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June '26 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 14:56; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Release of the Week

Disclosure Day

(Universal)

In Steven Spielberg’s latest extravaganza, bits of Close Encounters, E.T. and Minority Report—among others—are put in a blender and chopped up into a surprisingly sloppy mess in David Koepp’s script about a whistleblower and a Kansas City weatherwoman who are threatening to tell the public about alien encounters that a quasi-government agency is murderously trying to keep quiet. The stakes seem less urgent than how it is overdramatized here, and the characters act so stupidly at times that it’s often laughable.

Still, Spielberg remains a master at orchestrating everything from car chases to the quiet and tense moments, so even John Williams’ recycled-sounding score and the broad acting of a cast led by Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colman Domingo and Colin Firth don’t fatally damage what is admittedly second-tier Spielberg, which has arresting images in spades—even the shamelessly manipulative final shot.

Streaming Release of the Week

Easy Girl

(Omnibus Entertainment)

German writer-director Hille Norden fearlessly explores the fascinating and carefree Nore, who’s seemingly in a different acquaintance’s bed each night, showing how her sexuality has shaped her very existence.

There are many intense and difficult to watch sequences of consensual and abusive sex, often seen through the eyes of Nore’s younger self, as Nora and her closest (only?) friend Jonna watch past episodes of her life play out. Luna Jordan’s Jonna is subtly enacted, but it’s Dana Herfuth’s ferociousness as Nore—in an emotionally and physically naked portrayal—that reverberates in a frank film that has no easy answers to weighty moral questions.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Eraser

(Warner Brothers)

In this 1996 by-the-numbers Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle—he’s a U.S. marshal in the federal witness protection program who protects a high-value witness—director Charles Russell stages a couple of amusing action sequences: one in the alligator enclosure in the Central Park Zoo and another in midair as a parachuting Arnold does battle with an oncoming airplane.

Also helpful is the supporting cast, including James Coburn, James Caan and Vanessa Williams, whose lively presence makes this forgettable flick somewhat entertaining. There’s an excellent UHD transfer; extras include featurettes containing new interviews with Russell and Williams but not the star.

Scream 4

(Lionsgate)

For the third sequel (released in 2011) in the Scream franchise—there have been three more as of this writing—creator-writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven returned, along with the leads from earlier incarnations, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, for more Ghostface murders in the anything but bucolic town of Woodsboro.

Too bad that the twists and turns are obvious and eye-rolling, as usual, especially in the ludicrously conceived character played by Emma Roberts. The 4K transfer is impressive; extras include a commentary with Craven and cast members, deleted/extended scenes with commentary, a making-of featurette and a gag reel.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Mozart—Così fan tutte

(C Major)

Mozart’s classic comic opera (the English title is Women Are Like That) introduces two couples and puts the females through their paces to see if they will cheat on their partners, and in Barrie Kosky’s clever 2024 Vienna State Opera staging, they are rehearsing for a film directed by Don Alfonso, with the maid Despina as a stagehand.

Although the conceit doesn’t entirely work, it’s sung and acted persuasively by Federica Lombardi (Fiordiligi), Emily D’Angelo (Dorabella), Filipe Manu (Ferrando), Peter Kellner (Guglielmo), Kate Lindsey (Despina) and Christopher Maltman (Don Alfonso). Philippe Jordan deftly conducts the state opera orchestra. The hi-def video and audio are first-rate; too bad there are no contextualizing extras like a Kosky interview.

DVD Release of the Week

The Most Precious of Cargoes

(Distrib Films US)

Michel Hazanavicius won best picture and best director Oscars for his charming but slight 2011 paean to silent movies, The Artist, while most of his other films have rarely been seen hereabouts. His latest, an ambitious animated feature about the Holocaust based on an admired novel by French author Jean-Claude Grumberg (who cowrote the script), is another example of the French director’s interesting but lightweight filmmaking.

There’s an admirably restrained visualization of the concentration camps, but sentimentality outweighs any nuance in this story of a woodcutter’s wife who rescues and raises a baby girl thrown from the train to Auschwitz by her doomed father. The usually dependable Alexander Desplat’s score is far from his best, but Hazanavicius did get legendary actor Jean-Louis Trintignant to record the narration before his death in 2022.

CD Release of the Week

Weinberg—String Quartets, Volume 6

(Chandos)

Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96) sadly never witnessed the renaissance of his strikingly original music that began after his shattering Holocaust opera The Passenger started being performed worldwide; since then, dozens of CDs of his varied orchestral and chamber music have been recorded. His 17 string quartets make up a formidable body of work on their own, and this final volume in a terrific series of discs recorded by the gifted Arcadia Quartet showcases the middle and late periods of his career.

Included are the impassioned 10th quartet (1964); the expansive 12th (1969-70), with its gorgeously unusual Moderato final movement; and the 17th (1986)—Weinberg’s final quartet—which is among his most compact and musically eloquent. Rounding out the CD are a couple of attractive early miniatures.

MET Orchestra & Bruckner at Carnegie Hall

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 13:44; Written by Jack Angstreich

Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on June 11, 2026. Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, June 11th, I had the privilege to attend a rewarding concert—the first of two on consecutive weeks presented by Carnegie Hall—featuring the exceptional musicians of the MET Orchestra, under the admirable direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

The event consisted of a memorable reading of the Robert Haas edition of Anton Bruckner’s monumental and awesome Symphony No. 8 in C Minor. In a letter to Emil Kauffmann, the great composer Hugo Wolf commented on the work’s premiere thus:

This Symphony is the creation of a Titan, and in spiritual vastness, fertility of ideas, and grandeur even surpasses his other symphonies. Notwithstanding the usual Cassandra prophecies of woe, even from those in the know, its success was almost without precedent. It was the absolute victory of light over darkness, and the storm of applause at the end of each movement was like some elemental manifestation of Nature. In short, even a Roman Emperor could not have wished for a more superb triumph.

The impressive if unwieldy, initial, Allegro moderato movement begins solemnly, almost ominously, but a more lyrical contrasting theme is soon introduced, as well as passages of near-hysterical intensity and more purely noble statements—indeed, the effect of the movement is somewhat kaleidoscopic and it closes very softly. The repeating main body of the ensuing Scherzo—also marked Allegro moderato—has a playful quality replete with dance-like rhythms and a powerful, forward momentum but also with a more subdued, central section; the slower, exquisite, sunny Trio is graceful and serene with a quasi-bucolic character and at moments sounds almost Mahlerian—it finishes affirmatively.

The most elevated component of the score—and also possibly the most transparently beautiful—is to be found in the expansive Adagio that follows—its ethos is not so much elegiac but celestial rather, but with Wagnerian echoes and it builds to a brief but soaring climax and ends very quietly. The complex Finale opens with dazzling fanfares but these quickly accede to music in a more contemplative, even tentative mode, as well as some more dramatic measures; it concludes exultantly.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

"Swan Lake" and the American Ballet Theater at the Met

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 22 June 2026 13:44; Written by Jack Angstreich

Skylar Brandt and Herman Cornejo in Swan Lake.Photo: Rosalie O’Connor Photography.

At Lincoln Center’s wonderful Metropolitan Opera House—on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 11th—I had the privilege to attend a memorable version of the magnificent Swan Lake, presented by American Ballet Theater in its admirable production—the first seen this season—with impressive choreography by the previous Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie, based on that of the celebrated Marius Petipa along with Lev Ivanov. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s glorious score was expertly conducted by the always reliable Ormsby Wilkins, while the attractive sets and costumes were designed by Zack Brown, and the powerful lighting by Duane Schuler.

The unforgettable role of Odette-Odile was arrestingly performed by Skylar Brandt—she excelled in this last year as did her superb partner Herman Cornejo as Prince Siegfried and he remains one of the finest principals in the company. (They both elicited enormous enthusiasm from a very appreciative audience, especially in their stunning turns in Act II.) Both Andrii Ishchuk and Duncan Lyle were also effective in the divided part of von Rothbart, the evil sorcerer.

Not unexpectedly, the secondary cast was again quite strong and here, for reasons of space and readability, I’ll cite only the most remarkable, starting with Léa Fleytoux, Yoon Jeung Seo and Jake Roxander (who also danced the role of Benno, the prince’s friend) who as an ensemble beautifully realized the marvelous Pas de Trois from Act I. (They also shone in in this in last year’s production.) The dance of the four Cygnettes at the lakeside (in Act II)—possibly my favorite in the entire ballet—was here splendidly executed by Zimmi Coker, Breanne Granlund, Fleytoux again, and Betsy McBride. Also fabulous was the exhilarating dance of the Two Swans, here brilliantly achieved by Sierra Armstrong and Remy Young—the latter also was exceptional last year in the same role.

In Act III’s delightful divertissements too, the main dancers were enchanting, beginning with Atau Watanabe, Camila Ferrera, Rachel Richardson and Coker again—the latter two exquisitely resuming their roles from last year—as, respectively, the Hungarian, Spanish, Italian and Polish Princesses. The enthralling Czardas was led by Zhong-Jing Fang and Roman Zhurbin—he danced this magically last year as well. The terrific Spanish Dance consists of two couples, which here were first, Olivia Tweedy and—here also repeating from last year—Joseph Markey, and second, Abbey Marrison and Tristan Brosnan. And, lastly, the Neapolitan Dance was rendered indelible by Daniel Guzmán and Tyler Maloney. The key non-dancing parts included the perennial Nancy Raffa as the Queen Mother and Alexei Agoudine as both Wolfgang, tutor to the prince, and as the Master of Ceremonies in Act III, while the sterling corps de ballet was characteristically extraordinary.

With perfect justice, the artists received a standing ovation.

Shakespeare in the Park Review—“Romeo and Juliet” at the Delacorte Theater

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 19 June 2026 20:23; Written by Kevin Filipski

Romeo and Juliet

Written by William Shakespeare; Spanish translations by Alfredo Michel Modenessi

Choreography by Mayte Natalio; directed by Saheem Ali

Performances through June 28, 2026

Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York City

publictheater.org

Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens in Romeo and Juliet (photo: Joan Marcus)

At the Delacorte Theater every summer, the play’s usually not the thing. Instead, Shakespeare is often secondary to the busyness onstage, as director Saheem Ali’s Romeo and Juliet vividly demonstrates. In Ali’s staging, Verona, Italy, is now Nueva Verona, a bilingual town on the U.S.-Mexico border where the Capulets and the Montagues live and where a wall has been built on which protestors from the Montague clan spray paint anti-ICE slogans (the Capulets are pro-ICE, natch).

Against this artificially heightened backdrop, the doomed romance of our star-cross’d lovers is rather uneventful, even trivial. The director must also sense this, since he has also rather desperately added a portentous trio of masked spectres who represent death as they hover about the denizens and gravestones strewn about Maruti Evans’ spooky cemetery set. (Also hovering, somewhat more pretentiously, are outsized statutes of what looks to be Jesus’ mother Mary as well as a skeleton behind the large onstage wall.)

Ali’s direction can’t overcome the inherent contradiction of stuffing extraneous bits into the play yet not trusting those additions enough to embrace a true reimagining. Some of the text is spoken in (unsubtitled) Spanish, which may be authentic to the changed setting and the unbridgeable chasm between the two families—the lower-class Montagues speak it, the upper-class Capulets don’t—but having the two lovers speak Shakespeare’s most elevated love language in another language erases the original poetry’s beauty.

Juliet’s nurse is played by the capable Dierdre O’Connell as an unwanted mugging in the park, which Ali surely was after—so is the audience, which hoots and hollers at her every raised eyebrow. There are a few performers, like Francis Jue (Lawrence), Caleb Joshua Eberhardt (Mercutio) and Lachanze (who gets to sing as Lady Capulet), who are better at balancing the overacting that Delacorte audiences respond to with slightly more nuance.

This bloodless Romeo and Juliet comes to intermittent life through the chemistry of the leads. Daniel Bravo Hernández is a dashing Romeo and Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens believably makes Juliet a giggling teen and a maturing young woman. Both also speak fluent Spanish (in Alfredo Michel Modenessi’s translation) so they can often convey Shakespeare’s emotions without subtitles—but even they are defeated by Ali’s lazy direction of the famous balcony scene, the most forgettable I’ve yet seen.

As so often at the Delacorte, what’s most memorable is not from Shakespeare: Oana Botez’ dazzling costumes, especially in the pivotal ball sequence; Christopher Akerlind’s canny lighting; and Mayte Natalio’s energetic choreography. But the messy ending, in which the two grieving families agree to drop their long-standing differences (even though the wall still sits imposingly behind them), makes little sense in this context. That may be why each Delacorte performance ends with a real-life wedding led by Jue, who is an ordained officiant of the Universal Life Church: witnessing an actual celebration of marriage might help audiences forget that Shakespeare’s teenage newlyweds die onstage.

Reviews

June '26 Digital Week III

MET Orchestra & Bruckner at Carnegie Hall

"Swan Lake" and the American Ballet Theater at the Met

Shakespeare in the Park Review—“Romeo and Juliet” at the Delacorte Theater

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