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April '25 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 23 April 2025 19:16; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII

(Sony/IMAX)

This 1972 concert film of Pink Floyd performing at the ancient Roman amphitheater in Pompeii—with no audience present—has been restored and remixed, giving fans a superior visual and aural experience. Adrian Maben’s documentary is a true artefact of its time, with an hour’s worth of Pompeii footage supplemented by interviews with Gilmour, Mason, Waters and Wright as well as glimpses of them at Abbey Road recording Dark Side of the Moon.

There’s a surfeit of crude, cliched visuals (split screens, front projection, superimposition, slow-motion) that haven’t aged well—but the film anticipates the MTV video era and remains an eye- (and ear-) opening document of Pink Floyd right before the group became rock royalty.

Eric LaRue

(Magnolia)

The devastating fallout of a school shooting is the subject of this earnest, often static but unsettling drama by actor Michael Shannon, making his feature directing debut; based on a play and script by Brett Neveu, Shannon’s film centers on Janice, mother of Eric, who fatally shot three of his classmates.

Her interactions with her husband, pastor, victims’ mothers and her son—both in prison and as a young child in her memories—make up this occasionally piercing but also plodding character study. Unsurprisingly, Shannon’s cast is superb, led by Judy Greer (Janice)—also impressive are Alexander Sarsgaard (husband), Paul Sparks (pastor), Tracy Letts (preacher) and Annie Parisse and Kate Arrington (victims’ moms).

1-800-On-Her-Own

(8 Above)

The perfect documentary subject—endlessly personable and confessional—is alternative music pioneer Ani DiFranco, the Buffalo-born musician turned entrepreneur (she has her own record label, Righteous Babe) who’s released dozens of albums in the past three decades.

In Dana Flor’s intimate fly-on-the-wall portrait, DiFranco—now in her early 50s—must navigate how to remain relevant in a business very different from when she began and how to keep her artistic integrity while raising her two daughters. The film’s title refers to the toll-free phone number for her Buffalo office in the early days; it also describes the fierce independence that’s marked DiFranco’s career.

The President’s Wife

(Cohen Media)

In director-cowriter Léa Domenach’s feature debut, Catherine Deneuve is a delight as Bernadette Chirac, France’s First Lady from 1995-2007; her deadpan delivery borders on bemusement as Bernadette navigates the tricky journey from being a loyal president’s wife to becoming a cultural icon in her own right.

Although Deneuve unsurprisingly wears Karl Lagerfeld’s clothes perfectly—and director Domenach shows cleverness in her tongue-in-cheek use of a church choir—but even superstar Deneuve’s glamour can’t make this light satire more than an amusingly slight concoction.

The Shrouds

(Sideshow/Janus)

David Cronenberg’s latest is an inert meditation on grief (his wife Carolyn Zeifman died in 2017) that plays like a lumpen parody of a Cronenberg film, with howlers in the dialogue, embarrassingly stiff acting by Vincent Cassel as the director’s stand-in, and a bunch of plot and thematic threads that pile up but go nowehere.

Even a bizarrely entertaining turn by Guy Pearce and appearances by the appealing Diane Kruger (in two roles) and the always welcome Sandrine Holt (in a lazily-written part) can’t drum up much interest. Despite Cronenberg’s attempt at dealing with the finality of death in his singular way, his film has the slick look of a feature-length Tesla commercial (Cassel drives a white Tesla throughout), which is the lasting memory of this farrago.

The Ugly Stepsister

(IFC Films)

If unblinking body horror is your thing, then this twisted take on Cinderella could fill the bill—writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt follows a desperate young woman who has always been second fiddle to her beautiful stepsister and how she takes the ultimate desperate measures to ensure that (of course) the prince’s glass slipper fits her foot—even though her mother already “fixed” her nose, teeth and eyelashes to no avail.

Done with a minimum of humor and maximum of nastiness, it’s skillfully, even stylishly, made and enacted with commitment by its cast—too bad the final shot fails at being simultaneously dark and darkly humorous.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

In Custody/The Proprietor

(Cohen Film Collection)

Ismail Merchant (who died in 2005 at age 68) was the producer of his professional and personal partner James Ivory’s films, including the award-winning A Room With a View and Howards End. But Merchant also directed his own features, including this pair of very different character studies.

While In Custody is rather stuffy and clunky as it explores the clash between a skeptical interviewer and a famous Urdu poet in India, The Proprietor showcases a wonderful Jeanne Moreau as a French Holocaust survivor who leaves Manhattan to return to her Parisian childhood home—along with its attendant ghosts. Both films have good hi-def transfers; extras include interviews with Ivory and Merchant; a commentary on The Proprietor; and Merchant’s 1974 short film, Mahatma and the Mad Boy.

CD Releases of the Week

Tamara Stefanovich—Organized Delirium

Pierre Boulez—Live pour Quatuor

(Pentatone)

Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)—theorist, conductor, activist—was a formidable composer who never held to a rigid orthodoxy as he became one of the most uncompromising modernist composers of the 20th century. These two discs provide a window into his chamber music—his astonishingly complex Piano Sonata No. 2 and the equally challenging Livre pour quatuor (Book for Quartet).

Boulez was notorious for not “finishing” his pieces—he would tinker over the course of years, even decades. That wasn’t the case with the sonata, which Tamara Stefanovich (who collaborated with Boulez) plays with passion and conviction on her new CD—along with tackling other important 20th century sonatas by Hans Eisler, Bela Bartok and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Livre pour quatuor is another story; the bulk was written in 1948-49, but Boulez rewrote sections and never completed the fourth movement. The Diotima Quartet—whose members worked with Boulez on his final revisions before he died—plays this cerebral hour-long work with clarity and muscle, even premiering the reconstructed fourth movement on this recording.

Juilliard Orchestra Play Storybook Ravel

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 23 April 2025 13:59; Written by Jack Angstreich

At Lincoln Center’s wonderful Alice Tully Hall, on the night of Thursday, February 20th, I had the exceptional pleasure to attend a superb concert—of music by Maurice Ravel—presented by the fine musicians—here continuing a strong season—of the Juilliard Orchestra, under the outstanding direction of Louis Langrée.

The event started beautifully with a terrific account of the extraordinary Mother Goose from 1911. In the useful program notes, it says about the writer, “Violist Noémie Chemali, who earned her master's from Juilliard in 2022, leads a freelance career in New York City as a performer, teacher, music journalist, grant writer, and arts administrator”; she records:

Ma Mère l'Oye was originally conceived in 1910 as a piano duet, and each movement draws from well-known children's stories. The title nods to Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye (Tales of Mother Goose), Charles Perrault's iconic 1697 collection of fairy tales.

She adds:

In 1912, the composer orchestrated the piano duo for a ballet, which was staged at the Theatre des Arts in Rouen. This iteration of the work, which will be performed tonight, includes an added Prelude [ . . . . ]

The Prelude is quietly enchanting while the ensuing movement, titled Dance of the Spinning Wheel, is more playful and even dramatic. The Good Fairy, which follows, is exquisite and replete with hushed atmospherics at first, but is then more overtly programmatic. Next, Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty, is graceful and waltz-like at the outset, then uncanny; a rapid climax leads to a luminous dénouement. The section Tom Thumb is lovely and gentle and the succeeding Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas is exotic and otherworldly with ludic passages and East Asian influences. Finally, The Fairy Garden is lush, bewitching and concludes triumphantly.

The amazing second half of the evening was at least equally impressive: a magnificent realization of the glorious L’enfant et les sortilèges from 1925, with terrific singers from Juilliard's Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, especially the marvelous Theo Hayes in the lead role of The Child. Chemali edifyingly provides much of the relevant background to the work:

In 1914, Jacques Rouché, head of the

Paris Opéra, approached the celebrated French novelist Colette for a new ballet scenario. The result, Divertissements pour ma fille (Entertainment for My Daughter), was inspired by Colette's observations of her own child, Bel-Gazou, and her frequent tantrums. Colette's script captured the pure imagination and emotional turbulence of childhood, blending her signature humor, wit, and psychological insight. Rouché, impressed by the work, reached out to Ravel to compose the music to accompany the ballet scenario.

At the time, however, Ravel was serving as an ambulance driver during the First World War. Initially indifferent to the project, he dismissed the subject as uninspiring and expressed uncertainty about composing for the ballet genre. Yet he soon persuaded Colette to reimagine her scenario as a libretto for an opera, and some years later, after reading through the new text, found the spark he was hoping for.

The opera tells the tale of a temperamental child who, after being chastised by his mother for not doing his homework, mistreats his surroundings—tearing his books, breaking his toys, and lashing out at the world. In doing so, he unwittingly awakens magical forces. His bed, furniture, and even forest creatures spring to life, taking revenge for his misdeeds. As the inanimate objects and animals around him come to life and confront the child with the consequences of his actions, he embarks on a journey of transformation, learning the virtue of empathy. In the end, his sincere apology earns their forgiveness, the magic subsides, and he reconciles with his mother.

Ravel said this about the music:

I am for melody. Yes, melody, bel canto, vocalises, vocal virtuosity—this is for me a point of departure. This lyric fantasy calls for melody, nothing but melody. The score of L'enfant et les sortilèges is a very smooth blending of all styles from all epochs, from Bach up to … Ravel [!]

The annotator comments: “Indeed, Ravel combines Baroque dance, classical forms, and elements of jazz and folk idioms to illuminate the unique personality of the characters or objects brought to life in the opera.” The comical concert staging directed by Jeanne Slater featured rather broad acting but also some very charming dancing. The artists, deservedly, were enthusiastically applauded.

Philadelphia Orchestra Performs Mahler at Carnegie Hall

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 21 April 2025 13:21; Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee.

At the outstanding Stern Auditorium, on the night of Tuesday, April 15th, I had the tremendous pleasure of attending a superb performance of Gustav Mahler’s glorious Symphony No. 6 in A Minor—in its final, 1906 revision—played by the extraordinary Philadelphia Orchestra under the stellar direction of the inestimable Yannick Nézet-Séguin. (The concert, which continues a strong season of orchestral music at the venue, was presented by Carnegie Hall.)

In a valuable note on the program, Christopher H. Gibbs records that:

Mahler performed his Sixth just three times. The printed program for the last performance in Vienna carried the title “Tragic.” (It was not so named in the manuscript, at the premiere, or in the published editions released during his lifetime.)

The eminent conductor Bruno Walter, a close associate of the composer, had this to say about the work:

It reeks of the bitter cup of human life. In contrast with the Fifth, the Sixth says “No,” above all in its last movement, where something resembling the inexorable strife of “all against all” is translated into music. “Existence is a burden; death is desirable and life hateful” might be its motto.

And, in a letter to the critic Richard Specht, Mahler wrote: “My Sixth will pose puzzles which can only be broached by a generation which has imbibed and digested my first five.”

The turbulent initial movement—marked Allegro energico, ma non troppo—begins urgently, propulsively, forcefully and suspensefully with a recurring, dramatic, funeral march; a more subdued passage ushers in a surge of contrasting, Romantic lyricism that too returns as the movement unfolds. The movement, which is not without engaging eccentricities and which builds to a stunning apotheosis, contains more tentative, reflective and interior interludes—the first with pastoral elements (bells) that reappear in the third and fourth movements. Gibbs comments on these, quoting the composer:

He indicates that they “must be treated very discreetly—in realistic imitation of the higher and lower bells of a grazing herd, sounding from afar, sometimes combined, sometimes singly,” and then tellingly adds: “It must be expressly stated that this technical remark allows no programmatic interpretation.”

The ensuing Scherzo is a thrilling, almost menacing, march-like Ländler; its marvelous Trio is more playful, even ingenuous. The movement has many surprising, even extravagant, developments; it closes quietly, if quirkily.

The annotator reports that “Arnold Schoenberg praised the ‘curious structure’ of the beautiful melody that opens the Andante moderato.” It opens hauntingly with an exquisite flow of unusual, thematic inspirations—a gentle joyousness shines throughout it and it is arguably the loveliest of the symphony’s four movements. The music intensifies but the movement concludes very softly and serenely.

Walter’s view of the unwieldy, inordinately anfractuous, Allegro moderato Finale was as:

...the mounting tensions and climaxes [that] resemble, in their grim power, the mountainous waves of a sea that will overwhelm and destroy the ship ... The work ends in hopelessness and the dark night of the soul. Non placet is his verdict on this world; the “other world” is not glimpsed for a moment.

The movement starts portentously, if somewhat inchoately, with diverse musical ideas that evolve in unexpected ways, sometimes tumultuously, sometimes evoking a bucolic reverie. (The famous hammer blows in the movement were specified by the composer to be ”short, mighty, but dull in resonance, with a non-metallic character, like the stroke of an ax.") The symphony’s brilliant ending is simultaneously and paradoxically hushed and emphatic.

The artists, deservedly, were enthusiastically applauded.

April '25 Digital Week II

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 17 April 2025 16:57; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Releases of the Week

One to One—John & Yoko

(Magnolia Pictures)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1972 One to One benefit concert at Madison Square Garden culminated months of left-wing activism after they moved to NYC, as per Kevin Macdonald’s both enlightening and frustrating documentary (showing in IMAX), which alternates restored video and audio from Lennon’s final full live concert performance with archival footage from that era. Macdonald uses vintage clips to provide political and cultural context for the couple’s wide-ranging activism, although the many references to notable names and events overstuff this 100-minute film.

As for the music, Macdonald takes John and Yoko’s powerful performances and adds (you guessed it) archival video to comment on—at times forcefully and at others in a strained manner—what was going on. John’s propulsive “Instant Karma” features scenes of destruction in Vietnam and the U.S., while his raucous heroin-habit tune “Cold Turkey” includes glimpses of the 1972 Republican Convention. Even the finale, “Give Peace a Chance,” showcasing a joyful Stevie Wonder scat-singing over the familiar chorus, is only excerpted—maybe upcoming streaming and Blu-ray releases will include all the full performances as important additions to Beatles history.

Coastal

(Trafalgar Releasing)

Actress Daryl Hannah followed husband Neil Young around on his 2023 solo tour of the West Coast, and the resulting B&W documentary is the last word in self-indulgence: watching Neil chat up his bus driver gets old quickly—although driver Jerry Don Borden is interesting enough to deserve more screen time—and the dullness of being on the road is conveyed all too well.

Luckily, Hannah smartly shoots most of the concert footage up-close—the intimacy suits Young’s performance, which consists of him, his acoustic guitar, harmonica and an old grand piano. But don’t expect hits: aside from “Mister Soul” and “Comes a Time,” casual fans won’t know songs like the recent “Love Earth,” which gets a half-hearted call-and-response from the audience.

Julie Keeps Quiet

(Film Movement Plus)

Director-cowriter Leonardo Van Dijl’s engrossing exploration of an elite teenager at a Belgian tennis academy and how she deals with—or not—the dysfunctional, woefully unbalanced power dynamics with her coach is grounded by the astoundingly subtle performance by Tessa Van den Broeck as Julie.

Van Dijl and Van Den Broeck (who’s a tennis player, not an actress) team up for a superbly detailed study of the painful sounds of silence—and how the “thwack” of a racket hitting a ball has metaphorical reverberations that can be heard far from the court.

Sacramento

(Vertical)

Coming so soon on the heels of A Real Pain, with Jesse Eisenberg and Oscar winner Keiran Culkin as estranged cousins on a road trip to explore their Polish ancestry is this diffuse and blurry buddy flick about estranged childhood friends who forego their own adult responsibilities by taking a car ride from Los Angeles to central California.

The problem is that neither character is individualized enough for us to care about their journey, their friendship or the people they meet along the way. Michael Cera has played this kind of jittery character many times already, while writer-director-costar Michael Angarano’s manipulative liar is not as witty or charming as he thinks; and their leading ladies—Kristin Stewart, Maya Erskine (Angarano’s real-life wife), AJ Mendez and Iman Karram—are given short shrift, when any of them could be the center of a less one-dimensional character study.

Streaming Releases of the Week

Count Me In

(Level 33)

This 2020 documentary celebrating the art of drumming hears from an impressive cross-section of rock and pop drummers like the Police’s Stewart Copeland, Deep Purple’s Ian Paice and Queen’s Roger Taylor to Steven Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), Cindy Blackman (Santana) and Samantha Maloney (Hole). Director Mark Lo’s fleet, short film is informative and surprising in equal measure, with appropriate stops for the great drummer forerunners like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich to the earliest rock masters (Ringo, Charlie Watts, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker) to the ultimate hard-rock drummer, John Bonham.

Clips of them performing are always welcome, while the thoughts of some interviewees, particularly Copeland, Perkins and Maloney, come across strongly. Of course, things are missed—no mention of Phil Collins’ gated drum sound that dominated the ‘80s or any prog drummers, notably Rush’s Neil Peart—but then it would have been much longer. And RIP to Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins and Blondie’s Clem Burke, both included here.

Her Way

(Film Movement Plus)

In what may be the quintessential French movie, Laure Calamy plays a prostitute desperate to get her ne’er-do-well teenage son into a famous cooking school—so she debases herself by working for a tough pimp at a sleazy German nightclub while dealing with her son’s laziness and later ungratefulness.

Director-writer Cécile Ducrocq doesn’t so much wallow in the sexual underground as record it passively, while Calamy—always a magnetic presence—is reduced to striking poses that alternate between sexy and tired. But there’s a nagging question: however well-intentioned, should we care about a mother who needs to raise 50,000 Euros so her son can go to a posh school he’ll probably flunk out of anyway?

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Antiviral

(Severin Films)

Writer-director Brandon Cronenberg is a chip off the old block with his 2012 debut film, as unpleasant and sour as advertised: it follows a sales rep for a clinic that harvests celebrities’ infections to inject into their most maniacal fans.

Although his film is cleverly constructed, Cronenberg has an eye based on other clinical directors like his dad to Kubrick, and there’s no one onscreen worth getting involved with. The visuals look impressively steely in UHD; extras—on a separate Blu-ray disc that also includes the film—comprise Cronenberg and director of photography Karim Hussain’s commentary; Cronenberg’s short, Broken Tulips; interviews; featurettes; and deleted scenes with optional commentary.

CD Release of the Week

Shostakovich—Suite on Verses of Michelangelo/October

(Alpha Classics)

Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75) originally wrote his Suite on Verses of Michelangelo—a dramatic setting of 11 poems of the great Italian artist translated into Russian—for baritone and piano, but his gripping orchestrated version, one of the composer’s final works, is far more celebrated; Shostakovich himself reportedly told his son he considered it his 16th (and final) symphony.

On this recording, Matthias Goerne’s stentorian baritone also nails the intimate passages Shostakovich has written into the score, as does the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, which delivers powerfully under conductor Mikko Franck, who also leads his instrumental forces in an equally compelling reading of the symphonic poem October.

Reviews

April '25 Digital Week III

Juilliard Orchestra Play Storybook Ravel

Philadelphia Orchestra Performs Mahler at Carnegie Hall

April '25 Digital Week II

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