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September '13 Digital Week I

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 01 September 2013 23:18; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Being Human—Season 5

(BBC Home Entertainment)

The original BBC series—the basis for the Canadian remake airing on Syfy network—ends a fifth season of new relationships and friendships.

By concentrating on the characterizations, the ludicrousness of the premise (even in such an obvious fantasy setting) is mitigated, and the unaffected performances by an attractive cast help sustain viewer interest in their tribulations. The Blu-ray image is impeccable; extras include interviews and featurettes.

The Life of Muhammad

(PBS)

This three-hour exploration of the life of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is divided into three parts—The Seeker, Holy Wars, Holy Peace—each of which develops the biography of one of the most widely influential men who ever lived, despite him being barely known to (and misunderstood by) billions of non-Muslims.

Narrated by Rageh Omaar, who journeys to Mecca, Jerusalem and other locales, the series buttresses Muhammad’s story with analysis from scholars and religious experts. The Blu-ray image is first-rate.

Prime Suspect—The Complete Series

(Acorn)

Although always good in numerous movies—including her Oscar-winning Elizabeth II in The Queen—Helen Mirren’s greatest triumph is police inspector Jane Tennyson. When the series debuted two decades ago, little did we know we’d watch with increasing awe and admiration how Tennyson transformed into an exciting, new kind of detective, and applaud her ability to solve crimes, work on an unfulfilling personal life and tame male partners’ sexist attitudes.

This set contains all seven Prime Suspects—which, along with Mirren’s brilliance, showcase superb acting by a pre-Schindler's List Ralph Fiennes, Peter Capaldi and Tom Wilkinson. These sublimely crafted crime dramas look good in hi-def; extras are a behind-the-scenes Season 6 featurette and a 50-minute series making-of.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

(IFC)

Mira Nair’s adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s ricocheting post-9/11 novel about a Pakistani who rises to the heights of capitalist Manhattan before returning to his roots and becoming suspicious in the CIA’s eye is a skillfully made and breathless exploration of the cultural divide after that infamous day in 2001.

Well-acted and explosively filmed, Nair’s drama wears its heart on its sleeve more than the more cynical book, but it’s one of the few movies to treat this delicate subject with empathy and intelligence. The hi-def image looks great; a 30-minute making-of featurette makes a substantial lone extra.

Santana & McLaughlin—Invitation to Illumination

(Eagle Rock)

When two of the world’s great guitarists perform together, there better be cameras rolling, and this 2011 reunion of Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin—nearly 40 years after their lone collaborative effort, 1973’s Love Devotion Surrender—was recorded for posterity.

Onstage at the famous Monteux Jazz Festival, the pair trades riffs and solos and alternates leads in a selection of songs from that album and inspired covers of “Stairway to Heaven” and “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall.” This event looks and sounds great in hi-def.

Scary Movie V

(Anchor Bay/Weinstein)

A few decent ideas float around this latest scattershot movie/pop culture parody—like the opening Lindsay Lohan-Charlie Sheen mash-up, which is better in theory than execution.

But since little of this fifth brainless go-round is funny on its own terms (the endless references cause little more than a smile of recognition), even this mercifully short 80-minute regurgitation of the same old one-liners, tasteless jokes and movie parodies palls quickly. The Blu-ray image looks good enough; extras include deleted scenes.

DVDs of the Week

Frank Riva and Inspector Vivaldi

(MHZ Networks)

Two more European television series are released by the enterprising MHZ Networks. Former French movie heartthrob Alain Delon plays against type as a grizzled, middle-aged undercover cop in Frank Riva, whose six entertaining episodes follow his return to duty 25 years after his retirement.

The equally good Inspector Vivaldi stars Lando Buzzanca as an aging Italian detective juggling his personal and professional lives as he solves crimes with his younger partner—who also happens to be his son.

Koch

(Zeitgeist)

Neil Barsky’s documentary about the cantankerous NYC mayor (who ironically died the day the film opened) is an indelible picture of a long career of public service. While sympathetic to its chatty subject, it’s not mere hagiography: corruption, slow response to AIDS and the closeted homosexual rumor are all presented.

This vivid picture of NYC from the time Koch got into politics though his dozen years as mayor to his later years as commentator and lionized city icon, we see how he remade his beloved city in his image: a no-nonsense, prickly, pugnacious survivor. Extras include Barsky’s Witnesses NYC, a 29-minute doc about NYC in the ‘80s; Barsky and Koch interviews.

1939 Battle of Westerplatte

(e one)

Although the Polish army was annihilated by Hitler’s Nazi Blitzkrieg to begin World War II, this fine historical drama finds heroism and courage in even the losingest battle.

The story’s overwhelmingly epic scope is well defined along with the personal stories of the commanders—are they heroic or foolhardy or suicidal?—in a war film that’s engrossing despite having little real suspense about its outcome.

Stuart Saves His Family

(Warner Archive)

While watching this mildly amusing 1995 spin-off of yet another Saturday Night Live character who didn’t deserve a full-length movie, it’s hard to believe that, 18 years later, star-creator-scriptwriter is a U.S. senator from Minnesota running for re-election.

Al Franken is in good-natured form but his broad comedy is stretched so thin that it wouldn’t make a decent ten-minute sketch on the late-night show. Laura San Giacomo, Vincent d’Onofrio and Harris Yulin are wasted by the silliness.

CD of the Week

Benjamin Britten—The Masterpieces

(Decca)

During the 100^th anniversary year of Benjamin Britten’s birth, the greatest 20^th century English composer is represented on his “home” label by a four-disc set that’s a terrific overview of his musical genius in instrumental and vocal works from chamber music to opera. Most of the 15 pieces on these discs show off Britten’s mastery of different vocal forms, whether solo voice, choirs, or his famous “church parables" (a sublime Noye’s Fludde is included).

Among his best orchestral works, the Frank Bridge Variations and Violin Concerto (with soloist Janine Hansen) are included, but the equally fine Piano Concerto is missing. Of course, quibbling about what’s not here is par for the course, but no one can go wrong with what’s here—and in first-rate versions (many by Britten himself).

"La Maison de la Radio" Tunes in to Radio France

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 01 September 2013 15:11; Written by Laura Blum

La Maison de la Radio tunes in to the French airwaves more to breathe the stirring air than to stir any waves. There are no media scandals revealed, no "gotcha" journalism unleashed, but rather an invitation to take in the yeasty atmosphere of France's premier public radio entity, Radio France.

France's counterpart to NPR and the BBC accompanies the daily lives of millions of French listeners. For them, the documentary puts faces to the trusty voices that entertain, inform and coddle. For newcomers, it's a fascinating lab tour of what makes the French French. And for director Nicolas Philibert, it's an answer to the question, How do you capture a non-visual medium on film?

To get going, he strings together newscasts into a boisterous montage. We catch snippets about unemployment in France; animal sex life in London's Natural History museum; shaking towers in pre-tsunami Tokyo; Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution. The chatter cascades out to a citizenry in need of, maybe even obsessed with, cultivated exchange.

La Maison's opening sequence serves as the aural equivalent of an establishing shot. Over a score of jazzy uptempo beeps and gleeful techno gibberish, the camera next settles on the bastion of all this disembodied culture, Radio France's headquarters at the Maison de la Radio. Might its circular design suggest a citadel? Plainly, this institution is charged with safeguarding French civilization.

Philibert has not merely brought cameras onto the outlet's premises; he has retransmitted its mission with his ears and eyes. From newscasts, author interviews and in-house musical performances to celebrity appearances, quiz shows and after-hours call-ins, the film serves up a rich mille-feuille of programming and the personalities behind it.

In 99 minutes, we live a virtual day in the life-cycle of Radio France. Some of the most insightful material unfolds like a mini-mystery. What's this wierd gizmo a newscaster is stabbing with her thumb? As we discover, it's the braille keyboard that Lætitia Bernard uses to craft her news journal (for the house's regional France Bleu 107.1 channel). How do you hook an audience? Along with a rookie reporter, we get tips from a veteran news editor on the tricks of the trade, including when to breathe.

Some stories develop over time, including serial snatches of the Tour de France race as reported by sound engineer/journalist Bernard Cantin from the backseat of a motorcycle. This on-the-road coverage was produced for Radio France's France Inter station, which we learn through rapid-fire quips at a news meeting, isn't targeted to Justin Bieber fans. For its psychographic, it's best to "bring in a sociologist -- from the Left."

Another France Inter sampling, Un temps de Pauchon, features comedian host Hervé Pauchon's interview with a storm chaser who waxes ecstatic about thunderbolts but reveals little about his identity lest he appear seeking publicity for his medical practice. (Vive la différence!) Sixty-something singer and slam artist Tata Milouda recalls her tough start in France as a Moroccan immigrant with neither money nor French. Rap artists in fur hats, a man in a purple mask, more xylophonists than you knew existed -- the cast of eccentrics is part of the charm here.

One of the pleasant side effects of the film is that the enthusiasm of Radio France's devoted staff is contagious. Yet for all its enjoyments, La Maison gets a bit cluttered. Philibert has covered a dizzying array of content production, from the poignantly sublime to the delightfully ridiculous. It might have been more gratifying to streamline the scope and follow fewer subjects for more drama and depth, as he did in his 2002 schoolroom documentary To Be and to Have. Still, La Maison de la Radio is an anthology worth hearing -- and a spectacle worth glimpsing.

"The Grandmaster" is Lost in Translation

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 30 August 2013 14:21; Written by Matt Oakes

Culture is a thing worthy of celebration, not a placeholder. It's a proud artifact of a civilization that distinguishes its unique place in the world while offering a respectful homage to the past. In large part, world cinema is dictated by Hollywood but the cross-pollination taking place here crosses a line in the sand, using cultural differences as a means to gut and sanitize a film that was once called great. This Americanized cut clearly is not.

Foreign films like Amelie aim to invite us into a distinctly different world that works not in spite of their cultural inconsistencies with our more familiar Hollywood fare but because of them. Amelie wasn't hacked down, re-spliced and formatted to fit an American audience ideal of three-act basics. It was perfect just the way it was.

Likewise, Alfonso Cuaron's Y Tu Mamá También didn't bandage its decadent carnal acts. It wore its overtly sexualized heart on its sleeve, regardless of the puritan American mainstream who just so happened to gulp it up. We didn't need a redux where everything just so happens to work out in the end because we didn't need it. Similarly, Guillermo del Toro's bleak Pan's Labyrinth wasn't sterilized with a storybook ending. No, we couldn't wash the gritty, greasy afterbirth nightmares we get from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days out of our brains and yet it's a film that would have been laughed right out of the studio system. It works because it showed us something different, something distinctly non-American.

Film Review: "Getaway"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 30 August 2013 12:37; Written by Matt Oakes

"Getaway"
Directed by Courtney Solomon
Starring Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight, Rebecca Budig
Action, Crime
90 Mins
PG-13

"Get in, get out" Getaway's tagline reads - an obvious parallel to the ideology that went on back in the writer's room in this fart-and-hairspray fireball of a movie. Repping ADHD filmmaking at its most nauseous and nonchalant, Courtney Solomon (Dungeons and Dragons) directs Getaway like an 11-year old waving around a smart phone, clicking the camera on and off with no intent and no semblance of artistry. Each sequence leapfrogs between an unmeasured amount of angles, demonstrating Solomon's lack of faith in his framing and making the experience of watching it akin to a scatter-shot montage lingering on for 90 minutes. It's a grueling slog intent on leaving a wake of smashed-up vehicles - I counted 23 un-inventively totaled police cars, countless wrecked civilian automobiles and five exploding motorcycles - but not much else.

Even star Ethan Hawke's devilish charm couldn't savage this Titanic of a sinking ship. Getting his leg snagged, Hawke is pulled down to the festering depths where the terminally "playful" mind of Solomon vacuously dreams of smashing and whooshing and banging and boom booms.

Reviews

September '13 Digital Week I

"La Maison de la Radio" Tunes in to Radio France

"The Grandmaster" is Lost in Translation

Film Review: "Getaway"

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