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Film and the Arts
August '12 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 12 August 2012 10:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blue Like Jazz
(Lionsgate)
Based on Donald Miller’s memoir, this intermittently interesting drama dramatizes how a sheltered Texas Southern Baptist deals with attending a Portland liberal college. Although much of what happens is obvious (he sees that everyone’s a hypocrite, even his pious mother), there’s a refreshing candor and lack of condescension and smugness: despite their faults, everyone has redeemable features.
The strong cast, director Steve Taylor and cowriters Miller, Taylor and Ben Pearson don’t hit viewers over the head with their clichés. The hi-def image is very good; extras include a commentary, making-of featurette, deleted scenes and other featurette.
Full Metal Jacket
(Warners)
Stanley Kubrick’s penultimate film—made a dozen years before his death in 1999—is a dense, personal chronicle of young men being transformed into a military fighting machine. With Vietnam as a backdrop, Kubrick shoots many unforgettable images of that disastrous war, like Hue City and the Tet Offensive, but his main interest lies in the philosophical underpinnings of the psychological damage the military apparatus inflicts.
The first half’s clinical, detached look at basic training is exploded by the second half, in which boot camp’s precision degenerates into helter-skelter horrors on the battlefield. The Blu-ray image is excellent; extras include a commentary, featurette and bonus DVD, an hour-long documentary about the master’s voluminous research, Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes.
(Sony)
This sci-fi flick, set in the year 2079, has a space prison colony being overrun by prisoners—and the president’s daughter is a hostage. Enter a gnarly hero who must go in and save her. There’s no wasting time on anything other than action sequences—which are well done—so, by the time one thinks about the silliness of the premise, the movie’s over.
It’s co-directed by Stephen Saint Leger and James Mather (two people were needed to helm this?), both disciples of Luc Besson, the empty-spectacle auteur, who is one of the producers. The movie looks first-rate on Blu; extras include making-of featurettes.
(Magnolia)
Kevin McDonald’s documentary about late, great reggae superstar Bob Marley may have been produced by family and friends of the singer, but this is no hagiography. Instead, over 145 minutes, the measure of the man and artist (who died at age 36 in 1981 of cancer) is taken, through interviews with wife Rita, girlfriend Cindy Breakspeare, members of his band the Wailers and many others who knew him.
With excellent vintage video footage and photographs, along with audio interviews with the man himself, Marley is a hard-hitting, personal bio. The image, while soft at times, has appropriate grain; extras include additional interviews, MacDonald and Ziggy Marley’s commentary.
(Criterion)
The Dardenne brothers have become the darlings of the international festival circuit over the past 15 years, even if their recent films (The Son, The Kid with a Bike) are pale imitations of their earlier gems; their first two features are on Blu-ray thanks to the Criterion Collection.
1996’s La Promesse and 1999’s Rosetta are two sides of the same coin, seen through their teenage protagonists’ eyes: the Dardennes present moral dilemmas in the guise of simply plotted stories that emphasize character over action. Criterion’s impeccable hi-def transfers highlight their gritty handheld camerawork; extras include Dardenne interviews and new interviews with the films’ principal actors.
(Kino)
Derek Jarman’s early films show painfully slow growth. 1976’s Sebastiane, a biopic of the crucified saint, is a first feature (co-directed with Paul Humfress) whose ragged amateurishness shows, spoken Latin notwithstanding, while 1979’s The Tempest is a draggy Shakespeare adaptation with clever moments.
Jarman was still finding his way; it wasn’t until 1986’s Caravaggio that he finally made a fully-formed feature. The 16mm prints of both films, upgraded to Blu-ray, allow a minimal advance in graininess and sharpness; Tempest extras comprise three Jarman short films.
Casa de mi Padre
(Lionsgate)
“From the gringos who brought you Anchorman” is the tagline for this inoffensive but insubstantial spoof that might have worked as a five-minute SNL skit. Will Farrell gamely speaks Spanish, but being Mexican is beyond him; stellar support comes from Gael Garcia Bernal and gorgeous Genesis Rodriguez, who between this and Man on a Ledge starts off her movie career with a bang.
But the movie remains in a sort of suspended animation between amiable parody and Farrell’s usual stoopid shtick. Extras include a commentary, interview, making-of featurette, deleted scenes and music video.
(CJ Entertainment)
These thrillers are examples of Korean hit-or-miss genre flicks. Hindsight is a too-clever evocation of the old “boy meets gal, gal turns out to be hired killer” trope that was done better in Prizzi’s Honor. The performers are game, but they’re sunk by a soggy script.
However, No Mercy is a tautly chilling cop drama with incisively drawn characters that keep one watching, even if it goes on for an overlong two hours. Extras include interviews and featurettes.
(e one)
The distinctive hand-drawn animation of French director Jacques-Remy Girerd highlights this environmentally conscious feature that parallels the great films of Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki.
While not as profound or visually brilliant as Miyazaki’s Ponyo or Spirited Away, Mia has an offhand charm that make it watchable for the entire family. It would have been nice to have the original French language track; extras include a Girerd interview and making-of featurette.
(Cinema Libre)
Brian Malone’s documentary attempts to even-handedly dissect our damaged political system, but like Jon Stewart’s 2010 D.C. rally, it pretends that the right-wing noise machine and less truculent left-wing side are equal, when they obviously aren’t.
Still, there’s valuable info and insight gleaned from talking heads on both sides of the aisle—including former Senator Alan Simpson, who gets directly to the heart of today’s madness—and, looking closely at footage from tea party rallies, it’s obvious that the right is the harbinger of this mess; an impotent left is the reason why there’s a stalemate instead of true progressive policies.
(Acorn)
The Nazi sinking of the British passenger ship Laconia in 1942 is well-known in England but not here: but this superbly scripted and directed thriller about what happened before, during and after one of the most heinous actions of the war by either side should fill in the blanks for interested viewers.
Marvelous physical trappings notwithstanding (and unavoidable soap opera qualities to the various stories), it’s the excellent acting by the likes of Brian Cox, Lindsay Duncan and Franka Potente to bring a human dimension to an epic survival tale. The lone extra is a half-hour doc about actual survivors’ stories.
Jean Francaix: Wind Chamber Music
(BIS)
Belgian composer Jean Francaix may have been a weird stickler about the pronunciation of his name (Fran-SEX, believe it or not), but his attractive and immensely tuneful music belies his offbeat personality.
This disc of four of his wind chamber music works includes two wind quintets, a wind quartet and a Divertissement, all supremely confident and wonderfully beguiling. The Bergen Woodwind Quartet’s performances underscore Francaix’s sonic richness.
(Supraphon)
To most, Czech operas comprise Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and Dvorak’s Rusalka. This 1980 recording of another Smetana opera, this one based on Czech history, displays a wide-ranging musical palette encompassing chorales, marches and Wagner-like heaviness.
This Brno State Opera performance, conducted by Vaclav Smetacek, is appropriately dramatic, and magnificent Czech singers like Vilem Pribyl, Vaclev Zitek and Eva Depoltova powerfully convey its musical might.
August '12 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 05 August 2012 05:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
ATM
(IFC)
This thriller’s dumb premise comes courtesy of the writer of Buried, which was about a man trying to break out of a coffin. But that plot was positively Proustian compared to this one about two men and a woman trapped in an ATM by a maniac: even when it’s obvious they can break free, they do something stupid.
Director David Brooks handles the risible premise as well as possible, but that’s small consolation—ATM is for easy-to-please genre fans only. The Blu-ray image is fine; lone extra is a making-of featurette.
(Echo Bridge)
These engaging hi-def travel programs comprise various locations throughout England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, specifically Old Town Bamberg in Germany, Austria’s Schonbrunn Palace, London’s Royal Botanical Gardens, Belgium’s historic city of Bruges and Holland’s famed windmills.
The video footage, while tremendous, has iffy hi-def resolution: it looks somewhat grainy and not as sharp as the best HD does. And there’s also insufferable narration, which doesn’t help matters any.
(PBS)
This informative if overly frivolous PBS Nature program tracks the lives of several koala bears that make their home among the humans living in Australian suburbs.
This informative if overly frivolous PBS Nature program tracks the lives of several koala bears that make their home among the humans living in Australian suburbs.
The superbly detailed camerawork follows the koalas up close and personally, whether they are mating or marking their territory against unwanted interlopers; the scientific explanations for their behavior are fascinating to hear, but the program too often falls into the “aren’t they cute?” rut. The Blu-ray images are excellent.
(Echo Bridge)
Director Robert Rodriguez and writer Kevin Williamson (creator of Scream, a debit of a credit if there ever was one), joined forces for this amusingly hokey 1999 horror spoof about a suburban high school overrun by aliens which are entering the bodies of the faculty members.
The movie, which stars the likes of Jon Stewart, Josh Hartnett, Famke Janssen and Jordana Brewster, ricochets between full-on gory effects and over-the-top silliness. The movie has a decent if unspectacular transfer; surprisingly, considering other Rodriguez DVDs, there are no extras.
Forever Marilyn
(Fox)
Cinema’s ultimate goddess gets her own hi-def boxed set on the 50th anniversary of her death, and the seven films included are. Among Monroe’s most celebrated roles. Marilyn’s best film appearance, in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959), and her disappointing pairing with Clark Gable in John Huston’s The Misfits (1961) were previously released on Blu-ray, but the other five are new to the format.
There’s No Business Like Show Business, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, River of No Return, The Seven Year Itch and How to Marry a Millionaire make this one of the most memorable boxed sets yet to appear on Blu-ray. Each of the films—particularly those shot in Cinemascope, which means all of them except Gentlemen—looks superb, and several of the discs include vintage featurettes, commentaries and deleted scenes.
(Lionsgate)
Jean Renoir’s second best film—after The Rules of the Game—is an all-time masterpiece: his explosive 1937 anti-war tract about French prisoners during WWI remains a grimly realistic but humane psychological study. Stellar acting by Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay and Erich von Stroheim and gritty B&W photography by Christian Matras add to its status as a true classic.
On Blu-ray, the movie looks nearly flawless, which is amazing for a 75-year-old feature; extras include interviews, featurettes and a look at the restoration.
(Criterion)
The important theme of illegal immigration is turned by Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki into something as relevant as last year’s almanac. Kaurismaki’s familiar deadpan style has worn thin and his expressionless actors ruin a potentially powerful premise.
The city of Le Havre, while no cultural French jewel, surely deserves better than this lazy effort; aside from a few ‘90s gems (La Vie de Boheme, Juha, Drifting Clouds), Kaurismaki’s uninspired films have been providing more meager returns. Criterion, of course, gives the film a superior Blu-ray transfer; extras include interviews and bonus footage.
The Beat Hotel
(First Run)
Alan Govenar’s documentary about the little-known and run-down Parisian hotel that was ground zero for the beat generation is an interesting historical glimpse at a fertile period for literature and art that began in the City of Light’s Latin Quarter.
In addition to amusing anecdotes about or interviews with several of its famous players (Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs) and the hotel’s proprietress Madame Rachou, the movie is also visually arresting, thanks to Harold Chapman’s vintage photographs and Elliot Rudie’s drawings. Extras include short films and a deleted scene.
(MGM)
These Burn On Demand releases are nearly forgotten B movies, starting with Caged Fury (1990), starring the beautiful Roxanna Michaels as a tough gal who helps break her friends out of a prison populated with crooked guards.
The Children of Times Square (1986), made by Curtis Hanson long before hitting pay dirt with L.A. Confidential, is a spotty portrait of 42nd Street’s denizens before it was cleaned up and Disneyfied that works better as a time-capsule glimpse than as a compelling drama.
(Highway 61)
This fictional “documentary” pretending to tell the truth about Barack Obama’s real father—he wasn’t Kenyan but an American Commie—fails to connect dots that are unconnectable. Inept director Joel Gilbert even compares photos of Obama and supposed dad, Frank Marshall Davis, neither of whom resembles the other: such patently offensive nonsense is another example of the systematic lowering of America’s collective IQ.
In this latest “Obama Is Not a Legitimate President” screed, there’s not a shred of evidence; instead, crazy-quilt theories are raised and accepted as “fact”: as long as one screams “Marxist,” “Communist” and “Socialist,” some will respond as red meat to rabid dogs.
(Sony)
Director Joseph Cedar ingeniously dissects the competitiveness of father and son Talmudic scholars who find themselves on opposite sides when the important Israel Prize is announced.
Cedar wittily keeps things moving with flashbacks, cross-cutting, onscreen titles and persuasive performances that sympathetically display the continuously shifting father-son dynamics in an unapologetically intellectual milieu. Extras include a Cedar interview and making-of featurette.
(Zeitgeist)
The Quay brothers, cinematic purveyors of fanciful weirdness, made their debut feature in 1994; the quirkiness is encapsulated in its subtitle, Or These Dreams We Call Human Life. This bizarre drama stars Mark Rylance as a man who enrolls in a weird boarding school and becomes involved the owner’s wife (Alice Krige).
The B&W images look stunning on DVD (too bad there’s no Blu-ray release, as there was in England); extras include on-set footage and the brothers’ 2007 short, Eurydice: She So Beloved.
(Acorn)
The first three of John Jakes’ colorful series of American history novels—which I devoured as a teenager—were turned into TV mini-series in 1978 and ’79 that featured fictional characters meeting many historical personages. In The Bastard, young Philippe Charboneau meets Lafayette and Ben Franklin; in The Rebels, Philippe, now Philip Kent, fights alongside George Washington, Sam Adams and Paul Revere against the Redcoats; in The Seekers, son Abraham fights the War of 1812.
Andrew Stevens (Philip), impossibly beautiful Kim Cattrall (wife Anne) and ‘70s relics Tom Bosley (Franklin), William Shatner (Paul Revere), Peter Graves (Washington), Don Johnson, Delta Burke and Olivia Massey co-star, with a scene-stealing William Daniels as Samuel Adams.
Bliss Conducts Bliss
(Heritage)
Sir Arthur Bliss, a truly unsung 20th century British composer, was also an accomplished conductor of his own music, which these recordings triumphantly show.
A Colour Symphony, one of Bliss’s most characteristic orchestral works, begins the disc with its sparkling virtuosity, followed by Music for Strings and Introduction and Allegro; all are brilliantly paced by Bliss, who leads two formidable ensembles, the London Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras, in these performances from 1955 and 1956.
(Neos)
Alexandre Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto is the go-to classical sax work that has attracted the likes of Branford Marsalis, so it’s no surprise it leads off John-Edward Kelly’s exploration of 20th century saxophone concertos that was recorded in 2000.
Kelly, who also conducts the Glazunov work, has the style and pacing down, along with playing his own cadenza; contemporary works by Nicola LeFanu (1989) and Krzysztof Meyer (1993) are less impressive musically but contain enough technical challenges for Kelly to make them sound significant. Micha Hamel conducts the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic in the two other works.
Music Reviews: Willson in Cooperstown, Chabrier on the Hudson
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Saturday, 04 August 2012 10:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
The Music Man
Book, music and lyrics by Meredith Willson
Choreographed and directed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge
Le Roi malgre lui
Composed by Emmanuel Chabrier
Conducted by Leon Botstein; directed by Thaddeus Strassberger
Summer music festivals have proliferated for years, and two of the biggest in New York State have recently changed their tune, so to speak. The Glimmerglass Festival, north of Cooperstown, was the Glimmerglass Opera for decades until being renamed in the hopes of drawing audiences for whom the word "Opera" is too daunting. The Bard Music Festival, on the Bard College campus two hours north of New York City, is now part of the more encompassing Bard Summerscape, comprising films, lectures, concerts, dance, theater and opera.
The Glimmerglass Festival now includes Broadway musicals, with Meredith Willson's The 
Music Man onstage this summer and Lerner and Loewe's Camelot next year. Director Marcia Milgrom Dodge's production of The Music Man—somewhat arbitrarily moved from 1912 to the 1940s, although if you don't see it in the program, you won't notice it—is an enjoyably old-fashioned romp, with Willson's captivating score at center stage, particularly the daring a cappella opener, "Rock Island," which could stake its claim as musical theater's first rap song.
Dwayne Croft makes a properly slick but less than appealing leading man as Harold Hill, the title con man who should be both obnoxious and irresistible, while perennially underrated soprano Elizabeth Futral (as winsome Marian the librarian) has a meltingly lovely voice that caresses Willson's best ballads like "Good Night Someone" and the immortal "Till There Was You." The rest of the cast is adequate if unexceptional, but buoyed by tunes like "Seventy-Six Trombones" and "Pick-a-Little (Talk-a-Little)," The Music Man remains classic musical Americana.
Downstate at Bard, where Frenchman Camille Saint-Saens is the summer's featured composer, his contemporary Emmanuel Chabrier is represented by his grand comic opera, Le Roi malgre lui, or The King in Spite of Himself. This rollicking comedy contains 
Chabrier's most beguiling music, spinning its memorable melodies throughout its many arias—and they are plentiful in this three-hour, 40-minute work—as it tells the hilarious story of the new French king of Poland, Henri le Valois, who doesn't want the job.
Thaddeus Strassberger's staging slyly interpolates modernist and Brechtian touches—one character watches the royal proceedings on TV until entering the opera proper in the final act, news cameras record the goings-on and that footage is shown onscreen, and the entire opera takes place on a soundstage—that are odd but appropriate complements to the lunatic goings-on that Chabrier orchestrates (dramatically and musically) with great glee and artfulness.
The cast comprises some of the best singers yet in a Bard opera production, led by baritone Liam Bonner's regal-voiced Valois, luminous soprano Andriana Churchman's easy traversal of the torturously difficult music for the opera's romantic heroine, Minka, and soprano Nathalie Paulin as Alexina, whose duet with Churchman is the score's musical highlight. Leon Botstein paces the long opera rather erratically, but Chabrier's joyful noise still shines through.
The Music Man
Performances through August 24, 2012
Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown, NY
Le Roi malgre lui
Performances through August 5, 2012
Bard Summerscape @ Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
July '12 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 29 July 2012 05:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Brake
(IFC)
An admittedly ingenious story device—Secret Service agent trapped in a car trunk must figure out a D.C. terrorist plot before bombs burst in air—is ruined by a twist stolen from the very first Twilight Zone episode. Then, as if admitting to the theft, writer Timothy Mannion unveils another dastardly twist, which falls flat.
Since nearly the entire 90-minute movie takes place in an enclosed box, Stephen Dorff must be commended for his controlled hysterics and apparent lack of claustrophobia. Director Gabe Torres cleverly keeps viewers from suffocating; on Blu-ray, the movie’s visuals look sharp. Extras are a Torres commentary, music video and making-of featurette.
(PBS)
Famed British detective Inspector Morse had to begin somewhere, and Endeavour shows where, as the green but aggressive rookie tackles the case of a teenage schoolgirl gone missing near Oxford.
With assorted characters that have something to hide—including a former opera singer, whom the young Morse adores, whose husband may have been mixed up with the unfortunate girl—Endeavour is a worthy addition to the Masterpiece Mystery family. Solid acting by Sean Lewis, Roger Allam and Flora Hemingway complements a satisfying script; the hi-def transfer is excellent.
(Fox)
If Mel Gibson is really looking to rehabilitate his image, he should pick better scripts than this one by Apocalypto co-writer Adrian Grunberg, also making his directing debut. Favoritism is one thing, but this idiotic adventure about an American jailed in Mexico who must save himself and others before bad guys get them balances flavorful dialogue with ridiculously thin characters.
Gibson gets by on his natural charisma, but the others are close to offensive caricature (although with that title, it’s not surprising). The movie has a good Blu-ray transfer; extras include a making-of featurette and music video.
(Kino)
Derek Jarman’s angry screed against his country being destroyed from within by Thatcher’s conservative government has lost none of its visceral power since its 1987 release and contains indelible visuals, especially those featuring then-muse Tilda Swinton, only a blip on Hollywood’s radar back then.
Still, Jarman’s ranting rarely coheres into something tangible, as it does far more strongly in his next film, the AIDS paean, The Garden. In this fine hi-def transfer, England etches a specific time and place.
(Anchor Bay)
Writer-director D.W. Brown’s unconvincing prison drama fails in its attempt to create a sympathetic character in a killer sentenced to a psych ward with men crazier and more psychopathic than he.
And while Nick Stahl makes a fairly credible protagonist, both Dash Mihok and Pruitt Taylor Vince are too obvious as his prison foils, and the always appealing Olivia Wilde is totally wasted in a silly “romantic” role. The movie does have a top-notch hi-def transfer, however.
Peter Gabriel: Secret World Live
(Eagle Vision)
This film of Peter Gabriel’s 1994 tour supporting his Us CD finally gets the spectacular hi-def treatment. The upgraded DTS-HD sound is impressively enveloping: every nuance of Gabriel’s vocals and his ace backing band’s playing clearly heard. The 16mm film has also gotten a thorough visual restoration.
Of course, the concert’s a knockout musically, and Peter’s duets with backing vocalist (and soon to be hitmaker) Paula Cole on “Come Talk to Me,” “Blood of Eden” and “Don’t Give Up” are among his most impassioned. Extras include “Red Rain” (why isn’t it part of the film?), a Gabriel interview, behind-the-scenes footage and “Rhythm of the Heat” from his 2010 orchestral tour.
(PBS)
Trevor McDonald’s four programs about how the British see their queen in her Diamond Jubilee Year and, by extension, the institution of the monarchy itself, is a fascinating cultural history lesson. The quartet—London: Royal City, Royal Visit, The Queen’s Possessions and Traveler—is narrated by McDonald, who interviews people ranging from one of the queen’s photographers to a “Beefeater” (queen’s guard).
The show was shot in splendid hi-definition, which includes glimpses of the picturesque Channel Islands, where inhabitants think of themselves as part of but separate from their country.
(Kino)
Alberto Cavalcanti—then known simply as Cavalcanti (take that, Sting and Madonna)—directed this bleak film noir in 1947, and it remains amazingly modern. Amid the usual noirish trappings, Trevor Howard superbly plays a war veteran hardened by work in the criminal underworld.
Otto Heller’s marvelous black and white photography has so many shades of gray, reminding us that nothing’s either black or white in this sordid world; the movie looks terrific on Blu-ray.
Black Butterflies
(Tribeca Film)
Deserved winner of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival’s Best Actress award, the Netherlands’ Carice van Houten fearlessly portrays South African poet Ingrid Jonker, an unforgettable performance that overshadows the rest of Paula van der Oest’s biopic.
Some good, intense sequences visualize Jonker’s tortured psychology, but too often Butterflies falls into the melodramatic trap of similar screen biographies. But Houten is so shattering that it rarely matters. Extras include van der Oest and van Houten interviews.
(e one)
In Nacho Vigalondo’s smart sci-fi thriller-cum-romantic comedy, a lovely young woman, her boyfriend, a one-night-stand and a nosy neighbor wonder whether any of the others is one of “them”: aliens that have landed on earth.
The tongue-in-cheek humor makes up for lazy exposition as each person’s suspicions don’t pan out. The performances (notably by knockout Michelle Jenner) keep Vigalondo’s intriguing but one-note concept amusing for 90 minutes. Extras include three Vigalondo shorts and a making-of featurette.
(PBS)
Henry Louis Gates Jr’s genealogy series continues with episodes that enlighten celebrities of their lineage—with surprises such as when married couple Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick learn that they are ninth cousins.
Others interviewed are musicians Harry Connick and Branford Marsalis, actors Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and politicians Condoleezza Rice and Cory Booker. Gates’ chronicles are historically relevant and engaging to watch as famous people become emotional while discovering their ancestors.
(ABC)
These new ABC drama series revolve around immensely likeable leading ladies: Missing stars Ashley Judd as a former CIA agent who takes it upon herself to find her kidnaped son in Europe, while Revenge stars Kerry Washington as head of a crisis management agency that uses its expertise to hush up possible scandals in Washington D.C.
While both shows unabashedly traffic in implausibilities, good writing, acting and a quick pace compensate. Extras are interviews and behind the scenes snapshots; Missing also includes deleted scenes.
(First Run)
This remarkable documentary presents the history of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, one of the Berkshire’s summer jewels. For 80 years, renowned choreographers and performers descend upon Jacob’s Pillow to perform cutting-edge, controversial, thought-provoking modern and classical dance works.
Narrated by choreographer Bill T. Jones, Ron Honsa’s film includes interviews with Suzanne Farrell and Mark Morris, and succinctly summarizes the place’s historical and artistic importance. Extras include a brief Merce Cunningham interview and additional performance snippets.
(First Run)
Brian Lilla’s urgent expose of a massive dam project threatening Chile’s Patagonia region is cinematic advocacy at its most revelatory. The project, comprising five dams along two rivers, purports to help millions receive needed electricity, but experts insist it will destroy one of the world’s most fragile eco-systems, and that alternative forms of energy are preferable.
Lilla methodically covers both sides, even though it’s obvious where he sits. The project’s PR mouthpiece comes off slick and rehearsed, but more troubling are sincere but naive comments from people who live in Santiago, who feel the dams are needed for their well-being (needless to say, most are young adults).
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