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Reviews
June '17 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 28 June 2017 03:04
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Joe Versus the Volcano
(Warner Archive)
In 1990, this must have seemed like a sure-fire hit: Oscar-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck) makes his directing debut with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in a romantic comedy. But the result is a movie that wrong-foots it every step of the way.
There’s a thin line that separates charming from cloying and Shanley and his leads rarely find themselves on the right side of it, leading to many wincingly awful situations that are not nearly as romantic, dramatic or comedic as they think. Shanley would later become a major playwright (Four Dogs and a Bone, Doubt, Outside Mullingar), so this bit of treacle can be considered a mere bump in his road. There’s an outstanding hi-def transfer; extras are a brief featurette and music video.
Cinderella
(Opus Arte)
One of the most beguiling of all ballet scores is Sergei Prokofiev’s timeless take on the classic fairy tale, and with such a sturdy piece of music to work with, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has created an absorbing and entertaining two hours of dance in his 2012 staging for the Dutch National Ballet.
The dancing and movement are sublime, the sets, costumes and visuals (by Julian Crouch and Basil Twist) are charming and Prokofiev’s unbeatable music leads the way. Hi-def video and audio are impeccably rendered; extras comprise Wheeldon’s commentary and interviews with Wheeldon and dancers.
The Golden Cockerel
This colorful production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s fantastical final opera about an aging Tsar who receives the title bird to warn him of any dangers is a smashing musical and dramatic success, thanks to Anna Matison’s excellent direction, which features clever use of CGI.
Conductor Valery Gergiev leads the orchestra in a lush musical performance of one of the composer’s most attractive scores, while the singers—led by young Russian soprano Kira Loginova in the title role—provide first-rate vocals. The Blu-ray audio and video are in spectacular hi-def.
Heli
(Strand Releasing)
Writer-director Amat Escalante’s relentlessly downbeat drama throttles viewers with its depiction of the lawlessness running rampant in a Mexico overrun by drug wars, corrupt police and beaten-down ordinary people, including the young man who tries to help his 12-year-old sister, only to trigger horrible events that include abduction, torture, rape and murder.
It’s serious stuff, and exceedingly well-made, but there are diminishing returns to a film that displays grotesque acts of violence, inuring viewers from caring about what happens to its onscreen characters. The hi-def transfer is first-rate; lone extra is a half-hour on-set featurette.
DVDs of the Week
(First Run)
Fred Peabody’s incisive chronicle of our broken politics features the usual talking heads—Noam Chomsky, Carl Bernstein, Matt Taibbi—but it’s more than mere preaching to the choir: its subtitle, Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone, alludes to the legacy of one of the great progressive journalists, whom we desperately need more of today.
Hearing journalists like Jeremy Scahill take on Stone’s mantle of fighting the good fight against a deceptive government—whether Bush, Obama or Trump—shows that there is hope that we the people can overcome what our leaders have become. Extras are extended interviews.
Unlocking the Cage
(First Run)
For their latest documentary, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus tackle a subject not on currently on anyone’s radar, but which may soon generate huge controversies: are animals (especially primates) sentient, which makes them eligible for personhood, like corporations? The filmmakers follow attorney Steven Wise, who works with animal-rights groups to find cases (apes being held in captivity) to bring before the court and try to get favorable rulings. It’s an eye-opening glimpse at what the future of legal rights for individuals (humans and non-humans) may hold, however problematic or nonsensical it might seem to some right now. The lone extra is a music video.
Film reviews—Bertrand Tavernier Retrospective and Documentary “My Journey Through French Cinema”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 26 June 2017 02:11
- Written by Kevin Filipski
My Journey Through French Cinema
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier
Bertrand Tavernier: Film and Nothing But
Through June 29, 2017
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| Bertrand Tavernier in My Journey Through French Cinema |
In his New York Times review of Bertrand Tavernier’s Safe Conduct at the 2002 New York Film Festival, Elvis Mitchell actually penned the following line: “Bertrand Tavernier is not often thought of as a man of passion.”
Anybody who could write such an obvious howler has no business reviewing films, for it is so patently untrue. If anything, Tavernier is overzealous in his passion about the films he makes, the characters who populate them and the stories they find their way through. Seeing even one of his films in the Quad Cinema’s current retrospective, Film and Nothing But—or his new, endlessly fascinating My Journey Through French Cinema, also showing at the Quad this week—will put the lie to Mitchell’s foolish statement.
Tavernier’s passionate film knowledge is evident in every second of My Journey Through French Cinema, which runs a staggering 190 minutes but flies by more quickly than anything playing in the local cineplex. The director’s personal chronicle of what has most moved him onscreen since he became besotted with movies in his youth is done so beautifully, so charmingly, so admirably, that you wish it would go on for several more hours.
As always with Tavernier, there are marvelous anecdotes, superb insights, treasured observations: when discussing composer Maurice Jaubert among the greats of ‘30s and ‘40s cinema, Tavernier’s enthusiasm comes through so forcefully that you feel his warmth, his embrace, his marvelously attuned personality to all things cinematic.
As the retrospective Film and Nothing But demonstrates, Tavernier is impossible to pigeonhole, which may be why he’s not held in the high esteem he should be. His debut was a splendid adaptation of a novel by Georges Simenon, 1973’s The Clockmaker, but he’s also made historical epics, science-fiction films, war dramas, period pieces, intimate character studies, etc.
What these films all have in common is the Tavernier Touch, which offer fractured narratives that rarely provide the sort of closure most audiences expect, along with an affection for his flawed, ordinary, and all too human characters.
The great actor Philippe Noiret was Tavernier’s alter ego for several of the director’s best films, from The Clockmaker to 1989’s devastating World War I epic Life and Nothing But (June 26). Tavernier’s masterly The Judge and the Assassin (1976; showing June 29) stars Noiret as a judge who must decide an insane murderer’s fate, and the cat-and-mouse between the men (Michel Galabru is also magnificent as the killer) is brilliantly observed.
Other must-sees this week are 1980’s A Week’s Vacation (June 29), a beautifully realized look at a young woman’s mini-breakdown that showcases Natalie Baye’s subtle performance;Captain Conan (June 26), a stunning 1996 drama of French soldiers fighting in the Balkans after World War I; ‘Round Midnight (June 29), Tavernier’s 1986 valentine to be-bop jazz, starring the inimitable Dexter Gordon in an Oscar-nominated performance; L. 627 (June 27), a dark and moody 1992 study of French cops trying to clean up the streets of drugs; 1995’s Fresh Bait (June 27), Tavernier’s superior riff on the Natural Born Killers theme; and his most recent features, 2010’s The Princess of Montpensier (June 27), a tough-minded but ultimately heartbreaking historical romance, and 2013’s The French Minister (June 28), anunabashed and witty satire of French—and, by extension, international—politics.
More than four decades into a first-rate career, Bertrand Tavernier continues to make highly personal, extremely sophisticated films that defy easy categorization. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
My Journey Through French Cinema
Directed by Bertrand Tavernier
Bertrand Tavernier: Film and Nothing But
Quad Cinema, 34 W 13th Street, New York, NY
quadcinema.com
June '17 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 20 June 2017 20:49
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Marseille Trilogy
(Criterion)
Marcel Pagnol, one of the greatest writers in early French cinema—along with his work for the stage and on the page—created a classic cinematic trilogy in the 1930s: Marius (1931), Fanny (1932) and Cesar (1936), the first directed by Alexander Korda, the second by Marc Allegret and the last by Pagnol himself, whose humanity, and love for both life and ordinary people is shot through all three films, which feature wonderfully vivid acting by Pierre Fresnay (Marius), Orane Demazis (Fanny) and Raimu (Cesar).
Criterion’s magnificent new transfers show off the pristine B&W compositions by three different cinematographers; extras include an ingratiating intro by Bertrand Tavernier; interview with grandson Nicolas Pagnol; segments of a 1973 documentary series Marcel Pagnol: Morceaux choisis; Marseille, a 1935 documentary short produced by Pagnol; and archival interviews with Fresnay, Demazis and Robert Vattier.
American Epic
(PBS)
Digging deep into our country’s musical past, this three-hour documentary narrated by Robert Redford recounts how ordinary people with extraordinary talent had their music recorded and preserved for the first time. All three episodes are crammed with great songs and rarely-seen (and rarely-heard) archival footage.
The second disc, The American Epic Sessions, comprises 90 minutes of joyous musicmaking as contemporary artists record new tunes using the only surviving piece of working recording equipment from the 1920s; among them are Elton John, Los Lobos, Nas, Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, and Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard. The hi-def transfer is first-rate.
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
(Arrow Academy)
Italian giallo master Dario Argento made his debut in 1970 with this tense murder mystery about an American writer in Rome who, after witnessing an attempted murder, is swept up by a serial killer on the loose. Tony Musante (from TV’s Toma) is perfectly cast as the American out of his element, and Argento suggests without being explicit, which he later frequently abandoned. Bonuses are gritty cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and a modernist score by Ennio Morricone.
Arrow’s hi-def transfer is sensationally good and grainy; extras include an audio commentary, new interviews with Argento and actor Gildo di Marco, archival interview with actress Eva Renzi and video essay on Argento’s films.
King Lear
(Opus Arte)
This 2016 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Shakespeare’s most shattering tragedy stars an overripe Antony Sher as the monarch who gives away his kingdom only to fall prey to insanity and mortality. Director Gregory Doran does nothing egregiously wrong, but never allows the Bard’s taut drama to cohere.
There are scattered gems among the cast, notably Antony Byrne’s Kent and Oliver Johnstone’s Edgar; Natalie Simpson is a pleasing Cordelia, but sisters Regan and Goneril are embodied without much distinction by Kelly Williams and Nia Gwynne. The staging is shown in sharp hi-def; extras are Doran’s commentary, Sher interview and costume featurette.
Moses und Aron
New York City Ballet in Paris
(Bel Air Classiques)
Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal opera Moses und Aron is pretty static dramatically, which is why Romeo Castellucci’s 2015 Paris Opera staging spends much of its time concentrating on offbeat, even bizarre visuals, including the sight of an actual ox standing onstage for several minutes (without being sacrificed). Philippe Jordan conducts orchestra and chorus to a perfect 12-tone maelstrom; the leads are enacted vividly by Thomas Johannes-Mayer and John Graham-Hall.
A record of the company’s 2016 tour to the City of Lights, New York City Ballet in Paris dazzlingly shows off several classic Balanchine dances set to music by French masters Gounod, Ravel and Bizet, played boisterously by the Orchestre Promethee led by Daniel Capps. Hi-def video and audio are excellent.
"Brits Off Broadway" Theater Review—“Invincible” by Torben Betts
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 19 June 2017 10:41
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Invincible
Written by Torben Betts; directed by Stephen Darcy
Performances through July 2, 2017
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| The cast of Invincible (photo: Manuel Harlan) |
Torben Betts has been called the new Alan Ayckbourn. Too bad, then, that Betts’s play Invincible is messy, heavy-handed and pandering, turning everything that Ayckbourn does so effortlessly in his class-conscious plays into fodder for cheap, easy laughs.
In a northern England neighborhood, Emily and Oliver—a newly downsized couple from London—preps for a visit from Alan and Dawn, the husband and wife next door. Although Betts gives his foursome separate identities, he never allows these men and women to become both comprehensible and humane. And right from the beginning, Betts stacks the dramatic and comedic deck.
Emily and Oliver open the play discussing Oliver’s dying mum, an apparently horrible (and politically conservative) woman who so offends the socialist sensibilities of her daughter-in-law that she refuses to even consider marrying Oliver to appease his mother before she dies. Emily immediately becomes one of the most unlikable stage characters I’ve yet encountered, and Betts doesn’t stop there.
After Dawn and Alan—both working-class caricatures—arrive, Emily mocks Alan’s lack of talent when he shows his paintings of his beloved cat Vince (named after the ship HMS Invincible, and giving the play its title), then gives a shallow defense of socialism and critique of capitalism so that even the most liberal audience member will find her irritating.
Emily’s tone-deafness is one of a series that Betts takes to extremes. Emily and Oliver discuss 16th century British composers Byrd and Tallis with authority and have an oversized, coffee-table volume of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. Alan is so dense that he sees that book and thinks the writer was one of the Marx Brothers, leading to a painfully unfunny interlude where he impersonates his favorite comedy team, Laurel and Hardy.
Alan is also a huge fan of football while Dawn and Oliver commiserate over how much they hate it. (Cricket was Oliver’s college sport.) The two women even look blatantly opposite: bespectacled Emily has her hair in a bun and wears no makeup; Dawn improbably wears a tiny dress to show off her bosom and legs, then becomes embarrassed when she’s being leered at.
What in Ayckbourn are endearing eccentrics are in Betts’s hands easily manipulated chess pieces: this is most evident in act two, when both couples deal with tragedies involving their sons, an adulterous interlude rears its head and Alan’s beloved cat disappears.
Director Stephen Darcy makes it all go by in a whirlwind, and his expert cast—Elizabeth Boag (Dawn), Emily Bowker (Emily), Graeme Brookes (Alan) and Alastair Whatley (Oliver)—both gets laughs and finds the poignance missing from Betts’s script.
Boag, a veteran of previous Ayckbourn plays at Brits Off Broadway, does so much with a mere raised eyebrow or a simple shrug that she makes Dawn sympathetic rather than silly, nearly making Invincible a must-see despite the writing’s deficiencies.
Invincible
Brits Off Broadway, 59 East 59th Street, New York, NY
59e59.org
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