October '11 Digital Week III

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 16 October 2011 20:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week
Beautiful Boy (Anchor Bay)
Michael Sheen and Maria Bello give emotionally overwhelming portrayals of a couple about to separate who must deal with a shattered existence after their only son has committed a heinous campus shooting.

Director/co-writer Shawn Ku’s low-key approach, which attempts to avoid clichés, ends up as a meandering and unaffecting clinical study of the depths of solitude and sorrow. The Blu-ray image is perfect; the extras comprise Ku’s commentary and deleted scenes.
 
Boccaccio ‘70 and Casanova ‘70 (Kino Lorber)
The Holy Grail of 1960s omnibus films, Boccaccio ‘70 united directors Mario Monicelli (whose segment was deleted for American release), Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini for a 3-½ hour stew of sexual hypocrisy: Fellini’s segment, The Temptation of Dr. Antonio, is a masterly hoot.

Casanova ‘70, Monicelli’s delightful sex comedy stars Marcello Mastroianni as a playboy who discovers he’s impotent unless a life and death situation stares him in the face. Both films have received excellent hi-def transfers with a film-like graininess; too bad there are no extras.

Bonekickers and Going Postal (Acorn Media)
These witty British television series are clever amalgams of comedy, history, mystery and adventure. Bonekickers, set in Bath, follows intrepid archeologists, while Going Postal features a con man trying to run a run-down post office. Those summaries don’t do justice to the whimsy and wit included in both series in equal measure, with a group of stellar actors balancing such lunacies effortlessly.

Both series’ visuals are improved greatly by the hi-def upgrade, especially the beauties of Bath in Bonekickers, whose extras include behind-the-scenes segments; Postal extras include commentary, introduction, interviews, deleted scenes and blooper reel.

The Four Feathers (Criterion)
Zoltan Korda’s sumptuous and entertaining 1939 color adventure is the best adaptation of the classic novel about British troops in Africa. Although the intimate dramatic scenes are creaky, the rousing action sequences in Khartoum make this film Zolta’s brother Alexander Korda's most flamboyant production.

The Criterion Collection’s stellar Blu-ray gives this seven-decade-old film its best-looking image ever; extras include an audio commentary, an interview with Korda’s son and a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette.

Master Harold and the Boys (Image)
Athol Fugard’s heartfelt play about the relationship between a white teenager, Hally, and two middle-aged black servants opened eyes that Apartheid’s horrors were vastly more complicated than what’s usually remembered (if at all).

Lonny Price’s earnestly stiff adaptation decently renders the atmosphere of a specific time and place, while Freddie Highmore (Hally), Ving Rhames and Patrick Mofokeng are affecting in the three lead roles. The film looks good on Blu-ray; there are no extras.

Masterpiece: Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Wuthering Heights (PBS)
Direct from Britain, this trio of classic literary adaptations--two by Jane Austen, one by Emily Bronte--which aired on PBS’ Masterpiece series are distinguished by the compelling portrayals by several of the best young British actresses in the lead roles. Mansfield Park features Billie Piper and Hayley Atwell; Northanger Abbey stars Felicity Jones and Carey Mulligan, an actress incapable of a false note; and Wuthering Heights has Charlotte Riley.

An added diversion is gorgeous period locations like Newby Hall in North Yorkshire, which looks splendidly enticing on Blu-ray; the lone extra is Wuthering Heights behind the scenes footage.

Mr. Nice (MPI)
Rhys Ifans’ delicious turn as Britain’s most unlikely marijuana smuggler is the center of Bernard Rose’s inventively stylish biopic, another of those “too unbelievable to be made up” true stories.

With hallucinatory sex, drugs and rock’n’roll sequences and a topnotch supporting cast led by the always great Chloe Sevigny and an irresistibly slimy David Thewlis, this is one extremely entertaining portrait of a wild and crazy era. The Blu-ray image is first-rate; a making-of featurette is the lone extra.

Terri (Fox)
Finally: a rare film about teenager misfits that doesn’t condescend or pretend that everyone is a world-class wit. Director Azazel Jacobs and writer Patrick DeWitt introduce overweight loner Terri (Jacob Wysocki) on his own terms, allowing him to interact with a cute girl with her own problems (Olivia Crocicchia) and his unconventional vice-principal (John C. Reilly).

Not everything works, but the believable teenage milieu allows us to care about these people which, in this era of smartass foolishness, is a real achievement. The Blu-ray transfer is solid; the extras comprise a behind the scenes featurette and deleted scenes.

The Tree of Life (Fox)
Terrence Malick’s visually stunning personal essay is ostensibly the story of a 1950s Texas family as a microcosm of life lived either as a state of grace or of nature. The 19-minute “creation of the universe” sequence is audacious enough; scenes featuring a sullen Sean Penn tie things together in what could be considered a truly religious film, regardless of one's own belief.

Sublime editing, extraordinary photography, excellent use of much classical music and gripping performances by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, make this philosophical film another thought-provoking work of art by America’s greatest living director. The movie looks amazing in hi-def; the lone extra is the 30-minute Exploring The Tree of Life, with interviews with cast, crew, and admiring directors David Fincher and Christopher Nolan.

DVDs of the Week
The Harvest (Cinema Libre)
This arresting documentary profiles a trio of child migrant workers in the United States, of all places, who work back-breaking hours seven days a week to help keep farms going. Kudos to director U. Roberto Romano for the intimate scale and executive producer Eva Longoria, who obviously took the subject to heart and shepherded it to completion.

Seeing these youngsters working ungodly hours for little pay is something we all could learn from, but the people who need to see it will not. Extras include additional scenes and Longoria and others speaking in Washington D.C.

The Trip (IFC)
Michael Winterbottom’s winning road movie stars two of our most capable comic actors, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing thinly veiled versions of themselves while trekking around England sampling the cuisine…and, not coincidentally, annoying the hell out of each other.

That’s pretty much the entire movie. But superb comedians ad-libbing their way through reading menus, ordering food, dissecting the other one’s flaws and doing spot-on impressions of celebrities like Michael Caine is all Winterbottom needs, and he wisely shoots and edits to keep everything percolating for 105 minutes. Extras on-set featurettes and deleted scenes.

The War of 1812 (PBS)
This documentary about America’s first war since gaining its independence is a lucid, impressive account that makes good use of talking heads (including several Canadian scholars), historic maps and other illustrations.

Still, this Joe Mantegna-narrated program suffers from “reenactment-itis,” which, instead of letting history come alive on its own, amps up the drama with awkward-looking performers enacting Dolly Madison and other big names of that era. This style never works, for me at least; luckily, the rest of The War of 1812 is informative and insightful.

Film Review: "The Big Year" is for the Birds

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 15 October 2011 10:46

Written by Lloyd Carroll

The Big Year
directed by David Frankel
starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson

You have to give the filmmakers behind The Big Year credit for this much: at a time when Hollywood is criticized for few original thoughts, it's safe to say there's never been a film about competitive birdwatching. “Big year” is a term birders (they abhor being called “bird watchers”) use for the most passionate -- and generally wealthiest -- fanatics who take a full calendar year off to traipse across North America and compete for the honor of observing the most members of the aviary species.

If you think that sounds like a topic for cable’s National Geographic Channel and not a big screen movie, well you’re right. The film centers around three individuals, Stu Preissler (Steve Martin), Brad Harris (Jack Black) and Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson), who play friendly at times and not so friendly at others in their joust to become top birder of 2010. The backstories of all three men involve some sort of life crisis. Stu is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation and he wants nothing more at this point in life than to retire and run around the continent with his binoculars. Brad is a 35-year-old with a bad case of arrested development. He works as a computer programmer in the DC area and lives with his parents, played by the always welcome Brian Dennehy and Dianne Weist. He has saved up his money so that he too can run around following birds. Dad thinks he’s cuckoo while mom gives him encouragement and some needed funding.

The most troubled character, though, is Kenny. Bostick, as he's dismissively called, is so preoccupied that someone will break his record of observing 732 different bird species back in 2003 that he embarks on another “big year” much to the chagrin of his wife, Jessica (Rosamund Pike), who hears her biological clock ticking and wants to start a family in her oversized Bergen County home. Kenny is more obsessed with birding than he is with making his wife happy, even though it's clear that he loves her dearly.

While everyone's background stories are interesting, there's very little else to hold your intrigue once things get underway. Rashida Jones, in a prototypical role, plays a shy, sweet birder with whom Brad becomes understandably infatuated. Two wonderfully comic actors, Kevin Pollak and Joel McHale (star of NBC’s terrific Community), are wasted in straightlaced roles as executives in Stu’s company who keep badgering their old boss to return to headquarters and put out ongoing business fires.

Anjelica Huston shines through as a weary tugboat captain with a passionate dislike for Bostick. At a Manhattan press conference sponsored by the film’s distributor, 20th Century-Fox, Steve Martin claimed that the lead characters are “passionate” and not “obsessed.” Just as the Persuaders once sang that it’s a thin line between love and hate, apparently it’s an even thinner one between passion and obsession. I surely won’t be the only critic to use this line but it must be said: The Big Year is for the birds.

Dance Review: Mostly Balanchine at New York City Ballet

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 16:00

Written by Jack Angstreich

New York City Ballet's program on October 1st, 2010 opened with George Balanchine's excellent Concerto Barocco, set to J.S. Bach's glorious Double Violin Concerto in D Minor. The modernity of Balanchine's choreography here, even as he employs a classical language, is the basis for an exhilarating symbiosis with Bach's expression of the spirit of an aristocratic age -- Bach's music has never sounded more modern than in this ballet. Given the enormous ambition -- in terms of the number of works presented -- of every City Ballet season, it's not surprising that there should be infelicities with regard to timing, synchronization, etc. At this performance, some in the corps could have been more rigorously rehearsed -- indeed, there were such weaknesses in all the ballets in this program in which the corps appeared -- but, overall, these dancers were not lacking in energy, which made for an exciting experience. The featured performers were not especially distinguished in commanding attention nor did they always avoid some clunkiness in execution. But, as a whole, Concerto Barocco was a success: Balanchine's vision here is so strong that the formalism of this dance -- its abstract poetry -- proved enchanting and, in the slow movement pas de deux, oddly moving.

Concerto Barocco repeats in the spring; I look forward to revisiting it.

Equally impressive as choreography -- although conceived in a different register -- and performed with a greater confidence and precision was Balanchine's Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, set to the original music for the pas de deux in Act III of Swan Lake. Although there were some imperfections, both of the dancers here danced thrillingly: Joaquin De Luz, with breathtaking athleticism, and Megan Fairchild more graceful and assured here than elsewhere, of late.

After an intermission, the company presented Benjamin Millepied's Why am I not where you are, choreographed to a surprisingly effective and memorable score by Thierry Escaich and featuring a set designed by renowned architect, Santiago Calatrava, who served as an artist-in-residence for City Ballet last season, when this piece received its premiere. The presiding genius influencing this work appears to be Jerome Robbins but I find the choreography here compelling, not derivative, even if there is a certain, easily disregarded, banality in its theme. The dancers brought the requisite enthusiasm to this ballet although lead dancer, Sean Suozzi, was outshone by Janie Taylor and -- here, unexpectedly strong -- Amar Ramessar. However, the greatest performance was certainly that of Sara Mearns, who can be an astonishing dancer.

The program closed with the Balanchine masterpiece, Chaconne, set to Christoph Willibald Gluck's glorious ballet music for the opera, Orfeo ed Euridice. The two principal dancers, Wendy Whelan and Sébastien Marcovici were effective in the second "Pas de Deux" but I was also very impressed with Erica Pereira in the first "Pas de Deux" and with Stephanie Zungre in the "Pas de Cinq".

I was pleased to see Chaconne repeated on the October 3rd program with the same cast. It was followed by Balanchine's Momentum Pro Gesualdo, choreographed to Igor Stravinsky's hommage to the great 16th century composer -- and murderer! -- Don Carlo Gesualdo, himself the subject of a classic novel written by the great Giovanni Verga (and translated into English by D. H. Lawrence). Stravinsky's music modernizes the late Renaissance structures appropriated from Gesualdo and Balanchine here found a correlative style suspended austerely between an antique classicism and a bold modernism. The excellent principal dancer, Teresa Reichlen, was memorable here.

More modernist, both musically and choreographically, is Balanchine's Movements for Piano and Orchestra, which followed, also scored to Stravinsky, here in the serialist mode which he embraced, under the influence of Robert Craft, in the last phase of his career. The outstanding soloist, Rebecca Krohn, was the highlight at this performance.

Both Stravinsky ballets repeat in the spring.

Also repeated on this program was Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, although this time featuring Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette, with the accomplished Bouder a standout here.

The program closed with an expanded version of the long-unseen and delightful, The Magic Flute, a classic story-ballet winningly choreographed by Peter Martins -- indeed, it is one of his most satisfying achievements -- to a charming, tuneful score by the 19th-century ballet composer, Riccardo Drigo. The lead role was beautifully performed by one of the best male dancers in the company, the energetic and athletic Joaquin de Luz, but he was outshone in every duet by his partner, the exquisite Tiler Peck. One episode featured an outstanding quartet of dancers in the corps: Stephanie Zungre, Alina Dronova, Maya Collins, and Lauren King.

The Magic Flute will be reprised in February and I greatly look forward to revisiting it.

New York City Ballet Program

Concerto Barocco                                                                                                                Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, B.W.V. 1043 composed by Johann Sebastian Bach        Choreographed by George Balanchine

Tschaikovsky's Pas de Deux Excerpt from Swan Lake, Op. 20, Act III

composed by Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky                                                             

Choreographed by George Balanchine

Why am I not where you are                                                                                       

The Lost Dancer composed by Thierry Escaich                                                       

Choreographed by Benjamin Millepied

Chaconne                                                                                                                                            Ballet music from the opera Orfeo ed Euridice composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck Choreographed by George Balanchine

New York City Ballet                                                                                                          

David H. Koch Theater                                                                                                        

New York, NY 10023

Call: 212-870-5570

http://www.nycballet.com