In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Czech writer-director Petr Václav’s absorbing biopic introduces Josef Mysliveček, a late 18th-century, Prague-born composer who was much sought-after throughout Europe for his operas and vocal music. He reportedly inspired Mozart, and the film includes a marvelous sequence of Mysliveček meeting and discussing music with the young prodigy; it also shows how Mysliveček’s prodigious appetite for women could have been a factor in his premature death at age 43: he got a serious case of syphilis and had his nose disfigured by an inept doctor.

 

 

Vojtěch Dyk’s towering portrayal of Mysliveček is buttressed by a large and talented supporting cast led by Italian actress Barbara Ronchi (also in Marco Bellocchio’s latest masterpiece, Kidnapped) as one of Mysliveček’s vocal collaborators.  

 

 

 

Longlegs 

This ungodly mashup of The Silence of the Lamb and the Swedish TV series The Bridge stars Maika Monroe as an autistic, and possibly clairvoyant, FBI agent tracking a serial killer who has ties to her and her family. Writer-director Osgood Perkins’ artful-looking thriller relies too much on jump scares (and jump non-scares) as well as redundant flashbacks made more enervating by being in a different aspect ratio. Monroe’s persuasive performance is nonetheless hampered by Perkins, whose opening sequence allows this supposedly smart character to make the first of several stupid decisions.

 

 

As the title character, Nicolas Cage seems to have been directed with a cattle prod, giving a hammier performance than usual; Longlegs might have been more resonant if Longlegs himself was excised from the meandering narrative.

 

 

Sleep No More 

This 2014 crime drama by Antonia Bogdanovich—daughter of hit-or-miss Peter Bogdanovich—has been reedited to create a director’s cut that still remains nondescript. The relationship between a neglectful father and his two battered sons is the main throughline, with other shady characters and an unlikely femme fatale hovering around but adding up to very little.

 

 

It’s as if Bogdanovich highlighted her plot’s lesser aspects: instead of showing the youngest son’s reciting Shakespeare while his older brother pickpockets spectators multiple times, the budding—and more interestingly oedipal—relationship between the oldest son and a friend’s lonely and available mother deserves more screen time. The fine cast features a terrific Rebecca Romijn as the mom, but nothing hits with any real dramatic force.

 

 

 

4K/UHD Release of the Week

If you thought that pairing Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt—both Oscar nominated for their supporting performances in last summer’s Barbie and Oppenheimer, respectively—would be irresistible, then David Leitch’s overblown action comedy will dissuade you of that notion.

 

 

There’s a bit of fun early on, but the pointless action scenes pile up in mind-numbing fashion, especially in the interminable 146-minute extended cut. Gosling is always game, but Blunt seems out of her element (her best moment finds her singing karaoke to “Against All Odds,” a very low bar); the stunt men are unsurprisingly spectacular, but it all adds up to a noisy misfire. The 4K image looks impressive; extras include a gag reel, making-of featurettes, extended scenes, and Leitch’s and producer Kelly McCormick’s commentary on both cuts.

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Sam Taylor-Johnson, who made the intriguing misfire Nowhere Boy about John Lennon’s teenage years, has now done the same with this biopic about Amy Winehouse, the talented British singer who lost her battle to the demons of fame, alcohol and drugs at age 27 (joining the so-called “27 Club,” populated by Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain).

 

 

Matt Greenhalgh’s by-the-numbers script follows Amy from teen obscurity to stardom, while Taylor-Johnson’s generally competent direction rightly focuses on her songs—yet it never coheres dramatically, with even the final, desperate scenes coming off mechanically. Lesley Manville (Amy’s nan), Eddie Marsan (her dad) and Jack O’Connell (her husband) acquit themselves well, but it’s Marisa Aleba who makes this rote portrait watchable with a thrilling performance that’s less an impersonation than a deeply-felt immersion. There’s a good hi-def transfer; extras comprise Taylor-Johnson’s commentary and on-set featurettes.

 

 

 

Sting 

When 12-year-old Charlotte’s pet spider Sting (of course she names it that!) reaches monstrous, human-eating proportions, writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner decides that his only mission is to use the general squeamishness of viewers to arachnids to try and scare the hell out of his audience, overt ridiculousness be damned.

 

 

Taking place in the claustrophobic rooms of an apartment building, it’s minimally effective, although it’s stretched out far beyond its meager means before its 90 minutes are up. There’s an excellent hi-def transfer; extras are making-of featurettes and interviews.

 

 

 

CD Release of the Week 

The grand operas of German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) held stages for decades after his death but have since fallen out of favor for reasons including the massive cost to produce such spectacles and a sense that his style was retrograde (anti-Semitic screeds by noted bigot Richard Wagner didn’t help). But there are signs this might be changing. At Bard Summerscape, Leon Botstein leads an elaborate production through August 4 of this five-act 1849 opera about an innkeeper who becomes a radical Christian prophet, which leads to a fiery, tragic climax.

 

And this accomplished performance from last summer’s Aix Festival in France is well-paced by conductor Mark Elder, beautifully performed by the London Symphony and Mediterranean Youth orchestras, Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône and Lyon Opera Chorus, and impressively sung by a cast that’s led by John Osborn (Jean de Leyde), Elizabeth DeShong (Fidès) and Mané Galoyan (Berthe). The three-SACD recording gives listeners a thrilling intro to Meyerbeer’s epically-scaled music drama.