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Broadway Revivals—Forest Whitaker in "Hughie," Danny Burstein in "Fiddler on the Roof"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 01 March 2016 15:40; Written by Kevin Filipski

Hughie
Written by Eugene O’Neill; directed by Michael Grandage
Performances through June 12, 2016

Fiddler on the Roof
Book by Joseph Stein; music by Jerry Bock; lyrics by Sheldon Harnick; directed by Bartlett Sher
Opened December 20, 2015

Frank Wood and Forest Whitaker in Hughie (photo: Mark Brenner)

Despite its brevity (55 minutes), Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie is a full-bodied character study masquerading as a monologue. On Broadway in 1996, I saw Al Pacino tackle the role of Erie Smith, a down-on-his-luck gambler returning to his fleabag hotel after a drunken five-day bender precipitated by the death of the hotel’s desk clerk Hughie.

Pacino gave a terrifically likeable performance full of vitality and not a little self-pity, which is what Forest Whitaker sometimes taps into in Michael Grandage’s sturdy but stiff staging. O’Neill composed what’s essentially a symphony for an actor who hits all the usual notes—sorrow and laughter, anger and heartbreak, resignation and defiance, all in the face of death—that the playwright returned to throughout his storied career, neatly encapsulated in his rarely-done one-acter.

Whitaker prowls Christopher Oram’s imposing set—this rundown hotel's staircase and revolving entrance doors are too grandiose, but that's what's needed on a big Broadway stage—so as not to be swallowed up in it. He also heavily relies on O’Neill’s humor; however engaging he is, however, there’s little to suggest that Erie is preoccupied with thoughts of death.

Whitaker is flawlessly complemented by Frank Wood as the clerk to whom Erie pours his heart out. While rarely speaking, Wood offers a textbook lesson in how to interact with another actor onstage. Hughie might be minor O’Neill, but even this less than ideal production provides another glimpse into his tortured mindset.

Danny Burstein (center) in Fiddler on the Roof (photo: Joan Marcus)

Beloved since its 1964 Broadway premiere, Fiddler on the Roof has had its classic status consolidated by the long-winded 1971 movie starring Topol and by several ensuing revivals, of which Bartlett Sher's grandly entertaining production, with a particularly winning Danny Burstein as Tevye, is the latest.

Notwithstanding an unnecessary prologue and epilogue in which Burstein plays a parka-wearing tourist, guidebook in hand, visiting the show's fictional town of Anatevka, Sher's fleet staging, spacious but intimate, shows off his canny ability to make over-familiar musicals seem fresh and alive, like his current King and I. Sher's first-rate production team—choreographer Hofesh Shechter, costumer Catherine Zuber, set designer Michael Yeargan, soundman Scott Lehrer and lighting designer Donald Holder—again proves adept at clarifying the perfect setting of another authentically classic American musical.

Burstein’s inspired Tevye boasts many humorous touches yet unabashedly wears heartbreak on his sleeve. This could be cloying, but it's anything but: Burstein catches the nuances of this rich character while making such touchstone songs as "Tradition" and "If I Were a Rich Man" his own. Tevye's marriageable daughters are played with spunky charm by Alexandra Silber, Samantha Massell and Melanie Moore; their rendition of "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" is another highlight.

This Fiddler isn't perfect: as Tevye's wife Golde, Jessica Hecht gives the same mannered, fussy performance we’ve seen from her for years. And the final images are too on the nose referencing the current Syrian refugee crisis. But Sher's production provides further proof that, when it comes to tuneful musicals with staying power, this one by songsmith Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and book writer Joseph Stein is miles ahead of anything more "modern."

Hughie
Booth Theatre, 222 West 45th Street, New York, NY
hughiebroadway.com

Fiddler on the Roof
Broadway Theatre, Broadway and 53rd Street, New York, NY
fiddlermusical.com

The Creepiest Build Your Own Adventure Game Yet

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:39; Written by Catherina Gioino

Screaming rats. Possessed humans. A non-gender specific student astronaut.
Of all the things I was told I can be, I never thought I would ever get a chance to be a student astronaut. I mean, astronaut, yeah, I can do that, but not a student astronaut, let alone one lost in space with screaming rats and possessed humans.

Introducing Lifeline, an interactive text-based story app detailing the adventures of Taylor, a student astronaut who contacts you after Taylor’s ship crashed and is all alone. You lead the character through multiple stories, protecting this random person from the elements and whatever mysteries lie out there in the world.

Just recently named App of the Week on the iTunes store, Lifeline was launched in April 2015 and written by Dave Justus, under 3 Minute Games LLC, but the game is anything but. The first time you play, you abide by real time actions, like Taylor sleeping or taking an hour to walk around, or even more. Alright, so what, you ask. Well it just so happens that the story picks up right as it reaches sleepy time. You’re on the edge of your seat, you can’t tell if you made the right choice, you’ve become addicted and there’s nothing left for you to do but wait and see if he makes it out alive. This gets annoying pretty quickly, with the storyline gaining suspense and you’re subjected to waiting for time to pass, twiddling your thumbs. You could do something productive, like catch up on some Netflix or get some food, but no, you sit there staring at your phone until Taylor responds.

Don’t worry, just die. That’s right, just kill Taylor off. And trust me, that’s gonna happen more often than not, sometimes intentional and sometimes in utter frustration. For the first run through, the game makes you play it in real time, not giving you the option to speed things up. Finally, after the first time you die, the game will ask if you want to go into fast mode, despite several warnings that it is not the way that the game developers intended. But you see, you just suffered the agonizing pain of waiting for Taylor to wake up—and find death instead. So screw what Justus and 3 Minute Games think, you’re gonna go into fast mode so you can beat the game already.

Whoops, wrong move rookie. You just committed the worst sin known to man: willingly letting yourself become addicted and brainwashed by machines. It’s the thing Harrison Ford warns us about all the time in Blade Runner, and I’m sure Big Hero 6 had something on it as well. However, you signed your death sentence, so let’s continue.

Because you now are in fast mode, you get updates and Taylor’s annoying jokes (that push me up to on-par with Tina Fey really) immediately, meaning no waiting for Taylor to take a long walk or to sleep or anything. Great, right? Well wrong. Not only are you now always on your screen reading the texts as they come in one by one, you now feel guilty for not checking up and see what choice you have to make next. Your addiction as won the best of you and now you’re alone in the world, secluded from everyone, much akin to Taylor’s situation. So be wise with the timing of the game, because waiting is annoying but not being able to unglue yourself from the screen is a problem in itself.

And let’s actually talk the game play. You are Taylor’s only communication: the space ship crashed on some random planet, no astronaut friends are alive, and Taylor’s lab mice are nowhere to be found. Oh, plus the whole “being on an alien planet with no food or shelter and basically being by yourself” thing. But you know, Taylor has you to make the decisions, so don’t screw up. You guide Taylor through the planet, deciding whether a walk to a peak or a walk to the wreck site will garner you more information about what’s happening. You make the decisions, you decide what to do and whether to risk Taylor’s life.

That’s the fascinating part of the whole thing: the game is pretty simple with it being text based and all, but it’s a choose your own adventure game turned horror movie. You actually fear for Taylor’s life, you have no idea what you’re gonna eat tonight and now you’re entrusted with saving this random person? The game drags you in from the beginning and the entire time you’re always second guessing yourself, asking “what if” every time you make a decision. There’s nothing that can help you until you beat it and store the app proudly for weeks afterwards because you just can’t get rid of a masterpiece of perfect answers.

Everything you do leads onto something else which leads to something else and so on. That’s the magic of the game. But, that’s also where it falls short. Had the game truly been a choose your own adventure, it wouldn’t force you to follow it’s formula. From what I gathered from the Reddit and my and my friend’s times dying, there are only six or so outcomes, two positive, one neutral, and three negative.

And after realizing that a certain move dictates whether I live or not, I tried my best avoiding it. I would always choose the other option, and for a while, the game would follow suit. But then Taylor gets annoying and starts asking you about that move, and you keep saying no. Finally the game breaks and says something along the teenage angsty lines of “I don’t care what you think, I’m going where my gut feels right.” Of course, you having the knowledge of death beforehand know it’s a bad idea and you’re cursing at Taylor, but still can’t get away, because it’s just so addicting.

So for this sleep deprived lunatic, Lifeline is definitely worth the dollar in the app store, available for iPhones and Androids. While there are a number of setbacks, you’ll be addicted nonetheless, and then you’ll get Lifeline 2 and start it all over again. And, don’t forget to turn on the volume for some extra creepy and scary breathing—and other noises.

February '16 Digital Week IV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 23 February 2016 23:11; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

I Knew Her Well

(Criterion)

Italian director Antonio Pietrangeli's powerful 1965 portrait of an ambitious young actress is a searing, unforgiving look at the shallow culture also on display in La Dolce Vita; although it can be thought of as a complement to Fellini's classic, Pietrangeli's film is very much its own self.

It's headed by Stefania Sandrelli's transfixing performance as the woman who finds herself in the fast lane that was Rome. The B&W photography shimmers in Criterion's luminous new transfer; extras include a Sandrelli interview and audition tape.

Labyrinth of Lies

(Sony Classics)

The collective German shrug about the Nazis let everything be swept under the rug, at least until a group of attorneys decided in the late '50s that enough was enough and they began rounding up Auschwitz guards to try them for murder, which this engrossing drama by director Giulio Ricciarelli dramatizes.

A few real-life patriots become a single young district attorney, played engagingly by Alexander Fehling, while the charming Friederike Becht plays his girlfriend, who is stuck between her country's awful past and bright future. At times too on the nose showing the roadblocks in the way of justice, but a truer, more insightful film wouldn't have made the inroads this flawed but fascinating film has. The transfer is top-notch; extras are a Q&A and commentary with Ricciarelli and Fehling and deleted scenes.

The Mutilator

Pray for Death

(Arrow USA)

One of a slew of mid-'80s slasher flicks, 1984's Mutilator puts a clever spin on offing victims, with anything from a chainsaw to a brick wall (which cuts a body in half) that mutilates and decapitates. The acting is laughable, but anyone interested in watching already knows that, and the movie's cheesy gore is wall to wall.

1985's Pray for Death, a middling kung-fu revenge drama in which a put-upon father avenges his family against the bad guys, is feeble stuff despite a couple of rousing action sequences. Both movies have decent hi-def transfers; extras include commentaries, interviews and making-of featurettes.

Racing Extinction

(Lionsgate)

Elizabeth Kolbert's book The Sixth Extinction dissects what may be the latest mass extinction, the first since the one that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and Louie Psihoyos's documentary urgently explores how humans themselves are mainly responsible for bringing several species dangerously close to being erased from the planet.

Guerrilla filmmaking tactics prove that delicacies like whales and manta rays are being slaughtered for fine dining and money, and fossil fuel companies unsurprisingly contribute their bit as well. Despite its thesis, there's light at the end of the tunnel, the film says. The visuals are stunning in hi-def; lone extra is a virtual field trip.

Taviani Brothers Collection

(Cohen Film Collection)

A trio of the Taviani brothers' films—their 1977 breakthrough, Padre Padrone; their most popular, 1982's The Night of the Shooting Stars; and their greatest, 1984's Kaos—is brought together on this three-disc set that provides a glimpse of the Italian duo's extremely uneven but occasionally successful career.

The pseudo-neorealism of Padrone is at times painful and the sentimentality of Shooting Stars sometimes overwhelms the poetic drama, but their three-hour Luigi Pirandello adaptation Kaos is a masterly transposition of great literature into cinema; it remains their undisputed best film. All three films have sharply-defined new transfers; lone extra is an in-depth, two-hour interview with the brothers.

This Changes Everything

(VSC)

Always provocative author Naomi Klein tackles the uneasy correlation between climate change and capitalism—most notably in her book Disaster Capitalism—and this documentary by her husband Ari Lewis (and narrated by Klein) is based on her most recent book of the same name.

As it travels around the world from India to the Alberta tar sands, the film shows how activism is the last best hope for humankind to effect change against planet-destroying corporations and governments and displays a knowing pessimism that becomes a guarded optimism. The Blu-ray transfer is excellent; extras comprise an interview with Klein, Lewis and executive producer Alfonso Cuaron and several deleted scenes.

DVD of the Week

Carole King—Natural Woman

(Virgil)

This episode of the PBS American Masters series shows how the young gal from Manhattan became, with husband Gerry Goffin, one of the most celebrated songwriting teams of the '60s (with "The Loco-Motion," Chains" and the eponymous "Natural Woman" among their big hits), then moved on to become a huge solo artist with the release of her 1971 album Tapestry.

Interviews with King, her daughter, songwriters and collaborators like James Taylor make this an appealing portrait of a pop music legend. Extras are four bonus performances of King songs.

February '16 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 17 February 2016 17:11; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Black Mass

(Warner Bros)

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

(Eagle Rock)

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

MI-5

(Lionsgate)

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

(Cohen Media)

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

(Arrow USA)

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

(Warner Bros)

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.

DVD of the Week

Spiral—Season 5

(MHz)

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.

Equally enthralling are the meticulous recreation of police work—as memorably messy as in Bertrand Tavernier's great, underappreciated L.627—and the seamless ensemble led by Caroline Proust as the head cop and Audrey Fleurot (also a standout inA French Village) as the fiery but morally shifty lawyer.

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