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Original Cast Recordings: 'Beautiful,' 'Bullets Over Broadway,' 'If/Then,' 'Here Lies Love'

More of today’s musicals are going the jukebox route, using existing songs by one or more artists to build a show around. The results range widely, as several current cast recordings demonstrate: from Carole King’s catalog of ‘60s and ‘70s hits in Beautiful to the slew of mainly obscure songs from the ‘20s in Bullets Over Broadway. To be sure, there are still original scores done on and off Broadway, like the Idina Menzel vehicle If/Then and David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s dance-club show about Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, Here Lies Love.
 
But if one is looking for originality in these stage musicals, look elsewhere than these four CDs: neither If/Then nor Here Lies Lovehas memorable songs to go with the semi-clever concept. And one’s tolerance for Beautiful is based on one’s love for Carole King’s songs, while Bullets Over Broadway’s pastiche of 90-plus year-old tunes works better onstage, where it's paired with Susan Stroman’s witty choreography.
 
Beautiful (Ghostlight Records) comes off schizophrenic onstage, unwilling to commit to dramatizing King’s own story: instead of concentrating on King’s solo career, which begins with 1970’s seminal Tapestry, the musical meanders through the ‘60s pop world, giving King and partner-husband Garry Goffin’s friendly rivals, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, inordinate stage time, including several of their own tunes. But Beautiful’s assembly-line parade of hits is certainly worthy, and on disc, its desperation to please its baby-boomer audience with recognizable hits rather than create a compelling story musical is less noticeable. 


And what hits there are: 7 Number Ones and 5 Top Tens that run the gamut from “The Locomotion” to “It’s Too Late,” with “You’ve Got a Friend” and “I Feel the Earth Move” thrown into the beguiling mix. The singers are reasonable facsimiles with personalities of their own, and Jessie Mueller’s Carole—too often on

the sideline while others hog the spotlight—has a lofty voice that keeps her front and center.

 
Bullets Over Broadway(Masterworks Broadway),based on Woody Allen’s hilarious 1994 comedy film, is crammed with 1920s standards cleverly orchestrated by Greg Kelly, who’s also penned new lyrics that refer to the plot and characters. (The Broadway production is closing on August 24.) Missing Susan Stroman’s original choreography and direction, the score—from rousing curtain-raiser “Tiger Rag” to giddy closer “Yes, We Have No Bananas”—stumbles, and the talented onstage cast is rendered mostly inert when audio-only. 
 
Nick Cordero, who has comic menace as hitman-turned-playwright Cheech, has a tap-dance number, “T’aint Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,” that's a highlight live but not on disc, while old pros Karen Ziemba and Brooks Ashmanskas provide needed daffiness in “There’s a New Day Comin’” and “Let’s Misbehave.” Then there's Marin Mazzie, whose vocal elegance on “I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle” quashes nagging memories of Dianne Wiest’s Oscar-winning turn as acting diva Helen Sinclair, while our amiably goofy hero, Zach Braff, battles his way through “I’m Sitting on Top of the World.” Listening toBullets on CD is like closing your eyes while your favorite Woody movie is on. 
 
If/Then (Masterworks Broadway) has a heroine, Elizabeth—a thirty-something back in New York after her divorce—who (depending on the path she takes) is either Liz, glasses-wearing city planner who falls in love with Josh, a soldier just returned from Iraq; or Beth, unemployed activist sans glasses, who begins seeing old college boyfriend Lucas. The musical rotely toggling between Liz and Beth is dragged down by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s antiseptic—and interchangeable—tunes. 
 
Lackluster music and superficial exploration of Liz/Beth make If/Thencompletely forgettable, except for its leading lady, Idina Menzel, who deserves better original musicals than If/Then, or Rent, or evenWicked. Although saddled with strident, same-sounding songs, Menzel—pro that she is—takes off into the stratosphere with some of them, even turning a limp attempt at a showstopper, “Always Starting Over,” into something resembling an emotional climax. Even on CD, Menzel’s fierce artistry comes through, almost making If/Then sound like a real musical. 
 
Here Lies Love (Nonesuch), a colossally lightweight affair, relies too much on gimmickry for its metaphor of corrupting power finishing off the Marcos regime in the Philippines. Its paltry idea—that, since Imelda enjoyed clubbing as Philippine first lady, so the show inhabits a club atmosphere for its 90-minute length—is reflected in the music. 
 
David Byrne’s and Fatboy Slim’s singleminded songs are remarkably repetitive, with the partial exceptions of the soaring title song, whose chorus apes the “oh oh oh” bridge of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and “The Fabulous One,” a spirited anthem for Marcos’ political opponent (and anti-Marcos martyr) Benigno Aquino, which has some of the spiky wit and rhythmic vigor of the Talking Heads’Fear of Music peak. But the rest, smothered by Slim’s relentless beats, are shrill and paper-thin, however well sung by the energetic cast.

July '14 Digital Week V

Blu-rays of the Week
Aerial America—Southwest Collection
(Smithsonian Channel)
In the latest release from the invaluable series exploring this great land of ours, unforgettable aerial footage of five states (Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico) is the star of this four-hour travelogue. Among their eye-popping scenic vistas and natural wonders, stand-outs are Utah’s Zion and Bryce Canyon, Arizona’s Grand Canyon, Nevada’s Hoover Dam, New Mexico’s Santa Fe and Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
 
Captured with pinpoint clarity by many hi-def cameras, these locations linger in the memory, thanks to the first-rate hi-def transfer.
 
The Angriest Man in Brooklyn
(Lionsgate)
The latest by Phil Alden Robinson (director of Field of Dreams andSneakers) is a compact, intermittently satisfying black comedy about an angry man who, when told he has 90 minutes to live, runs all over Brooklyn hoping to make belated amends with his family.
 
Robinson’s concise direction and pitch-perfect performances by Robin Williams, Mila Kunis, Melissa Leo and Sutton Foster help disguise the fact that this is ultimately 84 shopworn minutes of material from Daniel Taplitz’s script. The Blu-ray looks good; extras are a making-of featurette and gag reel with not enough Williams craziness.
 
 
Ariadne auf Naxos
Don Carlo
(Sony Classical)
Although German tenor Jonas Kaufmann stars in both operas, he is less in his element in Strauss’s Ariadne than in the title role of Verdi’s Don Carlo,where he memorably plays the sympathetic nobleman in the Salzburg Festival’s 2013 staging, which matches the complexities in the libretto and masterly music. 
 
Ariadne is Salzburg’s 2012 staging of the unwieldy original, which Strauss wisely discarded before settling on the justly well-known version. Strauss’s women, as always, are front and center, and Emily Magee and Elena Mosuc come off best in a time-capsule work that has glorious music but bumpy dramaturgy. Hi-def visuals and audio of both operas are exemplary.
 
Fading Gigolo
(Millennium)
Writer-director-star John Turturro bungles his latest, unsure of his material: is it a farce about an elderly bookshop owner (Woody Allen) pimping his employee (Turturro) to the likes of Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara (who probably don’t need such a service); is it an unlikely romance between Turturro and a lovely Hassidic widow (Vanessa Paradis), or is it a revenge picture about a Hassidic cop (Live Schreiber) preserving the widow’s honor?
 
The tone is inconsistent throughout; and, aside from Allen’s sterling comic presence, the acting is as variable as the film. On Blu-ray, it all pleasantly shimmers; extras are Turturro’s commentary and deleted scenes that include some priceless Woody improvs.
 
 
Love in the City
(Raro)
There was a plethora of omnibus films by notable European directors in the ‘50s and the ‘60s, and this engagingly lightweight 1953 ensemble feature was one of the first: despite comprising shorts by heavy-hitters near the beginning of their careers (Fellini, Antonioni) and other noteworthy filmmakers (Dino Risi, Alberto Lattuada), this is a scattershot film about romances and relationships.
 
Still, anyone interested in these directors—particularly Antonioni and Fellini—will want to at least check out their favorites’ segments. On Blu-ray, the image looks OK if too digitized; extras include commentaries and interviews.
 
The Wind Will Carry Us
(Cohen Media)
Iranian Abbas Kiarostami’s dazzlingly formal 1999 study follows a group of engineers which arrives at a remote village to record the inhabitants’ mourning rituals preceding a 100-year-old woman’s death; when she doesn’t die, the men are forced to appreciate the slow pace of the people’s day-to-day existence.
 
Before he turned into a pretentious purveyor of “reality or illusion” dramas—culminating in the colossally vacuous Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love—Kiarostami directed thought-provoking films with simple but stunning imagery, which come through unvarnished on Blu-ray. Lone extra is Jonathan Rosenbaum’s commentary.
 
DVDs of the Week

The French Minister

(IFC)
Bertrand Tavernier’s unabashed and witty satire of French—and, by extension, international—politics comes very close to becoming the distinguished and intelligent French director’s first foray into farce. But the over-the-top careenings of the characters and the absurd—but expressly realistic—scenarios remain plausible enough to make viewers uncomfortable while laughing out loud.
 
This exhilarating highwire act comes perilously close to going over the edge into self-parody, but never does: pitch-perfect acting by Thierry Lhermitte, Raphael Personnaz, Anais Demoustier and Julie Gayet grounds their near-caricatures in Tavernier’s superbly rendered ultra-heightened reality. My lone quibble: why is this not on Blu-ray? Extras are brief featurettes.
 
Medical Center—Season 5
(Warner Archive)
For the popular hospital drama’s fifth season—which was televised in 1973-74—Chad Everett and James Daly’s doctors not only deal with their patients’ physical and mental issues, but also with thorny problems which were then plaguing and dividing the country, like homosexuality and the Vietnam War.
 
Alongside the stars, some of the guests passing through the hospital’s doors on the six discs housing this season’s 24 episodes include Stefanie Powers, Stockard Channing, Jill Clayburgh, Julie Harris and even Celeste Holm.
 
 
 
 
Le Week-End
(Music Box)
Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan could scarcely be bettered as a middle-aged English couple trying to rekindle their long-dulled marriage by returning to Paris, scene of their long-ago honeymoon.
 
But despite the deliciously believable relationship they create, director Roger Michel and writer Hanif Kureishi are unable to surround them with an arresting storyline or non-clichéd characters to interact with (typified by Jeff Goldblum’s vulgar caricature as an ugly American). Extras are director-producer commentary, featurettes and cast-crew interviews.
 
CD of the Week
John Mellencamp—Live at Town Hall, July 31, 2003
(Mercury/UMe)

It was a long way from Johnny Cougar warbling “Hurts So Good” to a politically aware John Mellencamp performing the entirety of his then-current album, Trouble No More, a collection of blues and folk tunes that stingingly commented on the state of the nation when the Bush administration began its disastrous Iraq war in a 2003 concert that finally sees the light of day.

Mellencamp’s maturity came in fits and starts in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, but his scathing Trouble songs—played with controlled power by his terrific live band—are in another realm entirely, led by his re-writing of an old song, “To Washington,” mocking the sins of those in power. Renditions of his ‘80s hits “Small Town,” “Paper in Fire” and “Pink Houses”—in more folk-based arrangements—mark a straight line to the political charged tunes from Trouble No More.    

July '14 Digital Week IV

Blu-rays of the Week
Cesar Chavez 
(Lionsgate)
Diego Luna’s unexceptional biopic about the singular labor leader who, against all odds, gained widespread support for his strike actions against all-powerful corporations would be less than memorable if not for the compelling performance of Michael Pena in the title role.
Solid support from Rosario Dawson and America Ferrara lends authenticity to a decent if flattened-out Hollywood version of an inspiring true story. The Blu-ray image looks superb; lone extra is a making-of featurette.



Endeavour—Season 2
(PBS)
In the second season of this entertaining prequel to the popular British series Morse, set in Oxford in the fraught decade of the 1960s, the young detective investigates several cases with the no-nonsense Chief Inspector Thursday (played by the inimitable Roger Allam of The Thick of It).
Shaun Evans himself provides the necessary pluck, humor and intelligence in the title role, and these four 90-minute mysteries unravel grippingly. The hi-def transfer is first-rate.

Michael Palin’s Brazil 
(BBC)
Wherein the former Monty Python member continues his successful second career as a world traveler to remote and remarkable destinations, this four-part series follows Palin to what’s been in the news recently as the controversial home of the recent World Cup.
But as Palin discovers (and shows), it is so much more, with some of the most wide-ranging cultures on the entire planet, from difficult-to-reach rainforest regions to full-to-bursting population centers Rio and Brasilia, where millions live in cramped quarters. It’s a splendid but thoughtful journey, with spectacular vistas rendered beautifully on Blu-ray.
 
Open Grave 
(Cinedigm)
Pits filled with dead bodies, survivors suffering from amnesia, a plague that has seemingly killed off much of the world’s population—yes, it’s another apocalyptic thriller, although this one is somewhat cleverer than other recent entries.
Director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego and writers Eddie and Chris Borey keep things moving by keeping shock effects to a minimum, and the result is a watchable entry in this burgeoning genre, especially for those who are fans. On Blu-ray, the movie looks excellent; lone extra: behind-the-scenes featurette.

Pickpocket 
(Criterion)
One of Robert Bresson’s 1950s masterpieces—along with A Man Escaped and Diary of a Country Priest—this 1959 classic leads up to, in Bresson’s usual austere and elliptical style, a young man’s eventual (and surprising) state of grace while working as a low-class criminal.
This is yet another of Bresson’s transcendent explorations of humanity, as usual achieved with an eloquent economy of means. The Criterion Collection’s new hi-def transfer is spellbinding, as the film’s B&W images popping off the screen; extras include a commentary, intro, Bresson interview, and 2003 documentary feature The Models of Pickpocket, which profiles Bresson’s actors.

Transcendence 
(Warners)
It would be nice to report that the latest sci-fi film about artificial intelligence is smart, stylish and superlative entertainment, but no: Transcendence is draggy, laughably inert and trite through and through.
Although from Kate Mara I don’t expect much, talented performers like Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy and Paul Bettany are hopelessly lost, and even Rebecca Hall, an actress who never strikes a false note, can’t overcome screenwriter Jack Paglen’s flimsy characters and motivation. Cinematographer turned director Wally Pfister creates gorgeous imagery but can’t make the plot transform itself into coherence. The Blu-ray looks terrific; extras are short featurettes.

DVDs of the Week
The Face of Love 
(IFC)
In this intimately-scaled drama about a widow who falls for a man that’s a dead ringer for her long-deceased husband, Annette Bening’s forceful and subtle performance (one of her best) towers over director-cowriter Arie Posen and cowriter Matthew McDuffie’s Twilight Zone knock-off.
The very real chemistry between Bening and an excellent Ed Harris (as husband and new guy) is undermined by desperate melodramatic strategems that lead the movie to a sentimental denouement after spinning its wheels for 90 minutes. Extras include deleted scenes and interviews.


How the West Was Won—Complete 2nd Season
(Warners)
Although it shares its title with the Oscar-winning, 1962 western epic, this 1977-79 drama series is a pale imitation of its big-screen brethren’s visual grandeur, and a top small-screen cast led by James Arness, Eva Marie Saint, Bruce Boxleitner and Lloyd Bridges can’t compensate.
Of the 14 season two episodes housed on six discs, three are 2-1/2 hours long, approaching the length of the original without the Cinerama process that made the movie a true “event.”

Unni Lindell—The Cato Isaksen Mysteries, Sets 1 & 2 
(MHZ International Mystery)
Based on novels by Norwegian author Unni Lindell, these three-DVD sets of feature-length mysteries centers on homicide detective Cato Isakson, whose professionalism and brilliance at solving tough murder cases runs directly counter to his screwed-up home life (he has three kids by two women, for starters).
Acted with conviction by Reidar Sorenson (Cato) and a formidable supporting cast, these two-part films—each running about three hours—are first-rate…and binge-worthy (the ultimate compliment nowadays).


Vicious—Season One 
(PBS)
Pairing Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen as aging queens who live together as they endlessly bicker comes off as a retrograde and desperate attempt at a sitcom that, sadly, is only in its first season: meaning there will be more of this.
The two legendary actors do what they can with dated (and stupid) material, and their leading lady—the irrepressibly brilliant Frances de la Tour—is even better. But no one can save this. Extras comprise cast and crew interviews.

July '14 Digital Week III

Blu-rays of the Week
The Gathering Swarms—Nature (PBS)
Hidden Kingdoms 
(BBC Earth)
Two television documentaries provide astounding views of the natural world, starting with Swarms, which dazzlingly chronicles the large (in many cases, extremely large) gatherings of many of the world’s creatures, from monarch butterflies to cicadas to mayflies to zebras and wildebeests. 
 
BBC’s Kingdoms, narrated by the ubiquitous Stephen Fry, comprises three fascinating episodes—Under Open Skies, Secret Forests, Urban Jungles—whose amazing camerawork brings viewers up close and personal with many small creatures like rodents who fend off larger (in many cases, extremely larger) predators. The Blu-ray images are splendidly realized on both discs; Kingdoms extras include an introduction, a making-of featurette for each episode and interviews.
 
Jodorowsky’s Dune 
(Sony Pictures Classics)
Misguided visionary director Alejandro Jodorowsky never was able to adapt Frank Herbert’s unfilmable sci-fi blockbuster novel Dune in the mid-70s, and Frank Pavich’s 90-minute documentary explains what went wrong. 
 
As a short feature this might have passed muster, but weighed down by interviews with sycophantic reviewers and anecdotes of Jodorowsky meeting Dali or Mick Jagger, it’s padded beyond its slender interest—except for El Topofans, of course. The Blu-ray image looks good; extras are over 45 minutes of deleted scenes.
 
 
 
Orphan Black—Complete 2nd Season 
(BBC)
If it’s possible, Tatiana Maslany gives new meaning to the term tour de forcewith her brilliantly realized performances as clones in this fever dream of a drama that wisely keeps her front and center while it travels an increasingly uninvolving road. 
 
But even if the plots are filled with holes you could drive an 18-wheeler through, it’s impossible to take your eyes off Maslany as she shows her stunning ability to make her clones individuals, which is much tougher than it seems at first. The Blu-ray transfer looks stellar; extras include deleted scenes and behind the scenes featurettes.
 
Under the Skin 
(Lionsgate)
Jonathan Glazer’s latest faux-Kubrick feature is a disjointed and tedious sci-fi flick about an alien who takes over a young woman’s body and lures sex-obsessed men to their demise. 
 
Not erotic in the least, this unremarkable ET story has offbeat visuals and much nudity, but Scarlett Johansson’s zombie-like presence makes for a less than credible outer-space sex bomb. The hi-def transfer is superb; extras comprise making-of featurettes.
 
 
 
 
Watermark 
(e one)
In their latest extraordinary visual essay, Manufactured Landscapesdirectors Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky train their hi-def cameras on regions of our planet with and without water—and those people who are dependent on this vastly depleted resource. 
 
Ranging from China (where a new dam dwarfs our Hoover Dam) to Las Vegas (home of the Bellagio fountains) and Mexico (where the Colorado River basin has dried up), the film has crammed with striking imagery that displays the power of water—physically and even spiritually, On Blu-ray, the film looks spectacular; extras include a Baichwal and Burtynsky interview, making-of featurette and deleted scenes.
 
DVDs of the Week
Like Father Like Son 
(Sundance Selects)
Director Kore-eda Hirokazu has made an affecting, gently observed drama about two couples who, after discovering their sons were switched at birth six years earlier, must try and bond with their “new” sons while letting go of the ones they loved and raised. 
 
Although slightly overlong and flirting with sentimentality and melodrama, this touching and tender movie has the ring of truth thanks to emotionally authentic portrayals by the entire cast, from the parents to the boys.  
 
 
 
Spiral—Series 4 

(MHz International Mystery)
In what has become the most addictive drama I’m currently watching—with apologies to Orange Is the New Black and Masters of Sex—the fourth season of this fast-paced and riveting French police thriller again puts its complicated cops, magistrates, lawyers and criminals through their paces, with no let-up for 12 episodes. 

 
The excellent cast is led by Caroline Proust’s sympathetic detective, Philippe Duclos’s calculating magistrate and Audrey Fleurot’s ambitious, ambulance-chasing young lawyer; if you haven’t discovered it yet, find it and binge-watch all four seasons.

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