4K/UHD Release of the Week 

A big, lumbering beast of a movie, Zach Snyder’s four-hour cut of the 2017 superhero epic—which he left while shooting because of his daughter’s suicide (this version is dedicated to her) and was replaced by cowriter Joss Whedon, who turned it into something completely different—is pretty much humorless, dark and dingy, but might work better at home in hour-long chunks: think of it as a four-part mini-series that doesn’t have to be binged.

 

 

The superheroes Batman, Wonderwoman, Aquaman, the Flash, Cyborg and even Superman (who’s been resurrected from the dead) are secondary to the super villains, and Snyder rarely nods to any plausible humanity throughout, even though parent-child relationships are front and center. Snyder also shot Justice League in the nearly-square 4x3 aspect ratio, which might have worked well on a huge IMAX screen, but even in ultra hi-def on a large TV, it looks impressive and incomplete. The lone extra is the featurette, Road to Justice League, with Snyder.

 

 

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Paul Guilfoyle’s 1955 low-budget crime drama pairs a frisky Angela Lansbury with a stolid Keith Andes in a Body Heat-type situation that (of course) soon unravels to the man’s disadvantage. Despite its brevity, this still seems stretched beyond what should have been an hour-long Perry Mason episode, but Lansbury and Claudia Barrett—as her virtuous sister—give it more than fleeting interest.

 

 

The B&W images look terrific in a restored hi-def transfer; extras are a commentary by film historian Jason A. Ney and a short featurette on actress/director Ida Lupino’s career making films for her own company, The Filmakers (sic).

 

 

 

 

 

Mathis der Maler 

German Paul Hindemith’s operatic masterpiece of stirring music and taut drama about the 16th-century Flemish painter Matthias Grunewald—whose extraordinary Isenheim Alterpiece is in the Unterlinden Museum in France—includes layers of humane, political, social and artistic themes.

 

 

Keith Warner’s 2012 Vienna production underscores Hindemith’s artistry in his starkly vivid staging, superbly conducted by Bertrand de Billy, played by the Vienna Philharmonic, sung by the Slovak Philharmonic Choir and embodied by a first-rate cast led by Wolfgang Koch as Mathis, in a performance of deep empathy. The hi-def video and audio look and sound impeccable.

 

 

 

 

 

One Crazy Summer 

This 1986 Cape Cod comedy by writer-director Savage Steve Holland is about as subtle as its creator’s name: that’s not to say it’s not entertaining—there are several moments of eye-popping inventiveness—but after the movie hits its stride about 30 minutes in, it goes on repeating itself while attempting to find more original avenues, turning it more enervating by the end.

 

 

Still, this diverting little film has attractive performances by John Cusack, Demi Moore and the winning Kimberly Foster, who for some reason disappeared in the early ’90s after a choppy career. There’s an excellent hi-def transfer; lone extra is a commentary by Holland and actors Bobcat Goldthwait (forgettable in an obvious role) and Curtis Armstrong.

 

 

 

 

 

Wagner/Bruckner/Salzburg Concert 

This summer 2020 Salzburg Festival concert unites one of the great voices of our time, Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, with Richard Wagner’s wonderful Wesendonck Lieder, heard in an orchestration by Felix Mottl; Garanča caresses the melodies with loveliness and tact, and Christian Thielemann leads the orchestra’s sensitive musical accompaniment.

 

 

I’m no fan of Anton Bruckner’s gargantuan statement symphonies, but Thielemann and the orchestra provide quite a workout performing the Austrian’s fourth symphony, which amid its overwrought structure has some beautiful passages. There’s first-rate hi-def audio and video.

 

 

 

 

 

CD Releases of the Week

Polish composer Kryzsztof Penderecki (who died last year at age 87) was a master of many forms, including chamber music for strings, as this brilliantly performed disc by the Tippett Quartet excitingly shows.

 

 

Penderecki’s four quartets display the arc of his career in masterly fashion: the avant-garde sounds of No. 1 (1960) give way to the more structured dissonance of No. 2 (1968), while the personal and reflective ambience of No. 3, Leaves from an Unwritten Diary (2008), leads to the alternately autumnal and abrasive No. 4 (2016). Rounding out the recording are the brief, memorable one-movement Der unterbrochene Gedanke (1988) and Penderecki’s lone string trio (1990), a propulsive two-movement work. 

 

 

 

 

Jean Sibelius—Orchestral Works 

As Finland’s greatest composer, Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) has an exalted reputation that rests on orchestral works like his seven towering symphonies and lustrous violin concerto. This disc features lesser-known orchestral works, both instrumental and vocal, with Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen’s lovely voice centering the moody Luonnotar and a movement of Sibelius’ Pelleas och Melisande suite, which puts a Nordic spin on the tale that two Frenchmen—Gabriel Faure and, most famously, Claude Debussy—spun gossamer webs around.

 

 

The other highlight is the tone poem Tapiola: conductor Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra really show themselves as worthy interpreters of Sibelius’ music.