the traveler's resource guide to festivals & films
a FestivalTravelNetwork.com site
part of Insider Media llc.

Connect with us:
FacebookTwitterYouTubeRSS
You are here: Home Film & Arts Reviews

Reviews

January '17 Digital Week II

  • Print
Details
Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 10 January 2017 23:50
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week 
The Accountant
(Warner Bros)
In this clever but contrived thriller, Ben Affleck plays an autistic CPA cooking the books for the mob who conveniently has martial arts and weapons training from his military father: so when he becomes the bad guys’ target, he is able to take lethal aim at them as well.
Affleck’s taciturn turn works well for his character, while Anna Kendrick contributes her usual amusing bit as a fellow accountant who joins him on the run. Too bad that after the halfway point, the convoluted plotting goes off the rails and turns a guilty pleasure into an aggressively dumb drama. The hi-def image is excellent; extras comprise several short featurettes.
 
Black America Since MLK—And Still I Rise
(PBS)
Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s impassioned, polemical but pointed personal history of the past half-century of African American life—from the Civil and Voting Rights Acts to Black Lives Matter—consists of four one-hour segments chronicling those five decades in expansive and intimate ways.
Gates speaks with everyone from Eric Holder to Jesse Jackson alongside well-chosen footage that spells out the importance of so many of these events. There’s a superior hi-def transfer.
 
Girls—Complete 5th Season 
(HBO)
I’ve never been a fan of Lena Dunham’s obnoxiously navel-gazing career, beginning with her inept debut film Tiny Furniture and continuing with the consistently resistible Girls.
There are decent performances by Allison Williams and Jemima Kirke as the two least annoying characters in the series, but that’s scant compensation for what continues to be egomania run amuck masquerading as an insightful comedy series. The hi-def transfer looks good; extras are featurettes and deleted/extended scenes.
 
The People vs. Fritz Bauer
(Cohen Media)
Dramatizing how West German prosecutor Fritz Bauer, in the late 1950s against considerable pushback, helped Israel’s Mossad track down and capture Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina, this intelligent biopic is anchored by an unshowy bit of superlative acting by Burghart Klaussner as Bauer.
Director-cowriter Lars Kraume—who also slyly shows how the repressive sexual politics of the time could destroy careers—has fashioned an important and absorbing lesson about not-so-distant historical events that mustn’t be forgotten. The movie looks sharp and natural on Blu-ray; extras are deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.
 
DVD of the Week 
Eero Saarinen—The Architect Who Saw the Future
(PBS)
Son of a noted architect himself, Eero Saarinen surpassed father Eliel’s talent with his own genius in this engrossing hour-long PBS American Masters episode, narrated by Eero’s own son Eric. Creating iconic structures like JFK Airport’s TWA terminal, Dulles Airport and the St. Louis Arch,
Saarinen’s individuality is on display throughout. But even in its longer version—which, unseen on TV, is included on DVD—this program only scratches the surface of what Eero accomplished in his lifetime. Four short featurettes are included as extras.
 
My King
(Film Movement)
As writer-director, French actress Maïwenn makes intense films about passionate characters: following her previous feature, the hard-hitting drama Polisse, is an exquisitely intimate study of what must be one of the most dysfunctional relationships ever captured on film.
Overlong and with too many emotional and plot detours, My King nevertheless displays Maïwenn’s fierce talent behind the camera and the equally committed performance of Emmanuelle Bercot as a woman who can’t drop the man in her life (a one-note Vincent Cassel). Extras comprise outtakes, deleted scene and Maïwenn’s debut short, 2004’s I’m an Actrice, with the director herself in the lead.
 
CDs of the Week
Ginastera: One Hundred
(Oberlin Music)
Tania Stavreva: Rhythmic Movement 
(TS)
The 2016 centenary of Argentine master Alberto Ginastera’s birth went by with nary a whimper, a shame considering the exceptional works he composed before his death in 1983. A few recordings nodded to the anniversary, like Sony’s re-issue of his opera Bormazo. But the best is Ginastera: One Hundred, which showcases top-flight soloists in first-rate performances of some of his most renowned compositions.
Yolanda Kondonassis (with Oberlin Orchestra) plays the  Harp Concerto; Gil Shaham and sister Orli Shaham the violin-piano duet Pampeana No. 1; Jason Vieux, the Sonata for Guitar; and Orli Shaham, the set of solo piano pieces, Danzas Argentinas. As satisfying as this recording is, it’s too short: at 55 minutes, there was surely room for another substantial Ginastera work.
 

Bulgarian pianist Tania Stavreva also pays tribute to Ginastera on her new CD, Rhythmic Movement: excerpts from his piano music are thrillingly performed by this monstrously talented musician, who illuminates Ginastera with works that exploit the rhythmic aspect of the keyboard, including her own pieces and Bulgarian folk tunes. The final track, taken from the final movement of Ginastera’s Piano Sonata, has Stavreva and drummer Will Calhoun exploring rhythm in fascinating ways.

January '17 Digital Week I

  • Print
Details
Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Wednesday, 04 January 2017 13:53
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week 

Downton Abbey—The Complete Collection

(PBS)
The most watched PBS Masterpiece offering in history is this six-season series created by Julian Fellowes, who meticulously recreated the insular worlds of both masters and servants on a British estate, stretching from pre-World War I to the roaring (but still ominous) ‘20s.
What began as a sort of Upstairs, Downstairs for a new generation soon became an absorbing soap opera in its own right, with the likes of Maggie Smith, Elizabeth McGovern and Hugh Bonneville playing the gentrified family members whose own domestic dramas are played out while their servants’ own lives undergo scrutiny. This 21-disc set comprises all 52 episodes from the half-dozen seasons, as well as plenty of bonus features that include on-set featurettes, interviews and five hours of previously unseen material.
 
Hamlet
(Opus Arte)
Young British actor Paapa Essiedu was one of the highlights of the recent Shakespeare Live! at Stratford for the 400th anniversary of his death (shown on PBS), speaking Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech with clarity and power, so it’s heartening that he plays the part with intelligence and charisma in Simon Godwin’s otherwise unexciting staging at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The supporting cast is undistinguished except for Natalie Simpson’s emotive Ophelia, while directorial liberties obscure rather than illuminate. At least Essiedu shows he’s one of Britain’s great acting hopes. Hi-def video and audio are good; extras are Godwin’s commentary and behind the scenes featurette.
 
Hermann Prey—The Schubert Song Cycles 
(C Major)
One of the best German lieder singers of the past half century, Hermann Prey was especially compelling performing his beloved Franz Schubert, and this disc brings together video recordings of him singing the three great Schubert song cycles: Die schone mullerin, Schwanengasang and Winterreise.
He’s in peak vocal form, and his piano accompanists (Leonard Hokanson on the first two, Helmut Deutsch on Winterreise) are with him every step of the way. Audio and video (these are recordings from 1984 and ‘86) are adequate; extras are Prey’s intros for all three cycles and a 50-minute documentary about his career.
 
Mefistofele
La Traviata
(C Major)
Recent stagings of two classic 19thcentury operas are distinguished by top-notch casts, beginning with Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, brought into the musical stratosphere by peerless bass-baritone Rene Pape as the devil, tenor Joseph Calleja as Faust and a riveting Kristine Opolais as Margherita.
Verdi’s Traviata has at its center Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko, who makes the courtesan Violetta her own and may be well on her way to becoming the new Anna Netrebko, now that Netrebko has settled into a comfortable middle age. Both discs feature first-rate hi-def video and audio.
 
The Night Has a Thousand Desires 
(Mondo Macabro)
Spanish softcore auteur Jess Franco made this 1984 pseudo-erotic thriller, characterized—as always—by his leading lady’s penchant for frequent disrobing, which, since the actress in question is Lina Romay (who’s easy on the eyes, whatever her merits as a thespian), it’s a not unpleasant way to spend 94 minutes.
Dramatically, Franco’s style is inert and turgid, but he does occasionally make things interesting if not entirely engrossing. The film looks decent enough on Blu-ray; extras comprise a Franco documentary and interview with horror-film buff Stephen Thrower.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DVDs of the Week
Britain’s Bloody Crown
(Athena)
Historian and English monarchy expert Dan Jones has made an engaging four-part document of royal history, essentially going over the same Wars of the Roses territory that the recent PBS Masterpiece series The Hollow Crown did via Shakespeare.
But even though Jones makes such red rivers of royal blood—through corruption, double-crossing and endless wars—come alive, he’s hamstrung by one of my ownbetes noires, re-created historical events, which even when done well as they are here seem inadequate to illuminate historical events.
 
The Secret Agent 
(Acorn)
This adaptation of one of Joseph Conrad’s classic novels (albeit not as well-known as Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim) is centered by an accomplished performance by Toby Jones as a British businessman and family man who doubles—to the behest of no one, not even his wife—as a Russian spy.
This sumptuous three-hour adaptation, originally made for British TV, has several sequences where it spins its wheels dramatically and narratively, but overall it’s a stimulating, even at times gripping, piece of work.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CD of the Week
Manon Lescaut
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Giacomo Puccini’s tragic romance doesn’t really need another recording at this date, but when the lead role of that fatal beauty is sung by none other than Russian superstar Anna Netrebko at the top of her considerable vocal game, then why not?
Marco Armiliato sensitively conducts Puccini’s ravishing score in this performance from the most recent Salzburg Festival; too bad Netrebko’s husband, tenor Yusif Eyvazov, is not up to snuff as Des Grieux, Manon’s bewitched lover.

Broadway Review—New Musical “A Bronx Tale”

  • Print
Details
Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 03 January 2017 13:26
Written by Kevin Filipski
A Bronx Tale
Book by Chazz Palminteri; music by Alan Menken; lyrics by Glenn Slater
Directed by Robert DeNiro and Jerry Zaks; choreographed by Sergio Trujillo
Opened December 1, 2016
 
Nick Cordero and Hudson Loverro in A Bronx Tale (photo: Joan Marcus)
Of all the musical adaptations that have cluttered the Broadway landscape recently, I didn’t have much hope for A Bronx Tale. Based on Chazz Palminteri’s autobiographical one-man stage show—itself turned into a 1993 film directed by and starring Robert DeNiro—it follows a young Italian boy, Calogero, befriended by a Mafia hood who becomes his strangely credible second father of sorts.
 
But despite such innately unmusical material, A Bronx Taleworks handily onstage. Palminteri’s book nicely balances the comic overtones of a streetwise kid’s growing up in the 1960s with the serious undertones of Sonny’s violent way of life. Even the romantic subplot between teenage Calogero and his girlfriend Jane plays out in an era of racial strife—Jane is black—giving added weight to what would otherwise be frivolous high school happenings.
 
Director Jerry Zaks’ forte is the zestiness of the staging, although the sudden violence and intense confrontations may be co-director DeNiro’s contribution. Always a clever hand with stage movement, Sergio Trujillo provides shapely and vigorous choreography. If Glenn Slater’s lyrics are passable at best and shopworn at worst, Alan Menken’s songs remain pleasantly entertaining al a Jersey Boys, which the framework of this show vaguely resembles.
 
The large cast is uniformly good, even if Richard H. Blake and Lucia Giannetta, both engaging as Calogero’s parents, have too little to do. Ariana Debose makes a winning Jane, and if Bobby Conte Thornton is a little too on the nose as the grown-up Calogero, Hudson Loverro is an irresistibly appealing presence as the young boy.
 
Best of all is Nick Cordero as Sonny, whom Palminteri played in the movie. In a bit of serendipity, Cordero also played Cheech in the Broadway version of Bullets over Broadway, which Palminteri had also played in Woody Allen’s classic movie. So Cordero has always shown adeptness at portraying hoods with a brilliantly uncanny way of simultaneously playing into the mobster stereotype and hilariously, even touchingly, transcending it.
 
That Cordero also has a fantastic stage presence—which he puts to thrilling use in his solo number, “One of the Great Ones”—earns him the overused sobriquet “show-stopper.” A Bronx Taleis a fun diversion, but Cordero makes it well-nigh unmissable.
 
A Bronx Tale
Longacre Theatre, 220 West 48th Street, New York, NY
abronxtalethemusical.com

Writer/Actor Laoisa Sexton Let's Fly “The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal”

  • Print
Details
Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Friday, 23 December 2016 19:48
Written by Brad Balfour

The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal
Written by Laoisa Sexton
Directed by Alan Cox
Starring Laoisa Sexton, John Keating, Johnny Hopkins and Zoë Watkins 

Within the relatively streamlined two hours of "The Pigeon in The Taj Mahal," a new play written by Irishwoman Laiosa Sexton, the words spoken by this odd quartet reveals more than just offbeat slangy patter; it presents both a lost inner world and the isolated world of Ireland’s West Country lifers.

When Eddie The Pigeon (John Keating) first appears on stage — a skeletal drink of water with a graying afro rooted on his head — his repetitious babble suggests someone with Asperger’s syndrome. His lives in a decrepit Winnebago — a home once shared with his now-deceased mother — surrounded by Elvis’ music and photos, and not much more. He works as a junkyard security guard and does little else, that is, until the night Lolly (Laoisa Sexton) lands on his doorstep, dropped off there while in a drunken, battered stupor.

Set in a rural trailer park, these two seem to be from very different cultures yet when they confront each other that night they connect in odd ways. He represents an older world of winding roads and lost pathways that not even tourists visit. Though she’s steeped in contemporary accouterment like iPhones and contemporary pop music, Lolly also comes from another kind of isolated life, one of poverty and the seemingly dead-end scene of drunken partying and mutually abusive long-term relationships.

Once Pigeon carries her into his hovel, where she’s revived by a spot of hot tea, the banter shifts from monologue to a dialogue of sorts — two conversations sometimes intersecting, other times passing by with shared misunderstanding. Clearly, he’s excited to find a young woman in smeared makeup and ripped tulle; he exclaims, “You have the uncommon beauty [of] a swan in a dirty lake!” 

Dressed like a rumpled-yet-glittery punk-ified bride, Lolly wakes from her addled state acting aggressive yet also intrigued. At once threatening and manipulative, she alternates between being a waif and seductress who can’t quite get a handle on her mark. And when her pal Auntie Rosie (Zoë Watkins) arrives in an equally shattered-and-tattered state, frenzied interplay ensues. Within the banter lies both comedy and pathos. The dynamic between both camps — one lost in the past, the other in the present — highlights how both have become disconnected from realities that urbane city dwellers like us New Yorkers — are normally linked to. 

In a funny way, there’s a relevance to this play, as if it’s about people who could be considered the “deplorables.” Especially once coke-head boyfriend Johnny (Johnny Hopkins) arrives to retrieve his consort/victim and joins in on the “dis-assemblage.”

Without stating any profundity here — especially because not much really happens  — Sexton’s clever text and Alan Cox’s tight direction keeps the shambling conversation going. While they don’t really say anything that substantial, they survive in their various addled states without knowing exactly what to say — or think. They just drive forward without much reason or purpose but somehow we, as an audience, get it. The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal shows just how much these four people, and those whom they represent, try to survive — at least through this one night. 

Rush to see “The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal” at the Irish Repertory Theatre (132 W. 22nd St., NY NY) before it closes this December 31st for its uniquely Irish verbal gymnastics; this convoluted and arcane wordplay makes it worth catching.

To learn more, go to: https://irishrep.org/

The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal

November 27 -December 31st, 2016

Irish Repertory Theatre
132 W. 22nd St.
New York, NY 10011

More Articles...

  1. Leading Ladies On Stage—Sutton Foster in “Sweet Charity”; Laura Osnes at 54 Below
  2. Director Peter Berg's Illuminating Look At "Patriots Day"
  3. December '16 Digital Week III

Newsletter Sign Up

Upcoming Events

No Calendar Events Found or Calendar not set to Public.

Tweets!