VOD/Virtual Cinema/Streaming/In-Theater Releases of the Week 

(Film Movement) 

An often riotous blackly comic revenge picture for our social media age, Ivo van Aart’s deliriously demented look at how an online columnist deals with trolls and stalkers—many physically threatening her—manages the impressive feat of getting viewers to root for her style of vengeance.

 

 

Although it does go too far (she wouldn’t be able to pull off what she does without anyone catching on), Katja Herbers is perfect as the eponymous anti-heroine, and the director saves his best bit for a satisfyingly crazed ending. This is the movie that Promising Young Woman wanted to be (and that Herbers looks like Carey Mulligan is a wonderful coincidence).

 

 

 

 

 

Queen Marie 

It might just be a standard biopic, but Alexis Sweet Cahill’s study of how the queen of Romania went to Paris after World War I to try and convince, against huge odds, the leaders of the U.S., France, and Great Britain, that her country deserves a seat at the post-war table, is a sweeping entertainment in the best old-fashioned sense.

 

 

Roxana Lupu is exuberant as Marie, the backroom political chicanery is plausibly presented, and there just might be a history lesson hidden in the handsomely mounted film’s melodramatic excess.

 

 

 

 

 

Silo 

For those who don’t live on a farm, this tense drama might be an eye-opener: it shows how a silo accident can have lasting, even fatal, consequences. Director Marshall Josh Burnette smartly narrows his focus almost immediately and, in a fleet 76 minutes, he not only recounts the incident and its aftermath but brings individual characters to life in an area of the Midwest that’s quite religious; there’s no condescension, only sympathy for everyone—and with an added scary moment for me when the teen stuck in the silo cannot reach his asthma inhaler (my worst nightmare).

 

 

The movie might be too on the nose, but there’s no denying it’s accomplished filmmaking that also subtly rages against a loosely regulated industry.

 

 

 

 

 

Street Gang—How We Got to Sesame Street 

For more than 50 years, Sesame Street has been the gold standard of children’s television programming, but Marilyn Agrelo’s breezy and informative documentary displays how experimental, even risky, the show was when it first hit the airwaves in 1969.

 

 

Through interviews with many of the principals—creators, producers, directors, writers, performers (human and Muppet)—and a trove of archival footage from the show and behind the scenes, Street Gang celebrates one of the great American television success stories and is also a worthy memorial to the great Jim Henson, who died at age 53 in 1990.

 

 

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

A double shot of British film noir, these B&W features are spiffily straightforward in their plotting, each following a killer just one step ahead of the authorities. In 1955’s Cast a Dark Shadow, curtly directed by Lewis Gilbert, Dirk Bogarde effectively plays a young man who kills his older wives for the money, but discovers too late that his latest diabolical plot has ensnared himself.

 

 

In 1946’s Wanted for Murder, directed gruffly by Lawrence Huntington, a strangler loose in London is right under the cops’ eyes, but they need more evidence to arrest him. Both of these by-the-numbers crime dramas at least look nice in new hi-def transfers.

 

 

 

 

 

Hemingway 

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s latest mega-documentary intelligently explores the life, career, artistry and legacy of one of America’s greatest—and most self-destructive—writers, Ernest Hemingway: his novels The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms are recognizable titles even to those who haven’t read his books, and he’s the last word in boozy, suicidal artists.

 

 

The six-hour series delves deeply into a troubled life filled with turbulence, much of it self-inflicted but also a lot of it most likely inherited. Although Jeff Daniels’s voice isn’t my idea of Hemingway’s, Peter Coyote is always a dependable narrator; there’s an excellent hi-def transfer but, disappointingly, no extra features.

 

 

 

 

 

Judas and the Black Messiah 

Daniel Kaluuya’s fiery, Oscar-winning portrayal of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton is the centerpiece of this occasionally clunky but engrossing docudrama about how the FBI infiltrated the Panthers in Illinois, leading to Hampton’s cold-blooded murder at age 21 in a 1969 raid.

 

 

As William O’Neal, the FBI informant, LaKeith Stanfield is nearly a match for Kaluuya’s passionate presence, but too much of the film is given over to the rote workings of the FBI, with Martin Sheen a caricatured J. Edgar Hoover. Director Shana King does get the atmosphere of paranoia amid the black power movement right. The film looks splendid on Blu-ray; extras are featurettes on Hampton and O’Neal.

 

 

 

 

 

The Little Things 

Although John Lee Hancock’s police procedural is unnecessarily convoluted—even by the standards of the genre—the director’s script does allow its three lead actors a chance to shine, individually and together.

 

 

As the main suspect, Jared Leto is appropriately creepy, while Denzel Washington and Remi Malek give the detective odd couple needed shading, with Washington’s seen-it-all worldweariness and Malek’s youthful swagger blending well enough to smooth over Hancock’s bumpy plotting and dialogue. There’s an excellent hi-def transfer; extras are featurettes on Washington’s cop roles and the give-and-take between Washington and Malek.

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Change 

In a long TV and film career, this 1990 caper comedy is Bill Murray’s lone directorial credit: he co-directed with Howard Franklin, from Franklin’s script, about a daring daylight bank robbery that goes perfectly—until the robbers’ trek to JFK airport goes spectacularly wrong.

 

 

As a jaundiced love-hate letter to New York City, Quick Change is often uproariously funny, although too often it pushes the absurdity to After Hours levels; luckily, Murray is his usual perfectly deadpan self, Geena Davis is delightful as his girlfriend and Randy Quaid amusingly nutty as their third-wheel sidekick. Best of all is Jason Robards as the police chief who won’t stop until he tracks down the gang who escaped the bank from under his nose, a typical Robards performance of equal parts boisterous bellowing and canny understatement. The New York locations look sublimely ratty on Blu-ray.

 

 

 

 

 

DVD Release of the Week

When luminaries from the pastry and dessert world, led by Israeli chef Yoham Ottolenghi,  converge on Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for an event celebrating the court of Versailles, the result is delectably eye-filling and mouth-watering, but what it took to get there—the mental stress, the long hours, the outside pressure—is recounted in director Laura Gabbert’s enjoyable documentary.

 

 

Although Ottolenghi is the star, he has surrounded himself with some of the best innovators in his culinary field, and the result is one scrumptious creation after another, all rendered beautifully by Gabbert’s camera.

VOD/Virtual Cinema/Streaming/In-Theater Releases of the Week 

How a newly-widowed dairy farmer overcomes her grief and stands up to a corrupt local co-op monopoly is the captivating subject of Icelandic director-writer Grímur Hákonarson’s droll drama, which rarely forces its pertinent points about injustice and community.

 

 

Of course, Hákonarson is greatly assisted by Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir’s remarkably unself-conscious portrayal of his heroine Inga, whose journey to independence is accompanied by an almost miraculous transformation, as she positively glows as her battle against a true Goliath reaches its climax.

 

 

 

 

 

Limbo 

In this comic misadventure about Omar, a Syrian refugee awaiting asylum while living on a remote Scottish island, writer-director Ben Sharrock’s deadpan style meshes well with the absurdity of Omar’s predicament—at least for a while.

 

 

Would that Sharrock wasn’t content to simply run in circles: we get a stultifyingly inordinate amount of time at a culture awareness class (run by the effortlessly charming Sidse Babett Knudsen, who’s unfortunately wasted in the one-note teacher role) and a melancholy but near-happy ending blatantly underlined by the film frame opening up from a confined, square aspect ratio to spacious widescreen. Still, there’s much to admire, especially the stoically dignified Amir El-Masry as Omar. 

 

 

 

 

 

My Wonderful Wanda 

Breathing glorious and funny new life into such a well-worn trope as the haves vs. the half-nots, Swiss director Bettina Oberli hits the right emotional, dramatic and comic buttons in this delightfully skewered story about a poor Polish woman who, while working as a caretaker for the patriarch of a mega-rich family, contrives to insure that she receives a handsome payout.

 

 

Admittedly, Oberli’s solution for her heroine is the ultimate contrivance but it’s done artfully and drolly—as well as acted to a fare-thee-well by Agnieszka Grochowska as the eponymous heroine, André Jung as the patriarch, the redoubtable Marthe Keller as the matriarch and Birgit Minichmayr and Jacob Matschenzas their adult children, all ludicrous but also very real.

 

 

 

 

 

Paris Calligrammes 

In this magnum opus, German avant-gardist Ulrike Ottinger remembers the beginnings of her long and varied artistic career through the prism of the city that beckoned to her, whose juxtaposition of art and politics helped inform and transform her own artistic inclinations for the next half-century.

 

 

Narrated in English by Jenny Agutter—there’s a French version is narrated by Fanny Ardant and Ottinger herself narrates the German version—Paris Calligrammes is a wonderfully vital journey even for those barely aware (or fully unaware) of the filmmaker, whose biggest arthouse title, 1989’s Joan of Arc of Mongolia, is barely remembered.

 

 

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The classic Irving Berlin musical about sharpshooter Annie Oakley was a huge Broadway hit in 1946, followed four years later by George Sidney’s colorful if bumpy film adaptation.

 

 

Betty Hutton is an indefatigable Annie, Howard Keel a perfect romantic foil and Louis Calhern a boisterous Bill Cody, but even with timeless Berlin tunes “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Doin’ What Comes Naturally,” the movie is too static; Robert Alton stages the musical numbers effectively, although “I Am an Indian, Too” will undoubtedly raise ire today, despite Hutton’s energetic performance. The film looks smashing in hi-def; extras include a 2000 DVD intro by Susan Lucci and several musical number outtakes, both video and audio-only.

 

 

 

 

 

Hercules and the Captive Women 

This exceedingly cheesy entry in the Hercules canon was released in Italy in 1961, then re-edited and released in the U.S. two years later. For those who are in the mood, it’s certainly entertaining enough, but with wooden acting and less-than-special special effects, it most likely won’t gain new adherents.

 

 

There’s a very good hi-def transfer; extras are the 1992 Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) airing, an intro by MST3K writer and co-star Frank Conniff, critic/screenwriter Tim Lucas commentary; and featurette Hercules and the Conquest of Cinema.

 

 

 

 

 

Masculin Feminin 

One of Jean-Luc Godard’s most revolutionary films (a famous title card refers to “The children of Marx and Coca-Cola”), this 1966 cinematic essay is now quaint, dated and only occasionally compelling. Jean-Pierre Leaud is as dislikable as ever and the adorable Chantal Goya has little screen presence, which makes their onscreen travails—as well as Godard’s usual visual/verbal asides and nonsense refrains—less than beguiling, as serious events are treated trivially and mundane things are blown up to larger than life.

 

 

Still, it paved the way to the following year’s masterpieces, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (when is that coming out on Blu-ray?) and Weekend. The B&W photography of Willy Kurant looks luminous in hi-def; extras comprise interviews with Goya, Kurant and Godard collaborator Jean-Pierre Gorin, footage of Godard from Swedish TV, and discussion of the film by two French critics.

 

 

 

 

These two beautifully programmed recital discs showcase the splendid artistry and radiant vocals of two of the best sopranos around today, both accompanied by the sensitive pianist, Joseph Middleton. Louise Alder’s beguiling French disc, Chere nuit, mixes several familiar melodies with a handful that are equally fine but less well-known; although I miss obvious classics like those of Faure and Chausson, Alder’s voice sounds so bright and elegant on everything from Ravel’s Sheherazade and Messiaen’s Trois Melodies to lovely miniatures by two female composers, Pauline Viardot and Cecile Chaminade; it’s a nice bonus to hear her tackle obscure songs by 20th century masters Poulenc and Satie.

 

Carolyn Sampson explores the music of Robert and Clara Schumann on Album fur die frau, setting up a dialogue between the husband-and-wife composers, with Robert’s masterly Frauenliebe und -leben as the jumping-off point for a give-and-take between the couple that’s missing from the original. The conceit works effectively, at times luminously, and becomes quite affecting by its end, thanks to Sampson’s emotional readings of such highly personal songs.

VOD/Virtual Cinema/Streaming/In Theater Releases of the Week 

Norwegian writer-director Maria Sødahl’s intensely personal drama about a wife and mother getting a terminal cancer diagnosis could have easily become sentimental mush a la Love Story, but Sødahl instead tackles her subject emotionally and viscerally, through the heart and the head, and the result is an intelligent tearjerker.

 

 

Of course, she has terrific actors, and Andrea Bræin Hovig gives a fearless, nakedly real portrayal of a middle-aged woman wavering between bravery and giving up in the face of a doubtful future with husband, children and stepchildren, and the redoubtable Stellan Skarsgård is very nearly her equal as her husband, who must rally back to her side after their relationship grew more distant in the past few years. I dare anyone to stay unaffected after the breathtakingly perfect final shot.

 

 

 

 

 

Downstream to Kinshasa 

Congolese director Dieudo Hamadi's incredibly moving documentary introduces several physically and emotionally scarred victims of the six-day war between Uganda and Rwanda in 2000: they were caught in the crossfire of a battle in the Congolese town of Kisangani, but despite their best efforts, have yet to be compensated for their injuries.

 

 

Hamadi’s sensitive camera follows them as, nearly two decades later, they try and make their cases while keeping their dignity intact amid continuing horrific pain and memories. 

 

 

 

 

 

Gunda 

Director Victor Kossakovsky’s 93-minute, black and white documentary about a mother pig, her litter of piglets as well as chickens and cows on a farm is utterly mesmerizing from the very first long shot of the mom lying inside the barn as the piglets scurry around her.

 

 

Kossakovsky also edited the film and did the cinematography with Egil Håskjold Larsen, and the result—especially since there is no narration, no humans onscreen and no titles, just the animals’ oinks, clucks and moos—is a truly unique visual and aural experience, just as nature (mostly) intended. 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday 

This drama about the relationship between two American expats who fall in love—or lust—while living in Greece is undermined by two unpleasant and unsympathetic characters.

 

 

Director-writer Argyris Papadimitropoulos and cowriter Rob Hayes miss the mark while exploring the heady romance between two immature and juvenile individuals, especially in a sequence of exceeding absurdity when they ride naked on a motorbike, racing away from cops, right before the man is to go to court to get custody of his young son with a Greek woman. Even the energetic acting of Denise Gough and Sebastian Stan is superficial, and this couple remains woefully unexamined. 

 

 

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

In the final of five annual Broadway Melodies featuring spectacular song-and-dance set pieces inside a routine showbiz story, director Norman Taurog smartly concentrates on his astonishing dancers, Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell, who get many opportunities, singly and together, to show off.

 

 

Although Astaire is terrific as always, Powell is extraordinary in her dancing sequences, especially her first solo, “I Am the Captain”; of course, when they team for the tap-dancing duet “Jukebox Dance” and exhilarating finale “Begin the Beguine” (all songs are by Cole Porter), they are unstoppable. Too bad this was shot in B&W—the last MGM musical not in color—but it looks sensational on Blu. Extras are an Astaire-Powell featurette, Our Gang short and classic cartoon.

 

 

 

 

 

The Furies 

In Anthony Mann’s dark, cynical western, Walter Huston gives an impressive final performance—he died before the film’s summer 1950 release—as a bastard of a patriarch who literally dares his headstrong daughter to hate him: she does, in Barbara Stanwyck’s equally ferocious performance.

 

 

This B&W epic—beautifully shot by Victor Milner—has its clichéd moments but also a refreshingly mature point of view that leads inexorably to a relentlessly downbeat ending. Criterion’s restored hi-def image is superb; extras include a commentary, 1967 TV interview with Mann, 1931 interview with Huston and a 2008 interview with the director’s daughter, Abbie Mann. Also included is a new edition of Niven Brush’s 1948 novel on which the film is based.

 

 

 

 

 

History Is Made at Night 

Frank Borzage’s ultra-romantic 1937 melodrama opens with Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur falling in love at first sight—except she’s married to a horrible billionaire and he’s accused of killing another man—and follows them from Paris to New York to a cruise ship that hits an iceberg (no, seriously!).

 

 

Rarely has a movie flaunted its romantic idealism to the breaking point, but Borzage and his stars push it to the limit of sentiment, making this a truly glorious romance. The hi-def B&W transfer looks luminous; extras are a 1958 audio interview with Borzage, a 1940 radio adaptation with Boyer and two critical conversations.

 

 

 

 

 

Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space—Complete Series

Two strange sci-fi animated series debut on Blu-ray, starting with Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, which ran for two seasons (1971-72): the gang accidentally get shot into space, where they have weekly adventures on various alien worlds. It’s as silly as it sounds, but the bizarre creatures, half-human, half-alien, they meet are worth a chuckle.

 

 

1980’s Thundarr the Barbarian is even weirder: 2000 years after civilization ends, our hero Thundarr and his sidekicks Princess Ariel and Ookla the Mok ride on horseback through the stark landscape. There’s a lack of imagination throughout, but the first episode, set in the ruins of Manhattan, shows the remains of the Twin Towers, making for an inadvertent bit of poignancy. Both series look fine on Blu-ray.

 

 

 

 

 

CD Release of the Week 

Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942), one of many accomplished artists who did not leave Europe before World War II, was murdered in a concentration camp in 1942. As with many of these composers, Schulhoff and his music deserve wider currency, but recordings have been few and far between, and live performances even rarer. His opera Flammen, a surreal version of the Don Juan legend, had its premiere in 1932 then virtually disappeared until a celebrated 1995 Decca recording as part of the classic Entartete Musik (Degenerate Music) series brought it back from obscurity.

 

 

This 2006 recording, tautly conducted by Bertrand de Billy, features German mezzo-soprano Iris Vermillion in the pivotal role of the angel of death, which she also memorably sang on the Decca release. Raymond Very is a very powerful Don, several singers and the Arnold Schoenberg Chorus give eerie voice to the choir sections, and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra expertly performs Schulhoff’s eclectic score, which combines tantalizing snatches of jazz, chromatic textures, and long stretches of mighty orchestral interludes into a vivid if unsettling musical mélange.