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Film and the Arts
November '14 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 26 November 2014 04:06
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Alive Inside
(City Drive)
How music burrows through the frayed brain cells of those suffering from Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases is brought to exhilarating life in Michael Rossato-Bennett's documentary, which shows several people who miraculously escape from their moribund existence when they hear music that's familiar from their past.
There are scenes here, in which a light is turned on and a patient's face glows with life, that are among the most inspirational onscreen moments ever. The Blu-ray looks good; extras include added scenes and interviews.
(Millennium)
What starts as a lackluster knockoff ofBlade Runner soon turns into an original (but equally lackluster) tale of a future world in which robots—surprise!—turn out less benevolent than humans planned them to be.
Although Antonio Banderas doesn't play a robot, he acts just like one, while his offscreen ex-wife Melanie Griffith gives an embarrassingly earnest performance; at least Danish actress Birgitte Hjort Sorensen is sexy and fiery as Banderas' onscreen (and pregnant) wife. The impressive effects are the best thing about the film, which looks excellent on Blu-ray; extras include a behind the scenes featurette.
L'Avventura
(Criterion)
Michelangelo Antonioni's 1960 masterpiece of ennui and alienation remains a marvelous example of the great Italian filmmaker's singular vision, as his characters start to recede further from each other and landscapes and architecture become symbolically oppressive.
The brilliant B&W photography and elliptical editing were in many ways unsurpassed by the director, even though his next two films, La Notte and L'Eclisse, came close. Criterion's hi-def transfer looks wondrous; extras include a commentary, Jack Nicholson reading, director Olivier Assayas' analysis and an hour-long documentary, Antonioni: Documents and Testimonials.
(IFC Midnight)
Unlike many show-offy thrillers that tell their outlandish tales of possessed people, The Damned distinguishes itself by not being very distinguished: we've been down this road before, and director Victor Garcia and writer Richard D'Ovidio do little to alleviate the non-tension and feeling of deja vuthat permeates the entire enterprise.
The best one can say is that The Damned has the courage of its convictions, ending on a darker note than most such movies do. The Blu-ray looks good; extras are cast and crew commentaries and a making-of featurette.
The Last Play at Shea
(Virgil)
Billy Joel's final concerts at Shea Stadium, before the New York Mets' ballpark made way for CitiField, are memorialized in this fleet 90-minute movie that's part concert film, part documentary. Joel's career and the Mets' history are shown alongside footage of Joel's live performances with special guests like Garth Brooks, Tony Bennett (who sang "New York State of Mind") and Paul McCartney who was accompanied by Billy and his band on Beatles' classics "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Let It Be."
Too bad neither concert is documented in its entirety. The hi-def transfer looks sharp and the music sounds great; extras include a Joel interview, two additional songs and time-lapse of Shea giving way to CitiField.
(Fox)
In this hackneyed but exciting espionage thriller, Pierce Brosnan returns to his 007 days as a former CIA agent who battles a protege tasked with eliminating him amid the picturesque locations of Belgrade and surrounding Serbian environs.
Director Roger Donaldson things taut despite implausible twists and turns, but Brosnan, the impossibly gorgeous Olga Kurylenko as the woman he's protecting and the film's breathless pace makes it work. The Blu-ray transfer is first-rate; extras are Donaldson and Brosnan's commentary and three making-of featurettes.
DVDs of the Week
Beyond the Edge
(Sundance Selects)
I have never been a fan of reenactments in documentaries, for too often, they are uninteresting dramatizations that turn the films they are part of into fictional accounts of real events; that is the lone flaw in Leanne Pooley's otherwise estimable film about the amazing Mount Everest ascent of Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953.
Such a riveting real-life adventure remains gripping even with unnecessary reconstructions, and there's enough genuine archival footage and the words of the men themselves to give a sense of the scale of Hillary's achievement.
(Warner Archive)
These enjoyable boxed sets return us to a time when Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were two of the biggest entertainers in Hollywood, and the films they made together showcased not only their comedic talents, both also their singing and even dancing.
Although the films vary wildly in quality—the Frank Tashlin-directed films, 1956's Hollywood or Bust and 1955's Artists and Models, are by far the most memorable of the 13 features spread out over 7 discs—but they all contain hints of the delicious chemistry the duo had.
Lines of Wellington
(Film Movement)
Valeria Sarmiento's star-studded war epic, set during the Napoleonic Wars, features the Emperor himself (Mathieu Amalric) and his British archenemy, General Wellington (John Malkovich), while other famous faces flit by, from Michel Piccoli to Catherine Deneuve.
But the bulk of its 2-1/2 hour running time is on war's effects on ordinary civilians and soldiers; this is humane work from director Sarmiento, who took over when her partner, Raul Ruiz, died in pre-production. Extras are a 30-minute making-of featurette and unrelated Australian short, Two Laps.
(First Run)
The Borscht Belt, which introduced new generations of comedians—mostly, but not exclusively, Jewish—receives an entertaining gloss by directors Ron Frank and Mevlut Akkaya, who explore the beginnings of Catskills comedy resorts with lots of vintage footage and interviews with veterans like Jerry Lewis, Mort Sahl, Jackie Mason, Milton Berle and Jerry Stiller.
Narrated by a wry Robert Klein, this documentary is both humorous and informative about an aspect of show biz history too often relegated to cliches and stereotypes. Extras are several additional scenes.
New York Theater—Revivals of "Sticks and Bones," "Major Barbara" & "Side Show"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 24 November 2014 23:35
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Sticks and Bones
Written by David Rabe; directed by Scott Elliott
Performances through December 14, 2014
The New Group, Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
thenewgroup.org
Major Barbara
Written by Bernard Shaw; directed by David Staller
Performances through December 14, 2014
Pearl Theatre Company, 555 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
pearltheatre.org
Side Show
Book & lyrics by Bill Russell; music by Henry Krieger; directed by Bill Condon
Opened November 17, 2014
St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street, New York, NY
sideshowbroadway.com
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| Schentzer, Hunter, Pullman and Ullmann in Sticks and Bones (photo: Monique Carboni) |
The Vietnam War's legacy lives on four decades after its ignominious end, and our current "endless war" footing in the Middle East ensures that comparisons to that earlier unwinnable conflict will continue for the foreseeable future. So a revival of David Rabe's Sticks and Bones—one of the first plays to deal honestly with how returning soldiers from Vietnam were treated—seems especially timely, and it's to the credit of Scott Elliott, director of The New Group's strong production, that no unnecessary parallels are made between that war and today. None is needed, in any case: the play, clunky as it sometimes is, speaks for itself.
We are in the Middle America home of dad Ozzie, mom Harriet and teenage son Rick, all blissfully and ignorantly going about their everyday lives, when eldest son David (the author's obvious stand-in) returns home from Southeast Asia, not in a body bag, but something worse: as a blind and bitter shell of himself. Haunted by the ghost of the young Asian woman he fell in love with, David in his alternating fury and futility forces his narrow-minded family members to deal with their own prejudices and misconceptions.
Rabe's rage is palpable in this 1972 drama, which alternates between satirical family scenes and darker explorations of David's psyche. Rabe pushes the sitcom parodies and psychology both too far and not far enough, creating an uneasy blend of innocence and panic: the dialogue, cutting in its ordinariness but failing when trying to be lofty and poetic, catches the era's confusion, especially in scenes involving Father Donald, a priest whose self-serving attacks on David come perilously close to caricature.
But Rabe's aim is mostly true, and even if some things simply don't work—Zung's ghost is an underused apparition until the final scene, which combines horrific explicitness with clumsy symbolism—Sticks and Bones sears the memory. Elliott's explosive staging features several fearless actors: Raviv Ullmann as Rick, Ben Schentzer as David, Richard Chamberlain as Father Donald, and Holly Hunter as Harriet. But, as Ozzie, Bill Pullman goes above and beyond the call of duty, giving emotional resonance to a father whose blinded son's return forces him to take stock of his life and the choices he's made, which culminates in a pool of David's own blood.
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| Cabell (center left) and Daily (center right) in Major Barbara (photo: Richard Termine) |
Major Barbara, one of Bernard Shaw's classic comedies, hits on lofty subjects like rich vs. poor, war vs. peace, and materialism vs. spirituality dazzlingly but, as usual with Shaw, effortlessly. The title character, Barbara Undershaft, a headstrong young woman who's an officer in the Salvation Army, is shattered when she discovers that the organization has accepted "blood money" in the form of a donation from her estranged father Andrew, a millionaire industrialist who has made his fortune from manufacturing weapons of war.
Shaw explores the dynamics of a family in which matters of money matter as much, if not more so, than matters of the heart and soul. David Staller's mostly straightforward staging allows Shaw's words to speak loudly and clearly, especially in the capable hands of Dan Daily, a stalwart Andrew, and Hannah Cabell, an intelligently-spoken Barbara. But Staller has commissioned a wrongheaded unit set by James Noone—comprising two gold-edged staircase on either side of the stage—which forces the cast to run up and down said stairs for no reason. And beginning both acts with the supporting cast entering in street clothes, mumbling lines as they put on their costumes, creates an unnecessary distancing effect that obscures the play's genius.
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| Padgett and Davie in Side Show (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Turning one of the saddest stories ever into a musical, Side Show is a biopic of Violet and Daisy Wilton, Siamese twins who were in a freak show before going to Hollywood for an appearance in Tod Browning's 1932 classic movie shocker Freaks, about the extent of their celebrity aside from the usual gawking. Despite leaving behind the exploitative conditions of the freak show, they were exploited by everyone else, ending up destitute and alone together, forever conjoined.
It's prime material for dramatic treatment, though it's problematic as a musical: a straight play (to say nothing of a book or movie) would theoretically dig deeper into the intricacies of their plight. As it is,Side Show the musical glides along with show biz surfaces at its core: we learn precious little about the sisters in Bill Russell's book (with additions by director Bill Condon) aside from them as briefly famous celebrities, always freaks in the eyes of others.
Russell's serviceable lyrics rarely illuminate the sisters' relationships with each other, their side show boss, Sir, or the men who put them in show biz, Terry Connor and Buddy Foster. Henry Krieger's mediocre songs are either meandering ballads or soaring belters, the latter of which is the show's high point, the sisters' paean to each other, "I Will Never Leave You." Bill Condon's staging cleverly evokes the movies and has a cinematic feel, notably in the opening freak show menagerie and the closing Freaks set. Condon is aided immensely by spectacular work by set designer David Rockwell, makeup and mask creators David and Lou Elsey, costumer Paul Tazewell and lighting wizards Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer.
In a large and talented cast, David St. Louis scores as Jake, the sideshow's "cannibal king" who becomes Violet and Daisy's trusted bodyguard; Robert Joy makes an appropriately creepy Sir; and Ryan Silverman and Matthew Hydzik's bland handsomeness and top vocal chops serve them well as Terry and Buddy, who are the sisters' romantic and business partners.
Erin Davie's Violet and Emily Padgett's Daisy carry the weight of the show on their shoulders, giving their all vocally and histrionically; they manage to look and sound alike as the twins attempt to navigate their way through one bad roll of the dice after another. They make the most out of the climactic duet "I Will Never Leave You," but also manage to make touching many minor, individual moments. If the show leaves them, finally, only compelling enough to gawk at, that's show biz—and Side Show—for you.
Sticks and Bones
The New Group, Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
thenewgroup.org
Major Barbara
Pearl Theatre Company, 555 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
pearltheatre.org
Side Show
St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street, New York, NY
sideshowbroadway.com
November '14 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 18 November 2014 23:28
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Doors—Feast of Friends
(Eagle Rock)
At the peak of their few years of fame, The Doors filmed themselves while on tour in the summer of 1968, and the resulting document, never completed at the time, has been restored and is finally being given a belated release.
Mostly a time-capsule curio in the crowded market of rock group documentaries, the finished product might be manna for Doors fans but less so for the rest of us. The hi-def image looks decent; extras include Feast of Friends: Encore, comprising left-over footage; The Doors Are Open, a British TV documentary; a live performance of "The End" with interviews.
(Warners)
Climate change exacts its just desserts, but unlike Sharknado 1 & 2'stongue-in-cheek campiness (not that I'm defending those ridiculous movies!), this is purely serious and stern-faced melodrama, and the stick figures populating a town inundated with non-stop tornadoes and superstorms are such a dim bunch that it's easy to root for Mother Nature against most of them.
The special effects are quite impressive—like the death of one unfortunate cameraman in a fiery funnel cloud—and it's all wrapped up in a quick 85 minutes, which helps, at least partly. On Blu-ray, the movie's disastrous events play out quite thrillingly; extras are three featurettes.
Pete Kelly's Blues
(Warner Archive)
A monotonous Jack Webb directs and stars as jazz cornetist and band leader Pete Kelly in this alternately tough-as-nails and sentimentalized look at the musician's life on and off stage, dramatizing his battles against a crime boss and his relationships with women, played with vitality by Janet Leigh, Jayne Mansfield and (most impressively) Peggy Lee.
Director Webb smartly peppers his uneven drama with wonderful musical performances, including two Ella Fitzgerald showstoppers, while the movie's color Cinemascope photography comes across richly on Blu-ray. Extras are two period shorts.
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Rusalka
(Euroarts)
Alexander Borodin's intermittently gripping Igor receives a bizarre, messy 2014 Metropolitan Opera revival by director Dmitri Tcherniakov, who ruins the opera's best moments—the famous "Polovtsian Dances"—with an unimaginative poppy field in which the dancers scamper about: Borodin's unexciting music is presented well by conductor Giandrea Noseda, and the title role is given over to the towering Russian bass Ildar Abdrazikov.
Antonin Dvorak's masterly romantic fantasy Rusalka (based on the fairy tale Undine) sounds beautiful thanks to Myrto Papatanasiu's magnetic performance in the title role, but its visual tackiness stems from director Stefan Herheim's wrongheaded concept: Rusalka the mermaid is a hooker in a red light district. Puh-lease. On Blu-ray, video and audio are splendidly realized; extras are interviews.
Worricker—Turks & Caicos
Worricker—Salting the Battlefield
(PBS)
In his trilogy about a British agent battling new-fangled globally destructive forces, writer-director David Hare has an ace in the hole: actor Bill Nighy, whose casual, snarky coolness goes a long way toward validating these films (and the original, 2012's Page Eight) as searing indictments of our post-Sept. 11, post-meltdown world gone amok. Turks follows Nighy's Johnny Worricker on an island paradise, confronting ultra-rich bad guys; Salting finds him on the run before a climactic showdown with his nemesis, the British prime minister.
Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Christopher Walken and Winona Ryder provide solid support, Hare's dialogue is often snappy and witty, but Nighy himself is the main attraction. The hi-def transfers are superior; extras are making-of featurettes and interviews.
Guns of Darkness
Twilight of Honor
(Warner Archive)
In 1962's Guns of Darkness, neither David Niven nor Leslie Caron—as a couple in a war-torn republic—can do much in a flimsy tale about a coup that turns their brave act of mercy for an ousted leader into treason; that director Anthony Asquith has little affinity for such starkly melodramatic material goes without saying.
1963's Twilight of Honor has a formidable cast that makes its routine courtroom dramatics watchable, despite director Boris Sagal's leaden pacing: there's Richard Chamberlain as an idealistic defense attorney, Claude Rains as his mentor, Joan Blackman as Rains' available daughter, Joey Heatherton as the accused's wife and James Gregory as a pompous district attorney.
K2—Siren of the Himalayas
(First Run)
An illuminating look at the 2009 expedition to scale the world's most dangerous mountain, Dave Ohlson has made a tense, exciting document of a story that's both tragic and triumphant: some climbers failed to ascend K2, but at least they weren't killed—which as many of a quarter are. The film's heroine, Germany's Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, became the first to scale all mountains 8000 meters or higher; interviews with her and other members of the climb make personal their group's bravery, teamwork and death-defying difficulties.
Ohlson also recaps a 1909 Italian expedition, complete with narration, stills and newsreel footage, which provide an enriching historical perspective. Extras include a deleted scene, updates and more interviews.
Slow Food Story
(Kimstim)
The enterprising label Kimstim's latest intriguing documentaries that otherwise might have escaped notice start with German director Marc Bauders' Masters of the Universe, about the culpability and duplicity of those running (and ruining) the financial system during the 2008 economic collapse; Bauder introduces Rainer Voss, a chatty trader who candidly discusses what happened, why and by (and for) whom.
Stefano Sardo's Slow Food Story is a lively account of how Italian foodie Carlo Petrini became a heavy-hitter in the anti-fast food movement, which emphasizes local, healthy alternatives to the corporate behemoths that control most of the world's (bad) food production.
Next Year Jerusalem
(First Run)
When a group of residents at an old-age home in Columbus, Ohio finally took a long-gestating and unlikely "field trip" to Israel, director David Gaynes was on hand to record a unique, historic and breathtakingly emotional journey that was much more than obviously metaphorical traveling through time and memory.
Among the many people—from the "tourists" and those who came with and filmed them to those whom they met when they arrived in the Holy Land—affected by events presented in this stirring documentary are its viewers. Extras are seven deleted scenes.
(Icarus)
Daniel Schmid—the unconventional Swiss director who died in 2006—made this memorably offbeat 1986 documentary about the first nursing home for retired opera singers, located in Milan, Italy: the film follows the home's residents, who sang arias by the world's great composers, including the man who founded it, Giuseppe Verdi, Italy's (and one of the world's) best opera composers.
The basis for Dustin Hoffman's likable directorial debut, 2012's Quartet, this funny and moving film deserves to be more than just the prelude to a famous actor's first foray behind the camera; happily, now that Hoffman "presents" its restoration and DVD release, it will get more widespread recognition.
November '14 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 11 November 2014 23:28
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Arabella
(Unitel)
A Recital with Renee Fleming
(Arthaus Musik)
One of Richard Strauss's most magically melodic operas, the romantic Arabella is the perfect showcase for the still-ravishing soprano Renee Fleming, whose artistry is complemented by director Florentine Klepper's sumptuous 2014 Salzburg production.
A Recital with Renee Fleming, shot in 2012 in Vienna, presents the singer performing lushly romantic lieder by Germanic composers Gustav Mahler, Hugo Wolf, Arnold Schoenberg, Erich Korngold and, yes, Richard Strauss; pianist Maciej Pulski lends artful support. The Blu-ray image and sound are first-rate.
(Magnolia)
This didactic illegal immigration melodrama—about a wrongful murder rap pinned on a good, no-nonsense border crosser—has authentic location atmosphere courtesy director-co-writer Michael Berry, and a plethora of good performances by Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Michael Pena (as the accused killer) and Eva Longoria (deglamorized—but still impossibly luminous—as his cruelly abused wife).
But too bad it's all at the service of a heavy-handed, Crash-like examination of a complicated issue, which militates against its getting through to those whom it aims to convert or reinforce those already on its side. The hi-def transfer is spot-on.
Genesis—Three Sides Live
(Eagle Rock)
On Genesis' 1981 Abacab tour, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks (augmented by concert-only members Chester Thompson and Daryl Stuermer) played hits like "Misunderstanding" and "Turn It on Again" alongside album cuts like "In the Cage," "Afterglow," the current album's epic title track and "Dodo/Lurker."
The 83-minute concert film has a chunk of the show's running time missing: too bad it's never been found, since, with all of the backstage and interview footage included, the actual music is probably a little more than an hour. What we do get, though, is a band at the top of its game. The image is variable, the sound good, extras are audio-only versions of seven songs, including the rarely-performed "Fountain of Salmacis."
(Arthaus Musik)
British minimalist composer Michael Nyman's career is examined through a concert and documentary, Composer in Progress, in which Nyman and his band members discuss his unique music and how difficult it is to perform; surprisingly, although his music is best known from Peter Greenaway and Jane Campion movies, neither is interviewed by director Silvia Beck.
2009's Michael Nyman in Concert, from Halle, Germany, features Nyman's best known compositions, including several from Greenaway's films The Draughtsman's Contract, A Zed and Two Noughts and Prospero's Books, played with precision and enthusiasm by Nyman at the piano and his band. Hi-def transfers are adequate; the sound is solidly presented.
Monty Python Live—One Down, Five to Go
(Eagle Rock)
The British comedy troupe's 2013 reunion at London's O2 Arena was greeted with hosannas from longtime fans, and if the performance itself is more nostalgia than cutting-edge comedy—replays of old skits on a video screen alternate with onstage reenactments of beloved skits like "Dead Parrot" and "Nudge Nudge"—the impression is that of a money grab, however skillful and, yes, funny.
The title, of course, refers to the absence of Graham Chapman, so far the lone Python member to die: the others will, no doubt, eventually follow. The hi-def image is excellent; extras include interviews, featurettes and backstage footage.
(Anchor Bay/Weinstein Co)
Early in this confused sci-fi drama about a shaky married couple whose attempts to repair their relationship is complicated by the appearance of their doppelgangers, the husband tells his wife that it's like The Twilight Zone. Not quite: Rod Serling would have wrapped this up in 30 minutes, not 90, and far more satisfactorily.
Director Charlie McDowell and writer Justin Lader seem pleased with their not that original concept, in the process forgetting to make it dramatically involving; Elizabeth Moss and Mark Duplass's blank caricatures do little to differentiate among the couples. The Blu-ray image is superlative; extras are McDowell and Duplass's commentary and visual effects reel.
Tammy
(Warners)
Melissa McCarthy again plays an obnoxious, crude but oh so lovable slob in a comic misfire that's a major miscalculation by star-cowriter McCarthy and cowriter-costar-director husband Ben Falcone: they desperately try to tug at the heartstrings but never let go of the stereotypes they traffic in from the start.
Along with McCarthy, Susan Sarandon (McCarthy's improbable grandmother) and Allison Janney (McCarthy's improbable mother) do little with such flimsy material. The extended version provides a few extra minutes of would-be laughs and sentiment; the Blu-ray image looks fine, and extras comprise featurettes, gag reel and deleted scenes.
A Five Star Life
(Music Box)
This lighthearted romantic comedy is a terrific showcase for Margherita Buy, one of Italy's most elegant actresses, who beautifully plays Irene, a 40ish woman who visits luxury hotels as a critic, but whose personal life (at least compared with her former fiancee and happily married sister) is a mess.
Director Maria Sole Tognazzi tells her story in a fleet 82 minutes, enough to let us get to know Irene, mainly through Buy's effortless charm; costar Stefano Accorsi's provides strong and humorous support as her ex.
JFK—The Private President
(First Run)
In this 52-minute German documentary from 2013, the enduring legend of Camelot is revived with heretofore unseen home-video footage, returning us to the glamorous (but too brief) era of JFK and Jackie in the international spotlight.
Interviews with brother RFK's sons and insiders like advisor Ted Sorensen provide further access, and those who want still more of anything of even tangential to the inexhaustible fount that is the Kennedys will find it.
(Strand)
What starts as an aimless bromance between middle-aged men sharing ownership of a company shifts gears when one of them disappears and his seemingly clueless wife steps in and makes the remaining one's life a living hell....until they come to discover more about each other and themselves (of course).
Director Daniel Burman doesn't always adroitly handle the film's shifting tones, but the superb lead performances by Ines Estevez and Guillermo Francella provide ample compensation, as does a nicely understated ending.
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