Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

One of the most entertaining murder mystery-puzzles this side of Agatha Christie, Herbert Ross’ hilariously cynical 1973 comic thriller casts a jaundiced eye on the slickness and cynicism of Hollywood courtesy of Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins’ diabolically clever script, which keeps pulling the rug out from under its nasty characters—and viewers. (Admittedly, it cheats: the pivotal Polaroid we are shown is not the same photo that we actually see taken.)

 

Dyan Cannon is outstanding as a bitchy agent, James Coburn terrifically nasty as the widow who sets the murderous games in motion, Richard Benjamin (never a favorite of mine) perfect as a second-rate writer, James Mason a suavely has-been director, and the late, lamented Joan Hackett as a sympathetically pathetic writer’s wife. Oh yes: and Raquel Welch has never looked better. The hi-def transfer is terrific; lone extra is a Cannon, Benjamin and Welch commentary.

 

 

 

 

 

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow—Complete 6th Season 

Wherein this band of superheroes not ready for big-screen spinoffs continue their fantastical adventures this season, contending with one of their own being abducted by aliens alongside run-ins with historical characters from David Bowie and Amelia Earhart to JFK and Spartacus.

 

 

That tells you all you need to know about a show that doesn’t take itself seriously, and its fans will watch and enjoy without any qualms. The season’s 15 episodes look superb in hi-def; extras include featurettes, deleted scenes and a gag reel. 

 

 

 

 

 

Fury 

Even though it now seems too simplistic, Fritz Lang’s 1936 study of an unruly mob’s attempt to lynch an innocent man (Spencer Tracy) for a crime for which he’s being held in a local jail is still an effective piece of agit-prop, notwithstanding the obviousness and—pardon the pun—black and white point of view.

 

 

Tracy rages brilliantly, Sylvia Sidney is his empathetic girlfriend, and Lang’s solid direction makes points a more subtle approach would have missed. There’s an excellent hi-def transfer; lone extra is a Peter Bogdanovich commentrary with Lang comments strewn about.

 

 

 

 

 

Kung Fu—Complete 1st Season 

In this clever reboot of the classic ‘70s network TV series starring David Carradine, Nicky returns home to her San Francisco neighborhood after three years in a monastery in a remote area of China, only to find her parents and many others frightened of the mobster who runs things his way—soon she is doling out punishment, aided by friends and family members.

 

 

Led by the charming Olivia Liang as Nicky—and with noteworthy support from Shannon Dang as her sister Althea and Tan Kheng Hua as their mother—the series has a momentum that doesn’t let up for its debut season’s 13 episodes. It looks fantastic on Blu; extras are a making-of featurette and deleted scenes.

 

 

 

 

 

Ladies They Talk About 

In this singleminded 1933 crime drama, Barbara Stanwyck plays an accomplice to a bank robbery thrown in prison where she blends in with the hardened criminals while finding that a loud-mouthed preacher loves her.

 

 

Blunt and unsentimental in its depiction of jailed women, Howard Bretherton and William Keighley’s film nevertheless leans toward melodramatics, especially in its cringy “happy” ending. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer; lone extra is a vintage cartoon, I Like Mountain Music.

 

 

 

 

 

Muhammad Ali 

Ken Burns, along with his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon, has created another thorough documentary, this one about boxer Muhammad Ali, who as Cassius Clay became a great boxer then, after his infamous name change, became one of the most famous celebrities of the 20th century.

 

 

Burns and company show, however, that he was so much more: an icon of race, of culture, of sports, of politics, of religion, and of boxing. But he was also more than the sum of those parts, which the most vivid image of the entire four hours of new/archival interviews and classic boxing footage painfully and sadly shows: made wobbly by Parkinson’s, Ali proudly holds the torch at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The Blu-ray image is quite good; surprisingly, there aren’t any director interviews.

 

 

 

 

 

Reminiscence 

With this unsuccessful cross between Waterworld and Westworld set in water-logged Miami and New Orleans in the near-future, writer-director Lisa Joy certainly doesn’t lack ambition telling the story of Nick (Hugh Jackman) and his partner Watts (Thandiwe Newton) helping clients “find” their lost memories—but when attractive client Mae, whom Nick began a relationship with, disappears, he dangerously relives his memories of their time together.

 

 

Too bad that the emotions Joy wants to highlight are swallowed up by the oppressive visuals depicting a climate-changed future and unsettling memories of Mae, which point toward a murder. The film looks fine on Blu; extras comprise several making-of featurettes.

 

 

 

 

 

White as Snow 

French director Anne Fontaine’s fiendish and witty update of Snow White reveals its intentions slowly but memorably as what starts as a fairy tale but soon traverses territory that keeps redefining itself—as well as its heroine, a young woman whose beauty and apparent innocence has seven (of course) men after her.

 

 

Although Isabelle Huppert gets top billing and is her usual amusing self as the wicked stepmother, Lou de Laâge steals this satisfying feminist take on self-empowerment as a smart, sassy Snow White—and Fontaine’s camera loves her, especially in this marvelous-looking hi-def transfer.

 

 

 

 

 

Who You Think I Am 

Juliette Binoche stars in director-writer Safy Nebbou’s banal twist on the rom-com, which does little with its intriguing premise of ghosting (in the 21st century tech sense).

 

 

Unfortunately, despite her usual elegance, Binoche can’t enliven Claire, a middle-aged professor who—after being unceremoniously dumped by her younger boyfriend—makes a fake Facebook account to spy on him and in the process destroys his innocent roommate’s life. An occasional scene works handily enough to suggest what might have been, but the film remains a torpid study of uninteresting people. It looks luminous on Blu; lone extra is a 36-minute making-of.

 

 

 

 

 

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week

Charlotte Juergens’s emotional documentary depicts her own journey to follow her late grandfather’s footsteps when he went ashore on D-Day in June 1944; while in France, she befriends other veterans who make European pilgrimages every five years and tells their tear-jerking stories.

 

 

There’s one, in which Don, an American vet in his 90s, has a lovely platonic relationship with Suzette, a French woman who may have met him in Normandy during the war while she was a child. Juergens creates an easy intimacy among these men and women, herself and the viewer, which keeps this humane exploration from turning maudlin.

 

 

 

 

 

Uppercase Print 

As his other films—including his recent New York Film Festival entry, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn—have demonstrated, Romanian director Radu Jude mercilessly critiques the hypocrisy of government control, particularly the Romanian dictatorship of Ceaușescu, which ended with his death in 1989.

 

 

Here, Jude juxtaposes segments from a play about a teen whose 1981 anti-authoritarian graffiti was deemed so dangerous that the secret police mercilessly hounded him with archival segments displaying the crushing banality of life in a surveillance state—the result is vividly realized and thought-provoking.  

 

 

 

 

 

DVD Release of the Week

After Portrait of a Lady on Fire and this, French actress Noemie Merlant may be typecast in erotic period pieces, but if she doesn’t mind, we shouldn’t either: she gives a complex portrayal of Marie de Heredia, who in late 19th century France engaged in a torrid and quite open affair with poet Pierre Louys under her husband Henri de Regnier’s nose.

 

 

Director-writer Lou Jeunet has created a multilayered drama about consenting adults who adhere to the principle that art is the highest calling and can excuse abominable personal behavior. Niels Schneider as Pierre and Benjamin Lavernhe as Henri also contribute handsomely to this cinematic menage a trois, but at its center is the riveting Merlant.

 

 

 

 

 

CD Releases of the Week 

British cellist Steven Isserlis is not only one of the most adventurous musicians around, he’s also a must-follow on Twitter (his tweets about his continued travails flying around the world with his trusty—but large—instrument are priceless). His musicmaking, however, is what concerns us here, and his latest recording is typically wide-ranging and superbly programmed.

 

 

Traversing the solo cello repertoire of his home country from the past century, Isserlis performs two major works, well-known (the third of Benjamin Britten’s astounding and intricate cello suites) and obscure (the vigorous and charming Suite in the eighteenth-century style by Frank Merrick), with shorter pieces by Britten, William Walton, John Gardner and—the lone 21st-century work—Thomas Adès making up the rest of the disc. Isserlis plays with authority and finesse throughout, making the solo cello sound as vast and varied as a symphony.

 

 

 

 

 

Kurtág Quartets/ Dvořák Quintet 

Pairing the modern musical miniatures of Hungarian composer György Kurtág with Czech master Antonín Dvořák’s romantic-era Op. 97 string quintet, the Parker Quartet—with eminent violist Kim Kashkashian joining for the Dvořák—makes it sound like the most natural thing in the world.

 

 

The Kurtág pieces, Officium breve and Six moments musicaux, comprise several curt, short movements; Dvořák’s quintet, written while he was living in Iowa, of all places, in 1893, is drenched in elements of American musical rhythms and melodies. The formidable performances also generously allow space to breathe between the notes, especially those found in Kurtág’s uniquely spare style.