Blu-rays of the Week

Johnny Depp disappears into the role of despicable monster Whitey Bulger, and his frighteningly realistic performance powers Scott Cooper's engrossing but diffuse look at how the mobster had the Boston FBI and police in his pocket for decades, until his capture in 2011. 

 

Although seemingly everything's in place—acting, writing, directing, atmosphere—something's missing from this portrait, mainly psychological depth: as creepy as Depp is, we never see behind Bulger's bludgeoning. The movie has a superlative hi-def transfer; extras are featurettes on the film and an hour-long documentary on Bulger.

 

Elvis Costello—Detour: Live at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall 

Elvis Costello's recent homecoming concert was mainly an intimate solo performance: he played guitar or piano on some of his best songs, and not always the most obvious ones: alongside classics like "Watching the Detectives" and "Alison," the career-spanning concert includes equally strong songs like "Pads Paws and Claws" and "Brilliant Mistake." 

 

Along with Costello’s wry in-between songs patter, great support is provided by sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell of Larkin Poe. Both hi-def video and audio are sharp; extras are four additional songs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love the Coopers

A family's attempt to avoid dysfunction during the holiday season is the subject of Love the Coopers, a schizophrenic comedy that fails to balance its interesting relationship avenues with an unabashed sappiness; the likes of Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Marisa Tomei and Alan Arkin can't get much traction against a stumbling script. 

 

In MI-5,the British intelligence services battle a formidable terrorist plotting a huge attack on London; the taut thriller largely avoids yawning plot holes as it heads to a climactic fizzle. Both films have first-rate transfers; extras include deleted scenes (on MI-5) and featurettes (on both discs).

 

Paulette 

Bernadette Lafont makes an endearingly spunky heroine as a retiree who figures out she can make quick cash by selling drugs for local dealers, in the process discovering she can also be a good mother to her estranged daughter and better grandmother to her grandson, whose father just happens to be the local cop fighting the drug gangs. 

 

Frightfully contrived, it manages to withstand close scrutiny thanks to Lafont's turn as a female Archie Bunker of an apartment block who outsmarts both crooks and cops. The hi-def transfer is fine; extras are 10 deleted scenes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sheba, Baby 

While queen of '70s Blaxploitation movies, Pam Grier made routine pictures like director-writer William Girdler’s entry about a private eye who leaves Chicago for her hometown to help her family in distress, only to fight for her life (and revenge) against a group of ruthless gangsters. 

 

Grier is in decent form even if Sheba is a by-the-numbers heroine, and the movie ends up more undistinguished than diverting. Now how about The Arena on Blu-ray? The film looks good enough on Blu; extras include two commentaries, interview with co-writer David Sheldon and Pam Grier featurette.

 

The 33 

The real-life drama that played out in Chile six years ago—33 miners were trapped for months amid media saturation coverage about whether the company could get them out alive—is reenacted in director Patricia Riggen's sentimental but involving docudrama. 

 

Although much of the movie hits unsurprising emotional beats—and Juliette Binoche is particularly wasted as a miner's sister—the satisfying result is ultimately moving, especially when the real men's faces are seen at the end. There’s a top-notch hi-def transfer; extras are two short featurettes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best cop show currently streaming, on TV or DVD remains this epic French policier: the fifth season follows the same seasoned Parisian police unit, this time tackling a baffling double murder case and dealing with the usual twists and turns it entails: what's best about the series is its inside look at (to these American eyes anyway) the confusing French justice system, with lawyers, judges and police working together—or against one another. 

A  charming account of Gioacchino Rossini's delightful, but too uncommonly played, Overture to his early opera, The Silken Ladder, opened the program. This was followed by an equal sterling rendition of Johann Sebastian Bach's magnificent, if indeed ultra-familiar, Air (on a G string), from his Orchestral Suite No. 3.

 

The third work of the evening was the New York premiere of the not unrewarding Black, White and In Between, the first of three violin concertos, thus far, by the contemporary Belgian composer, who conducted the piece after addressing the audience first in English and then in his native Flemish. This was beautifully played by the the musicians who were excellently accompanied by soloist, Irene Abrigo, last year's winner of the Respighi Prize, given by this Orchestra.

 

The second half of the concert opened with a sublime performance of the U.S. premiere of Burley Heath, an extraordinary early work by Ralph Vaughan Williams that deserves to enter the standard classical repertory. The evening closed on a high note with a lucid account of Franz Schubert's wonderful, Mozartean Symphony No. 5. I hope to hear these accomplished musicians again on June 23rd when they will be appearing at the Morgan Library, on a program including works by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Ottorino Respighi alongside the magisterial "Jupiter" Symphony of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Blu-rays of the Week

Misty Copeland, who made history as the first black ballerina named principal dancer at the prestigious American Ballet Theatre, is the subject of Nelson George's documentary that follows her before and after her massive success, placing her in the context of other trendsetting black women in the arts.

 

What's missing in this brief, 85-minute movie is a sense of the mixed-race Copeland's personal life; her photogenic looks and wondrous talent and charisma notwithstanding, this should have been a more thorough portrait. It looks good on Blu; extras are three deleted scenes.

 

Comin' at Ya! 

Originally in 3-D, Ferdinando Baldi's loose-limbed 1980 spaghetti western chronicles a bank robbing groom's vengeance after his bride is kidnapped at the altar. In true 3-D fashion, from the clever opening credits on, everything from snakes and coins to weapons shoot out toward the viewer, so those who have the proper home equipment can enjoy it as it was originally intended.

 

And it’s nice to see Spanish actress Victoria Abril, who later became a star in Pedro Almodovar's silly films, at her youthful best as the bride. The hi-def transfer is quite good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Swedish director Jan Troell made his dual masterpieces about a Swedish couple moving to America to begin a new life in the mid-19th century, he was at the very pinnacle of a brilliant career that still continues, even though his films are rarely seen now.

 

But these classic epics from 1971 and 1972—shot through with Troell's artistry, humanity and compassion, along with the greatest performances ever by the incredible Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann—are ripe for rediscovery, and it's great that the Criterion Collection (so soon after releasing his masterly debut feature Here Is Your Life) has finally released these magnificent films in shiny new hi-def transfers. Extras include an appreciation from critic John Simon, new interviews with Troell and Ullmann and a superlative making-of documentary.

 

Extraordinary Tales 

Writer-director Raul Garcia's animated omnibus film, which comprises five classic Edgar Allan Poe stories (The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valedemar) is a mixed bag, but it does contain some gems amidst the dross.

 

Both Masque and Pendulum combine heart-pounding suspense with frightful and creative animation; having some of the best horror actors provide the suitable voices, notably Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi, is also an inspired touch.  The animation looks terrific on Blu; extras are Garcia's commentary and two featurettes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Dusk till Dawn—Complete 2nd Season 

The second season of this bizarre horror-comedy series is, as usual with Robert Rodriguez projects, too much of a good thing: there's some trashy fun to be had as criminals and bizarre snake-like creatures butt heads (and other things) at the strip club called the Titty Twister, but then there are the meandering stretches where the series instantly becomes less interesting to watch.

 

Still, whenever interest flags, there’s always the sizzling Eiza González as the Queen vampire (she was played by Selma Hayek in the original movie). The hi-def transfer is stellar; extras are featurettes, commentaries and a Comic-con Q&A.

 

Turn It Up! 

Subtitled A Celebration of the Electric Guitar, Robert Radler's quick jaunt through the six-stringed instrument’s history and legacy, musicians both famous (like B.B. King, Slash, Jerry Cantrell and Nancy Wilson) and obscure (everyday people and billionaire CEOs like Southwest Airlines head honcho Gary Kelly) extol the virtues of their favorite axes.

 

The 85-minute doc also includes clips of guitar players in action, along with glimpses of some very famous and beloved guitars, from Les Pauls to Gibsons. The movie looks fine on Blu; extras comprise additional interviews and featurettes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zombie Fight Club 

What you see is what you get in this exceedingly violent and misogynist—if not misanthropic—thriller that pillages the undead genre in order to provide 90 minutes of non-stop mayhem: despite some effective fight sequences staged by writer-director Joe Chien, much of the time the whole thing careens desperately out of control.

 

Still, those in the mood for its ultra-committed weirdness can look no further. The movie looks first-rate on Blu; lone extra is a stunt featurette.

 

DVDs of the Week

It's 1941, the second year of the Nazi occupation of France, and as the power dynamics between the Germans and the locals grow more unbalanced by the day, this superbly realized and supremely binge-worthy French series takes the pulse of an entire village under the German thumb: the sundry political, social, economic, cultural, personal and sexual power plays going on behind (and at times in front of) closed doors.

 

With an exemplary cast from top to bottom—led by Audrey Fleurot's remarkably vivid portrait of the village mayor's sultry wife, who decides (seemingly on a whim) to take a German lover and so sets her sights on the local commander—this season’s 12 episodes fly by so quickly, you’ll be impatient for Season 3 to show up. Extras comprise historical featurettes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Noah's Ark 

The Biblical story of Noah and the flood is reduced to a 90-minute intergenerational family squabble, as Noah (a far too serious David Threlfall) and his wife (the unfortunate Joanne Whalley) try to get the ark built while their sons attempt to talk them out of it and get the old man committed.

 

The acting is more wooden than what they’re building, while the drama remains mostly inert: so much so that we don't even see the most dramatic scenes in the whole fable, the animals boarding the ark and the actual flood.