondescending exploration of an insular community; in Sara Carlson he has found the perfect vessel for his spiritually questioning filmmaking.
Music Review—The New York Philharmonic's Finale(s)
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 28 June 2015 22:55
- Written by Kevin Filipski
New York Philharmonic
Performances June 10-13, 17-24, 2015
Various locations, New York, NY
nyphil.org
Honegger—Jeanne d'arc au bucher/Joan of Arc at the Stake (Alpha DVD)
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| Cotillard (center) in Joan of Arc at the Stake (photo: Chris Lee) |
The New York Philharmonic ended its current season with indoor and outdoor finales: an overdue Avery Fisher Hall hearing of Arthur Honegger's emotive oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake with a powerful Marion Cotillard was followed by 50th anniversary celebrations of the orchestra's city parks concerts (with a final indoor concert on Staten Island).
Cotillard was the main draw for the Honegger concert, and she did not disappoint, finding expressivity and subtlety in the title speaking role of the French teenager condemned to death for heresy in 1431. But Honegger's vibrant oratorio, sensitively played by the Philharmonic under music director Alan Gilbert, is the real deal: unafraid to combine high and low, sacred and profane, secular and liturgical in his majestic setting of Paul Claudel's poetic text, Honegger provides heroic musical moments for two choruses, soloists, speakers and orchestral players.
It's too bad that this unimpeachable work was so clunkily directed by Côme de Bellescize, who takes what Honegger's music so slyly, even sarcastically alludes to—the jury as sheep, the judge a pig, the secretary an ass—then adds cartoonish costumes and a leaden way of unnecessarily literalizing everything to make a far from ideal staging of this eloquent masterpiece.
To better experience Cotillard's sublime portrayal in Honegger's towering oratorio, track down the new
DVD on the Alpha label (right) of a 2012 Barcelona performance: his emotional music and her brave, fearless portrayal shine through far more than in Bellescize's trendy staging. And the close-ups of Cotillard's tear-filled face at the finale are far more satisfying than straining to watch her standing behind the orchestra at the rear of the Avery Fisher stage during the climax.
A few days later in Central Park, Charles Dutoit conducted a program of French music and Stravinsky’s Petrushka ballet. The mood was festive right from the opener, Hector Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture, while Camille Saint-Saëns' Third Violin Concerto had Renaud Capuçon as the triumphant soloist. After intermission, Petrushka and Ravel's La Valsewere played to appreciative applause, even if it was nearly impossible to hear the subtleties of Stravinsky outdoors.
But that quibble couldn't ruin a beautiful night, capped as it was by a rousing fireworks display.
June '15 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 24 June 2015 00:22
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Beyond the Reach
(Lionsgate)
The premise of Jean-Baptiste Leonetti's singleminded thriller—after ultra-rich businessman (Michael Douglas) inadvertently kills a local man while hunting, his guide (Jeremy Irvine) refuses to go along with the cover story and ends up being chased down in the desert—is stretched thin even with its scant 90-minute running time.
Douglas relishes playing such an odious character, while Irvine flexes his biceps throughout; the cat-and-mouse action is diverting enough, if unmemorable. The movie looks good on Blu-ray, and the extras are a Douglas/Leonetti commentary and a making-of featurette.
Spirited Away
(Disney)
The magical Studio Ghibli animation stable continues re-releasing its innovative and visual inventive films on wonderful hi-def discs. 2002's The Cat Returns is a charming tale of a young girl who enters a feline world after saving a cat prince from certain death, but 2001's Spirited Away—one of Hayao Miyazaki's best—is another beast entirely.
Concerning a young girl (again) whose parents become pigs, it's a breathtaking phantasmagoria about a fantastic, forbidding but enticing world that only Miyazaki could have imagined. Both Blu-rays look exquisite; extras from the original DVD releases are included.
The Fisher King
(Criterion)
Terry Gilliam's 1991 fantasy is, despite the bravura lunacy going on around his main characters, his most heartfelt film: the sympathetic portrayals by Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges and Mercedes Ruehl (who won a deserved Oscar) keeps the drama earthbound and intelligible even when Richard LaGravenese's script threatens to go off the rails.
Gilliam's dazzling direction juggles the bizarre fantastical stuff and the humanity underneath in a way unequalled in his other films, while his outlandish visuals look spectacular on Criterion's new hi-def transfer; extras feature Gilliam's commentary; new interviews with Gilliam, LaGravenese, Bridges, Ruehl and Amanda Plummer; 2006 Williams interview; and deleted scenes with Gilliam commentary.
(Fox)
In a university lab, as a pair of married scientists and their assistants work on re-animating dead animals, the husband's beloved partner is accidentally electrocuted...so he forces the reluctant assistants to bring her back to life. There are consequences, obviously, when she returns: the lab itself becomes a place where death is inevitable.
A serviceable premise leads to a guilty-pleasure horror flick, an 80-minute Twilight Zone ripoff that hits on familiar, and cheap, scare tactics. The always dull Mark Duplass plays the husband; the always lively Olivia Wilde plays the wife. The Blu-ray image looks excellent; extras are featurettes and deleted/extended scenes.
The Sunshine Boys
(Warner Archive)
George Burns won the 1975 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a retired vaudevillian making a last attempt at performing with his ex-partner, played by Walter Matthau; I don't know if it's the tired material, Neil Simon's scattershot script or Herbert Ross's stilted directing, but neither Burns nor Matthau are very interesting in this frenetic, trite and mean-spirited look at show biz friendship/hateship.
Richard Benjamin, who gives the movie's most fully realized performance as Matthau's exasperated nephew-agent, also provides a commentary full of fond reminiscing about the movie, which looks OK on Blu. Other extras are screen tests and an MGM featurette.
(Cohen Film Collection)
Abderrahmane Sissako's daring, even startling study of how terrorism affects everyday life is set in the eponymous African city, where ordinary people go about their business despite being harassed by local Muslim fanatics who want the world to revolve around their seventh-century vision of their religion.
Sissako's film, despite its pessimistic premise, is filled with humor and humanity, especially in his depictions of women, seen as far more hardy than the men on either side of the conflict. The movie looks gorgeous in hi-def; lone extra is a half-hour New York Film Festival press conference.
Welcome to Me
(Alchemy)
Kristen Wiig plays another of her troubled characters in Shira Piven's offbeat black comedy about a woman who wins the lottery, goes off her meds and transforms herself into her own version of Oprah, who does the most outrageous things in front of live and TV audiences.
While the one-joke plot doesn't leave much wiggle room for three-dimensional characterizations, Wiig gives her usual intense performance, although a touch of the smugness has crept into her acting since leaving SNL. The Blu-ray looks decent; lone extra is a making of featurette.
(Warner Archive)
This patently ludcrous 1981 horror film about—I kid you not—Native Americans who turn into supernatural wolves and tear apart unsuspecting victims in New York City is not the finest hour for anyone involved.
Director Michael Wadleigh, who made Woodstock, shows a less than sure touch; Albert Finney, Gregory Hines and Diane Venora look embarrassed to be involved; and Manhattan itself, whose locations are utilized extensively, shows off plenty of awe-inspiring shots of the late, lamented World Trade Center, courtesy of cinematographer Gerry Fisher, also responsible for the risible thermo-night photography that's supposed to be the creatures' POV. The movie looks surprisingly good, and grainy, on Blu-ray.
DVDs of the Week
Manuel de Falla—When the Fire Burns/Nights in the Garden of Spain
(Euroarts)
Barbara Hannigan—Concert/Documentary
(Accentus)
These DVD releases pair musician portraits and concert performances.Manuel de Falla—When the Fire Burns features an emotional overview of the life and art of Spain's greatest 20th century composer, who died in Argentina in 1946 (he left home when Franco's fascist regime took over); there's a scintillating performance of his masterpiece Nights in the Garden of Spain with pianist Alicia de Larrocha as soloist.
Barbara Hannigan—Concert/Documentary introduces the tremendously talented Canadian soprano whose specialty is fiendishly difficult modern music; the 51-minute documentary shows a versatile singer branching out into conducting, while the 71-minute 2014 concert—in which she conducts and sings Mozart and Ligeti, whose stratospheric Mysteries of the Macabre is a Hannigan calling card—rounds out a thoughtful glimpse at a brilliant artist.
(First Run)
Thrilling performances by Michelle Williams and Anna Friel as opposites who become long-time friends, then drift apart over the years, dominate Sandra Goldbacher's engaging and lively 2001 comedy-drama.
Although tied down by melodramatic subplots involving families and romantic relationships, Williams' mousy Holly and Friel as the gregarious Marina make this a intimate journey through the lives of two ordinary but extraordinary women.
Roman de Gare
(First Run)
Claude Lelouch, whose career pretty much consisted of A Man and a Womanin 1966, made this quirkily involving mystery in 2006, when he attempted a comeback against all odds: he made the movie using a pseudonym so no one would know it was he.
Despite an accomplished cast headed by Fanny Ardant, Dominique Pinon and Audrey Dana, Lelouch and co-writer Pierre Uytterhoeven twist themselves into pretzels making their jumbled storyline about a famous writer, her ghost writer and an escaped serial killer into something meaningful. It remains interesting, but its varied strands start to unravel as it goes along.
(Film Chest)
In the late '60s when she was still a promising young comedienne, Joan Rivers hosted her own talk show on the local NBC affiliate in New York, and 29 episodes from the first season in 1968-9 are included on four discs; they show an already formidable comedic force with scathing observations about everything from marriage to being a young Jewish woman in New York.
Her guest list is also quite impressive, ranging from Ed Sullivan and Barbara Walters to James Earl Jones and even Johnny Carson, her long-time friend who was her biggest booster then quickly turned to stone whenever her name was mentioned.
CDs of the Week
Keith Jarrett—Barber/Bartok Concertos
Creation (ECM)
Composer-pianist Keith Jarrett, who recently turned 70, has straddled the classical and jazz worlds for decades, shown by two new CDs that bring together some of his live recordings from the mid '80s and from last year. On the classical disc, he performs 20th century concerto masterworks by Barber and Bartok in concerts from 1984 and 1985, along with his own brief improvised encore, with enthusiasm and discipline.
On Creation, nine of his own improvisational solo pieces—performed at different concerts in 2014 and sequenced on the disc to mimic a large-scale work—unfortunately sound half-baked, without much variety despite the obvious virtuosity that Jarrett brings to his playing.
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