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April '13 Digital Week I

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 07 April 2013 20:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Cold Warriors—Wolves & Buffalo

(PBS)

This edifying PBS Nature program documents how these imposing, endangered creatures—wolves and buffalo—co-exist as mortal enemies on the vast lands of Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta, Canada.

Filmmaker-naturalist Jeff Turner (who also narrates) has shot incredible footage of these remarkable beasts in their natural habitats; needless to say, the hi-def transfer is outstanding.

Little Fugitive

(Kino)

This freewheeling drama stars a wonderfully natural Richie Andrusco as a 7-year-old who runs off for Coney Island after thinking he caused his older brother’s death. Shot cinema-verite style by a trio of directors (Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin and Ray Ashley), the 1951 film is a candid look at childhood that retains its fresh spontaneity.

The restoration, overseen by the Museum of Modern Art, makes it look incredible on Blu-ray; its extras—Engel’s insightful commentary and two shorts by his daughter Mary Engel, one about him and one about her mom, co-director and photographer Orkin—are nice additions.

On Approval

(Inception)

Playwright Frederick Lonsdale’s pre-Noel Coward comedy about upper-crust Brits was adapted by Clive Brook, who also directed and stars in this fun but minor 1944 film version. The cast, led by Brook and Beatrice Lille, gives Lonsdale’s snappy dialogue the bite that it needs to keep the shenanigans afloat.

The B&W hi-def transfer is well done; extras include Jeffrey Vance’s commentary and an interview with actress Googie Withers.

The Sandlot

(Fox)

The 20^th anniversary edition of this sweetly unassuming baseball tale brings back a movie that, unlike Field of Dreams and Bull Durham, shows how kids loved America’s pastime. This diverting story of childhood friendship is nicely acted by a group of youngsters like Tom Guiry as Scotty, whose parents are played by Karen Allen and Denis Leary—there’s even a small turn by James Earl Jones in a pivotal role.

The Blu-ray image is good; too bad there are no new extras to supplement the vintage featurette.

The Sweeney

(e one)

Despite the presence of tough guys like Ray Winstone and Damian Lewis (the antihero of Homeland), Nick Love’s convoluted action flick fails at being clever and ends up crashing cars and shooting up characters we neither care nor know anything about.

Haley Atwell, who’s already proven herself a gifted actress, should have been given far more to do in this hollow knockoff of any crime movie you care to name. The Blu-ray image is impeccable; extras include a commentary, featurettes and storyboards.

To the Arctic

(Warners)

Polar bears, like penguins, are irresistible onscreen fodder, as this IMAX film—shot in glorious high-definition—shows. Narrated by Meryl Streep and with tunes by a former Beatle named Paul, the film beautifully evokes an area of the world where climate change has done supreme damage: the icy habitats of bears and other arctic creatures.

This isn’t simply cinematic advocacy but terrific entertainment. The Blu-ray, of course, looks stupendous—so watch it on the largest TV screen you can. Extras are several featurettes.

DVDs of the Week

Borgen

(MHZ)

This gripping 10-hour Danish mini-series skillfully straddles the line separating politics from personal lives—with endless mixing of the two. In a surprising election, the moderate party’s Birgitte Nyborg becomes Denmark’s first female prime minister, and the fallout is dramatized with incisive awareness of the realities of our virtual world.

With a peerless cast led by Sidse Babett Knudsen as Birgitte, this is unforgettable television; beware of the inevitable American remake, which will surely be vastly inferior.

The Carol Burnett Show—This Time Together

(Time Life)

This latest six-disc compilation of The Carol Burnett Show comprises 17 full-length episodes from the memorable 11-season run of the best TV variety show (on the air from 1967-78).

Each episode features a guest star from the era, like the Pointer Sisters, Sammy Davis, Peggy Lee, Dick van Dyke or the immortal Madeleine Kahn; but what makes the shows rewatchable is Carol’s exceptional repertory company, which comprised Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway and the always underrated star herself. Extras include a cast reunion, interviews and a designer Bob Mackie featurette.

Hey Good Lookin’ and

Second-Hand Hearts

(Warner Archive)

Two nearly forgotten 1981 films, the latest releases on the Warner Archives label, are dumped onto DVD with tolerable but subpar transfers. Hey Good Lookin’, Ralph Bakshi’s clichéd-ridden, anti-Happy Days exploration of the 1950s; despite eye-catching animation, the movie and its songs are forgettable.

Second-Hand Hearts, director Hal Ashby’s biggest commercial failure, is a surprisingly lifeless look at an offbeat romance between Robert Blake and an actress who was usually indestructible, Barbara Harris.

Hitler’s Children

(Film Movement)

In this important addition to our Holocaust knowledge, Israeli director Chanoch Ze’evi interviews descendants of infamous Nazis, from Himmler and Eichmann to Goering and Amon Goeth, the sadistic camp commandant so memorably played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List.

These men and women, who have spent their lives simultaneously running away from and coming to terms with their family’s stained legacies, deal with the fates they have been handed in varying ways. It’s an eye-opening and emotional journey. The bonus short, Kun 65, concerns a painting with roots in the Holocaust.

Knuckleball

(FilmBuff)

Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s engaging documentary is about baseball’s most misunderstood pitchers, of whom there is one left in the majors: former Met R. A. Dickey, now with Toronto.

Interviews with Dickey, Tim Wakefield (who retired in 2011) and other knucklers like Phil Niekro and Charlie Hough provide insights into being a baseball pariah and how difficult it is breaking into the big leagues with what everybody considers a trick pitch. Hours of extras feature more interviews and featurettes.

Pioneers of Television—Season 3

(PBS)

This set’s programs—Funny Ladies, Superheroes, Miniseries, Primetime Soaps—are excellent overviews of network TV programming from the ‘50s to ‘70s.

Superbly-chosen clips from I Love Lucy, Carol Burnett Show, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Batman, Wonder Woman, Roots, Thorn Birds, Dynasty and Dallas are complemented by interviews with Burnett, Moore, Adam West, Lynda Carter, LeVar Burton, Ed Asner, Rachel Ward, Donna Mills and Larry Hagman, to name a few. Extras include added scenes.

CDs of the Week

Dvorak: Piano Trios

(Artistled and Bridge)
Although Antonin Dvorak composed four piano trios, two new recordings unsurprisingly pair his most popular: No. 3 in F minor (from 1883), his first mature work in the genre; and No. 4, the E minor "Dumky" Trio, which has become an undisputed classic trio since its 1891 premiere.

On the Artist

led disc, pianist Wu Han, violinist Philip Setzer and cellist David Finckel draw out the grandeur and drama of both trios, particularly No. 3; its reading of the "Dumky" trio—whose six movements are relatively short compared to the earlier work's four—is bracing in its relatively quick pace. On the Bridge CD, the Trio Solisti plays the F minor trio with straightforward elegance, while the "Dumky" Trio is given more breathing space than on the other disc. Both approaches work admirably.

Film Review: 'Evil Dead' Ups the Gore, Drops the Laughs

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 07 April 2013 16:33; Written by Matt Oakes

Evil Dead
Directed by Fede Alvarez
Starring Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore
Horror
91 Minutes
R

This 2013 rendition of Evil Dead definitely does enough to distinguish itself from the 1981 original but in doing so, abandons a lot of the winking goofiness that made the original such a one-of-a-kind. It's mucky, yucky, and dripping in goo but there's not quite enough beneath the buckets of blood to claim the bone-throne of horror classics.

Although it didn't quite meet the lofty expectations it set for itself with it's tagline, "The Most Terrifying Film You Will Ever Experience," it does rise to the occasion of trying to out-do it's predecessors and certainly scores there. The obvious goal behind this Fede Alvarez's remake was to rain down the blood and treat its central troop of unfortunate victims like human pincushions just waiting to be jammed full of a whole spectrum of unconventional weapons chilling in the tool shed. In regard to that goal, congratulations are in order. Alvarez has made one of the most chilling, grisly, visceral horror movies to date.

For those unfamiliar with the original storyline, the whole concept of the Evil Dead franchise follows a group of five twenty-something year olds who visit an abandoned cabin in the woods and after reading a passage from the Necronomicon - an ancient book made from human flesh - unleash evil personified, hell-bent on devouring their physical bodies and claiming their souls. Sounds like the kind of vacation just about anyone would ask for. This film deviates in the setup to this weekend-of-death with some exposition that is pure Diablo Cody (Juno, United States of Tara), who penned the script. Evil Dead imagines that this group of old friends and family reunited to help carry out a cold-turkey weekend for junk addict/little sister Mia. As you can imagine, things didn't quite go that way.

In establishing the little weekend getaway as a rehab stint, the film avoids the tired cliché of friends on vaca in a creepy locale and at least attempts to justify the initial refusal to run at the first hint of things gone awry. It's this small semblance of intelligence that offers some promise for Evil Dead to transcend the genre stereotypes but in the end, it's still the same breed just a little prettier, a little smarter and a whole lot bloodier.

Once the evil is unleashed, the heads begin to roll and Alvarez and Cody only stop the onslaught of human plasma to occasionally remind us that these are people with relationships that we're supposed to care about. The only problem is most of these relationships are built on rushed and shaky foundations so it's hard to really elicit much of an emotional response. We're not watching My Girl, we're watching Evil Dead so crank up the deaths and dial down the pity.

As a remake, it hits the right marks. The basic elements are in the same place but it heads in enough of a different direction to make the affair noteworthy not only in the horror genre but in the much beloved franchise. I'm sure there will be a legion of deadites protesting the absence of snark involved but Evil Dead never quite tries to capture that element that so clearly defined Sam Raimi's films.

Instead, it's happy being the depraved little cousin reveling in the sick carnage of it all. Just like the best and most memorable of the genre, the telltale earmarks of exploitation are written all over it. The film essentially presents itself like a dare; a cynic's double-dog dare to watch the thing wide-eyed and not occasionally cringing. However, I personally guarantee that it'll make even the most stable of knees go wobbly thanks in large part to the top-notch practical effects - Alvarez promised to totally avoid CGI - and a fantastically creepy turn by Jane Levy.

The bottom line: Evil Dead is a gory mess in both substance and execution. This bloody remake drops the campy laughs of the original in favor of an all out gore-fest. There's enough viscus flying around the camera to make even the hardest stomach squeamish and even though the laughs come from the rare, sadistic chuckle rather than the cackle inspired by campy lunacy this is exactly the kind of goopy, gory goodness any horror affiliate is hunting for.

Film Review: "Stoker" Creeps, Sneaks and Scores

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 02 April 2013 18:49; Written by Matt Oakes

Stoker
Directed: by Chan Wook-Park
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Jacki Weaver
Drama/Mystery/Thriller
99 mins
R

Korean director Chan Wook Park's Stoker is a product of great precision. Each shot is brilliantly articulated and poised with such deliberation that it's impossible to ignore the artistry and preparedness in each and every frame.

Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) plays India, a loner type whose father has just died, the Eve to Matthew Goode's biblical garden-dwelling snake. The stars align as India finds herself in a perfectly helpless state when her previously unknown uncle arrives and the game of cat and mouse beings. Although India initially pushes him away, she finds herself slowly seduced by the mystery that is her uncle Charlie.

Charlie, with his vampirically sparkling eyes and cloaked intentions, is an enigma off the bat. We as an audience know that something is amiss from the first time we glimpse him, standing over the funeral on a hazy distant hill, and yet when we met him there is an immediate air of allure seeping from the chiseled jawed, stony persona that makes up Charlie.

As Korean director Park's, who directed the cult hit Oldboy, first foray into the American film industry, he manages to maintain the same level of fierce detail and intelligent zeal that defines his predominantly visual storytelling. Park's fervor for intricate story-boarding, for which he is famous, is clearly evident onscreen as each shot perfectly transitions into the next with the effortlessness of a professional ballet troupe. Even with a thick language barrier between Park and his cast, he seems to have directed them in exactly the way that he intended down to the subtlest movement and the slightest sway of the camera. With Stoker, Park is a puppet master with a tenacious handle on the reins.

Even as the title cards play, a sense of Hitchcockian mystique that brands the film is established but it's not until everything is said and done that everything comes full circle and clicks into place. Moments that once seemed little more than fruitless experiments with visual artistry later become cornerstones to the masterful smattering of foreshadow. It's within this careful positioning of all the pieces tha a rarely accomplished feel of competition to the film emerges as does a lasting sense of wonder. Where ever these characters go from here, I would most certainly like to see that journey and yet it is not only the seen but the unseen that makes the film such a taut little piece of suspense.

In terms of the performances in the piece, Wasikowska's brooding India is just as shrouded in gothic mystery as her uncle Charlie. As the constant chiming of clocks and syncopated clack of metronomes click in the background, we can only make guesswork as to what exactly makes India tick. As the film opens on her 18th birthday, this is the tale of her transition into adulthood, a exploration of a troubled teen and who she chooses to become. Having been a gung-ho daddy's girl all her life, India's relationship with her mother, played by Nicole Kidman, has always been lackluster to her mother's dismay.

Kidman is the real tragic character here, playing a lonely, pitiable woman who really seemed to try to foster a relationship with her dismissive daughter but could never break down the icy boundaries between them. While I was at first under the impression that mother Evelyn would be painted as a villain, I found myself siding with this pleading, tragic character. Sure, maybe she should have tried a little harder in the past to be a better mother but there is an insurmountable misunderstanding between her and India that just cannot be summited.

Matthew Goode as Uncle Charlie is more than good and while it doesn't take a long time to figure out that he's a bona fide creeper, it's the unpacking of what makes him such an eerie presence that gives Goode an opportunity to shine. There is so much festering behind his impossibly blue-hued eyes that the scenes were he just stares at India or Evelyn or just out into space are totally hypnotic. While I don't want to give too much away here, it often seems that Goode channels that final moment that we see Norman Bates in the perfectly slow pan out in Psycho.

After all is said and done, Stoker adds up to a wonderfully paced creep-fest that knows exactly where to mine for the best elements of suspense. It's morbid revelry in the underbelly of family secrets offers up some tasty moments of macabre and underscores the film with a lurid fascination with the root of all evil. What lingers on after the credits roll is this creeping sense that malevolence may just be hereditary.

A-

March '13 Digital Week IV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 31 March 2013 15:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

The Big Picture

(MPI)

In this at times absorbing drama, the excellent Roman Duris is a husband and father escaping his current life after a horrible mistake occurs when he confronts a friend over his wife’s infidelity. Too bad that, once director Eric Lartigau’s effective set-up yields to the plot, the movie becomes much less significant; after the protagonist’s new identity is solidified, it all evaporates from memory.

Intelligently made and persuasively acted on well-chosen locations, the whole is less than its parts. The Blu-ray image is good.

Day of the Falcon

(Image)

Continuing the sad decline of once formidable director Jean-Jacques Annaud—maker of Black and White in Color, Quest for Fire and The Bear—this epic Arabian adventure, while slickly made, nicely shot, acted and edited, is disappointingly routine.

It’s always great to see Freida Pinto—one of our most beautiful actresses—at work, but the visual richness only masks the script’s thinness, despite being based on real events. The hi-def image looks spectacular; extras include making-of featurettes.

Killing Them Softly

(Anchor Bay)

Andrew Dominik’s follow-up to his masterly The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the antithesis of that magnificently slow-burning accumulation of tiny details: a quick-moving, brutal look at modern America through the prism of small-time criminals during the last economic meltdown.

Framed by the 2008 election, Killing might not resonate like the earlier film, but Dominik’s stylish eye makes this one of 2012’s most memorable films: the perfect ensemble features Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini and Ray Liotta. The hi-def transfer is terrific; extras are deleted scenes and a featurette.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

(Criterion)

In their 1943 epic—also their biggest and splashiest production—directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created an indelible dissection of the British imperial state of mind. Roger Livesey’s robust portrayal of the patriotic military man who parallels the history of England’s colonial empire and 20-year-old Deborah Kerr’s captivating trio of women in his life are unforgettable.

The Criterion Collection’s exquisite hi-def transfer returns glorious color to this classic; extras include a Martin Scorsese intro, Scorsese and Powell commentary, Thelma Schoonmaker (Powell’s widow) interview and featurettes.

Marvin’s Room and

The Shipping News

(Echo Bridge)

Adapting onstage and on-page hits are problematic, as these films demonstrate. From Scott McPherson’s play, 1996’s Marvin’s Room moves from comedy to tragedy without ever becoming compelling, for which we must blame director James Lapine, who wastes good actors like Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Lasse Hallstrom similarly does a disservice to E. Annie Proulx’s best-selling The Shipping News with his scattershot 2001 version featuring by-the-numbers acting by Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore and Judi Dench. The Blu-ray image isn’t bad.

Ship of Fools/Lilith

(Mill Creek)

Two veteran directors in their decline made these middling films. Stanley Kramer’s Ship of Fools (1965) is a well-intentioned but lumbering drama that allegorizes Nazi Germany by an array of passengers in a ship bound for Germany in the 1930s.

Robert Rossen’s melodramatic Lilith stars Jean Seberg and Warren Beatty, who struggle through a psychologically damaging love affair. As two-fers go, this might fill gaps in the collections of Kramer and Rossen’s fans. The Blu-ray image is OK.

Waiting for Lightning

(First Run)

I have no interest in skateboarding, so I’m not the target audience for Jacob Rosenberg’s documentary about daredevil Danny Way, who attempts to skateboard off the Great Wall of China.

But I was wrong: this is a riveting study of a unique performer discussed with awe even by the likes of Tony Hawk. The footage of Way’s breathtaking stunts, culminating with his Great Wall attempt, is ridiculously entertaining. The hi-def image is first-rate; extras include additional interviews and deleted scenes.

Willow

(MGM/Fox)

I had forgotten about this fantasy collaboration between director Ron Howard and producer-writer George Lucas until this Blu-ray reminded me why it disappeared from everyone’s radar. This visually striking but empty film—which fails to create a brave new world—has uninspired creatures and special effects alongside forgettable performances. At least Val Kilmer (hero) and Joanne Whaley (villainess turned heroine) got married. (It didn’t last.)

The movie looks fine on Blu-ray; extras include deleted scenes with Howard’s remarks, and new and vintage featurettes.

DVDs of the Week

All Together

(Kino Lorber)

In this agreeably ramshackle comic drama, Jane Fonda shines in her first French-language role in nearly 40 years (since Godard’s Tout va bien) as the American wife of a Frenchman who join their aging friends to live together instead of at assisted living facilities.

It’s small potatoes, but delightful performances by Claude Rich, Pierre Richard, Geraldine Chaplin, Guy Beros and Fonda compensate, as does writer-director’s Stephane Robelin’s refusal to get sentimental til the end—when it works and all is forgiven.

Easy Money

(Anchor Bay)

Daniel Espinosa’s ingenious thriller follows a student who gets in way over his head when he starts working for organized crime, whose members are involved in drug dealing.

For awhile, the movie speeds along, cleverly hiding its narrative holes, but its ending asks us to swallow too much, even for a genre that thrives on implausibility. Still, it’s stylish fun—and two sequels will follow, along with the inevitable American remake.

Fatherland

(First Run)

Nicolas Prividera’s unorthodox documentary looks at Buenos Aries’ La Recoleta cemetery, which has as much history and stunning architecture as Pere Lachaise in Paris. Individuals read from letters and books from different eras of Argentine history as they sit among mausoleums, sculptures and other cemetery markers, while ordinary people who live nearby go about their daily lives.

This is a highly individual and anything but whitewashed study of a country whose volatile existence can be traced through those luminaries buried in this, their final resting place.

Oliver Twist

(e one)

This adaptation of Dickens’ famous novel stars George C. Scott as a relatively restrained Fagin—at least when compared to this outsized personality’s usual onscreen bluster—alongside who may be the most cherubic Oliver ever, Richard Charles.

James Goldman’s script is faithful but skimpy, and Richard Donner’s direction is merely functional: but the material remains powerful, and the supporting cast, including Michael Hordern, Tim Curry and Cherie Lunghi, props up the familiar tale.

Scavenger Hunt

(Cinema Libre)

The near-extinct California condor is the subject of Matthew Podolsky and Eddie Chung’s informative documentary about how usually opposing groups, the NRA and EPA, agree to help these amazing birds survive in the wild when it’s discovered that they’re getting lead poisoning by eating deer carcasses that are filled with lead bullets.

Extras are deleted scenes and outtakes.

Shakespeare Uncovered

(PBS)

This sextet of programs covering Shakespeare’s artistic and humanistic greatness invites actors and directors to give their personal thoughts on the Bard’s genius.

With Ethan Hawke discussing his dream acting job, Macbeth, Joely Richardson talking about Twelfth Night and As You Like It, and Trevor Nunn dissecting The Tempest, and so on, the series provides new insights for Shakespeare veterans as well as an accessible way in for those who find him too daunting to deal with.

CD of the Week

Holmboe—Chamber Music (II)

(Dacapo)

The gifted Danish composer Vagn Holmboe (1909-96) wrote music in all genres, although mainly orchestral (symphonies and concertos) and chamber music, of which this disc is a representative sample.

Never tied down by one format, his intimate works run the gamut on this disc from a solo cello sonata to a sextet for flute, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola and cello, all showing off Holmboe’s effortless amalgam of modernism, classical structure and folk idioms. The five pieces on this disc are dazzlingly played by members of Ensemble MidtVest.

Reviews

April '13 Digital Week I

Film Review: 'Evil Dead' Ups the Gore, Drops the Laughs

Film Review: "Stoker" Creeps, Sneaks and Scores

March '13 Digital Week IV

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