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Reviews
"McNeal" at Lincoln Center with RDJ
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 03 October 2024 13:53
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Robert Downey Jr. & Brittany Bellizeare in "McNeal". Photo by Matthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman
At Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, on the evening of Saturday, September 30th, I had the privilege of attending a preview performance of McNeal, the latest play—about an American novelist that wins the Nobel Prize for Literature—by the outstanding playwright, Ayad Akhtar, starring Robert Downey Jr. and directed by Bartlett Sher.
Akhtar first drew my attention with his fine, second produced play, Lincoln Center Theater’s The Who & The What which premiered in 2014 and is informed by the author’s Muslim background. This featured too in the even more remarkable and provocative Disgraced, which premiered at LCT in 2012 and was restaged on Broadway in 2015. Another LCT production, Junk from 2017 was just as topical and even more dazzling. McNeal, which addresses sexual politics, as did Disgraced, seems to be a new departure for the writer in its narrative ambiguity, with dream, hallucination and fantasy interlaced with contemporary reality.
Akhtar’s drama is effectively orchestrated by Sher, who first became prominent in New York with LCT’s celebrated—if to my mind problematic—2008 production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s South Pacific, which had a stellar cast that included Paulo Szot, Kelli O’Hara and Matthew Morrison—he did not succeed in overcoming the flaws in that musical’s book even as it was a vivid theatrical experience for its incredible singers. Sher’s commercial and critical success led to an invitation by Peter Gelb to direct for the Metropolitan Opera although I was ambivalent about his stagings of The Barber of Seville, Tales of Hoffmann, and Le Comte Ory, the pleasures of all of which nonetheless transcended failures of conception. I was more impressed by his realization of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys in 2013 and was enthusiastic about LCT’s marvelous production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I in 2015 starring O’Hara and Ken Watanabe. Also delightful—apart from an awkward if easily overlooked ending—was the 2018 revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady with Harry Hadden-Paton and Laura Benanti.
Downey, still exceptionally handsome as he approaches sixty, has been one of the most prominent stars in Hollywood since the success of the Iron Man films. My appreciation of him began with Robert Altman’s Short Cuts from 1993. He was also memorable in James Toback’s underrated Two Girls and a Guy from 1997–he had previously worked with the director in The Pick-up Artist—and appeared in such distinguished movies as Altman’s The Gingerbread Man from 1998 and Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys from 2000. Especially compelling was his turn in David Fincher’s amazing Zodiac from 2007. His work in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer from last year seems to me his crowning achievement as an actor but his ultimately moving performance in McNeal is nonetheless something of a tour de force—his likability and charisma create a rewarding dialectical tension with the apparent moral turpitude of his character. He is ably supported by a uniformly fine secondary cast including Andrea Martin—who was notable in James Lapine’s persuasive adaptation of Moss Hart’s Act One at LCT in 2014–along with relative unknowns Brittany Bellizeare, Rafi Gavron, Melora Hardin, Ruthie Ann Miles and Saisha Talwar. (Bellizeare is particularly effective in one of the most interesting roles in the play and her long scene with Downey is probably its strongest.) Among the technical credits, the relatively minimal sets by Michael Yeargan and Jake Barton and the lighting by Donald Holder are especially striking, while Barton’s video projections are simply superb.
October '24 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 02 October 2024 22:16
- Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater Releases of the Week
Lee
(Roadside Attractions/Vertical)
Kate Winslet gives her usual fierce performance in this conventional biopic of Lee Miller, an American free spirit who made her name in Europe and became one of the most important WWII correspondents/photographers. Director Ellen Kuras, best known for her gritty cinematography in films by Spike Lee and Sam Mendes, brings a weary verisimilitude to the horrors Miller witnessed and recorded, including the first glimpses of the Nazi death camps.
Winslet is unafraid to bare herself—histrionically and physically—and there’s excellent support by Alexander Skarsgård, Marion Cotillard, Noémie Merlant, Andrea Riseborough and Josh O’Connor, who plays Miller’s adult son in a not entirely successful subversion of the standard biopic interview arc. Too bad Andy Samberg, as a fellow war photographer, is merely adequate.
(Music Box Films)
French director Quentin Dupieux is a one-man wrecking crew, writing, directing, photographing and editing his parodic films but also running his flimsy ideas into the ground relentlessly so that, even though they’re short (this one clocks in at 77 minutes), his films feel stretched beyond endurance. His latest, a fake biopic about the Spanish surrealist painter, has a germ of an idea—a young Frenchwoman tries to get Dalí to participate in a documentary about his life, but everything goes wrong—but does nothing with it.
Dupieux’s desperate attempts at cleverness—Dalí is played by five different actors, none of whom makes an impression; and there’s brazen thievery galore from Dalí’s occasional cinematic collaborator, Luis Bunuel—add up to little. Holding it together is Anaïs Demoustier, whose natural likability keeps a modicum of interest, but even she (in her fourth Dupieux appearance) can’t conjure laughs where they are none.
Streaming Release of the Week
Mother Nocturna
(Buffalo 8)
In Daniele Campea’s portentous psychological drama, wolf biologist Agnese has been recently discharged from a mental hospital, which has not retarded the progress of her transformation, both physically and mentally, due to the moon’s pull on her. Needless to say, her husband Riccardo and their daughter Arianna are worried about what’s happening to Agnese and have to deal with their own emotional difficulties.
Campea writes and directs with more bluntness than finesse, his dark visuals and dream/nightmare sequences only occasionally giving the material a coherent dramatic shape. It’s up to the actors to provide the heavy lifting, and Susanna Costaglione (Agnese), Edoardo Oliva (Riccardo) and especially Sofia Ponente (Arianna) do their considerable best to make this self-serious drama less risible than it would otherwise have been.
Despicable Me 4
(Universal)
One of Dreamworks’ biggest hits, the latest entry in the Despicable Me franchise balances those irritating minions with the amusing adventures of a family whose ex-supervillain father, Gru, is trying to go straight. Director Chris Renaud finds the requisite humor in the situation that will simultaneously appeal to the kids and their parents equally.
The visuals are vibrant, the voice cast is often hilarious (although Steve Carell is too hammy as Gru), and the laughs and sappiness coexist happily. The UHD transfer looks sumptuous; extras include two new mini-movies (Game Over and Over, Benny’s Birthday), deleted scenes and making-of featurettes.
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
The Creature
(Severin)
A pair of ’70s Spanish features, which are crude if effective examples of filmmaking under Franco as well as just after his dictatorship was toppled in 1976, feature canines in lead roles as potent symbols of Franco’s inhumane regime that considered its enemies no better than wild animals. Director Eloy de la Iglesia’s unsettling 1977 drama focuses on a couple who adopt a stray dog after the wife miscarries; soon she shows an unhealthily close attachment to it, which her conservative husband discovers may have included unusual intimacy.
De la Iglesia milks this creepy plot device for all that it’s worth—including as a metaphor for Franco’s Spain—and actress Ana Belén persuasively plays the besotted wife. The film has a superbly grainy transfer; extras comprise an interview with assistant director Alejo Loren as well as an intro by and interview with French director Gaspar Noé, who’s a big fan.
(Severin)
Director Antonio Isasi’s post-Franco 1977 revenge flick follows Ungria, an escaped political prisoner who is relentlessly pursued by the title canine after Ungria kills his master in self-defense. Isasi follows the fugitive’s fate as relentlessly as the dog does, and the climax is a showdown between wronged man and vengeful beast.
As the unfortunate Ungria, Jason Miller provides the necessary gravitas, while the great Italian actress Lea Massari is equally good as Muriel, a willing stranger who helps Ungria whether in or out of bed. The film looks impressive on Blu-ray; extras comprise an interviews with actress Marisa Paredes (who was married to Isasi) and Maria Isasi, daughter of the director and Paredes.
CD Releases of the Week
Antonín Dvořák—Symphonies 6-9; Works by Smetana and Janáček
(LSO Live)
This four-disc collection—celebrating the 25th anniversary of the London Symphony Orchestra’s label, LSO Live—brings together the seminal recordings Sir Colin Davis made between 1999 and 2005 with the LSO of the final four symphonies of Czech master Antonín Dvořák, culminating with his masterpiece, No. 9, the New World Symphony.
A terrific version of Dvořák’s contemporary Bedřich Smetana’s monumental Má Vlast rounds out the stellar contributions by Davis and the LSO; also included is a wonderful 2018 recording brass-heavy Sinfonietta by another Czech composer, the great Leoš Janáček, by Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO.
(Dacapo)
Vagn Holmboe (1909-96) did not reach the storied heights of his compatriot Carl Nielsen as Denmark’s preeminent composer, but he still accumulated a solid, very impressive body of work. His 13 symphonies are a formidable accomplishment in their own right, and his 17 string quartets encompass a terrain as wide as the 15 quartets for which another contemporary, Dmitri Shostakovich, is justly celebrated.
In the third volume of its journey through Holmboe’s quartets, the Nightingale String Quartet performs two of his middle-period quartets (No. 4, from 1953-54, and No. 5, from 1955) alongside his penultimate quartet (No. 16, from 1981). Holmboe’s musical language is often pared down to the essentials in these works; as the Nightingale members demonstrate, these quartets never lack intensity or intimacy.
September '24 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 26 September 2024 00:44
- Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater Releases of the Week
The Substance
(Mubi)
Although French writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror feature is simply ludicrous, it does have a few scenes that will stay with you, whether you want them to or not—but for the most part, this tale of an aging Hollywood beauty queen who takes an elixir in a desperate attempt to remain young and attractive is too pleased with its one-note plot device to be anything more than a demented little satire that glories in its constant sprays of vomit and, especially, blood, especially in a witless finale (comprising several fake endings) that’s a cross between The Elephant Man and Carrie, of all things.
Elsewhere, Fargeat genuflects at the altar of Kubrick, with countless visual allusions to (or ripoffs of) The Shining and an aural one to 2001, but they only show up Fargeat as a poseur. Much has been made of Demi Moore’s performance as the wannabe ageless Elisabeth Sparkle—she’s not bad, but the makeup and visual effects outact her. Much better is Margaret Whalley, who brings true sparkle to the role of Elisabeth’s younger self, Sue. Too bad both women are at the mercy of a filmmaker who never knows when to say enough, let alone cut. (Then there’s the ridiculously hammy Dennis Quaid, who seems to have been directed by Fargeat with a taser.) If you’re in the mood for a 140-minute directorial sledgehammer, then your mileage may vary.
(Quiver Distribution)
In what’s easily her best screen performance, Elizabeth Banks plays a successful surgeon who must own up to an error made under her watch during what should have been a routine operation that goes wrong.
Writer-director Christine Jeffs starts out by creating a methodical, pinpoint drama that mirrors her heroine’s personality and lifestyle, but soon goes off the dramatic rails with contrived occurrences (one involving her girlfriend’s dog and the other the young resident who made the mistake while under pressure) that prevents the film from becoming an illuminating character study, despite Banks’ intense portrayal.
4K/UHD Releases of the Week
Black Sabbath—The End
(Mercury Studios)
The final Black Sabbath show—before a delirious hometown crowd in Birmingham, England, in 2017—is everything fans could ask for: the goodbye of the most influential originators of heavy metal in a 100-minute concert crammed with their most famous (and infamous) songs, from the opening darkness of “Black Sabbath” to the closing chug of “Paranoid.”
Ozzy Osbourne is in surprisingly good vocal form, considering he has been pretty much unable to sing live since, riffmaster Tony Iommi churns out memorable blasts from his guitar and Geezer Butler’s bass playing is as propulsive as ever. Fill-in drummer Tommy Clufetos, much younger than the core trio, keeps the beat relentlessly. The hi-def video and audio are stupendous; lone extra is in-studio footage of the band creating a final handful of songs in The Angelic Sessions.
(Criterion)
In his first major role, Bob Hoskins gives a dazzling portrayal of a London underworld leader who finds himself in a ramped-up turf war that includes the long tentacles of the IRA—as bombs explode and supplicants end up dead.
John Mackenzie’s brutal 1980 gangster flick colorfully depicts the eruption of violence, and it’s chockful of great moments, like the shower scene with a young Pierce Brosnan (in his film debut); alongside Hoskins is a terrific Helen Mirren as his loyal but fiercely independent moll. The film looks good and grainy in UHD—extras include An Accidental Studio, a 2019 documentary about George Harrison’s Handmade Films, which produced the film; an hour-long making-of feature; Mackenzie’s commentary; and interviews with cinematographer Phil Méheux and screenwriter Barrie Keeffe.
Blu-ray Release of the Week
Before Dawn
(Well Go USA)
In co-writer and director Jordon Prince-Wright’s earnest but oh so familiar war drama, naïve Aussie teen Jim Collins leaves his family’s farm in the outback to enlist in an army regiment going to France to fight in the Great War (WWI); he assumes he’ll only be gone a few months—but ends up trying to survive a years-long morass that showed the futility of the fighting.
Although much is telegraphed, there are a couple of powerful moments, notably in cutting from the trenches to the Collins’ home, with Levi Miller’s sensitive Jim holding it tenuously together.
Rainbow—Live in Munich
(Mercury Studios)
This 1977 concert by hard rockers Rainbow in their best incarnation—leader and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore with powerhouse vocalist Ronnie James Dio front and center—features jams on nearly every song: the 105-minute concert comprises only eight tunes.
That instrumental-vocal interplay makes this a top-notch show, whether the extended, sizzling rendition of “Man on the Silver Mountain” or the epic one-two finale punch of the 27-minute barnburner “Still I’m Sad” and blistering 16-minute “Do You Close Your Eyes.” Two CDs include the audio of the entire concert; one DVD provides decent-looking video and three excellent audio options to choose from.
CD Release of the Week
Neave Trio—Rooted
(Chandos)
For this adventurous trio’s latest release, four composers whose music was heavily influenced by folk idioms are performed: Czechs Bedrich Smetana and Josef Suk, Switzerland’s Frank Martin and African-American Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Their works run the gamut from Smetana’s haunting G-minor Piano Trio (written after his beloved four-year-old daughter’s death) to Martin’s expressive Trio on Popular Irish Melodies; in between are Coleridge-Taylor’s lovely Five Negro Melodies and Suk’s evocative Petit Trio.
As usual, the Neave Trio (violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov and pianist Eri Nakamura) plays these works with a gripping immediacy that makes you think you’re hearing them for the first time.
September '24 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 19 September 2024 01:41
- Written by Kevin Filipski
n-Theater Release of the Week
My Old Ass
(Amazon MGM)
Although Aubrey Plaza is her usual irresistible self as 39-year-old Elliott, who warns the 18-year-old version—who’s about to leave her stifling home life in rural Ontario to attend college in Toronto—not to fall in love with the guy she will definitely fall in love with, but it’s Maisy Stella, as younger Elliott, who gives a revelatory performance.
Stella’s film debut is, well, stellar, giving writer-director Megan Park’s shrewd study its added kick. By turns hilarious and sad, goofy and smart, ridiculous and sublime, My Old Ass is a gas—and for that we must thank Park, Plaza and Stella, a most formidable cinematic trio.
Eric Clapton—Slowhand at 70: Live at the Royal Albert Hall
(Mercury)
To celebrate his 70th birthday, Eric Clapton performed at London's Royal Albert Hall in May 2015 by running through his five-decade career as the preeminent British blues guitar god. His incendiary fretwork on “Key to the Highway” and “Crossroads” remains peerless, but it's surprising that he still insists on digging out the dull acoustic version of “Layla” instead of the fiery original.
But that’s the only quibble with this memorable two-hour musical showcase, which also includes matchless contributions from band members Steve Gadd (drums), Nathan East (bass) and Paul Carrack (keyboards and vocals). The film looks and sounds superb in UHD; lone extra is the scintillating blues workout, “Little Queen of Spades,” which for some reason is not part of the concert but a separate 17-minute bonus track.
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
Late Night with the Devil
(IFC/Shudder)
The directing-writing-editing team, brothers Colin and Cameron Cairnes, have made a clever horror film that shows reverence for classic late-night TV as well as flicks about possession that proliferated in the wake of The Exorcist. But this eerie story about talk-show host Jack Delroy (a fine performance by David Dastmalchian) who gets his deserved comeuppance on his Halloween show in 1977 shoots its load in the first hour then stumbles badly for the final 30 minutes.
The steelbook release features the film on Blu—which looks terrific—and DVD; extras include Dastmalchian’s commentary, the Cairnes brothers’ Q&A and behind the scenes footage, along with a packet of fake memorabilia from Delroy’s show.
(Janus Contemporaries)
For her sophomore feature, Mexican writer-director Lila Avilés has made a gentle but emotionally forceful study of seven-year-old Sol, who is part of the preparations for her father’s birthday party at her grandparents’ house—but her beloved dad is grievously sick, and slowly Sol, her mother and the rest of the family realize the gravity of the impending celebration.
Eschewing sentimentality or condescension, Avilés vividly etches Sol’s world with a mix of heartbreaking sadness and earned humor, and her compassionate film is anchored by the amazing young actress Naíma Sentíes. The film looks beautiful on Blu; lone extra is an interview with Avilés.
Verdi—Macbeth
(Unitel)
Italian master Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) composed two of the best Shakespearean operas, Otello and Falstaff, at the end of his long career: this earlier adaptation is more straightforwardly conventional than those late masterpieces. Still, it’s got a fiercely compelling plot and Verdi does well with scenes like Macbeth’s ghostly apparition and Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking.
Too bad Krzysztof Warlikowski’s antiseptically modern staging at last year’s Salzburg Festival is set in what looks like a vast waiting room, losing the tragic grandeur. At least the leads Vladislav Sulimsky and Asmik Grigorian are excellent, while Philippe Jordan leads the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Chorus in a vivid reading of Verdi’s score. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel
(Chandos)
Yet another Rodgers & Hammerstein classic gets the deluxe Chandos treatment—on the heels of Oklahoma comes this lush-sounding, beautifully sung recording of one of the saddest but most exhilarating musicals in the R&H canon, the story of Billy Bigelow, who watches over his beloved Julie and daughter Louise from the great beyond.
Stagings of the musical must deal with its moral complexities, but recordings can concentrate on the fabulous music, from the wonderful “Carousel Waltz” to two of the most shattering songs the pair ever wrote, “If I Loved You” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” sung by a top cast led by Nathaniel Hackmann, Mikaela Bennett and Sierra Boggess, and performed by the Sinfonia of London under conductor John Wilson.
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