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Reviews
Theater Review—“Julius Caesar” in Central Park
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 13 June 2017 00:49
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Julius Caesar
Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Oskar Eustis
Performances through June 18, 2017
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| Tina Benko, Gregg Henry, Teagle F. Bougere and Elizabeth Marvel in Julius Caesar (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Subtlety is the last thing anyone expects at Shakespeare in Central Park, but Oskar Eustis’s staging of Julius Caesar carries lack of nuance to new heights. This disjointed update of Shakespeare’s tragedy about the intersection of honor, corruption and patriotism envisions Caesar as Donald Trump, a buffoon who has gained the reins of power (no Russian interference here) and who gets his comeuppance at the hands of nationalist conspirators led by his close friend Brutus.
Whether he deserves to die is something Shakespeare famously juggles; after all, this is a play with no discernible villains. Brutus’s reasons for stabbing Caesar are compellingly explicated, then immediately afterward Marc Antony tells the assembled mourners that he’s “come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”—and proceeds to do the opposite. For his part, Eustis adds three words to “if Caesar had stabbed their mothers…on Fifth Avenue,” which gets a cheap laugh, and has Caesar’s wife Calpurnia speak with a thick Slavic accent (even if blonde Tina Benko looks more like Ivanka than Melania). Such additions may be superficially amusing, but give little illumination.
Gregg Henry does quite well as Caesar despite being straitjacketed by a laundry list of Trump mannerisms: leering, stalking, gesticulating, bellowing and giving those infamous rough handshakes. Henry is even able to keep his dignity during a gratuitous nude scene. Elizabeth Marvel’s bizarre Marc Antony—the Orange Julius’s associate in a track suit who is referred to throughout as “she” or “her”—has an inexplicable (and wavering) hayseed accent that undercuts the rousing “friends, Romans, countrymen” speech.
As Brutus, Corey Stoll seems like he’s sleepwalking through the early scenes. That reticence is thrown into high relief when Brutus literally finds his voice after grabbing a microphone for his “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more” speech, where he barks out his lines at the assembled throng. But there’s only a distant sense of a man fatally caught between personal friendship and patriotic duty.
John Douglas Thompson’s Cassius, although too excitable—even if this is partly explained by playing opposite Stoll—speaks with his usual fluency and impeccable diction. Impressive in a small part is Nikki M. James, whose powerful Portia provides all of the necessary emotional weight to her husband Brutus’s moral dilemma in a couple of fleet scenes. James deserves bigger roles in Central Park, like Cleopatra, whom she played wonderfully several seasons back in Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra at Stratford opposite Christopher Plummer.
Eustis stages some marvelously fluid crowd scenes, especially the lengthy dramatics surrounding Brutus and Antony’s post-assassination speeches. Eustis sprinkles members of the ensemble throughout the Delacorte Theater audience to bark out the masses’ impassioned responses, first pro-Brutus, then pro-Caesar and Antony, forcing us to intimately experience how fast such glistening oratory can so swiftly change minds. That’s what comes through most forcefully and clearly in an otherwise off-balance production.
Julius Caesar
Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York, NY
shakespeareinthepark.org
June '17 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 07 June 2017 01:33
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Beauty and the Beast
(Disney)
Sumptuously designed and stuffed with ostentatious visuals that compete with the glorious 1991 animated film, this live-action Disney remake is certainly enjoyable, even if it goes on too long and the last 15 minutes are a series of anticlimaxes short-circuiting the happy ending. Still, director Bill Condon’s flamboyant production includes some beloved songs (and a few new ones), a winning Belle in the form of Emma Watson, and spectacular singing by Audra McDonald as an opera diva turned into a large wardrobe. The Blu-ray looks splendid; extras include on-set interviews, featurettes, music video and deleted scenes.
Bambi
(Disney)
What might be Disney’s most beloved film—among close contenders Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo—this 1942 classic returns in a new Anniversary edition (although why isn’t it the 75th Anniversary Edition?) that has, as its best extra feature, a beautiful hi-def transfer of the original 70-minute gem itself. Sure, there are many extras—including deleted scenes, a deleted song, featurettes, etc.—but it’s Bambi the movie that’s the main reason for anyone to pick up another stellar Disney Blu-ray release.
Evil Ed
(Arrow)
Arrow manages to unearth films both worthy and unworthy: the latest unworthy entry is this intentionally ludicrous 1995 splatter-movie parody about an editor who goes murderously bonkers after rewatching so many graphic slasher-flick images. It might have worked handily as a short, but stretching it out to an ungainly 85 minutes is its death knell, despite a few hilariously bloody moments and a hospital room finale so inept it has to be a joke—but an unfunny one. The film—which includes the original cut and the Special “Ed”-ition (get it?)—looks decent in hi-def; extras include filmmakers’ intro, new making-of documentary, deleted scenes and bloopers.
Fist Fight
(Warner Bros)
I’ve seen a lot of movies over the years that stretch their thin premise way past where it should but this ridiculously self-indulgent would-be comedy pitting two teachers against each other on Senior Prank Day—nerdy Charlie Day and tough Ice Cube—takes its five-minute premise and pads it mercilessly with infantile attempts at humor for another 85 minutes. Both actors deserve better, as does Tracy Morgan, who manages to get laughs despite the paucity of good material. The movie looks fine on Blu; extras include deleted scenes.
Rolling Stones—Olé Olé Olé! A Trip Across Latin America
(Eagle Rock)
The Stones’ recent Central and South American tour was a huge undertaking, since they played places they hadn’t before—notably Cuba—and even if some of this was covered in a previous release, Havana Moon, about the historic Cuba concert, Olé has the added benefit of backstage and behind-the-scenes access to the band’s inner circle and the Stones themselves. Both hi-def video and audio are first-rate on Blu; extras are seven additional full song performances, including a mesmerizing “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Pelle the Conqueror
(Film Movement Classics)
Despite winning the Cannes Palme d’Or and the Best Foreign Film Oscar, Bille August’s intensely epic 1987 exploration of the harsh conditions a young Swedish boy and his elderly father go through after emigrating to Denmark in the early 20th century is a rare film that deserves such accolades. The 150-minute drama is often harrowing, but August displays rich sympathy toward his protagonists, embodied with starkly emotional power by 11-year-old Pelle Hvenegaard and the legendary Max von Sydow (who should have won the Best Actor Oscar that year, not Dustin Hoffman for Rainman). The new hi-def transfer has much authentic film grain, illuminating Jörgen Persson’s photography; lone extra is Peter Cowie’s commentary.
Spotlight on a Murderer
(Arrow Academy)
Georges Franju’s 1961 Agatha Christie-ish mystery, shot in luminous black and white by cinematographer Marcel Fradetal, stumbles badly at the end, but for much of its 90-minute length it’s deliciously nasty fare. There’s a solidly dramatic score by Maurice Jarre, and the exceptional cast is led by Pierre Brasseur, Pascale Audret, Marianne Koch, Dany Saval and a young Jean-Louis Trintignant. The hi-def transfer is excellent; lone extra is a half-hour French TV episode with on-set cast interviews.
The Who—Live at Isle at Wight 2004
(Eagle Rock)
This concert appearance at the famed Isle of Wight Festival was the first for remaining Who members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend after bassist John Entwistle’s death: Roger is in strong voice and Pete is his usual cantankerous self. The excellent set list balances earlier classics from Tommy and Quadrophenia with a nice mix of latter-day tunes like “You Better You Bet” and “Eminence Front,” along with a couple of then-new songs. But why did it take 13 years for this hybrid Blu-ray/two CD version to be released? The hi-def visuals and audio are quite good.
Broadway Review—New Musical “Groundhog Day”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 06 June 2017 00:06
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Groundhog Day
Songs by Tim Minchin; book by Danny Rubin; directed by Matthew Warchus
Opened April 17, 2017
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| Andy Karl in Groundhog Day (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Actor Andy Karl’s onstage injury during a performance of Groundhog Day has overshadowed everything else about the new Broadway musical, especially since it happened the night before I was supposed to see the show. Now that he’s back, seemingly none the worse for wear despite the brace he wears on his knee—which is humorously referenced during the show—it demonstrates both what a trouper he is and how unsurprising it was that he got hurt in the first place.
Groundhog Day, based on the amusing but one-note 1993 Bill Murray comedy about an egotistical weatherman, Phil Connors, forced to relive the title day over and over again, is an exceptionally difficult show to pull off technically. Ace director Matthew Warchus and his ingenious choreographer Peter Darling put their cast in constant movement, along with Rob Howell’s gracefully flexible sets, all of which keep reappearing in various permutations whenever Phil keeps reliving his days, whether the bedroom of his bed and breakfast, the local diner, the place where Punxsutawney Phil might see his shadow, etc.
The pinpoint onstage movements make for some very precarious situations—intentionally of course—as when the costumed “Groundhog Guy” keeps swinging his sun on a stick and knocks Phil in the head. Such tiny milliseconds’ worth of just missing this, or just outrunning that, or jumping something else seemed to lead Karl to take his injurious tumble. But he’s back up there, still plugging away, showing no signs of slowing down. His performance is a comic tour de force: Karl can sing, act, and move easily onstage, all of which he needs to make a charming, charismatic, funny and even sympathetic Phil, sometimes outclassing Bill Murray’s original comic portrait.
Phil Minchin’s songs are serviceable without being particularly distinguished; since the point of the show is repetition, we hear more of several of the songs than we should, and which is more than they can handle. The cast provides Karl with estimable support, particularly the appealing Barrett Doss as Rita, the local TV producer who eventually falls for Phil over the course of many repeated days. But Groundhog Day is as daffily delightful as it is because of Andy Karl.
Groundhog Day
August Wilson Theatre, 245 West 52nd Street, New York, NY
groundhogdaymusical.com
Film Series Review—Open Roads: New Italian Cinema
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 04 June 2017 03:28
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema
Series runs through June 7, 2017
The annual Open Roads: New Italian Cinema series—now in its 17th year—has always been a valuable addition to New York’s cinema calendar, but nowadays it’s even more so because it may be the only way to see new films from Italian masters like Ermanno Olmi (whose Greenery Will Bloom Again was a highlight two years ago) or Marco Bellocchio (whose Dormant Beauty headlined the 2013 edition) in this fractured world of releases where even streaming isn’t a guarantee of seeing what one wants to.
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| Giovanna Mezzogiorno in Gianni Amelio's Tenderness |
Bellocchio is back this year with Sweet Dreams, which I haven’t seen, but another great director, Gianni Amelio—best known for an unbroken string of excellent films from Open Doors and Stolen Children to Lamerica and The Way We Laughed in the late ‘80s to mid ‘90s—has returned with his subtle and probing psychological study, Tenderness, that provides insights into the complicated relationships of an elderly father and his two emotionally distant adult children with Amelio’s customarily acute sensitivity. He’s aided by incisive performances by Renato Carpentieri (father), Arturo Muselli (son) and the always impressive Giovanna Mezzogiorno (daughter).
Another director, Marco Tullio Giordana—he of the absorbing epic underworld chronicle The Best of Youth—comes a cropper with Two Soldiers, a flimsy and underwhelming drama about a young woman grieving over her fiancé’s battlefield death in Afghanistan who finds herself caring for a wounded thug holed up in her empty apartment. Aside from the expressive Angela Fontana’s sympathetic heroine, Two Soldiers is as clunky and obvious as its title.
Other forgettable entries include Irene Dionisio’s debut feature Pawn Street, a by-the-numbers melodrama revolving around the people who work at and go to a local pawn shop: its many characters who are scarcely differentiated and end up not being worth remembering. Equally scattershot is Ears, Alessandro Aronadio’s absurdist comedy about a man who runs into ever more lunatic characters and situations; but even Aronadio’s increasingly desperate visuals—including shifting aspect ratios—can’t cover up its fatiguing laboriousness.
Much more successful is Deliver Us, an eye-opening documentary by Federica Di Giacomo, who follows a Sicilian priest as he performs rites of exorcism to try and toss out the “demons” that inhabit many of the Catholics who seek him out as a hope of last resort. Without any condescension or commentary, Di Giacomo intelligently shows how religion, whatever its flaws, can provide needed spiritual and psychological comfort.
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema 2017
Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, NY
filmlinc.org
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