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On Broadway: “Orphans,” “The Nance, “The Big Knife,” “The Assembled Parties”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 29 April 2013 17:33; Written by Kevin Filipski

Orphans

Written by Lyle Kessler; directed by Daniel Sullivan

Performances through June 30, 2013

The Nance

Written by Douglas Carter Beane; directed by Jack O’Brien

Performances through June 16, 2013

The Big Knife

Written by Clifford Odets; directed by Doug Hughes

Performances through June 2, 2013

The Assembled Parties

Written by Richard Greenberg; directed by Lynne Meadow

Performances through June 16, 2013

Sturridge, Baldwin and Foster in Orphans (photo: Joan Marcus)

The trio we meet in a shabby Philly apartment in Lyle Kessler’s obvious Orphans—tough guy Treat, his autistic brother Philip and their shady victim Harold, who shares the place with them after foiling Treat’s kidnaping attempt—charts a predictable path from the get-go.

It opens with Treat returning from a day of petty thievery and showing his meager wares to Philip, too scared to leave the house by Treat’s warning that he’ll die in the outside world: he’s content to eat tuna sandwiches with mayo and watch reruns of old movies on TV. When Treat brings home and ties up Harold—drunken, dapper, with a briefcase—the dynamics unsurprisingly shift. After untying the ropes, Harold ingratiates himself with Philip then Treat; soon Harold (also an orphan, he says) becomes a father surrogate to the parentless pair.

The solid 1987 movie version, directed by Alan Pakula, comprised a strong ensemble in Albert Finney (Harold), Matthew Modine (Treat) and Kevin Anderson (Philip). On Broadway, Daniel Sullivan directs with a veteran hand on John Lee Beatty’s authentically dilapidated set, while the three actors—Alec Baldwin (a poised Harold), Ben Foster (a wishy-washy Treat) and Jim Sturridge (an astonishingly gymnastic Philip)—never find the right rhythms to keep this crudely metaphorical drama together for two hours.

Nathan Lane in The Nance (photo: Joan Marcus)

The Nance, Douglas Carter Beane’s best idea yet for a play, is an alternately hard-edged and corny study of a “nance,” a vaudeville/burlesque-era performer whose blatant swishiness onstage belied his offstage heterosexuality—usually.

This is the 1930s, when “deviant” love dared not speak its name. Beane introduces Chauncey, a famous nance and self-hating right-winger, in an automat, where—as is his custom—he picks up willing young men for a rendezvous. Whom he meets, however—just off the bus from Buffalo—is studly Ned, and their anonymous tryst becomes a live-in relationship, something Chauncey has studiously avoided, to avoid unneeded questions about his personal life, until now.

Labor strife and New York police crackdowns make life miserable for Chauncey and his co-performers: his onstage partner/boss Efram and dancers Carmen, Joan and Sylvie, the last with whom he jousts repeatedly over her Communist talk and his staunchly anti-FDR/New Deal position. The drama comes to a head when Chauncey refuses to be cowed by police threats and is hauled off to jail after he camps it up onstage with an in-their-face defiance.

Despite dramatic clunkiness, Beane adroitly mixes backstage, offstage and onstage happenings, with Chauncey and pals’ routines played out in their entirety—sometimes too much of a (not always) good thing. Despite its ungainliness, director Jack O’Brien cannily makes The Nance Broadway’s most entertaining new show by mixing Nathan Lane’s naturally hammy Chauncey with grounded supporting performances (except Jonny Orsini’s lunkheaded boytoy Ned). Add in the clean efficiency in sets, costumes, lighting and music and The Nance is a more accomplished as a spectacle than as a semi-serious drama.

Ireland and Cannavale in The Big Knife (photo: Joan Marcus)

The recent Golden Boy revival showed there’s still life in Clifford Odets’ plays—earnestly hard-nosed morality tales—provided there’s a pitch-perfect production. The return of The Big Knife—written in 1948, long after seminal works like Golden Boy, Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing!—proves that Odets doesn’t work when the staging isn’t on his wavelength.

The play concerns Charlie Castle, a studio system star—living the high life in a gorgeous Hollywood home (John Lee Beatty’s magnificent set is the best I’ve seen in awhile)—who decides he no longer wants to be chained to Marcus Hoff and Hoff Studios. He’s also dealing with his estranged wife Marion, gofer Buddy Bliss (whose flirty wife Connie Charlie has a fling with), agent Nat Danzinger, ingénue Dixie Evans and Hoff’s right-hand man Smiley Coy (what a name!), always around to fix the messes Charlie gets into.

Odets’ dialogue oscillates between poetic epiphanies and pretentious platitudes, often in the same speech. His heart is in the right place, but by making the far-from-innocent Charlie a bastion of integrity, Odets stumbles trying to find a dramatically satisfying conclusion to his hero’s murderously messy situation. Emotions and tempers flare but remain on the surface.

Doug Hughes’ soporific staging leaves his actors flailing. Richard Kind’s blustering Marcus and Reg Rogers’s rat-like Smiley are too loud, the women—Marin Ireland’s schoolmarmish Marion, Ana Reeder’s lummox-like Connie, Rachel Brosnahan’s perky Dixie—can’t escape caricature, and Bobby Cannavale—the endlessly resourceful actor from The Motherfucker with the Hat—is unable to inject needed humanity into Charlie, a protagonist who remains flat and uninteresting.

The cast of The Assembled Parties (photo: Joan Marcus)

Richard Greenberg’s The Assembled Parties follows a Jewish family, the Bascovs, at Christmas parties 20 years apart—in 1980 (dawn of Reagan) and 2000 (beginning of George W. Bush). If that doesn’t underline its overly schematic approach, let me add that this family—the members of which are nearly all witty wisecrackers—is as much a maze as its gigantic 14-room Central Park West apartment (in which family members who have visited for years get lost).

The play revolves around matriarch Julie, sister-in-law Faye and Jeff, friend of Julie’s college-age son Scotty, leaving in the dust Julie’s husband Ben, Faye’s husband Mort and daughter Shelley, and Julie and Ben’s young son Tim—who at least grows up and appears in 2000. (Greenberg relegates Shelley to an Act II phone call and kills off Ben, Mort and Scotty, resorting to mumbles about shady doings and AIDS, none of which is explained or explored compellingly enough: perhaps an earlier draft fleshed out what now remains as unconvincing melodrama.)

Although the second act nods toward major revelations and insights, none is forthcoming: instead, improbable one-liners keep going, stale Reagan jokes morph into stale Dubya jokes (all natural crowd-pleasers) and Greenberg, unable to become our new Bernard Shaw, must settle for being our new Neil Simon.

Jessica Hecht’s now-standard mannered line readings—also annoying in last season’s Harvey—prevent Julie from becoming the towering heroine Greenberg has written her as, while the always amusing Judith Light trots out similarly drunken witticisms for Faye that served the actress far better in Jon Robin Baitz’s superior Other Desert Cities.

Jeremy Shamos makes Jeff a sympathetic figure, but Mark Blum, Jonathan Walker and Jake Silberman do little as the other underwritten men. Santo Loquasto’s stylishly plush set unerringly recreates the place such families live in, but Lynne Meadow’s straightforward direction does this overstuffed but undernourished play no favors.

Orphans

Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45^th Street, New York, NY

http://orphansonbroadway.com

The Nance

Lyceum Theatre, 149 West 45^th Street, New York, NY

http://lct.org

The Big Knife

American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42^nd Street, New York, NY

http://roundabouttheatre.org

The Assembled Parties

Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47^th Street, New York, NY

http://manhattantheatreclub.com

April '13 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 29 April 2013 13:47; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Escapee

(Anchor Bay)

Campion Murphy’s dull serial killer thriller begins auspiciously: a group of students visits a prison and an inmate makes advances to the most attractive female among them. After that, what should be the meat and potatoes is instead mostly gristle as a murderer outsmarts a bunch of not very smart people.

A half-hearted attempt at psychology is risible, and even the bloodlettings are a letdown for those who want that sort of thing. The Blu-ray image is stellar; lone extra is a making-of featurette.

Massage Parlor Murders

(Vinegar Syndrome)

This mid-‘70s cinematic artifact ineptly attempts being sexy and scary as a diabolical killer offs a Manhattan massage parlor’s nubile masseurs. What’s watchable is a time-capsule glimpse at New York City: the streets, grime, crime, people, vintage vehicles are fascinating by themselves.

The disc contains an original cut and re-release cut, which junks a deadpan opening massage; there are also seven minutes of outtakes. The movie’s graininess remains on Blu-ray, which helps with its frozen-in-amber “look.”

A Monster in Paris

(Shout Factory)

The best thing about this mundane animated adventure is its setting: taking place in 1910 Paris, Bibo Bergeron’s movie has a chase scene on the Eiffel Tower and a shootout on the uncompleted Sacre Coeur church.

Too bad the dazzling animation is at the service of a nondescript tale complete with bad guys and a misunderstood creature who ends up a hero. The voice talent (Danny Huston, Vanessa Paradis, Bob Balaban, even Sean Lennon) is capable; the Blu-ray transfer looks terrific in both 3-D and 2-D.

Richard III

(Criterion)

Laurence Olivier’s magnificent adaptation of Shakespeare’s early tragedy is not only a cinematic marvel but also contains one of Olivier’s most flamboyant but unhammy performances—Richard is a showboat, which Olivier plays to the hilt. But Olivier the director smartly allows his supporting cast breathing room, and Claire Bloom, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud and Cedric Hardwicke respond superbly.

The boisterous colors of this 1955 Vistavision production are captured immaculately in the Criterion Collection’s transfer; extras comprise a commentary, restoration demo, 12-minute trailer with on-set footage and an Olivier interview from a 1966 BBC series Great Acting.

Wings of Life

(Disneynature)

If you ignore corny narration spoken by Meryl Streep—who must have been gagging during recording—the latest exquisite-looking Disney nature doc shows how the world of plants interconnects with all of earth’s life.

The amazing HD photography—which catches the minutest movements and variations among the flowers and insects in a nature dance that’s been going on for billions of years—is the reason to watch, even if the soundtrack (along with Meryl’s silly speech, there are lame songs of uplift) is less than sound. The Blu-ray image is unsurprisingly perfect-looking.

DVDs of the Week

Childrens Hospital—The Complete Season 4

(Warner Archive)

Rob Corddry’s whacked-out satire is undoubtedly the best 10-minute show on TV each week, and this disc brings together 14 hilarious episodes from the series’ fourth season.

Along with wickedly imaginative writing, the cast is a comic dream, a group of actors—Malin Akerman, Erinn Hayes, Megan Mullally and even the Fonz himself, Henry Winkler—that’s exactly what Corddry (who’s insanely funny as a clown doctor who believes in the healing power of laughter) and his show needs.

Eclipse 38—Masaki Kobayashi Against the System

(Criterion)

Masaki Kobayashi is a Japanese master known for a trio of masterworks: the three-part The Human Condition (1959-61); 1962 samurai epic Hara-kiri; and 1964 eerie ghost tetralogy Kwaidan. This set comprises four films by a director unafraid to tackle pressing, even controversial social issues.

The Thick-Walled Room (WWII war criminals), I Will Buy You (baseball corruption), Black River (American postwar occupation)—all released in 1956—and 1962’s The Inheritance (amoral affluence) are further proof of Kobayashi’s exceptional prescience and formidable cinematic style. Now if Criterion releases his later films—Hymn to a Tired Man, Fossil, Tokyo Trials—I’d be forever grateful.

Erroll Garner—No One Can Hear You Read and

The Last Flight of Petr Ginz

(First Run)

These documentaries introduce two individuals—a stellar musician and teenage artist—whom history has forgotten about. Erroll Garner is a tangy portrait of an unsung jazz great whom director Atticus Brady chronicles as an important, overlooked purveyor of uniquely American music.

And directors Sandy Dickson and Churchill Roberts’ Petr Ginz stunningly demonstrates that a talented 16-year-old was on his way to a greatness that was tragically cut short by the Nazis.

In Another Country

(Kino Lorber)

For his playful but innocuous comic drama, Korean director Hong Sang-soo casts French actress Isabelle Huppert in a lazy trio of segments in which she plays three different women named Anne whose interaction with lovers, strangers and jealous wives have slight variations depending on the context.

What could have been a charming bon-bon about relationship confusion ends up so light and airy that it literally disappears while one is still watching it, despite Huppert’s best efforts..

Shakespeare—The King’s Man

(Athena)

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro—author of two level-headed books about the Bard, 1599 and Contesting Will—is our tour guide through the last decade of Shakespeare’s creative life, when his plays mirrored the political situation in Britain after Elizabeth’s death and James’s ascension to the throne.

At first it’s jarring when Shapiro walks around contemporary London while discussing the Jacobean era (when other playwrights were also flourishing), but Shakespeare’s for-all-time brilliance comes through. The lone extra is a 1983 BBC performance of Macbeth with Nicol Williamson.

Vietnam—Ten Thousand Day War

(Time Life)

In this thorough 26-part series about the Vietnam War, journalist Peter Arnett created an incisive examination of America’s most pointless war, with archival footage and interviews with many participants, both famous (American and Vietnamese officials) and not (ordinary soldiers).

It first aired in 1981, so its mention of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to give one example, lacks the truth which was discovered afterward, but overall, the show’s 11-plus hours that run from France’s initial involvement through the final fall of Saigon can still be considered a definitive history.

CD of the Week

Dutilleux—Correspondances

(Deutsche Grammophon)
Now age 97, Frenchman Henri Dutilleux has a claim on the "world's greatest living composer" mantle, and the three works on this recording—including one world premiere—back up that assertion. The enigmatic 1970 cello concerto, "Tout un monde lointain..." (played with authority by Anssi Karttunen) and the 1997 The Shadows of Time (a magical work with three angelic boys' voices)are two of the anything but prolific composer's masterpieces.

But the centerpiece is Correspondances, a remarkably muscular vocal piece from 2003, sung by the exquisite soprano Barbara Hannigan. Leading the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra is conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, one of Dutilleux's great champions.

Film Review: 'Pain and Gain' Delivers Better Bay Madness

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 28 April 2013 23:30; Written by Matt Oakes

"Pain and Gain"
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Ken Jeong, Rebel Wilson and Bar Paly
Action/Comedy/Crime
130 Mins
R

Pain and Gain is a preposterous true story that follows the real life exploits of a group of men who kidnapped a prickly, but rich, playboy, tortured him, and then forced him to sign over all of his valuables effectively making them rich. The narrative at the heart of it is too out-of-control to not be seductive but director Michael Bay lets down this inherently strong story with some elementary filmmaking missteps.

The ragtag crew at the center of this real story is led by Danny Lugo, a meathead with delusions of grandeur who is played perfectly by an aloof yet manipulative Mark Wahlberg. This is a man whose muscles outweigh his brain ten-to-one, who possesses a ridiculous entitlement complex and sees the American Dream as something indebted to him rather than something to strive for.

Lugo cons fellow gym-rats Paul Doyle and Adrian Doorbal into kidnapping some rich guy that no one will ever miss (due to his unpleasant demeanor) and extorting him for all he's worth. The craziest part of this true story is that they actually got away with it. However, when you give a mouse a cookie, he's gonna want a glass of milk and their taste of success in the criminal racket doesn't cut it for too long.

Looking at the film from an actor's perspective, the thing is a big hit. These characters at times seem downright evil and yet there is no judging from the actors. They play their characters with tactful understanding and a lack of discrimination. Honestly, I think that this is the first time that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson actually made a thespian contribution to a film rather than relying on yet another tough guy persona and boundless muscles to portray some semblance of character. If anything, Johnson is our moral compass - a deeply skewed moral compass yes, but certainly the most ethical of this depraved trio. It's great to see Johnson come out of his shell and embrace a more complex character than we're used to seeing and his bouncing back and forth between cocaine-addled-vice and Jesus-inspired-virtue easily makes him the film's most interesting character.

Aside from the pleasantly surprising acting, there are far too many noticeable no-no's from the book of directing 101 that really seemed to cash in on the "pain" portion of the title. Sure, Michael Bay has never misrepresented himself as an aspiring auteur or award seeker but what he does champion himself as is a maestro of entertainment. He's contend making sugary flicks with robots pounding on each other and for the most part, his films are entertaining. However, when his directorial choices stand as a barrier to entertainment, he needs to step back and reconsider what exactly he's trying to prove.

First off: cut back on the voice-overs. It's one thing to introduce the protagonist by allowing the audience to listen in on their thoughts but when you're using it for nearly every character, not only as a method of introduction but for every major moment of revelation, you know that you need to go back to the cutting room. Voice over is seen as a storytelling crutch for a reason. Instead of earning the audience's understanding, it is forced upon them.

I understand that Bay wants to cut to the essence of who these people are but to rely solely on VO for exposition shows a major lack of talent in the scripting department. The adage "show, don't tell" would apply nicely here. Bay truly was sitting on a gold mine of a true story with Pain and Gain which is probably why it's so interesting and yet it's impossible to ignore that it could have easily been told in a better way sans all the flashy freeze frames and gratuitous use of inner monologue.

Missteps aside, it is clear that Bay tries to transcend the big action spectacle films that make up his resume and fashion a satirical story about greed and a skewed perspective of the American Dream. He keeps all his iconic Bay hallmarks and lets them loose here. The boobs are bigger, the muscles larger but here the violence has consequences, producing more of a feeling of unease than smarmy shoot-em-up bliss. While it seemed like Bay aimed for satirical black comedy, the knowledge that this is a true story makes the whole affair much more disturbing and ultimately limits the laughs.

Of the dubious trio in the the film, their hubris is matched only by their stupidity. Dare I say the same of Michael Bay? These men have been distorted and tainted by a desire for unattainable opulence and an imaginary sense of entitlement that seems to come just from being American. Is this Bay pointing the finger at wealth and celebrity in America or am I just reaching for straws to make this more than what it is?

Even though Pain and Gain is maybe Bay's most mature film to date and he legitimately tries to dissect an nearly incomprehensible ethos, his own over-embellishing and tacky directorial choices diverts attention from the actual story that is already so rife with drama. Instead of just letting it play out, Bay condescends to the audience with all his unneeded cues, acting like we're the ones who can't keep up with the story when it's actually him who is letting it escape his grasp. Fortunately, the story is strong enough and the acting powerful enough to overlook most of its structural problems and make this a rather entertaining bit of cinema reality.

C+

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Film Review: "Oblivion" is Mind Over Splatter

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Saturday, 20 April 2013 09:29; Written by Matt Oakes

"Oblivion"
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Starring Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Sci-Fi/Action/Mystery
126 Mins
PG-13

For a seemingly effects-driven spectacle, Oblivion is a quiet and patient film that's more drawn to mind games than an all-out brawl. If you're expecting a guns-blazing, us-vs-them actioner, save yourself the ticket price and skip out on this one. However, if you're willing to engage in a beautifully realized, if somewhat retreat, cerebral sci-fi flick, be sure to catch it while it's still in theaters.

Tom Cruise plays Jack, a drone technician living and working on the now-abandoned Earth. Pixar fans will no doubt find comparisons with Andrew Stanton’s character, Wall-E as he’s tasked with the challenge of cleaning up the smoldering ashes of our ruined planet, after a cloaked alien race destroyed the moon and invaded. Like Wall-E, Jack even discovers a rare plant but instead of putting it in a shoe, he plops it in a tin can and presents it to fellow Earthling and girlfriend-thing Victoria (Andrea Riseborough).

As Jack's tenure as a technician runs to a close, he gets closer to moving to Titan -Saturn's largest moon, where all his fellow humans have already relocated to. Ever the curious one, Jack discovers a crash-landing which holds a time-frozen Julia (Olga Kurylenko) who opens up a world of secrets into his memory-wiped past.

Knocking on Cruise has become something of a pastime for America but I stand behind him as a man with massive talent. Not only does he do all of his own stunts (even the ones which would likely kill him) but he always brings his A-game. Sure, his action star roles often resemble each other but he offers enough variation while still preserving his distinct persona and has created a formula that really works. His role here just goes to prove why Cruise is such a household name. Sure, this is totally within his comfort zone but the man knows exactly what to do in a movie like this and hits all the notes perfectly. Without a weathered star like Cruise to dominate the vast majority of the screen time, it might not have been as captivating minute-to-minute and certainly wouldn't have the same pull with mainstream audiences.

Outside of Cruise, most of the other performances are acceptable but hardly noteworthy. Both Kurylenko and Riseborough play apt female supporting bits but neither seem to have had quite enough pulp in their character to squeeze a satisfying juice from. Morgan Freeman is definitely being overplayed on the marketing side of the equation as he probably only has about five to ten minutes of screen time. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones (Jaime Lannister) pop up as Freeman's partner in the film although his role was equally small. This is Cruise's ballgame and there is no denying that he alone shoulders the bulk of the film - hardly a shocker with a leading man like him.

Where Oblivion did surprise me was in its unhurried pacing. The set pieces and action scenes actually service the narrative rather than the other way around. Instead of charging ahead, full on, towards the steady throb of endless action sequences, the film takes its careful time to develop the world and its two (and then three) inhabitants. Without the tired scramble from one shoot-out to the next - something that has come to define the blockbuster sci-fi genre of late - Oblivion works as a slowly unwrapped question mark leading down an increasingly heady rabbit-hole.

Lucky for us, that rabbit-hole is laid out amongst some truly stunning and yet adequately restrained visual effects that really make this post-apocalyptic world pop. Less-is-more seems to have been adopted by the effects team as they offer a view of a world disappearing into itself rather than imploding in your face. Much like the powerful image of the Statue of Liberty's arm rising from the sand that truncates the original Planet of the Apes, Oblivion relies on the power of suggestion and visual simplicity to create its landscape of desolation and the accompanying melancholic tone.

Having transitioned from Tron: Legacy to Oblivion, director Joseph Kosinski has made great leaps as both a storyteller and filmmaker - genuinely appearing to have learned from his previous missteps. The visual wizardry that made Tron: Legacy watchable is still as potent if not more so here but Kosinski accomplishes so much more without everything else being so loud and ultimately shallow. Turning it down from eleven makes the ordeal not only more bearable, it makes it more inviting to those willing to invest themselves. Again, for those of you wanting things to pop out in your face and the knowledge that you'll only have to wait mere minutes for the next big shootout...this is not the film for you.

With so much technical mastery at his disposal, Kosinski earns points by not overextending and brazenly grabbing for the "oohs" and "ahhs." I'd take this simplified spectacle over cluttered CGI blowouts any day. It is in this simplification that you realize that the scope of a sci-fi film can still be epic without all the flashy glitz trying to distract us from its lack of backbone. By being a student of restraint, Kosinski has made a much grander film than his previous one and one that doesn't have to compete with itself for your attention.

Oblivion has the DNA of The Matrix, Alien, Wall-E, Terminator and especially Duncan Jones' Moon and while it's hard to ignore the influence that those films had on Oblivion, Kosinski could have taken his cues from worse places. The cautionary tales of nuclear war and fear of advancing technology have become staples to the sci-fi diet so much of the film feels like familiar territory. This does not mean that it's not worth our attention though. With more mature direction from Kosinski, a skilled star in Cruise, beautiful effects work, and a bold, if retread, narrative, Oblivion is exactly the type of heady popcorn flick the sci-fi genre needs.

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