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Film and the Arts

September '12 Digital Week I

Blu-rays of the Week
Battleship 
(Universal)
This unlikely board game adaptation looks like a stultifying Transformers sequel. The eponymous ship battles malevolent aliens who morph into various guises—although lookers like the brilliantly-named Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker and Rhianna star, their vapidity is emphasized by Peter Berg's noisily empty spectacle that's more concerned with ubiquitous special effects which outdo even stalwart Liam Neeson.
The excessive CGI at least looks more plausible than the stiff actors thanks to Blu-ray's added clarity; extras comprise featurettes, interviews and an alternate ending.
Korczak 
(Kino Lorber)
Despite Schindler's List's obvious preeminence in the world of Holocaust films, three years earlier, in 1990, Polish master Andrzej Wajda made this simple, stark but equally harrowing film that's based on a true story about a doctor who bravely went to his death at Auschwitz with the young “children” surrounding him from the camp.
Wajda's mastery is as devastating as Steven Spielberg's was throughout this understated black and white classic; Robby Muller's extraordinary images look brilliant on Blu-ray.
Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season 
(Disney)
This series takes place in Storybrooke, Maine, where Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter put up her young son for adoption, which triggers the plot mechanicsm. Although this fantasy is quite diverting, it too often attempts to be hip or stay one step ahead of the audience, but nowadays, the audience has seen everything, so nothing is surprising.
The show returns to ABC for a second season at the end of September. The hi-def imagery looks great; extras include audio commentaries, deleted scenes, featurettes, interviews and bloopers.
Piranha 3DD 
(Anchor Bay)
This thriller-spoof is one of the most gimmicky movies ever: it's not in 3-D, but 3-DD, which stands for—what else?—chesty bimbos jiggling befoe the camera for startling 3-D effects.
The rest of the movie comprises shoddy production values, irredeemably stupid characters and so much ineptitude that cameos by mugging has-beens Gary Busey, Christopher Lloyd and David Hasselhoff, or an appearance by “30 Rock” babe Katrina Bowden, who fires off one of the raunchiest lines ever heard in a non-porn movie, look good by comparison. The 3-D hi-def image is decent; extras include a commentary, deleted scenes, featurettes and Busey's blooper reel.
Sons of Anarchy: Season 4 
(Fox)
The outlaw motorcycle club's ongoing peregrinations and conflicts continue during the drama series' fourth season. Although it's basically a one-note concept, the show is blessed with a solid cast—that comprises, among others, Charlie Hunman, Ron Perlman, Kim Coates and the great Katey Segal—which makes the characters full-bodied, well-rounded, plausible people.
All of the fourth season's 14 episodes are included in this set, and the Blu-ray image looks terrific; extras include extended episodes, featurettes, commentaries.
Les Vampires 
(Kino Lorber)
One of the first movie serials, Louis Feuillade's silent-era Les Vampires is a seven-hour extravaganza that follows the exploits of a journalist turned detective and his partner who are tracking down a shadowy group of criminals.
Despite its age, the film (made in 1915-6) contains terrific action and intimate sequences; and, although that intertitles are not in the original French might put off purists, it won't matter to most viewers. Considering it's nearly a century old, it's amazing how cleaned-up it looks.
The Walking Dead: Season 2 
(Anchor Bay)
In the second season of this high-concept dramatic series, the survivors of the deadly apocalypse which begat zombies (called “walkers”) attempt to not only survive periodic attacks but also learn to survive alongside one another, which—as we know—is almost impossible under ordinary circumstances.
The drama is well-acted and filmed, but its originality factor lessens with each episode—still, for those unfinicky about such things, it provides considerable entertainment. All 13 episodes are included, and the hi-def image is excellent; extras include featurettes; audio commentaries; 6 webisodes; deleted scenes.
DVDs of the Week
The Barnes Collection 
(PBS)
Businessman/philanthropist Albert Barnes' life and legacy are recounted in this hour-long program that carefully avoids the mess created by the decision to relocate his superlative collection from suburban Philadelphia to the city proper.
Although this is an interesting overview of the man who built an imposing collection of art—including 181 paintings by Auguste Renoir—one needs to watch The Art of the Steal for a fair assessment of the thievery that took place by relocating expressly against Barnes' stated wishes.
Darling Companion 
(Sony)
Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan is no stranger to sentimental, multi-character stories, but what worked well in The Big Chill and partially in Grand Canyon provides diminishing returns. This story about a doctor's unhappy wife and her faithful new dog (whom she found—improbably—on the side of a highway) includes intersecting stories too cutesy to be plausibly filled out.
Despite the best efforts of Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Richard Jenkins, Dianne West, Sam Shepard and the amazing canine Casey, Kasdan and wife Meg's script can't be elevated above a soap opera. Extras are featurettes.

Madness 
(Raro Video)
From Andy Wahrol's stable of zonked-out zombies, Joe Dallesandro stolidly plays (with help from a dubbed Italian voice) an escaped killer who tracks down his nemesis, only to find him holed up with two very willing young women, both of whom give our hero a piece of the action.
Director Fernando di Leo, a master of the Bloody Italian Cinema of the 70s, phones in one of his lesser efforts: the bloodletting is cheesy and the sex scenes (which are plentiful, including below-the-waist nudity) are risible in the hands (and other body parts) of his amateurish cast.
Revenge: Season 1
(Disney)
The first season of this Hamptons-set Dallas type soap opera among the rich adroitly sets up its young heroine's (Emily van Camp) vengeful plan amidst the usual assortment of stock scheming wives, cheating husbands and endless double-crossing.
The affluent setting, of course, is the show's real draw, and the performers—including the welcome return of Madeleine Stowe as the rich bitch antagonist—do their best to keep things moving. Extras are a commentary, deleted scenes, bloopers, featurettes and interviews.
Der Rosenkavalier 
(Opera Australia)
Although Richard Strauss' masterly comic opera—his grandest achievement, what with its endlessly inventive melodies, wonderfully realized characters and opera's greatest trio finale—is done fairly well at the Sydney Opera House in Brian Fitzgerald's production, there's something, a spark, missing.
The orchestra, under Andrew Litton's baton, is fine, and leading ladies Cheryl Barker, Catherine Carby and Emma Pearson acquit themselves nicey. But this all-time classic is so-so when it should be a scintillating staging.
Two and a Half Men—Season 9 
(Warners)
We know who's missing from this season: the Sheen who shall not be named. Ashton Kutcher has come in to do a decent job replacing the other guy, even though the sitcom's entire dynamic between the men has shifted, and not for the better.
Still, the show was already declining, but it's doubtful that it will improve any time soon, even though Kutcher and his co-stars, Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones, are engaging together. The three discs comprise all 24 episodes; extras include featurettes and a gag reel.
CDs of the Week
Montsalvatge, Piano Music 
(Naxos)
Ullmann, Complete Piano Sonatas 
(Steinway & Sons)
Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge died in 2002 at age 90 and Viktor Ullmann died at the hands of the Nazis in 1944. Despite divergent paths, they each wrote some of the most compelling and intensely personal piano music of the 20th century, as these discs show.
Montsalvatge's eclecticism is on display in the third disc of Jordi Maso's exploration of the composer's keyboard music, and he's joined by Miquel Villalba on choice works like the jazzy Barcelona Blues and bouncy Three Divertimenti. Jeanne Golan performs Ullmann's seven piano sonatas with formidable intensity, particularly the final three, which alternate between terseness and a buoyancy that belies their being written while he was incarcerated in a concentration camp.

August '12 Digital Week IV

Blu-rays of the Week

Black Magic Rites
(Dimension/Kino Lorber)
Witches are burned at the stake while others have their hearts torn out in this crazed but watchable 1973 horror film directed by Renato Polselli.
Wind machines, lots of fake gore and plentiful nudity are the calling cards of this lunatic movie, but anyone who already has a hankering for such Eurotrash gems as Lisa and the Devil or Suspiria should make a beeline for this immediately. The movie retains its film-like grain on Blu-ray.
The Cinema of Jean Rollin:
The Living Dead Girl and Two Orphan Vampires
(Redemption/Kino Lorber)
Two of French macabre director Jean Rollin’s weirdest films are on display: 1982’s The Living Dead Girl is an insane gothic horror about an innocent young woman raised from the dead who kills everyone in sight; 1997’s Two Orphan Vampires chronicles blind twin sisters who regain their sight at night and go on murderous rampages.
That Rollins films these bizarre stories straightforwardly is their redeeming feature. Hi-def imagery is appropriately grainy; extras include interviews and featurettes.
Jersey Shore Shark Attack
(Anchor Bay)
You get what you expect in a movie like this: crude, inept parodies of both Jersey Shore and Jaws mashed together in an unholy union. The breathtaking stupidity on display may be the point, but you shouldn’t have to sit through this to affirm it.
Why veterans like William Atherton and Paul Sorvino appear is anyone’s guess; the money can’t be that good. The Blu-ray image is decent; extras include commentary and making-of featurette.
Lonesome
(Criterion)
This unique 1928 mixture of silent and sound film was made by neophyte director (and multi-disciplinarian) Paul Fejos; despite melodramatic trappings, it’s an eye-opening time capsule of New York—Manhattan and Coney Islands look especially enticing.
The Criterion Collection has made the film look quite good on Blu-ray, and excellent extras include Lejos’ other extant films, The Last Performance and Broadway; a 1963 featurette, Fejos Memorial; audio commentary; and Broadway audio interview.
A Separation
(Sony)
In Asghar Farhadi’s provocative drama, a married couple tries to formalize their divorce, but in fundamentalist Iran, nothing is that easy. In addition to bureaucratic and ultra-religious difficulties, they discover they’re tied together in any number of ways, including their children and respective families.
Farhadi isn’t the most imaginative director, so the film is visually static, but his strong writing has sharply delineated characters and a critical look at a crushing society. The Blu-ray image is well-defined; extras include Farhadi’s commentary and two Farhadi interviews.
Staind: Live at Mohegan Sun 
(Eagle Rock)
Staind had a mainstream hit, “It’s Been Awhile,” in 2001; this high-energy concert, shot in Connecticut last November, demonstrates that the band and its fans still have a great rapport.
The big hit is near the end of the rapturously received 18-song set, of course, but tunes like “Eyes Wide Open” and “Mudshovel”—much heavier-sounding than the single—show that singer Aaron Lewis, guitarist Mike Mushok, bassist Johnny April and new drummer Sal Giancarelli haven’t lost it. The hi-def image is clean, the sound awesome, and there’s a 30-minute band interview.
DVDs of the Week
Crisis at the Castle and Megacities 

(Athena)
These British TV programs of historical and scientific interest are unlike most reality shows: the intelligent Crisis at the Castle has the usual “bickering family” premise, but its three clans try to hold onto and even make money from a trio of England’s most glorious private estates in hard economic times.
Andrew Marr’s Megacities insightfully studies five of the world’s largest metropolitan areas—London, Mexico City, Shanghai, Tokyo and Dhaka in Bangladesh—and how they deal with this century’s uncompromising difficulties.
Fidel 
(Cinema Libre)
In 1968, Saul Landau was allowed to film Fidel Castro in Cuba, and the resultant look at the communist leader shows that Landau seems to have fallen for the canard that Castro’s socialist rule was good for Cuba rather than the isolated society it’s become the past 50 years.
In his commentary, Landau discusses some of this but still sounds enamored of the man who allowed him rare access, and the result is a portrait that skirts hagiography. The lone extra is a short, Cuba and Fidel.

Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment 
(First Run)
Toby Perl Freilich’s documentary chronicles the uniquely Israeli society known as the kibbutz—begun in the early 20th century and continuing today—a socialist experiment that has endured for 100 years.
Freilich enlighteningly shows the kibbutz’s long and storied history that has even reached into the United States, as one of the most prominent of the current kibbutzim is composed of Americans who have moved to Israel. Extras include deleted scenes.
Lula, Son of Brazil 
(New Yorker)
Fabio Barreto’s excitingly done biopic captures the amazing-but-true life story of Brazil’s beloved, charismatic leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Showing how he climbed the ladder from the worst slums in Sao Paolo to become the proud president of his nation, Barreto falls into the hagiographic trap but is helped by Rui Ricardo Diaz’s portrayal of Lula, immersing himself in the role to such an extent that the movie resembles a documentary. Extras include cast and crew interviews and behind the scenes footage.
Virginia 
(e one)
Despite its committed central performance by Jennifer Connolly—an actress incapable of making a false move—Dustin Lance Black’s writer/director debut suffers from an inability to commit itself to either psychoanalyzing its emotionally distraught heroine or simply watching her from afar.
Ed Harris, Yeardley Smith, Emma Roberts and especially Harrison Gilbertson as her son lend strong support, but the movie never comes together as a convincing portrait. Extras include a making-of featurette.
CD of the Week
Penderecki: Symphonies and Orchestral Works 
(Naxos)
Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki has had an astounding career: he began as one of music’s foremost avant-gardists in the late ‘50s and gradually morphed into a classicist. The seven symphonies on this five-disc set (numbered 1 through 8—there’s no number 6) run the gamut from the astringent First and large-scaled Fourth to the choral Seventh.
The focused and intense performances by conductor Antonin Wit, National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra include Penderecki orchestral works like his classic shriek, Threnody.

Theater Roundup: Shaw Festival 2012

Shaw Festival 2012

French without Tears

Written by Terence Rattigan

Present Laughter

Written by Noel Coward

Misalliance

Written by Bernard Shaw

At Canada’s eminent Shaw Festival, works by three great 20th century British playwrights are being performed. Bernard Shaw, the festival’s namesake, has two plays onstage. I missed The Millionairess but saw Misalliance, along with one of the inimitable Noel Coward’s signature works, Present Laughter, and Terence Rattigan’s biting satire French Without Tears.French Shaw

In French Without Tears—which ran for 1000-plus performances during its 1936 London premiere run—Rattigan hilariously targets young British men and women who go to France to learn the language. Instead of simply shooting fish in a barrel, however, Rattigan illuminates these people’s complexities: despite their foibles, they grow believably before our eyes.

In Kate Lynch’s breezy staging, Rattigan’s humor, humility and humanity come through, and the talented cast of ten provides equal amounts laughs and heartache, with the raised eyebrow that was Rattigan at his most formidable.

Present ShawNoel Coward wrote Present Laughter as a thinly veiled fictionalization of his own crazy celebrity life—matinee idol Garry Essendine is hounded by various men and women while being protected by his ex-wife as he tries to sort out his professional and personal difficulties before embarking on an African safari. Coward’s congenial wit can turn savage at times, but his characters all receive affectionate kicks in the pants, even alter ego Garry, skillfully played by Steven Sutcliffe with the right balance of bitchiness and pathos.

On William Schmuck’s wonderfully detailed set of Garry’s elegant home, director David Schurmann puts his talented cast through its paces admirably: next to Sutcliffe, best is Claire Jullien as Garry’s ex Liz, so sympathetic and levelheaded you wonder why he ever let her go.

A play about marriage, Misalliance also has as convoluted a plot asMisalliance Shaw Shaw ever wrote. One afternoon on a wealthy family’s country estate, a Polish daredevil crashes her plane on the property, causing the men to make several marriage proposals to the various women gathered there. Considering the subject matter, moving time and place from 1909 to 1962 makes little sense except that it’s the year the Shaw Festival began.

Otherwise, Eda Holmes directs with brio on Judith Bowden’s evocative set, and Shaw’s pointed brickbats about socialism, poverty and relationships never pall. Holmes’ ensemble is superb separately and together, with Tara Rosling’s alluring pilot with the “unpronounceable” name, Lina Szczepanowska, and Catherine MacGregor’s tart Mrs. Tarleton standing out. As always at the Shaw Festival, the acting is as superlative as the writing.

Shaw Festival 2012

Performances through October 28, 2012

Niagara on the Lake, Canada

http://shawfest.com

"Total Recall" Remake Is Slick And Without Surprises

total recall poster

Total Recall
Directed by Len Wiseman
Starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Pete Cho

So Len Wiseman, director of the Underworld films, has had the chance to remake Total Recall, which I can't believe is over 20 years old.  He has apparently done this by saying: Let's make it look like Blade Runner swallowed The Fifth Element.

The first Recall was a sprawling adventure hypertrophic in visuals, casting, and plot, as ultimately directed by Paul Verhoeven (after such figures as David Cronenberg had taken a crack at a more psychologically complex story abandoned by the producers for, as Cronenberg termed it, "Raiders of the Lost Ark on Mars"). CGI barely existed when the first version was made, and many of the innovations of that film consisted of a certain over-the-topness. 

Now we have slick effects, and a certain lack of affect goes with that — we just take everything in stride.  In this century we're too cool for hysterical eye-popping and too cool to be impressed by special effects, which also means we don't get to see Arnold Schwarzenegger in a ridiculous getup, now that it can be handled electronically. But is this way more fun?

Most of the audience for this film won't remember the nearest available metaphor, the early '80s, when the first video games began their move into the home and there was a debate over simple Atari games and the other kind, which were better-looking in every way... but less popular.

So does the new Total Recall make innovations to the story, if it can't rely on effects? Not really.

It avoids Mars for echoes of The American Nightmare as we live it now: the 1% destroying the common people, an industrial revolution limiting jobs/creating oppression, and terrorism all have more resonance in the present day than they did in 1990, but the characters have no motivations apart from choosing sides. At a running time near two full hours, you'd think some could be crammed in, but most of the movie consists of very loud gun battles.

The film begins with a very loud gun battle — after a crawl (never a good sign) explaining that the world has been destroyed by chemical warfare, except for England and Australia, the former housing what's left of the economy while Down Under is where they keep the Down Underclass, who commute, every day, through the center of the earth in a conveyance the size of an office building.

Writing that down, it seems to me now a more outlandish movie should've resulted, but the thing is played utterly straight. Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell, in for Arnold) awakes from a dream not of distant mysteries or hidden desires, but obvious backstory. It's so unlike a dream it looks like the main action in medias res, to be followed by a flashback. He is comforted by his wife (Kate Beckinsale), then is off to his job, where he even participates in his disfranchisement by building the very police robots who enforce the police state.

Using androids for cannon fodder, adopting the George Lucas copout from the Star Wars prequels to make violence palatable, it first looks like a move to secure the PG-13, in contrast to the original's R rating. But times have changed — there's nearly as much swearing and about as much violence (though less gore).  Fear not, Douglas Adams fans, the triple-breasted whore is still here.

But to no purpose, because there are no mutants.  In fact, there's no reason for Quaid to go to Rekall, the place that implants memories of adventure in your mind because you can't afford a real vacation since there's nowhere to go because the rest of the planet has been reduced to a chemically ravaged wasteland. 

In keeping with this change, Rekall now looks not like a travel agency but an opium den; for some reason Quaid picks the "secret agent" memory but the tech (John Cho) explains that you break your brain if you try a fantasy that's ever been a part of your real life.  Then he somehow checks this, and stops the procedure.  But it's too late...

Yet this is a major point, because it's objectively obvious the fake-memory thing isn't even in play.  The procedure doesn't wake Quaid up to his real self — he discovers he's a badass accidentally. Then everyone else around him turns badass, then he runs a lot, then he gets a message from himself... his other self... but, again, we're never really sure why he went to Rekall, how it "awakened" him, or why he had to be put there in the first place. 

Modern audiences, we are told, are so smart, they don't need exposition. But sometimes exposition is also pacing. As in the first film, there's a moment where a man appears to tell Quaid he's dreaming; unlike the first film, it makes no sense. 

Verhoeven's excesses always included the audience with a wink, not insisting on their participation but asking for it. Slick entertainment takes itself ultra-seriously, even (especially?) when it's being ridiculous. This makes the older, cartoonier version more engaging, while the new one sort of... happens to you. Neither goes as far as it could with the possibilities of rewritable identity and memory. But by insisting on quicker pacing, modern movies force audiences into a more passive state.

The setting is different but the overall structure is much the same, so fans of the original will encounter few surprises. There's just more shooting, running, krav maga... instead of a fight in an elevator, it's in twenty elevators. 

The geopolitical setup is freshly relevant, and uses the old Roman Empire routine of making the overlords British and the sufferers American, but what's left is futurism of a type that looks familiar, from both the visionary films of 30 years ago and the tech we actually have now.

No one is surprised to see a touchscreen. A skyscraper that dives through the earth, maybe. Maglev cars, no. Add Minority Report and Die Hard to the list of references (and Michael Winterbottom's Code 46, which did the dystopia better). The Phil Dick-ian future shown here via killer production design is still a replay of older movies (and even a TV series, Total Recall 2020). 

So this film contains one great implication, which is that the time of innovation and imagination is over.  All that was done, apparently correctly, in the cheesy '80s. Here in the with-it future, we have nothing to add. Cinema from now on is a matter of rendering only.

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