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May '13 Digital Week II

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Monday, 13 May 2013 00:58
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Barrymore
(Image)
Finally here’s a filmed record of Christopher Plummer’s enchantingly witty interpretation of another great actor, John Barrymore, in William Luce’s one-man (but two-voice) play—for which Plummer won the 1997 Best Actor Tony Award.
 
Director Erik Canuel keeps the focus tightly on Plummer, whose juicily idiosyncratic performance is a glorious capper on an unrivaled career. The Blu-ray image is excellent; Backstage with Barrymore, an hour-long making-of documentary, is the lone extra.
 
The Grifters
(Echo Bridge)
Stephen Frears’ wickedly black 1990 comedy, with a superb script by Donald Westlake from Jim Thompson’s novel, follows a trio of con artists pitted against one another. The dream cast comprises Angelica Huston and John Cusack as estranged mother and son and Annette Bening, hilarious and erotic as a sexpot who shed allegiances more quickly than her clothes.
 
Too bad that Bening’s marriage to Warren Beatty derailed her career for awhile. The Blu-ray image, as on all Echo Bridge releases, is underwhelming; extras are Frears’ commentary and on-set interviews.
 
 
The Hoax
(Echo Bridge)
Lasse Hallstrom will never return to the sublime heights of his 1985 masterpiece My Life as a Dog; but of his American films, this 2007 comic drama comes closest with its tongue-in-cheek look at Clifford Irving’s Howard Hughes forgeries, with little of the sentimentality that marred even The Cider House Rules.
 
Richard Gere gives a rare unbridled performance as Irving, and the supporting cast—Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, Alfred Molina—is equally good. The movie looks decent on hi-def; extras comprise Hallstrom’s commentary, deleted scenes, making-of footage.
 
The Rabbi’s Cat
(New Video)
The new animated feature by the creator of the uneven biopic Gainsbourg shows off director Joann Safr’s visual ideas at their most playful and pure.
 
The earlier film’s best bits were surreal puppetry; this story of a feline who begins to talk after eating a parrot has visuals that are the equivalent of the irreverent cat’s profane but philosophical musings, which shock everyone with their religious and moral provocations. The Blu-ray’s bright colors look exquisite; extras are a making-of segment and featurette on Safr.
 
 
 
Safe Haven
(Fox)
After My Life as a Dog, Lasse Hallstrom left Sweden for crass work in Hollywood, where he’s become a go-to director for potboilers and melodramas (with the odd witty entry like The Hoax, above), and this silly Nicholas Sparks adaptation is yet another.
 
Julianne Hough, not a serious—or even semi-serious—actress, provides a credibility hit, but Josh Duhamel’s presence is more on the romantic mark. The Blu-ray image looks good enough; extras include alternate ending, deleted scenes and featurettes.
 
Starlet
(Music Box)
Sean Baker’s well-meaning but amateurish character study about an unlikely bond between a young porn actress and an elderly lady remains trite, despite Baker’s obvious empathy for his characters. His heart is certainly in the right place, but a game cast (led by Dree Hemingway, Mariel’s daughter, and Besedka Johnson in the leads) can’t make this flat-footed drama any more affecting.
 
Stella Maeve makes an indelible impression as a drugged-out porn failure. The Blu-ray image, while soft, looks pretty good; extras include Baker’s commentary, featurettes, behind the scenes footage and interviews.
 
 
Upstream Color
(New Video)
Actor-turned-director Shane Carruth has been watching too much Kubrick and Malick, if this second feature, a willfully obscure—but exceedingly preposterous and quite quickly ponderous—sci-fi feature is any indication. In his familiar-looking drab world where the heroine is implanted with a worm that places her under another’s control, Carruth confuses portentousness with pretentiousness.
 
This melancholy romance and lament for our alienated society is too simplistic, and Carruth relies on other, better directors’ movies to make his not so original points. The Blu-ray looks immaculate.
 
DVDs of the Week
Broadway Musicals—A Jewish Legacy
(Athena)
The history of the American musical, with a few exceptions, overflows with the talents of Jewish lyricists and composers, which this 90-minute documentary sketches intelligently and entertainingly.
 
Moving from the Gershwins to Jerry Herman, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim, Broadway Musicals (narrated by Joel Grey) is crammed with interviews, old and new, with many luminaries, and generous clips from shows like Cabaret and Fiddler on the Roof. This trip down memory lane doesn’t skimp on the historical and cultural significance of these creators. An extra disc has more interviews and musical selections.
 
The Great Gatsby—Midnight in Manhattan
(BBC)
In anticipation of the new Gatsby movie (rather ludicrously shot in 3D), this 2000 documentary about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous novel gets re-released. Narrated by Tara Fitzgerald and including interviews with biographers and literary experts, the 47-minute doc abridges the history of its genesis, a video equivalent of Cliffs Notes about Fitzgerald’s classic work.
 
An extra is a BBC version of the play Private Affairs: A Dream of Living, about Fitzgerald, wife Zelda and Ernest Hemingway, with David Hemmings.
 
Lincoln Chronicles and Shadows of the Reich
(Mill Creek)
These DVD sets illuminate a great 19th century martyr and the most evil 20th century dictator. The Reich set comprises 10 Charlton Heston-narrated documentaries, the most interesting being Hitler’s Last Days.
 
The 10-disc Lincoln Chronicles is dominated by Sandberg’s Lincoln, a five-hour 1974 mini-series with a forceful Hal Holbrook in a far subtler and wide-ranging portrayal of Honest Abe than Daniel Day Lewis in Spielberg’s biopic. Beware: the order of Sandberg’s Lincoln episodes is jumbled. D.W. Griffith’s epic 1930 feature, Abraham Lincoln, is also included.
 
 
 
Private Practice—Season 6 (Warners) and
The Roman Holidays—Complete Series (Warner Archive)
The final season of the current hit medical drama Private Practice—starring Kate Walsh and Benjamin Bratt—is wrapped up on a three-disc set that includes all 13 episodes and extras like deleted scenes and bloopers.
 
The often cringingly unfunny The Roman Holidays—a Flintstones/Jetsons rip-off that’s set in ancient Rome—is on a two-DVD set that contains all 13 episodes of its first (and only) season, which was in 1972.
 
Steel Magnolias
(Sony)
Robert Harling’s humane if occasionally sappy play—which I saw in its first-rate off-Broadway incarnation in 1989—first became a saccharine movie with Julia Roberts.
 
The new version, which features an all-black cast (Queen Latifah, Phylicia Rashad, Alfre Woodard), is played more for laughs like the play was—but without the original’s perfect balance—but it provides the requisite tears of a movie on the Lifetime network.
 
 
 
 
 
CDs of the Week
Art Nouveau
(Aparte)
Romanian soprano Teodora Gheorghiu and pianist Jonathan Aner pair up for this sparkling recital of songs from the early 20th century, when expressionism, modernism and romanticism coalesced.
 
Two ravishing Richard Strauss cycles—including the Ophelia Lieder—and a charming Alexander Zemlinsky set give way to several elegant melodies by Maurice Ravel, followed by Ottorino Respighi’s lovely Deita Silvane, as Gheorghiu moves easily from German to French to Italian.
 
Janine Jansen—Schoenberg and Schubert
(Decca)
It must be nice to call five friends who are world-class musicians to play sublime music: but that’s what violinist Janine Jansen did for this exceptional disc of chamber masterpieces from the beginning and end of the 19th century.
 
Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, which started clearing the path to modernity in 1899, is played with pungency and refinement, while Franz Schubert’s String Quintet—a towering work written just before the 31-year-old Schubert died in 1828—has the essential balance of weight and melancholy, particularly that draining marathon first movement.

Film Review: "The Great Gatsby" Is More Like the Pretty Good Gatsby

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Saturday, 11 May 2013 08:42
Written by Matt Oakes

"The Great Gatsby"
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey MacGuire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Elizabeth Debicki
Drama, Romance
143 Mins
PG-13

Cut through the glitzy spectacle of Baz Luhrmann's ambitious adaptation of The Great Gatsby and you'll find the same enthusiastic spirit that defined Fitzgerald's timeless opus about tragic love amidst the underbelly of American opulence. Rather than stripping the story down, Luhrmann indulges the more caricaturesque elements of Fitzersgerald's tale, painting an almost unimaginable sketch of wealth during the roaring '20s. But in trying to replicate the tone-poem of the prosaic novel, Luhrmann goes with some unfortunate filmmaking tactics, such as back-reaching recollection via plagiarized voice-overs, which rob the film of its full emotional and visceral impact. On a visual level, The Great Gatsby is beyond perfect but its lingering emotional stasis and hackneyed, choppy editing limit it from reaching the greatness it promises.

Like the great novel, The Great Gatsby follows the perspective of Nick Carraway, an aspiring novelist who has abandoned his dream to chase illusions of riches in the bonds business. When Nick moves into a humble abode on West Egg, sandwiched between castles of old and new wealth, he discovers that his mysterious neighbor, Gatsby, is a man of many rumors. After being formally invited to one of Gatsby's famous parties, Nick strikes up a chance friendship with Gatsby as his true motivations come to light.

Although Luhrmann's film sticks closely to the book, it breaks away in the opening moments as we meet soft-spoken protagonist Nick in the throes of an up-class psychiatry institute. Recalling the circumstances that led to his disillusionment with the city of New York and his history with his friend, the illusive Gatsby, Nick's story is seen as a therapy of sorts - an unloading of demons and a second-look at a time littered with boozing and schmoozing. As Nick writes, we fall into his tale of the magical and notorious Gatsby.

Rather than axing the first person recollection of the novel, The Great Gatsby adopts it, at once revealing its soft belly and opening it up for easy criticism. As a golden rule, recollection is a storytelling crutch and even though Fitzergerald's novel used that method, film is held to a different standard. Unfortunately, Luhrmann carries the shoddy first act on the shoulders of voice-over and recollection and it's not until the 30-minute mark when we actually met Gatsby that the voice-over fades away and the disparate pacing changes to a more manageable and enjoyable cadence.

Moving outside of his faltering editing tactics and onto the visual spectrum, Gatsby is a thing of awe. Luhrmann paints on thick coats of grandeur and offers up true aesthetic decadence, realizing the spectacular vision of Fitzgerald's novel with exemplary panache. Like a child playing with ants, Luhrmann peels back the castle-tops and mansion walls, exposing the hive of manufactured social circles pettily scurrying around. He has captured the dreamlike quality to Fitzergerald's work, particularly during the lavish party scenes. The music is lively and explosive and his choice to approach the soundtrack with a more modern flair works for the most part. These are the parties of our dreams and it's no wonder that they and Gatsby cast a spell on the whole of New York.

But beneath all of the glamorous appearances, the caked-up faces, the flapper dresses and penguin tuxedos, Gatsby's guests are petty people glomming onto unattainable rumors and silly assumptions of their host. Amidst tales of espionage, murder and thievery, Gatsby has a mythology all of his own and this mystique only seems to ignite the townsfolk's attraction. Slashing through the cascades of sparkling streamers, beneath the fireworks and beyond the reach of the blaring jazz, we discover Gatsby is a quiet entertainer, carefully biding his time and allowing these many rumors to wash over him. The execution of Gatsby's big reveal, when he and Nick first meet, is a visceral gut-punch, exhibiting the fact that Luhrman can be a cunning and tasteful director when he puts his mind to it.

For the most part though, the aesthetics take precendence over the story, which often feels piecemealed together. Events are pasted together, lacking the natural flow of time and circumstance that defines more fluid efforts. Time in the film jolts unmarked from one event to another without much explanation and this rocky sense of a time frame yanks us out of the moment, back into our theater chairs. Without an organic sense of inertia, the story feels inconsequential and loses any sense of realism that it fleetingly grasps.

But behind the lavish set designs, shimmering costuming and Luhrmann's many crane-cam flourishes, the performers can be seen taking their roles seriously, digging into them as much as the material allows and each player acting out this ill-fated romance fits the bill of their respective, iconic roles perfectly.

Gatsby is an iconoclast set on fulfilling the grandiose illusions he has dreamed for himself and Leonardo DiCaprio fills those heavy shoes with careful trepidation. This is a man submerged within himself, who rides the spectrum of emotion and only an actor with such broad range as DiCaprio could bear that hefty burden. The man behind the curtain of Gatsby is caught in the trappings of hubris, set with the false assumption that wealth can overcome all odds. In his belief, he is a man both empowered and terrified, bold yet bumbling. In his depiction of the great Gatsby, Leo lives up to his namesake and delivers another great performance.

While Tobey MacGuire aptlytakes the reins of the squeamish, easily agitated Nick Carraway (and his off-camera chemisty with DiCaprio works to their character's relationship on-camera), he is more of a supporting character even though he's our guide narrating us through the story. He's happy to be a bystander and play lapdog to the grandeur of Gatsby so he's somewhat easy to overlook in the long haul.

At the center of the equation is Daisy who is an inherently difficult character to play, as she essentially is a smart, witty girl playing the role of the dullard. Some of the first words out of her mouth are --"the best thing a girl can be in this world is a beautiful little fool." From here, her character is born. Afraid of breaking out of the role that society has placed her in, Daisy refrains from exposing her true self and falls back on parroting the bold men she surrounds herself with. Carey Mulligan captures the hopeful emptiness of Daisy in her portrayal but in doing so it's hard to draw the line of disengagement considering that trait is built into the fundaments of her character. Where she's faking it or her character is at times unclear but in the time of false people and pseudo-love, isn't that the point?

Rounding out the ménage-à-trois of doom is Tom Buchannan, the hard-handed ruffian raised on old money and whitewashed with Americano ornaments. Joel Edgerton's gruff face and wary eyes fit Buchanan like a tailored suit and he is able to be a truly detestable scourge without flying off the handle or leaping over-the-top. He's the odd man out in this love triangle and a sore loser at that but Edgerton manages cool restraint even when driven over the edge and this calculated performance adds life to an otherwise one-dimensional bully.

As such a classic piece of work, audiences go into The Great Gatsby with a sense of ownership. Whether that will paint your existence one way or the other really depends on the level of flexibility you're willing to engage in with Luhrmann's work. While it closely encapsulates the inimitable essence of the loosely moralized jazz age, it does so in such a way that is sure to scrub your own imaginary palette clean for its duration.

Whereas the novel was a piece of work worthy of being slowly digested, cherishing each beautifully piercing line of prose, this adaptation fails to cast the same enchanting spell. While it's a worthy adaptation of one of the greatest works of American literature, it feels, at times, flat and uninspired. A mere coughing up of something great; pre-digested, regurgitated and spray-painted with gold. 

Baz Luhrmann has an alleged fascination with tragic romance and The Great Gatsby is no exception. From a purely aesthetic point of view, his film is dazzling - capturing the spectacular life of something assumed unfilmable. The performers are all on pitch and manage to breathe life into these characters to help weave the caricature of a time on the brink of moral and financial collapse. Regrettably, the film overextends its boundaries, aided by poor adaptation prowess, and disappoints on its pledge of greatness. The true tragedy is that the film settles for being pretty good.

 

C+

NYC Theater Roundup: “The Trip to Bountiful,” “The Testament of Mary,” “The Call”

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 07 May 2013 22:25
Written by Kevin Filipski
The Trip to Bountiful
Written by Horton Foote; directed by Michael Wilson
Performances through September 1, 2013

 

The Testament of Mary
Written by Colm Toibin; directed by Deborah Warner
Performances through May 5, 2013

 

The Call
Written by Tanya Barfield; directed by Leigh Silverman
Performances through May 26, 2013

 

Williams, Tyson, Gooding in The Trip to Bountiful (photo: Joan Marcus)
 
Ageless Cicely Tyson dominates The Trip to Bountiful, Horton Foote’s sentimental but affecting drama about Carrie Watts, an elderly woman yearning to return to her hometown before dying. The 88-year-old Tyson effortlessly balances the heartbreak and humor in Foote’s script; under Michael Wilson’s savvy direction, Tyson gives a beautifully shaded portrayal.
 
Unlike Geraldine Page—who won the Oscar for the 1985 movie—Tyson never begs for our sympathy, making Carrie as trying as she is ennobling: early on, when Mrs. Watts engages in battles with weak-willed son Ludie (Cuba Gooding in a strong Broadway debut) and bitter daughter-in-law Jessie Mae (the always glamorous and formidable Vanessa Williams), Tyson touchingly underplays Carrie’s obvious disappointment with her lot in life.
 
Jeff Cowie’s sets, Rui Rita’s lighting and Van Broughton Ramsey’s costumes are wonderfully evocative of 1950s’ rural Texas. Still, despite Foote’s uncharacteristic sappiness—usually leavened with more wit—it’s Tyson who makes this a Trip well worth taking. 
 
Shaw in The Testament of Mary (photo: Paul Kolnik)
 
The Testament of Mary, a surprise Tony nominee for Best Play, is anchored by a tour de force from Fiona Shaw, an actress who has never been understated. Colm Toibin’s 80-minute monologue by Christ’s mother after his crucifixion, is too static and abstract—its few flights of poetic fancy notwithstanding—to ignite sympathy for the ultimate bereaved mother.
 
What Toibin’s text lacks in eloquence it makes up for in affectation, which suits Shaw to a “T.” Her usual theater partner Deborah Warner’s staging tries to make this non-play a Broadway “event.” There’s so much onstage bric-a-brac that Mary utilizes while wandering in front of the audience—a ladder doubles as Christ’s cross, barbed wire doubles as his crown of thorns, Mary bathes in a small pool—that they get in one another’s metaphorical way.

Massive sounds redundantly echo the nails being hammered into Christ’s flesh, the most blatant of Warner’s attention-getting effects, along with an imposing vulture that’s only onstage pre-play (the audience is invited onstage to see it in close-up). Shaw carries the crudely symbolic carrion eater offstage before starting the drama proper, which is the most interesting part of the evening.
 
Aucoin, Davis, Dickinson, Butler in The Call (photo: Jeremy Daniel)
 
International adoption, a supercharged political and moral issue, is near and dear to playwright Tanya Barfield. The Call author has an adopted African child, and her drama analyzes the difficulties for any couple taking such a step.
 
Barfield’s familiar story introduces a white couple, Annie and Peter, trying unsuccessfully to have a child: their decision to adopt came after three miscarriages and failed fertility drugs. Dining and drinking at their apartment with best friends Rebecca and Drea, a black lesbian couple. They first announce that they are adopting from Arizona, then decide to adopt from Africa: Rebecca and Drea—who recently returned from an African safari where they were considered white by those who lived there—are initially supportive, then start voicing their concerns that Annie and Peter are trying to assuage their white liberal guilt.
 
Barfield’s schematic set-up also includes Alemu, an African who lives next door to Annie and Peter. Although Russell G. Jones plays him with intelligence and dignity, he remains a blatantly symbolic figure who shadows their decision: he even drops off packages at their place that are filled with syringes, shoes and soccer balls, hoping they will take them back to his homeland when they pick up their new child.
 
Despite her often crude writing, Barfield’s heartfelt affinity for her characters shines through. Leigh Silverman’s thoughtful directing and persuasive acting by Kerry Butler (Annie), Kelly Aucoin (Peter), Eisa Davis (Rebecca) and Crystal A. Dickinson (Drea) invests these people with enough three-dimensionality to make The Call a touching drama on an urgent subject.
 
The Trip to Bountiful
Sondheim Theatre, 124 West 43rd Street, New York, NY
 
The Testament of Mary
Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 West 48th Street, New York, NY
 
The Call
Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

May '13 Digital Week I

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Monday, 06 May 2013 17:17
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Broken City
(Fox)
If Sidney Lumet had made this New York City cop thriller, it would have been complexly entertaining—Allen Hughes’ not-bad movie pretty much hits familiar buttons without giving reasons to care about (or loathe) its characters’ one-upping one another.
 
Mark Wahlberg again plays a lone wolf against the world, while hammy Russell Crowe is the crooked mayor: there must have been a clause in his contract to keep the stultifying debate sequence intact, because it kills the movie. The Blu-ray image looks good; extras are making-of featurettes, deleted scenes, alternate ending.
 
The Details
(Anchor Bay)
In this accumulation of absurdities masquerading as a black comedy, Tobey Maguire plays a seemingly happily married doctor who finds himself embroiled in adultery, blackmail and murder. Director Jacob Aaron Estes flails around but never finds the right tone: his desperation is most obvious in gifted Laura Linney’s rare misfire of a performance, ratcheted up way too high to be interesting.
 
A few deadpan bits work, and the always appealing Elizabeth Banks and Kerry Washington partially compensate. The Blu-ray image is fine; extras are an alternate opening and ending.
 
 
Earth from Space
(PBS)
This NOVA special, an astonishing visualization of our planet from outer space, looks closely at how natural forces work on a regular basis. Earth-orbiting satellites provide data and photos that are transformed into dazzling hi-def imagery bringing us closer than ever to seeing, for example, the formation of a powerful hurricane.
 
The Blu-ray image is, of course, spectacular: it’s a no-brainer to watch this on as large a screen as you can.
 
Friends—Complete Seasons 1 & 2
(Warners)
The first two seasons of the mega-sitcom are finally out, separately from the complete boxed set. But who wants to watch their favorites—Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow and a trio of forgettable guys—fiddled with to fill out everyone’s widescreen TVs, instead of as they were originally shown on mid-90s standard TVs?
 
The series looks decent in hi-def, despite the stretching and chopping at the top and bottom; extras include a commentary, featurettes and alternate episodes.
 
 
 
 
The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez
(Indican)
In his final screen appearance before his death last year, Ernest Borgnine goes out fighting as an ornery grandfather trying to improve the rest home he’s in, all the while driving his wife, daughter and granddaughter crazy.
 
The flimsy concept makes for lukewarm drama, but Borgnine’s genuine likeability and the help of several actresses—led by Carla Ortiz as a caring nurse—make for a fond sendoff to a beloved Oscar winner. The Blu-ray image is OK; extras are director commentary and behind the scenes footage.
 
The Notebook—Ultimate Collectors’ Edition
(Warners)
This 2004 tearjerker beloved by teenage girls everywhere—I wonder if they feel the same way a decade later—stars Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling as ill-fated lovers.
 
The watchability of this sappy adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ mega-seller stems from its cast, especially McAdams, whose easy charm and girl-next-door looks should have made her a big star immediately. The Blu-ray image looks immaculate; the special edition includes a collectible locket (ooh!), set of postcards and vintage journal.
 
 
 
 
DVDs of the Week
Ethel
(Warner Archive)
Rory Kennedy—youngest of 11 Kennedy kids—made this intriguing documentary about her mother Ethel, whose husband Bobby was murdered in 1968 while on his way to (probably) becoming president.
 
The movie strongly evokes a time when the Kennedys ran the machine to end all political machines, and comments from her siblings and Ethel herself—initially reticent to discuss some things but otherwise forthcoming—make this a valuable historical document. The lone extra is a conversation with Rory.
 
A Fine Romance and The Scarlet Pimpernel
(Acorn)
A funny and smart Brit-com that ran from 1980 to 1983, A Fine Romance pairs real-life partners Judi Dench and Michael Williams as an initially reluctant couple who eventually—if hesitantly—find love and happiness among the potholes of their relationship.
 
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Richard Donner’s sumptuous 1982 TV adaptation of the classic French Revolution tale, features a stunning-looking Jane Seymour, handsome Anthony Andrews and mischievous Ian McKellen in the lead roles.
 
 
 
 
Only the Young/Tchoupitoulas
(Oscilloscope)
In this welcome double bill, Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims’ Only the Young follows a girl and two boys who bond together in a small California tow, while Bill and Turner Ross’s Tchoupitoulas follows an adolescent trio around New Orleans one night.
 
These documentaries put American teenagers front and center with no condescension. Only extras include commentary, outtakes and the short Thompson, while Tchoupitoulas extras include outtakes and behind the scenes video.
 
Vito and Wagner and Me
(First Run)
First Run continues its first-rate documentary run with these intelligent studies of towering cultural personalities and their legacies. Jeffrey Schwartz’s sympathetic Vito is an honest look at gay rights activist Vito Russo, whose came to prominence in the age of AIDS—which killed him in 1990.
 
In Wagner and Me, British actor Stephen Fry wittily deals with his own infatuation with Richard Wagner, a notorious anti-Semite, by asking the still-pertinent question: is Wagner’s music responsible for the jingoistic Nazi interpretation of it? Vito extras are interviews, commentary and excerpts from his Our Time TV program.
 
 
Walk Away Renee
(Sundance Selects)
In his sequel to Tarnation, Jonathan Caouette continues to explore his family’s mental illness, focusing on his troubled mother Renee, who’s been in and out of facilities for years.
 
Alternating between his mom’s history with his own attempts to place her in a facility closer to his NYC home, this blunt movie never develops a true rapport between audience and the protagonists, unfortunately keeping our involvement on the surface.
 
Young and Wild
(Sundance Selects)
This explicit study of sexually precocious 17-year-old Daniela from a Chilean Catholic family never seems exploitative due to the amazingly authentic Alicia Rodriguez, who beautifully conveys the maturity and immaturity of a girl on the cusp of womanhood.
 
She never loses our sympathy despite reckless behavior, and director Marialy Rivas and writer Camila Gutierrez (whose teenage blog was the film’s basis) smartly allow Rodriguez’s emotionally and physically naked presence to dominate from the start.
 
 
 
 
CDs of the Week
Stravinsky—The Rite of Spring 100th Anniversary
(Decca)
When The Rite of Spring premiered in 1913, the reaction from the audience was violent and visceral—like the pummeling ballet itself, whose influence remains enormous. This set collects six variously impressive recordings, from Pierre Monteux (1956) to Esa-Pekka Salonen (2006), which give a good impression of how conductors and orchestras attack such a canonical work.
 
Also included is a bonus CD with an hour-long audio documentary by Jon Tolansky, who presents Rite in its historical and musical context.
 
York Bowen—Works for Violin and Piano
(Hyperion)
Turn of 20th century British composer York Bowen—who has gotten short shrift due to contemporaries like Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Bridge, among others—wrote conventional but accomplished music like his highly attractive pieces for piano and violin, played here with authority and precision by pianist Danny Driver (who has recorded other Bowen works for Hyperion) and violinist Chloe Hanslip.
 
Bowen’s two violin sonatas are weighty without becoming ponderous; the other, mainly small-scale, works are skillfully wrought and delectable.

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