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November '13 Digital Week I

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 04 November 2013 05:11; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

The Beauty of the Devil

(Cohen Media)

This deviously funny 1950 take on the Faust legend perfectly sums up director Rene Clair: a light touch that approaches, but never crashes into corny sentimentality.

Here, helped by a pair of smashing lead performances by Michel Simon and Gerard Philippe as Faust and Mephistopheles at various ages, Clair has created a dazzling allegory that works as comedy, drama, romance, cautionary tale and even a sort of tragedy. The Black-and-white classic looks superb on Blu-ray; lone extra is a 50-minute Clair documentary.

Byzantium

(IFC)

In Neil Jordan’s latest vampire drama—he made Interview with a Vampire in 1994—scenes of sultry Gemma Arterton and Atonement’s Saorise Ronan, a mother-daughter bloodsucking team, in a rundown resort hotel are intercut with glimpses of them since the Napoleonic wars.

It’s often pretentious and jarringly violent, even if Jordan’s visual style remains sophisticated and unsettling. Arterton is always luminous and Ronan’s unique look serves her well as an eternal teenager. The Blu-ray image is excellent; extras include an hour of interviews with Jordan, Arterton, Ronan, et al.

Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert

(Eagle Vision)

The 1992 tribute concert to Queen singer Freddie Mercury (who died in November 1991) is a glorious, glitzy three-hour extravaganza that the flamboyant frontman would have loved: everyone from David Bowie and Annie Lennox to Elton John, Axl Rose and Liza Minnelli enthusiastically sing Queen songs with band members Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.

Although Robert Plant’s rendition of “Innuendo” is still missing—apparently Plant hated it, so it’s been suppressed for 21 years—the Blu-ray includes the concert and extras (retrospective doc, rehearsal footage) from the 2002 DVD release. The image is decent, the sound extraordinary.

I Give It a Year (Magnolia)

and As Cool as I Am (IFC)

These ensemble-driven comedy-dramas can’t transcend built-in clichés. Year depends on the delightful Rose Byrne for comic gravitas; although writer-director Dan Mazer’s rom-com roundelay isn’t as subversive as he thinks it is, his cast (co-starring with Byrne are Rafe Spall, Anna Faris and Simon Baker) displays enough chops to put the whole thing over.

As Cool has fine performances by Claire Danes as an emotionally absent mom and Sarah Bolger as a confused but smart teenager; their intelligent acting makes an otherwise routine movie worth a look. Both hi-def transfers are fine; Cool extras are a making-of and blooper reel, and Year extras are outtakes, deleted scenes and a making-of.

Just Like a Woman

(Cohen Media)

Although she’s usually the best-looking actress in a movie, in Rachid Bouchareb’s trite drama about two women who leave troubled marriages and discover fleeting moments of freedom as belly dancers, Sienna Miller burns a hole in the screen with her fiercely committed portrayal of a woman wronged by a cheating, no-good husband.

Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani nearly matches her in a less showy role, but they are both undermined by a pedestrian script and familiar plot beats. The hi-def image is top-notch.

Morrissey—25

(Eagle Vision)

In this early 2013 concert at the Hollywood High School Auditorium, Morrissey plays hits from a quarter-century long career including The Smiths and solo stuff.

His tight band churns out classics like “Meat is Murder,” “You Have Killed Me” and “Throwing My Arms Around Paris,” with intense audience participation from fans ecstatic to see and hear their idol in such an intimate venue. The Blu-ray image and sound are good and crystal clear; extras include an in-studio glimpse at recording four new songs, Russell Brand’s concert intro and a glimpse behind-the-scenes of the concert.

La Notte

(Criterion Collection)

Following his masterwork L’Avventura, Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1961 follow-up stars Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau as a married couple in a disintegrating relationship, their mutual isolation visualized by the director’s innovative use of locations that comment on psychological states.

Despite its lack of plot or vivid characterizations (neither star is in “star mode”), this insightful drama remains indelible. Criterion’s Blu-ray transfer looks immaculate, which bodes well for eventual releases of L’Avventura and the final film in this trilogy, L’Eclisse; extras include contextual interviews.

Springsteen and I

(Eagle Vision)

This homemade documentary splices together contributions by fans professing their undying love for Bruce Springsteen. I’m no fan of the Boss—an electric live performer, his records don’t have that magic—so I’m not the audience for this, but for those who are, a selection of unreleased footage should sate them, like unseen live versions of “The River” and “Thunder Road.”

The Blu-ray image is OK, considering the variable quality of the footage; extras include six songs from Springsteen’s 2012 London performance (including a Paul McCartney duet on “I Saw Her Standing There,” hilariously mistitled “When I Saw Her Standing There” on the disc and back cover) and more fan love letters.

DVDs of the Week

In a Town This Size

(First Run)

Himself a child abuse victim, Patrick V. Brown has made a devastating emotional chronicle of how one man—a pediatrician in Bartlesville, Oklahoma—ruined many lives by abusing young boys and girls in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Through interviews with victims and their families, we discover again that the worst people to prey on innocent children are those marked with the authority to be alone with them. This pedophiliac doctor’s abuse, as seen in hindsight, was as much psychological as physical. Extras include deleted scenes, an epilogue and Brown interview.

Nine for IX

(ESPN)
In honor of the 40^th anniversary of Title IX—which made college sports gender-neutral—ESPN commissioned nine films by nine female directors to extol the achievements of women in sports, and the results are enlightening, exciting and even touching.

Standouts are Let Them Wear Towels, about women reporters fighting for equal access to pro locker rooms, The Diplomat, a portrait of East German skater Katarina Witt, and The 99ers, the story of the famous U.S. women’s soccer team. Extras comprise an additional film, Abby Head On, about soccer player Abby Wambach, and a short, Coach, about Vivian Stringer.

The Rose Tattoo and

This Property Is Condemned

(Warner Archive)

These vintage dramas are based on Tennessee Williams plays. 1955’s Tattoo has Anna Magnani in a role Williams wrote for her (she declined the original play because her English wasn’t good enough). Her earthy intensity as Williams’ sympathetic heroines is the best thing about Daniel Mann’s decent adaptation.

1966’s Property, director Sydney Pollack’s second feature, is a colorful version of a one-act Williams play: Robert Redford and Natalie Wood, as a couple fated to not be together, are at their most glamorous in Pollack’s sometimes arresting adaptation.

(available on warnerarchive.com)

Shepard & Dark

(Music Box)

This left-field documentary intriguingly examines a half-century-long friendship between playwright Sam Shepard and deli clerk Johnny Dark, maintained over the years by the men’s letter-writing.

Treva Wurmfeld’s film not only recounts a truly eccentric friendship but also chronicles their early times together, when Shepard was an up-and-coming New York playwright and Dark his partner in crime (so to speak). It’s more quixotic than insightful, but that’s a small quibble. Extras include deleted scenes and added interviews.

Spiral—Season 2

and Antigone 34

(MHZ Networks)

These French policiers are far more memorable than their American TV counterparts. Spiral follows a group of Parisian cops trying to discover the complex criminal ring behind a burnt-out body in a car trunk, and Antigone 34 follows detectives in the southern French city of Montpelier tracking down the brutal killer of a female college student.

Both of these unflinchingly (and extremely) violent dramas have arresting acting, hard-hitting storylines and gritty locations, and are addictive from beginning to end.

War of the Worlds—American Experience

(PBS)

This look at Orson Welles’ brilliant 1938 Halloween Eve radio show—when he scared millions of listeners out of their wits because they thought the Martian landing he and his actors were broadcasting was real—brings little new to the table, but the tale is so delicious, and damning of Americans’ sheep mentality, that it’s worth recounting anyway.

The recreations of interviews with people affected by the broadcast are an unnecessary intrusion, the lone blemish on an otherwise skillfully paced hour.

American Ballet Theatre's Fall Season at Lincoln Center

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 03 November 2013 18:36; Written by Jack Angstreich

The lamentable departure of New York City Opera from the precincts of Lincoln Center has had one surprising and welcome consequence — the invitation of other dance companies, besides the wonderful New York City Ballet, to perform there, often with live orchestral accompaniment.

As a result, New York dance enthusiasts have recently had the privilege to enjoy splendid performances at the Koch Theater by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Royal Ballet of Denmark, the National Ballet of Australia, the Paris Opera Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet.

The announcement that American Ballet Theatre would move their fall season from City Center to Lincoln Center was delightful news. The new season of American Ballet Theatre, capping their terrific spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, follows right on the heels of the fabulous appearance of the San Francisco Ballet, itself immediately succeeding New York City Ballet in its exciting fall season.

The program on the evening of Friday, November 1st, 2013, was a triumph, opening with the final, 1940 version of legendary choreographer Michel Fokine's exquisite 1909 work,Les Sylphides,a veritable time-capsule of 19th-century classical ballet, set to the lush piano music of Frederic Chopin.

Fokine's ballet is something of an hommage to the great Taglioni and Bournonville story-ballet, La Sylphide, but since Fokine choreographed for Diaghilev and for all its retrospective cast, Les Sylphides, in its abstraction, it looks forward to the peaks of high modernism as represented by such later figures as George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton.

The current performances are special for presenting the rediscovered, sparkling orchestration of Chopin's music by the estimable Benjamin Britten, just in time to coincide with this year's centennial of the composer's birth.

It was heard to magnificent effect under the baton of conductor David LaMarche. Standouts in the cast included, among others, the excellent ballerinas Hee Seo and Isabella Boylston but I'd also like to draw particular attention to the extraordinary precision of the corps de ballet here.

Twyla Tharp's hypnotic Bach Partita matched expectations and featured a strong cast including Marcelo Gomes, James Whiteside, Polina Semionova and, above all, Gillian Murphy.

Mark Morris's colorful, exuberant Gong, set to Colin McPhee's stunning proto-minimalist score from 1936 largely inspired by Indonesian gamelan music, Tabu-Tabuhan,concluded the program on an triumphant note. Morris's choreography engagingly references Indonesian dance forms and, in its central section, evokes Balinese shadow-plays, although two interludes without music produce an odd effect.. With its symphonic, often propulsive, approach to dance as endlessly self-renewing movement, the work is reminiscent of that of Twyla Tharp.

Gong,too, boasted a superb cast, with Gomes, Whiteside, Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo — whose athleticism and agility here typify his consistent endurance as one of the strongest dancers in the company — as well as, once again, the outstanding Murphy, who dazzled with her solo in the final movement.

The program on the evening of Wednesday, November 6th opened with a repeat of the unutterably beautiful Les Sylphides,with the same — or at least substantially the same — cast. It was glorious to get a chance to see this again, a masterpiece that could surely sustain innumerable viewings. This was followed by José Limón's lovely The Moor's Pavane, subtitled "Variations on a Theme of Othello", another rare treasure from a bygone era of classic choreography, set to a magnificent score drawn from the work of the great Henry Purcell.

This piece is partly a witty pastiche of Renaissance and Baroque dance but, for all the levity of its ironic stance, it does achieve an authentic, unexpected note of tragic inexorability. The fine quartet of dancers here were Roman Zhurbin, Cory Stearns, Veronika Part and Hee Seo.

The program concluded with a repeat ofGong— although this time without Gomes — which, in its celebratory postmodernism, proved to be an elegant foil for the performative stylizations of The Moor's Pavane.

American Ballet Theatre
October 30 - November 10, 2013

20 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023
212 870 5520

www.abt.org

Film Review: "About Time"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 01 November 2013 18:20; Written by Matt Oakes

"About Time"
Directed by Richard Curtis
Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Bill Nighy, Rachel McAdams, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Richard Cordery, Tom Hollander, Margo Robbie
Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
123 Mins
R

A truly good-natured movie is almost impossible to find nowadays. Every major studio release hot off the production line comes caked in ice-packed grit, each romance more a thing of cool-blooded calculation than the starry-eyed butterfly-tummied trances of acoustic guitar ballads. Even the biggest name in romance, the haughty Nicholas Sparks, tends towards conclusions of masturbatory tragedy. Someone has to either die or get laid out with a terminal case of cancer. It's as if audiences can't handle the sweet without the sour - all must end in woe or, at the very least, a shade of woe. Look at the great romantic saga of the past ten year; I'm referring of course to Twilight. Even if you strip away the Mormon patriarchal underpinning and grade-A beastly acting, this "great romance" involves a stoic vampire and an even steelier teen. There's no beaded passion here - nothing beneath the carnal urges and "hot and bothered" eye-banging - just angsty stirrings in the nether regions mislabeled as "love."

Examining a real relationship, or at least any that I've seen, under the context of this brand of ironclad romance, there's very little overlap of note. And yet, the lukewarm romance soldiers on: the bastion of 21^st century detachment and bone-deep aversion to commitment. This template of 21^st century romance has become centered on a singular quest for detached self-satisfaction that it's turned against everything that love stands for. And then comes About Time, an earnest well-meaning love story amongst a pack of wolves. It's quite simply, a breath of fresh air.

Released amongst a rash of hefty dramas and mindless actioners, this purely delightful romance wears its heart on its sleeve in bold, sincere patches. While many romantic competitors keep an emotional distance from the audience through the use of sarcasm and a predictable three act meet-up-break-up-make-up formula, About Time is unafraid to alter the formula, scraping foreseeable twists and turns for the emotional heft of real family dynamics and all the baggage that comes with that...oh and time travel.

Yes, time travel plays a significant part of the narrative as on the eve of his 21^st birthday, Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) is let in on a little family secret by his Dad (Bill Nighy): the men in the family have a peculiar ability to ball their fists and leap through time. In fact, the ability to time travel goes back as far in the family tree as the rascally orange hair which runs rampant in this English family. It takes no great stretch of the imagination to fantasize about how we would use these life-altering powers, but in About Time any ideas of grandiose heroics are by and large shelved. Meek and ginger Tim wants to use his powers for one thing and one thing only: to snag a girlfriend.

When it comes time to procure the finest vixen in the land, the "traveling" bits are entirely effects free. There are no bright neon lights or pin wheeled wormholes, a directorial decision of "less is more" that works wonders within the foundation of the story. Unlike many plots involving time travel, About Time doesn't spend too much time establishing the guidelines for the time travel sandbox, but it does play by its own set of rules. But rather than getting convoluted in the details of time travel's idiosyncrasies, the rules here are simple: your actions can change the events of the past so 1) You can only travel to points and places in time that you've already been to before (i.e. no peeking into the future and no going back and killing Hitler) 2) Don't alter any event before the birth of your child (different sperm, different baby) 3) Realize that there's some things that time travel can't fix. Some things just need to be accepted or learned through the arduous journey that is life.

As much as nitpicky drones love their plot-hole-seeking pastime, any attempt to dissect and discredit the functionality of the time travel here is moot because, well, its pretty rock solid. However hokey a time-jumping premise sounds in the midst of a love story, it's used to surprisingly compelling effect and is far more nuanced and well-mannered than you might otherwise expect. And even though it's there, time travel really isn't what About Time is about. Rather, it uses the fantasy to tap into emotional reality.

Rather than use his time-traveling talent for typical teenage debauchery, Tim saves his ability as a last ditch effort of sorts, only used to better the circumstances of those around him, to avoid the unpleasantries that tend to pop their head up when least expected, and most importantly, to revisit the best days of his life. About Time ponders the idea that we can live life to the fullest not because of magical abilities but, perhaps, in spite of them.

As for the romance at the center of the film, Rachel McAdams flirts with a new kind of woman- a mousey brunette, steadfast in her bookwormery and emotional reservations. It's perhaps the least showy role she's done and for once, she is entirely tolerable if not completely adorable. Newcomer Gleeson is equally charming, although not nearly in the traditional sense we've come to expect from a romantic male lead.

Bumbling, awkward and entirely orange-haired, his Tim makes up for his lack of suave with the good decision-making skills rare in a rom-com male. But the story is larger than the affable romance at its core, it's about family; how families come together, depend on each other, and, ultimately, how parents pass the torch to their offspring. Like a good-natured Butterfly Effect, the most emotionally pungent material is unearthed in Gleeson and Nighy's father-son relationship, so much so that, it might earn a sniffle, maybe even a tear or two from those apt to be touched by emotional films.

Regardless of its breezy premise and total lack of a bad bone in its body, this is the sparse romantic drama that totally works. Brushing off the sleazy staples of modern day rom-coms - the hunky leads, reheated man-wrong-woman, woman-wrong-man clichés, and snarky, obnoxious best friends - Richard Curtis has found something far more earnest, good intentioned and true. With an archer's marksmanship, he manages to land a bullseye in our emotional main vein on a number of occasions. However coated with a healthy layer of rose-colored glaze, About Time is bold enough to be a nice guy amongst an army of grit and cavalier cool. This time though, nice guys don't finish last.

B

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Film Review: "12 Years a Slave"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 01 November 2013 10:13; Written by Matt Oakes

"12 Years a Slave"
Directed by Steve McQueen
Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Quvenzhane Wallis, Sarah Paulson
Biography, Drama, History
132 Mins
R

12 Years a Slave opens somewhere around a decade into Solomon Northup's enslavement. He's mushing blackberries to a paste, attempting to write a letter home using a whittled mulberry stick. Scribbling like a fugitive to the crackle of candlelight, this is the first time he's put pen to paper in years, and must do so under the cover of night. For all the horrors he's suffered and witnessed, the most impossible task is keeping his true identity, and intelligence, under wraps. For a learned slave is a troubling slave and a troubling slave is a marked man - a truth he's seen manifested many times before.

More than a decade gone for something as simple as not being allowed to produce his "free papers," Solomon's journey draws empathy from the audience like water from a well. More than just a story of the horrors of slavery, this is the story of a man who knew a better life - he abided the law, owned a house, had a family, and was a respected part of his Saratoga, New York community - and yet, down in the bowels of the hellish South, was stripped of his humanity like tattered clothes from his back.

Reviews

November '13 Digital Week I

American Ballet Theatre's Fall Season at Lincoln Center

Film Review: "About Time"

B

Film Review: "12 Years a Slave"

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