Streaming Releases of the Week 

With the untimely death of Diane Keaton, there was discussion about her legendary screen career, from her indelible collaborations with Woody Allen to her powerful performances in Reds and Shoot the Moon, among others.

 

 

But Keaton was also an idiosyncratic filmmaker, and her first feature—this weirdly beguiling 1987 documentary—showed off her singular style in ways that were both affecting and head-shaking. This 75-minute exploration rounds up interview snippets with people who discuss their idea of an afterlife alongside dozens of carefully chosen clips from a wide array of movies including Metropolis and A Matter of Life and Death to create something uniquely, lightheartedly Keatonesque.

 

 

 

Sex Diva 

Writer-director Giulia Louise Steigerwalt smartly chronicles the fascinating career of Italian pornographer Riccardo Schicchi, who broke through in the ‘90s, helping to create celebrities of some of his female adult-film performers, including his wife Éva Henger and international superstars like Moana Pozzi, who died tragically of cancer at age 33.

 

 

Steigerwalt’s film is amusing and dramatic, tongue-in-cheek and tragic, and has superb acting throughout, led by Pietro Castellito (Riccardo), Tesa Litvan (Éva) and Denise Capezza (Moana), with—as the calming influence of the Schicchi empire, Debora Attanasio—the magnificent Barbara Ronchi the emotional anchor of the story.

 

 

 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

For a triumphant return to its hometown of Sheffield in northern England in 2023, Def Leppard played the local soccer stadium for a 90-minute concert before tens of thousands of loyal fans that mixed the group’s biggest hits with a few deeper cuts; highlights are the early tracks “Bringing on the Heartbreak” and “Switch 625.” Singer Joe Elliott can still hit most of the high notes, impressive at his age (63 in ’23), and the band is tight and focused.

 

 

A bonus concert, at a Sheffield club a few nights earlier, is a 65-minute trek through some of the same hits and a couple different true-fan faves like “Let It Go” and “Wasted.” The UHD video and surround sound are first-rate.

 

 

 

Him 

In this crudely if occasionally effective horror flick, college football player Cameron Cade—after being attacked by an unknown assailant after a game—goes to train privately before the pro combine with veteran NFL QB Isaiah White, whose unconventional methods result in sex, murder and a ridiculously risible final blood-letting.

 

 

Tyriq Withers is a persuasive, even sympathetic Cam, while Marlon Wayans brings gravitas to the young quarterback’s mentor. For 95 minutes, co-writer/director Justin Tipping hammers everything home so literally that it turns what could have been an enjoyably guilty pleasure into a visually striking mess. It does look terrific on UHD; extras include an alternate ending, deleted scene, and featurettes.

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Les Blank and Maureen Gosling’s perceptive 1982 documentary about the stupendous (and often stupid) lengths that director Werner Herzog went to making his rain forest epic Fitzcarraldo is far more focused than Herzog’s feature, another of the German filmmaker’s adventurous but stillborn studies of madness. A precursor to the making-of featurettes that populate so many home media releases, Blank and Lassiter’s chronicle catches many interesting filmmaking moments—and Herzog, always a charming figure, has himself made far more memorable documentaries than features.

 

 

The film looks striking on Blu; extras comprise Blank’s, Gosling’s and Herzog’s insightful commentary, Blank’s amusing short Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), deleted scenes and an archival Herzog interview. 

 

 

 

Pavarotti—The Lost Concert 

In 1995, the great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti gave a concert in Llangollen, a small town in Wales, 40 years after he won a vocal competition there, to keep a promise he made to return one day: the entire 75-minute concert, where he sang his greatest classical hits in front of tens of thousands, was recorded for posterity.

 

 

His delight is evident from the start, and he’s in fine form throughout. The video looks decent and the sound is good; lone extra is a 52-minute documentary that follows Pavarotti on his journey to the concert, although some of it repeats performances we see in the actual show.

 

 

 

Rick and Morty—Complete 8th Season 

The latest bonkers season begins with Morty and his sister Summer escaping the matrix into which their mad-scientist granddad Rick sent them after they took his phone charger—and that’s just the beginning of a series of dementedly witty episodes that features clones of the main characters that go off on further adventures.

 

 

The superb voice cast and the offhandedly clever animation provide special comic (and cosmic) dimension to these eight episodes; lone extra is an inside the season featurette with creator Dan Harmon and others.

 

 

 

CD Releases of the Week

Australian conductor Charles Mackerras (1925-2010) was an authority on the music of the Czech master Leoš Janáček (1854-1928), recording all of his major operas, especially in an unparalleled cycle for Decca Records back in the 1970s. One of Janáček’s towering masterpieces, The Makropulos Affair (better known as The Makropulos Case in America) had its London premiere in 1964 at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, under Mackerras’ meticulous direction, with Marie Collier an unforgettable-sounding heroine.

 

 

Also on this two-disc set is a fine performance (from the BBC Studios in 1956) of the composer’s yearning song cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared, sung in an English translation by tenor Richard Lewis and contralto Maureen Forrester, with Ernest Lush on piano.

 

 

 

Kurt Weill/Alan Jay Lerner—Love Life 

This delectable 1948 time-traveling musical was the only collaboration of two musical geniuses: Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner. The amazing thing is that the finished work is so cohesive and flows so entertainingly, considering the outsized talents (and, no doubt, egos) of both men.

 

 

This excellent recording of a recent production of Opera North—located in Leeds, England—features wonderful singing, especially by the leads, Quirijin de Long and Stephanie Carley, along with the large supporting cast and chorus; while the orchestra, under conductor James Holmes, sounds wonderful throughout. Too bad this is an audio recording—a video of this staging would be unbeatable.