VOD/Virtual Cinema Releases of the Week 

Tania Cypriano’s engrossing documentary introduces Dr. Jess Ting of Mount Sinai’s Transgender Medicine and Surgery, which takes the needs of patients seriously and provide options for those undergoing the final affirmation of their gender.

 

 

Ting and his overworked Manhattan staff explain procedures to patients, mollify them when questions are raised and—in the specific case of one patient, who tries to kill herself after completing the procedures and was seemingly content—wonder if they can do enough to alleviate all of their difficulties. Cypriano shows Ting as the living embodiment of doing good for others, even at the cost of his own physical and emotional well-being, which he mitigates by playing the double bass, his beloved musical instrument.

 

 

 

 

 

Divine Love 

Set in Brazil in 2027—now a theocratic state in which couples are expected to stay together and where women’s fertility is publicly tracked—writer-director Gabriel Mascaro’s audacious allegory centers on a middle-aged woman who is part of the Party of Supreme Love, where sexual hypocrisy runs rampant and throws a wrench into her own childless marriage.

 

 

Anchored by a fearless performance by Dira Paes—who’s unafraid to bare herself both emotionally and physically—Divine Love makes trenchant observations about how the current right-wing Brazilian government could lead to this enervating outcome, marred only by a too-literal ending of biblical proportions.

 

 

 

 

 

Girl 

Bella Thorne always seems like she could be a formidable actress if not for the vehicles she keeps finding or putting herself in (she’s producing now): just this year, there are Infamous, a stillborn update of Natural Born Killers, and Girl, a forgettable slice of small-town nastiness directed without much distinction by Chad Faust.

 

 

Thorne gives as good as she gets to a now bloated and almost unrecognizable Mickey Rourke (as the local sheriff, of all things) and Faust himself, who gives himself a juicy role that he does little with. But it’s mostly for naught.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soros 

The wingnut right’s ultimate boogeyman, Hungarian financier George Soros is the exact opposite of what they’ve accused him of being: he’s Jewish and was a teenager during World War II, so he wasn’t a Nazi; and he donates much of his billions to democratic causes, but he doesn’t underwrite every socialist or anti-fascist protest worldwide.

 

 

Jesse Dylan’s breezy portrait might be a bit too superficial—it only has 85 minutes, after all, to take the measure of a 90-year-old man—but it homes in on Soros’ movingly humane life story as it destroys the fact-free conspiracy theories that are as unhinged as your basic trump supporter. 

 

 

 

 

 

Truth Is the Only Client 

Did Oswald kill Kennedy alone? The Warren Commission twisted itself into a pretzel to say yes, and even though there have been hundreds of books written and dozens of movies made (most infamously Oliver Stone’s JFK) that assert otherwise, evidence of a real conspiracy has been tantalizingly scant.

 

 

In Todd Kwait and Rob Stegman’s stolid but straightforward overview, several of the commission’s members and assistants—including Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer—discuss the inner workings of the commission, like collecting and analyzing the evidence, although the “single bullet” theory still seems a one-off, like the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

The largely forgotten early 20th-century labor movement is the focus of Bill Duke’s powerful 1986 made-for-PBS drama that brilliantly marries reportage, historical accuracy and marvelous acting to become one of its era’s hidden gems.

 

 

Damien Leake as a southerner who travels north to Chicago to find work and Alfre Woodard as his loyal wife are pitch-perfect, while the supporting cast—including Moses Gunn, Dennis Farina and John Mahoney—add to the dramatic intensity and authenticity. The film looks excellent in hi-def; extras include interviews with Duke, Leake and writer/producer Elsa Rassbach. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Other Side of Madness 

The 1969 Manson murders have been exhaustively covered in several TV and theatrical films over the decades but director Frank Howard’s 1970 curio—which was shot in the aftermath of the killings—is a strangely compelling fantasia that actually has some cleverness to its exploitativeness.

 

 

Manson’s own routine pop songs as a soundtrack is more a novelty than anything else, but this demented drama is an unsettling time capsule of sorts. There’s a very good new hi-def transfer; extras are two interviews with producer Wade Williams and a CD of Manson’s songs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summerland 

In playwright Jessica Swale’s writing/directing debut, a reclusive author reluctantly takes in a young boy during the London blitz, triggering memories of her earlier relationship with an equally free-spirited woman. Swale’s contrived melodrama hinges so much on implausible relationships and plot twists that one wonders about the value of her plays.

 

 

But director Swale elicits beautifully nuanced work from Gemma Arterton (author) and Lucas Bond (boy), along with sensitive support by Tom Courtenay, Penelope Wilton and—in the pivotal role—Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The lovely landscapes and seascapes take on an added luster in hi-def; extras are a behind-the-scenes featurette and interviews with Swale, Arterton, Mbatha-Raw, several other actors and crew members.

 

 

 

 

 

Tennessee Johnson 

Van Heflin plays Andrew Johnson, the Southern senator turned VP turned president after Lincoln’s assassination, in this sympathetic 1942 biopic that gets some details right while also pushing the fiction that Johnson was a worthy successor to Lincoln and would have healed the rift between North and South if he hadn’t been impeached.

 

 

William Dieterle’s drama smartly makes the impeachment trial the focus of the movie’s second half, but when Johnson defends himself with an impassioned speech and escapes being convicted in the Senate by one vote, we get a feel-good ending that’s anything but factual. It’s a flawed but weirdly fascinating alternate history, its crisp B&W compositions looking terrific in a new hi-def transfer. Extras comprise a 1943 radio broadcast of the story with Gary Cooper and vintage cartoon Baby Puss and short Heavenly Music.

 

 

 

 

 

DVD Releases of the Week

In the final explosive season of this twisty secret-intel TV drama, heroine Jane Doe—the unknown tattooed woman whose discovery at an NYC bus locker was the catalyst for the entire series—and her cohorts are in the most danger they’ve ever been…will they survive?

 

 

These 11 episodes of a COVID-shortened season include many hair-raising moments, but the excellent cast, led by Jaimie Alexander (heroine) and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (evil genius), is what saves this ultimately contrived setup. 

 

 

 

 

 

Conviction 

With the always excellent Marina Fois at its center as a juror convinced of a father’s innocence in his wife’s disappearance who cajoles a reluctant lawyer to take up the case in a retrial, Antoine Raimbault’s courtroom drama is an often exciting and tense experience.

 

 

While Raimbault sometimes allows contrivance—a convenient car accident, for instance—to propel the plot, Fois’ intensity (whether advocating for the defendant or dealing with her young son and boyfriend who feel ignored by her) intelligently grounds the film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Girl Missing 

In Japanese director Koji Fukada’s slowly evolving drama, Mariko Tsutsui gives a performance of admirable restraint as a woman tangentially connected to a young man who abducts a young woman (herself related to our protagonist’s employer).

 

 

Fukada makes several pungent observations about media hysteria but allows his film to spiral to a messy and inelegant conclusion; much of the time, the drama is diverting and, at times, spellbinding. Extras are a 40-minute making-of featurette and a short, Love Comes Later, by Indian director Sonejuhi Sinha.

 

 

 

 

 

CD Releases of the Week 

I’m always partial to any recital disc that programs exclusively French composers, and this release from Israeli-born cellist Matt Haimovitz and Japanese-born pianist Mari Kodama certainly fills the bill.

 

 

Two major cello works—the opener, Francis Poulenc's exquisite sonata; and Claude Debussy's own, equally enchanting sonata—are played with graceful intimacy, while shorter pieces by Fauré (two of them!), Milhaud, Ravel and the sisters Lili and Nadia Boulanger are given equally committed readings by these perfectly paired artists.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Florent Schmitt—La Tragédie de Salomé

French composer Florent Schmitt (1870-1958) was a pupil of the great Gabriel Fauré, and it shows in his elegantly-crafted music, which JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic return to for their latest superb disc comprising Schmitt’s varied orchestral works, from his best-known composition, La Tragédie de Salomé (highlighting the excellent Women’s Choir of Buffalo), to the ravishing ballet score, Oriane et le Prince d’Amour. 

 

 

Rounding out this valuable recording are the radiant Musique sur l’eau (with the fine mezzo Susan Platts) and the premiere recording of a violin-led Légende, with the BPO’s concertmaster Nikki Chooi essaying the lovely solo part.