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Reviews
Philadelphia Orchestra Performs Opening Night Gala at Carnegie Hall
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 07 October 2021 17:31
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting Yuja Wang. Photo by Chris Lee.
On the evening of Wednesday, October 6th, I had the privilege of attending the fabulous Opening Night Gala performance at Carnegie Hall of the superb Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of the inimitable Yannick Nézet-Séguin, inaugurating a complete cycle of the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven this season.
After a brief introduction by Robert F. Smith—the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall—and Clive Gillinson—the Executive and Artistic Director—the program started excitingly with a work recently commissioned by the ensemble, the splendid Seven O’Clock Shout by Valerie Coleman. The composer rose from the audience for the ensuing applause.
The incomparable soloist, Yuja Wang—who looked sensational in a black mini-dress—then appeared for a dazzling account of the mesmeric Piano Concerto No. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich—one of the finest in the repertory—with a sparkling, frequently propulsive opening movement, played here with exceptional clarity of expression. The lovely Andante was somber but enchanting followed by an exuberant finale. Wang received a floral bouquet before leaving the stage.
The excitement continued with a thrilling rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s magical Overture to Candide.That preceded another recent commission, the brilliantly orchestratedJeder Baum spricht by Iman Habibi—who was also in attendance—which Nézet-Séguin cited in a plea for multiculturalism in the arts.
The concert ended magnificently—and without a break—with an exultant version of Ludwig van Beethoven’s immortal Fifth Symphony, with a an intensely dramatic first movement and achieving sheer majesty in the succeeding Andante. The stirring scherzoled into the glorious concluding movement, eliciting vigorous applause and presaging a promising new season at this illustrious venue.
October '21 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 06 October 2021 18:26
- Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week
Cleanin’ Up the Town—Remembering Ghostbusters
(Screen Media)
More than 35 years after its release in 1984—when it was a huge box-office hit, surprising even its own studio, which thought it had an overpriced modest success on its hands—Ghostbusters remains one of the few hilarious big-budget Hollywood comedies, and uberfans Anthony and Claire Bueno show their love with this affectionate documentary that takes us through the movie’s making from script to release.
We hear from almost everyone—stars Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts and the late, great Harold Ramis; director Ivan Reitman; songwriter Ray Parker Jr.; producers, special effects wizards, and other technicians—with the glaring exception of Bill Murray, who’s actually not missed, as there are terrific anecdotes, priceless behind-the-scenes and on-set footage, and pretty much everything any fan of the movie would want to know.
(First Run Features)
Michael Caplan has made an engaging and intelligent documentary about writer Nelson Algren, whose most famous book, 1949’s The Man with the Golden Arm, was turned into something unrecognizable by director Otto Preminger’s 1955 film adaptation starring Frank Sinatra. (Algren famously sued Preminger, but couldn’t afford the legal fees so the suit didn’t go forward.)
Algren wrote with empathy about the lower-class Polish community he knew and observed in Chicago, where he grew up, and despite moments of fame and celebrity—he had a years-long affair with French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir and won the National Book Award for Golden Arm—he never gained the notoriety he deserved. With well-chosen, pithy interview segments featuring film directors William Friedkin, Andrew Davis, John Sayles and Philip Kaufman, author Russell Banks and even musician Billy Corgan, Caplan burrows into the heart of Algren’s artistry and life, which are inseparable from each other.
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
Batwoman—Complete 2nd Season
(Warner Bros)
After the supposed death of Kate Kane at the end of season one, homeless woman Ryan Wilder finds the batsuit and picks up the vigilante mantle to fight crime in Gotham City in the second season of this entertainingly “woke” entry in the Arrowverse.
Batwoman gets by mainly on the charismatic presence of Javicia Leslie, who makes Ryan/Batwoman a compellingly conflicted superhero. The season’s 18 episodes look smashingly good in hi-def; extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel and two featurettes with cast and crew interviews.
(Criterion Collection)
Italian director Luchino Visconti’s reputation was as inflated as any in film history: case in point is this endless, risibly uninsightful epic about a German family that gets its comeuppance when Hitler takes over. Under the guise of showing how decadence and arrogance heralded the arrival of Nazism, Visconti revels in weirdness and pederasty, which is not the same.
Quite able actors like Dirk Bogarde, Helmut Berger, Ingrid Thulin and Charlotte Rampling are unable to fashion real characterizations from disparate fragments, unfortunately. Criterion’s hi-def transfer is clean but has a greenish tint; extras include an alternate Italian-language soundtrack (the film is in English and German); archival interviews with Visconti, Berger, Thulin and Rampling; and a 1969 documentary, Visconti on Set.
In the Good Old Summertime
(Warner Archive)
The first musical adaptation of Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo’s Parfumerie—which would later beget the classic Broadway musical She Loves Me—pairs Judy Garland and Van Johnson as pen pals who, unknown to each other, also work together in a local music shop.
Robert Z. Leonard’s 1949 romantic comedy is a frothy delight, with Garland at the height of her charm and no less an eminence as Buster Keaton stealing scenes as their coworker. There’s a superb hi-def transfer, with the Technicolor visuals popping off the screen; extras are an intro by Garland biographer John Fricke and two vintage travel shorts.
The Naked Spur
The Santa Fe Trail
(Warner Archive)
These two westerns are at opposite ends of the spectrum, dramatically and artistically. Anthony Mann’s The Naked Spur (1953) is a stark and intense drama about the intriguingly shifting dynamics of the relationship between a bounty hunter (James Stewart) and his prey (Robert Ryan).
Michael Curtiz’ Santa Fe Trail (1940) throws facts to the wind in its tale of how West Point grads Jeb Stuart and George Custer took on bad guys out west, including fanatical abolitionist John Brown, all while romancing the same woman; stars Errol Flynn (Stuart), Ronald Reagan (Custer), Raymond Massey (Brown) and Olivia de Havilland (woman) do what they can with mainly routine melodramatics. Both films look spectacular on Blu, especially the bright colors of Spur, whose extras are a vintage short and classic Tax Avery cartoon.
The Original Three Tenors
(C Major)
The first—and best—Three Tenors concert, shot in 1990 in Rome before an enthusiastic outdoor audience, was the ultimate superstar event in the classical music world: tenors Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras are joined by conductor Zubin Mehta and the opera orchestras of Florence and Rome for a lushly entertaining 90 minutes of solos, duets and trios encompassing operatic hits and even a medley of Broadway and pop tunes.
It all goes down easily in this remastered version where the hi-def video and audio make it look and sound better than ever. Also included is a new 88-minute documentary, The Three Tenors—From Caracalla to the World, which recaps the seminal show with interviews with the principals—Pavarotti, who died in 2007, is seen in vintage interview segments.
(Warner Archive)
This 1941 Thin Man sequel (the third) repeats the witty repartee between its stars, William Powell and Myrna Loy, although this time their chemistry is tied to a more routine murder mystery than in the original.
No matter: when Powell and Loy are onscreen as Nick and Nora—along with their dog Asta—all is forgiven and Shadow is more enjoyable than it has any right to be. There’s a sparkling new hi-def transfer of this B&W comedy; extras are a vintage live-action short and classic cartoon.
Tex Avery Screwball Classics, Volume 3
(Warner Archive)
Tex Avery was primarily responsible for the classic cartoon output during the golden age of animation—the ‘40s and the ‘50s—and this third (and final?) volume once again brings together another 20 of his most wanted treasures, including his none-too-subtle swipe at Hitler, “Blitz Wolf,” and one of his most memorable anthropomorphic creations, the airplane family of “Little Johnny Jet.”
As usual, some of it is dated and in questionable taste, but much of it amusing and clever. The restored hi-def color images look terrific; the lone extra is Avery’s “Crackpot Quail" with original audio.
The Equalizer—Complete 1st Season
(CBS/Paramount)
In this reboot of the mid-‘80s CBS series starring Edward Woodward as a retired intelligence agent who extracts justice for other victims, Queen Latifah straps on a gun and gets to blasting on behalf of the even more downtrodden.
As a new slant on an old theme—a couple of movies with Denzel Washington also used the same blueprint—the series is entertaining if unnecessarily and implausibly explosive. But Latifah is a good guide to the show’s action-filled plots. All 10 episodes are on three discs, extras include three featurettes, a gag reel and deleted scenes.
CD Releases of the Week
Nostalgia—Magdalena Kožená and Yefim Bronfman
Respighi Songs—Ian Bostridge and Saskia Giorgini
(Pentatone)
Exploring folk tradition is at the heart of these discs by two veteran vocalists who never rest on their considerable laurels. Nostalgia, sung with effortless beauty by Czech mezzo Magdalena Kožená and estimably accompanied by pianist Yefim Bronfman, comprises songs by Béla Bartók, Modest Mussorgsky and Johannes Brahms—and the folk-influenced richness of Bartók’s Village Scenes and Mussorgsky’s The Nursery
is especially poignant.
In a new disc of lovely songs by underrated Italian master Ottorino Respighi, tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Saskia Giorgini bracingly demonstrate the composer’s broad lyrical scope, in both senses: from Italian literature to Scotland in the words and Debussy-like impressionism to folk idioms in the music.
September '21 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 22 September 2021 18:27
- Written by Kevin Filipski
4K/UHD Release of the Week
A Clockwork Orange
(Warner Bros)
Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 classic remains as unsettling and provocative as it was when released 50 years ago. With a spectacular physical performance from Malcolm McDowell as the ultimate anti-hero, Kubrick revs up his sardonic sense of humor and dazzling visual and aural bravura (the soundtrack is one of the most eclectic yet appropriate ever cobbled together, from electronically enhanced Beethoven to McDowell’s seminal take on “Singing in the Rain”) to make the ultimate adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ cautionary novel.
This anniversary release’s UHD upgrade looks spectacular; extras on the accompanying Blu-ray disc include several retrospective featurettes ported over from the 2011 40th anniversary release, but both the feature-length career overview Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures and the documentary about McDowell have been dropped.
In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week
Chernobyl 1986
(Capelight/MPI)
If it’s possible to make a sentimental melodrama about the horrific happenings at Chernobyl—site of the nuclear disaster that was criminally covered up by the Soviet government—then actor-director Danila Kozlovsky has done so: his film centers on Alexey, a local fireman who bravely enters the smoldering radioactive ruins after rekindling his relationship with Olga, a former lover who is now a single mother whose only son has been radiated by the accident and is seriously ill.
Admittedly, Kozlovsky (Alexey) and Oksana Akinshina (Olga) provide persuasive chemistry as the couple, and the sequences inside the crippled plant are filmed impressively and tensely. But at 135 minutes, the syrup overwhelms the central tragedy.
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
(Juno Films)
At first, Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri’s documentary about Björn Andrésen—who, at age 15 was cast as the “beautiful boy” in Italian director Luchino Visconti’s 1971 adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice—seems an intriguing glimpse at someone whose life went far afield from the glamor he experienced as a teenager during a short window of stardom.
Then, we discover what’s happened in Andrésen’s life in the ensuing half-century (marriage, divorce, deaths of an infant child and his mother) and the film morphs into a sad exploration of a real-life tragic character that’s far more honest than anything Visconti could have conjured.
(Greenwich Entertainment)
The second documentary this summer about the purported Leonardo da Vinci painting Salvator Mundi—which sold for $450 million at auction in 2017—covers much the same ground as The Last Leonardo, but there’s so much to this cautionary tale of the perils of the art world, especially when it comes to authenticating, buying and selling Old Master paintings, that it remains fascinating and informative.
Director Antoine Vitkine highlights much the same cast of characters—Russian oligarch, Saudi royal, French go-between, British and American experts—to incisively chronicle the moral failings of a business with admittedly few scruples.
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
Atys
(Naxos)
Buffalo-born conductor William Christie and his renowned period-instrument ensemble Les Arts Florissants helped transform baroque opera into a goldmine with their 1989 tour of a sumptuous production of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s 1676 “tragedy with music,” a five-act behemoth highlighted by sensitive playing and wondrous singing.
More than 20 years later, Christie and his ensemble returned to Paris to revive the opera, with much the same musical and dramatic result. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.
(Lionsgate)
Anything but auspicious, Francis Coppola’s 1963 feature debut—a shoestring Roger Corman production about an axe-wielding murderer—is fascinating mainly for how Coppola does little right, showing a scarcity of the talent that would flourish in the ’70s. Shot in B&W, the shoestring movie has a few interesting moments, but Patrick Magee’s florid line readings take precedence over the other wooden performers and the 69-minute feature disappears from memory immediately.
There’s a fine hi-def transfer; extras are Coppola’s commentary and short intro, along with the six-minute prologue originally attached to the film (this “director’s cut” reflects Coppola returning to his original cut that was “fattened” by Corman with added scenes).
Love & Basketball
(Criterion Collection)
Sanaa Lathan’s portrayal of Monica, a world-class athlete who has an off-again, on-again relationship with Quincy (Omar Epps), her basketball-playing neighbor since they were kids, is the emotional center of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2000 romance that’s become a touchstone for fans of sports movies with a fresh perspective. Although overlong and soap opera-ish at times, there’s a realism and frankness in the performances of Lathan, Epps and Alfre Woodard as Monica’s mother that keeps it all centered.
Criterion’s hi-def release has an excellent Blu-ray transfer; two commentaries; deleted scenes with commentary; Prince-Bythewood’s early shorts, Stitches (1991) and Progress (1997), with her intro; conversation among Prince-Bythewood, WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes and writer-actor Lena Waithe; and new interviews with Prince-Bythewood, Lathan, Epps and Woodard.
(Criterion Collection)
This gritty and flavorful 1986 crime drama, writer-director Neil Jordan’s breakthrough, stars Bob Hoskins as the ex-con turned chauffeur of a mob boss (Michael Caine) who gets involved with a glamorous call girl (an incandescent Cathy Tyson). Jordan’s gift for quotable dialogue and razor-sharp characterization is on display, and the great Hoskins—with valuable assists from Caine and Tyson—carries the drama on his prodigious shoulders.
The film looks superb on Blu-ray; Criterion’s extras comprise Jordan and Hoskins’ commentary; 1986 Cannes Film Festival interviews with Jordan and Hoskins; 2015 interviews with cowriter David Leland and producer Stephen Woolley; and new interviews with Jordan and Tyson.
Prince of the City
(Warner Archive)
Sidney Lumet’s 1981 epic drama, based on the true story of Robert Leuci—who blew the whistle on corruption among the ranks of the NYPD narcotics squad—is the apotheosis of his New York-based crime dramas, which include Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon.
At nearly three hours, Prince is crammed with narrative detail and incident, and Lumet and his cast—led by Treat Williams in the lead—tell a sordid tale with artfulness and truth. The film looks splendid in hi-def; the lone extra is a half-hour-long retrospective featurette that includes interviews with Lumet, Williams and cowriter Jay Presson Allen.
Akhnaten
(Orange Mountain Media)
One of the Metropolitan Opera’s most visually imposing recent productions is Phelim McDermott’s colorfully inventive staging of Philip Glass’ opera, set in ancient Egypt and filled with the usual repetitive Glass arpeggios.
Still, thanks to the terrific sets, costumes, lighting and a committed cast led by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, the nearly three-hour spectacle is astonishing to behold, if not hear. Too bad that such a gorgeous-looking opera has only been released on DVD and not Blu-ray; it’s inexplicable that, although listed on the cover as Met Opera HD Live, it can only be watched in SD. Extras are between-acts interviews with cast and crew.
Sibyl
(Music Box Films)
For the first hour, director Justine Triet is in complete control of her often hilarious study of atherapist who gradually finds herself drawn into the world of moviemaking after neurotic actress Margot demands she become her therapist for her on-set difficulties with costar/on-set lover Igor and their director (Igor’s off-camera lover).
The cast, featuring Virginie Efira as Sibyl, Gaspard Ulliel as Igor and Sandra Hüller as the director—who overdoes it, ruining some would-be funny sequences—is led by the exquisite Adèle Exarchopoulos as Margot, who breathes such luminous life into a mere caricature that she dominates the movie. But even she can’t save it after taking a bizarre turn into increasingly implausible territory that any therapist worth her salt wouldn’t be dragged into. Extras include interviews with Triet, Exarchopoulos, and Efira.
Eric Tanguy—Concertos
(Ondine)
Although he’s been among the most performed living composers for the past several years, Frenchman Eric Tanguy (b. 1968) still seems under the radar as far as name recognition—but this delightful disc of three of his characteristic orchestral works looks to get his music to a wider audience.
writes tuneful, accessible music with enough spikiness to prevent it from becoming schmaltzy: his concertos provide vivid platforms for virtuoso soloists, and clarinetist Pierre Genisson and violinist Julia Pusker take full advantage in their respective performances. Pusker, in Tanguy’s Violin Concerto No. 2, is a force of nature in the appropriately titled opening movement, “Intense et tres lyrique.” In the concertos and propulsive Matka, Ville Matvejeff leads the excellent Jyvaskyla Sinfonia.
September '21 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 16 September 2021 01:16
- Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week
Wife of a Spy
(Kino Lorber)
In Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s period drama set in 1940, a Japanese businessman sympathetic to American and British interests finds himself in a conundrum: does he expose the atrocities he witnessed in China, which would also implicate his wife, a famous actress?
This restrained, intelligent exploration of conscience and morality in an era of belligerence and nationalism masquerading as patriotism might be too low-key, but its pertinence and exceptional filmmaking—Kurosawa’s command of the camera, editing, set design and superb cast—make it a must-see.
(Screen Media)
Michael Caine as an irascible old git—check. Aubrey Plaza as an adorably clever young woman—check. That’s it, really: director Nina Roessler and writer Anthony Greico’s dramatic comedy about a forgotten author and desperate book publisher who try resuscitating their careers depends almost entirely on the actors’ chemistry, and it works—to a point.
There’s a reluctance to go beyond the obvious “Caine does something obnoxious and Aubrey hilariously reacts to it,” and if the movie turns unbearably sentimental as it goes where it was heading all along, the two stars do their level best to keep it watchable, even enjoyable at times.
The Capote Tapes
(Greenwich Entertainment)
The second Truman Capote documentary to surface this year—Truman and Tennessee—An Intimate Conversation, studied the relationship between two great American writers—provides another glimpse at this tantalizing personality, author, and bon vivant mainly through his own words.
Director Ebs Burnough effectively brings together Capote’s own voice alongside archival and new interviews with friends, enemies and colleagues like Lauren Bacall, Norman Mailer and Dick Cavett, and the result is a richly idiosyncratic portrait of a richly idiosyncratic man.
(Zeitgeist Films)
Connie Hochman’s loving look at dancers who learned their art under the tutelage of the greatest ballet master of the 20th century, George Balanchine (1904-83), gives viewers myriad opportunities to watch the master at work: vintage footage of him rehearsing the men and women who went on to glorious careers themselves as prima ballerinas, principal dancers and teachers, along with valuable glimpses at some of Balanchine’s many onstage achievements with the New York City Ballet, which he cofounded.
Hochman smartly prods her subjects to speak with a mixture of awe, emotion, and even nostalgia about the biggest influence in their professional lives.
Storm Lake
(ITVS)
One of the last small-town newspapers in America, rural Iowa’s Storm Lake Times has been publishing for decades but—as Beth Levison and Jerry Risius’ perceptive documentary shows—the family-owned/operated local source for 3000 loyal readers is in a fight for survival: regional papers are swallowing up small ones, the internet lets anyone read news from anywhere at anytime, and the pandemic made it even more difficult to stay afloat. Publisher-editor Art Cullen and his family have kept the paper running for years and seemed to weather the shutdown last year with help from GoFundMe, but their prognosis is still iffy.
Levison and Risius illuminatingly show how, in a tight-knit community, even conservatives read the local paper despite Art’s left-leaning editorials because they want to see what’s happening with their neighbors and friends. Maybe, just maybe, this bodes well for our future?
Guilt—Complete 1st Season
(PBS)
Rarely has a Masterpiece Mystery series been as stupefying as this second-rate knockoff of Martin McDonough and the Coen brothers (neither of whom I’m a particular fan of): when two annoying brothers try to cover up their accidental drunken hit-and-run killing of an old man, everything spirals out of their control.
Too bad director Robert McKillop and creator-writer Neil Forsyth aren’t in control either: instead of a tidy 90-minute movie, they have conjured this nearly four-hour morass with none of the characters or their relationships even remotely plausible. It’s well-acted, to be sure, which just brings the ludicrousness at the core into greater focus. Extras comprise three making-of featurettes.
Magnum P.I.—Complete 3rd Season
Seal Team—Complete 4th Season
This reboot of the ’80s Tom Selleck hit Magnum P.I. reconfigures its action for the new millennium, although the third season’s 16 episodes demonstrate that the seams are showing, however charismatic star Jay Hernandez is and how updated the little twists and turns are.
Similarly, the fourth season of the action-packed Seal Team—in which Delta Force roots out terrorists in the Middle East, Tunisia, Ecuador, the Mediterranean and other far-flung places—merely nods to its heroes’ family lives in order to destroy more things (and bad guys), despite the granite-jawed David Boreanz as the team leader. Both sets include making-of featurettes.
Lord Berners—The Triumph of Neptune
(Naxos)
The furthest thing from a dilettante, despite the fact that he also painted, wrote books and by some, British composer Lord Berners (1883-1950) actually wrote music that was the last word in style and wit. One of his strongest scores is The Triumph of Neptune, a bracing and sophisticated work that was originally commissioned by Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev and first choreographed by none other than George Balanchine, in 1926.
Berners’ music is accessibly, endlessly inventive and tuneful, as the other three pieces on this disc—particularly the wonderfully charming puppet ballet, The Man with the Moustache—demonstrate in spades.
Igor Stravinsky—The Soldier’s Tale
(Harmonia Mundi)
In the 50 years since his death, the works of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) remain, in all their variedness and originality, at the forefront of 20th century music. The Soldier’s Tale, which grew out of the ashes of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, displays Stravinsky’s ease in adopting the colors of other musical eras; the frisky neo-classicism that emerged sounds like a hoot but, especially when played by violinist Isabelle Faust and a half-dozen superb musicians—the narrator, Dominique Horwitz, overdoes the English text at times—transforms into a resonant, disturbing tale of the devil, winning again.
Rounding out the disc are Faust’s lovely interpretations of two other Stravinsky jewels: the solo Elegie and the Duo concertant for violin and piano, where Faust is accompanied admirably by Alexander Melnikov.
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