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Theater Review—“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Central Park
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 07 August 2017 16:56
- Written by Kevin Filipski
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Lear deBessonet
Performances through August 13, 2017
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| Annaleigh Ashford and Alex Hernandez in A Midsummer Night's Dream (photo: Joan Marcus) |
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is always tricky to stage, as Shakespeare juggles several disparate subplots that almost, but not quite, mesh together. There’s the enchanted world of the fairies, the low-brow bumbling of the “mechanicals,” and the frolicking pairs of lovers from the regal Athenian court, all set loose in a magical forest. It would seem perfect for an evening in Central Park, but director Lear deBessonet has flattened everything out so that, though it all flows nicely on the surface, the play’s disturbing undercurrents are left, well, undisturbed.
The production certainly looks handsome. David Rockwell’s judicious set design visualizes Shakespeare’s “wood” with a few twisty trees, which enchantingly play off the park’s surrounding greenery. Clint Ramos’s spectacularly colorful costumes are loud in the best possible sense, and Tyler Micoleau’s adroit lighting rounds out a delightful visual trifecta. Added to that is Justin Levine’s jaunty New Orleans-jazz influenced music, with songs belted out smashingly by Marcelle Davies-Lashley, even if she’s been shoe-horned into the proceedings as the “fairy singer.”
DeBessonet capably choreographs the characters’ movement, from the nerdily comic mechanicals rehearsing their play to the royals from both Athens (Theseus and Hippolyta) and the forest (Oberon and Titania). But the director must shoulder the blame for the ridiculous idea to cast elderly performers as the fairies—Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, etc.—nonsensical even considering that Puck, who does Oberon’s bidding, is played by the ultimate stage ham Kristine Nielsen, the least puckish Robin Goodfellow since Kathryn Walker in Julie Taymor’s 2014 mess at Theater for a New Audience.
Then there are the lovers, who are a well-oiled machine of athleticism and hilarity, led by Annaleigh Ashford’s Helena, a true spitfire. She might be too broad in her interpretation of the most desperate of the quartet—which includes Shalita Grant’s Hermia, Kyle Beltran’s Lysander, and Alex Hernandez’s Demetrius, each physically agile if histrionically undernourished—but the actress has a unique way of speaking her lines that seems to work for anything, from Sondheim to A.R. Gurney to Shakespeare, and her peerless physical skills allow her to get more out of a single gesture than others do by mercilessly camping it up.
The only other cast member on Ashford’s level is Danny Burstein as Nick Bottom, a part filled with immortal comic scenes. But Burstein, unlike most park performers, doesn’t completely force-feed a diet of extraneous bits to an audience all too willing to swallow them. Instead, he’s funny and poignant and realistic and fantastical simultaneously, which is what deBessonet’s Dream, despite some splendid moments, ultimately isn’t.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York, NY
shakespeareinthepark.org
August '17 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 02 August 2017 02:02
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Going in Style
(Warner Bros)
This remake of the 1979 oldster heist movie with George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg is an innocuous but entertaining vehicle for Michael Caine, Alan Arkin and Morgan Freeman, who play octogenarians planning to rob a bank.
Director Zach Braff consistently takes the obvious route to every lame old age joke or schmaltzy twist, but his cast—which includes a still gorgeous Ann-Margret as Arkin’s love interest and an hilarious John Ortiz as a crook who gives our trio some robbery tips—is ingratiating enough to make this a smooth 95-minute ride. The hi-def transfer sparkles; extras are Braff’s commentary and deleted scenes.
Crashing—Complete 1st Season
(HBO)
Too bad Pete Holmes is so dull and unfunny: not that this lackluster Judd Apatow would have succeeded anyway, but a better lead might have given the series a chance to be amusing, pointed and even poignant.
Whenever someone with superior comic smarts appears—like Artie Lange or Sarah Silverman—Crashing sporadically turns into something humorous, but that’s not often enough. The series looks fine on Blu; extras are featurettes and Holmes’ HBO stand-up special.
The Sea Chase
Blood Alley
(Warner Archive)
Two lesser John Wayne films showcase his passable acting in two wartime roles. In John Farrow’s barely adequate water-logged actioner, 1955’s Sea Chase, the Duke is a German U-boat pilot who loathes his Fuhrer and falls for Lana Turner.
In William Wellman’s nearly embarrassing Blood Alley (1948), Wayne is a merchant marine who ferries Chinese refugees with China’s navy hot on his tail, as white performers (unsurprisingly but eye-rollingly) play several Asian characters. Both films—shot in Cinemascope—look terrific on Blu-ray; Alley extras are newsreels and featurettes.
Where the Boys Are
(Warner Archive)
This mildly cautionary 1960 tale follows horny college kids to Ft. Lauderdale for spring break, where it’s suggested that they’re having sex, losing their virginity and even (in one shocking instance of honesty) being raped.
The attractive and charming cast is led by the gals, especially Dolores Hart, Yvette Mimieux and Connie Francis. The Cinemascope compositions look superb in hi-def; extras include Prentiss’s audio commentary and two featurettes.
DVDs of the Week
Amnesia
Inseparables
(Film Movement)
Barbet Schroeder’s latest, Amnesia—a slow-boiling drama about an German woman whose isolated existence is disturbed by a young man whose appearance leads to terrible revelations—is anchored by Marthe Keller’s lovely, understated performance in the lead.
Based on the 2011 treacly smash-hit French comedy The Intouchables, the Argentine version, Inseparables, is even more sentimental and crude in its story of a wealthy paraplegic and the working-class assistant who brings excitement into his life. The lone Amnesia extra is Your Mother and I, a fine short by British-Canadian director Anna Maguire.
July '17 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 26 July 2017 02:37
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Barber of Seville
(Opus Arte)
In the 2016 Glyndebourne Festival production of Rossini’s great comic opera, beguiling American soprano Danielle De Niese unsurprisingly steals the show as Rosina, the feisty love interest of Count Almaviva, who enlists the help of the barber Figaro to woo and win her.
Enrique Mazzola nimbly conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which keeps the comedy and romance brisk. Hi-def audio and video are top-notch; extras are Mazzola and De Niese’s commentary and making-of featurette.
Lohengrin
(Deutsche Grammophon)
In this 2016 Dresden staging of Richard Wagner’s opera, Russian soprano Anna Netrebko—whose early career comprised lighter-voiced roles by Mozart, Puccini and Prokofiev—shows herself as a Wagnerian singer par excellence: every scene she’s in, her Elsa rivets attention from an already formidable cast.
Angela Brandt’s production shrewdly mixes traditional and contemporary (as in the climactic appearance of the swan), and the music is performed with vigor and strength by the orchestra and chorus under Christian Thielemann’s baton. Hi-def audio and video are exemplary.
Parsifal
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Parsifal
(Challenge Classics)
Richard Wagner’s final opera—a long, slow, quasi-religious processional composed for his own theater at Bayreuth in Germany—is presented today by opera houses around the world. Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s 2016 Bayreuth production flouts the composer’s own stage directions, dragging in pointless directorial “improvements” that obscure an accomplished cast including Klaus Florian Vogt’s Parsifal and Elena Pankratova’s temptress Kundry.
Pierre Audi’s 2012 Netherlands Opera staging features similar questionable visuals, but again the cast—led by Petra Lang’s powerhouse presence as Kundry—overcomes those obstacles with reverent singing. Forceful orchestral playing comes from conductors Hartmut Haenchen (Bayreuth) and Iván Fischer (Netherlands); there’s impressive hi-def video and audio on both discs.
Stormy Monday
(Arrow Academy)
Mike Figgis’ 1988 feature debut is a fairly standard and unexciting neo-noir thriller drenched in the director’s own jazz score. Unfortunately, his solid cast can do little amid the worn-down Newcastle locations, the setting for 90 minutes of small-time hood shenanigans.
Sean Bean, Tommy Lee Jones and Sting snarl aggressively, while poor Melanie Griffith is simply out of her element. Roger Deakins’ photography looks particularly noteworthy in hi-def; extras are a Figgis commentary and video appreciation by critic Neil Young.
The Story of China with Michael Wood
(PBS)
Historian Michael Wood—veteran of such classic British TV series as Art of the Western World and In Search of Shakespeare—embarks on a journey through the epic and convoluted history of China, packing much fascinating information and insight into six hours’ worth of the country’s sights, sounds, people and culture. Wood’s expertise, intelligence and compassion are on vivid display throughout this don’t-miss series, which could use more contextualizing in the extras: despite the magnificent hi-def images, there are only a handful of very short featurettes.
DVDs of the Week
The Country Doctor
(Icarus)
In writer/director Thomas Lilti’s intimate character study, Francois Cluzet plays the veteran doctor who knows everyone in his little corner of the French countryside, but who initially overreacts when a newcomer arrives from the city, ostensibly to help him out with his workload.
Cluzet and Marianne Denicourt (as adversary, rival and ally) connect emotionally, providing an authentically “real” relationship that never turns treacly—even when it easily could have. Lilti’s movie brims with small but not unimportant moments that display its characters in all their humanity.
Pretty Little Liars—Complete 7th Season
(Warner Bros)
The final season of the popular series about the quintet of “liars”—Aria, Emily, Hanna, Spencer and Mona—comprises a breakneck progression of 20 episodes culminating with one of the most bizarre TV twists since “Who Shot J.R.”: a twin of one of the gals appears as the infamous D.A., improbably controlling what’s going on.
Yet despite such silliness, the wrap-up is dramatically satisfying. Bonus features comprise several featurettes, wrap party “episode” and deleted scenes.
Film review—“The Midwife” with Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 24 July 2017 02:47
- Written by Kevin Filipski
The Midwife
Written and directed by Martin Provost
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| Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot in The Midwife (Music Box Films) |
There can be no more quintessentially French film than Martin Provost’s The Midwife (the double meaning of the French title, Sage femme, is lost in English), and not simply because it stars Catherine Deneuve. It’s also because of its plot: a 49-year-old midwife receives a phone call one day from her father’s long-gone mistress, now in her 70s and looking for closure after receiving a fatal brain cancer diagnosis.
When she agrees to meet Béatrice Sobolevski, Claire’s own life is in flux: the clinic where she’s worked for decades helping to deliver newborns is about to be replaced by the latest high-tech one, where her hard-earned experience and expertise is beside the point; her son Simon, currently in college working his way toward a medical degree, brings home his pregnant girlfriend; and her neighbor Paul, as hard a worker on his vegetable garden as she is on hers, wants a closer relationship than she’s been willing to allow herself with any man.
Into Claire’s messy life storms the still glamorous and self-absorbed Béatrice, who becomes amusingly dependent on Claire after being told that Claire’s father killed himself decades ago after Béatrice left him. As written and directed by Martin Provost, The Midwife skirts melodrama and soap opera in its depiction of this odd couple, especially when the funny but repetitive back-and-forth between these completely antithetical women is overwhelmed at times by several scarily authentic birthing sequences.
Despite that, the film is quite affecting thanks to its two leads. Deneuve, of course, is even more elegant than the fake Hungarian princess she plays, but she is also believably heart-tugging as a grievously sick woman trying to keep up appearances even though the high life she used to lead is long gone.
And Frot—whose pathetically hilarious opera singer with no talent in last year’s Marguerite was far more memorable than Meryl Streep’s Oscar-nominated turn in Florence Foster Jenkins—gives a remarkably sympathetic portrait of a middle-aged woman at a crossroads in her life who must also confront the ghost of her family’s sorrowful past in the form of Béatrice.
Provost’s droll touches—notably the moment when Béatrice discovers that Claire’s son Simon bears an uncanny resemblance to Claire’s father (and Béatrice’s lover)—complement the delectable performances of both Catherines, who make The Midwife far more substantial than it would otherwise be.
The Midwife
Opened July 21, 2017
musicboxfilms.com
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