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NYC Theater in Brief: Streetcar, Shakespeare, Silver, Shaw, Rabe, Pinter

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 08 May 2012 05:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Underwood and Parker in Streetcar (photo by Ken Howard)

A Streetcar Named Desire

Written by Tennessee Williams; directed by Emily Mann

Previews began April 3, 2012; opened April 22; closes July 22

Broadhurst Theatre, 235 West 44^th Street, New York, NY

http://streetcaronbroadway.com

Ignore the dubious notion that black and Latino actors in A Streetcar Named Desire provide some sort of extra illumination (they don’t) and Emily Mann’s new production is not without interest. Terence Blanchard’s music is appropriately dusky and sexy, while Eugene Lee’s set nicely evokes New Orleans’ French Quarter.

If Mitch and Stella are played without much nuance by Wood Harris and Daphne Rubin-Vega, at least there are sparks between Stanley—never identified as Kowalski here, for obvious reasons—and Blanche Dubois: Blair Underwood and Nicole Ari Parker.

Underwood has charismatic appeal, and he’s a decent enough Stanley; if he can’t compare with Brando…well, who can? The breathtakingly beautiful Parker, meanwhile, is almost too delicate for Blanche, but she invests her with an empathy missing from an otherwise respectable production.

After so many inferior Streetcars on New York stages over the years—Alec Baldwin/Jessica Lange, John C. Reilly/Natasha Richardson, the Cate Blanchett import—respectability is just what Blanche’s doctor ordered.

Neuwirth and Heald in Dream (photo by Joan Marcus)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Tony Speciale

Previews began April 4, 2012; opened April 25; closes May 20

Classic Stage Company, 136 East 13^th Street, New York, NY

http://classicstage.org

For a few gloriously giddy minutes, Tony Speciale’s misguided A Midsummer Night’s Dreambasks in its (and Shakespeare’s) element. Right before intermission, the quartet of mismatched lovers runs around in a physically demanding romp that underlines rather than overwhelms the fast-moving text.

The four nimble performers—Christina Ricci, Halley Wegryn Gross, Nick Gehlfuss and Jordan Dean—aren’t top-notch Shakespeare speakers, but they are able to convey (with a great assist from George De La Pena’s frolicsome choreography) the hilarious and bittersweet absurdities that the relationships in Dream abound in.

The rest of the time—with the exceptions of a well-spoken Oberon (and Theseus) by Anthony Heald and Mark Wendland’s eye-popping set dominated by a wall-sized mirror that reflects the magical goings-on—this Dreamis a campy nightmare: especially ludicrous are Taylor Mac’s Puck and David Greenspan’s Flute.

Steven Skybell’s Bottom occasionally amuses, Bebe Neuwirth’s Titiana looks smashing in a black leather outfit, and Erin Hill sings pleasingly while accompanied herself on harp. But Speciale’s Dream is nothing special.

Lavin and Latessa in The Lyons (photo by Carol Rosegg)

The Lyons

Written by Nicky Silver; directed by Mark Brokaw

Previews began April 5, 2012; opened April 23

Cort Theatre, 138 West 48^th Street, New York, NY

http://thelyonsbroadway.com

Nicky Silver’s The Lyons (which should be The Lyonses), a superficial comic study of the ultimate dysfunctional family, has enough nastily funny lines to make for a tolerable couple of hours.

As patriarch Ben lies dying in his hospital bed, his wife Rita is giddy with excitement that she’ll finally start a new life, while their children—gay, unattached Curtis and straight, alcoholic, divorced Lisa—helplessly look on.

Silver gives many of the best (or, at least, nastiest) dialogue to Rita, whom Linda Lavin plays to the hilt in an unself-consciously hammy performance that’s the show’s highlight. Dick Latessa is a fine Ben, although his foul-mouthed outbursts aren’t as gut-busting as Silver apparently thinks they are, while Kate Jennings Grant and John Wernke (the understudy was at the performance I attended) are capable as the cardboard Curtis and Lisa.

Mark Brokaw directs with brio, but The Lyons is as undernourished as Silver’s others. And why, for the sake of a bad pun, does he mistitle his own play?

Man and Superman (photo by James Higgins)

Man and Superman

Written by Bernard Shaw; adapted and directed by David Staller

Previews began April 26, 2012; opened May 6; closes June 17

Irish Rep, 132 West 22^nd Street, New York, NY

http://irishrep.org

David Staller’s adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s mammoth masterpiece should be called Scenes from Man and Superman: although worthy of the master, enough has been shorn to make one long for what’s missing.

In this typically witty and erudite exploration of the relationship between eternal bachelor Jack and his ward Ann, who has her designs on him, Shaw has written a play massive in scale, including one act, Don Juan in Hell, that’s often presented separately—or deleted entirely from Superman stagings.

Director Staller includes everything, but his cuts and dialogue changes (including unnecessary scene changes) are questionable.

Still—as it always does—Shavian wit saves the day, the actors (particularly Brian Murray’s blustering Ramsden) are fine individually and as an ensemble, and the Irish Rep’s tiny stage is used adroitly by Staller and set designer James Noone. It’s not a perfect Man and Superman, but can there be?

Stockman and Van Der Boom in An Early History of Fire (photo by Monique Carboni)

An Early History of Fire

Written by David Rabe; directed by Jo Bonney

Previews began April 5, 2012; opened April 30; closes May 26

Acorn Theatre, 410 West 42^nd Street, New York, NY

http://thenewgroup.org

Belatedly pitting the square ‘50s against the with-it ‘60s, David Rabe’s An Early History of Fire has a whiff of moldiness in its story of Danny, a restless young man in a small Midwest town whose new girlfriend, the delectable Karen—a beautiful and rich local girl whose college education back East opens new doors to him—transforms his relationships with his friends and widowed, Old World father in the course of a long night.

Although the scenes between Danny and Karen (played with authenticity and directness by Theo Stockman and Claire van der Boom) are beautifully written, Rabe has trouble with the other characters, which are mere tangents to the central relationship; and his reliance on obvious pop culture markers (JD Salinger! Jack Kerouac! Elvis!) preclude any fresh statements at this late date. '

But Jo Bonney’s compact staging and the fine cast of seven are able to convey the outlines of real lives anyway.

Pryce in The Caretaker (photo by Shane Reid)

The Caretaker

Written by Harold Pinter; directed by Christopher Morahan

Previews began May 3, 2012; opened May 6; closes June 17

BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY

http://bam.org

In Harold Pinter’s dreary The Caretaker, which is filled with the arbitrarily malevolent relationships that the playwright returned to again and again, Jonathan Pryce adroitly plays Davies, a vagrant who forms unlikely bonds with two brothers, Mick and Aston, and expertly plays them off each other.

Christopher Morahan’s claustrophobic production, played out on Eileen Diss’s exceptionally scattered mess of a set, solidly grounds the constantly shifting power plays among this motley trio.

But despite Pryce’s, Alan Cox’s and Alex Hassell’s heroic efforts, The Caretaker never amounts to much; whether it’s because the play itself lacks gravitas or because we’ve become numbed to Pinter’s rug-pulling is hard to say. Later Pinter works like The Homecoming and Celebration, for all their exaggerated nastiness, have characters worth dissecting: not so The Caretaker.

May '12 Digital Week I

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 06 May 2012 05:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

ExistenZ/Malevolent/B Monkey

(Miramax)

A trio of forgettable thrillers comes to Blu-ray: David Cronenberg’s mad eXistenZ (1999) stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law in a convoluted ride through a lethal video game; Malevolent (2002) is a mild cop flick with Lou Diamond Phillips and the always welcome Kari Wuhrer (whatever happened to??) as a detective and an exotic dancer caught up in a murder spree; Michael Radford’s B Monkey(1999) is a vehicle for Asia Argento as a sexy thief—but her irritating, smug presence is a fatal drawback.

The movies have been decently transferred to hi-def.

The Innkeepers

(Dark Sky)

Ti West’s shaky psychological thriller is definitely not The Shining reborn: two employees of an historic inn about to close its doors for good are beset by terrors of the mental kind, but when it’s been painstakingly established that the young woman has been gravely damaged, West pulls out the rug from under his own movie by ending it with a crude shock effect a la Paranormal Activity.

It’s too bad, for Sara Paxton and Pat Healy give solid performances, and there’s a palpable sense of dread—for awhile, at least. A good Blu-ray transfer helps; extras include a making-of featurette and two commentaries.

The Man Nobody Knew

(First Run)

Carl Colby’s very personal documentary about his dad William—CIA head during a volatile era—is an impactful account of a man variously considered hero or warmonger. Interviews with Carl’s mother and William’s colleagues Seymour Hersh, Donald Rumsfeld, Bob Woodward and more make the case for this complicated character.

That he died under mysterious circumstances only adds to the legend of a man whose career is a microcosm of our nation’s foreign policy for the past half-century. Since the movie comprises talking-head interviews, it’s a surprise First Run released it on Blu-ray, but it does look excellent; extras include additional interviews and scenes.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

(PBS)

Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel was once turned into a marathon Broadway musical; this new PBS “Masterpiece” adaptation runs a mere two hours, but a committed cast brings across much of the flavor of this final work.

Matthew Rhys (Jasper), Freddie Fox (Edwin), Tamzin Merchant (Rosa) and Rory Kinnear (the Reverend) all jump off the page onto the screen, how persuasively they nestle in director Diarmuid Lawrence’s sumptuous Victorian-era setting, splendidly recreated on Blu-ray, while the multi-layered story (adapted by Gwyneth Jones) has been equally well-realized.

New Year’s Eve

(Warners)

Garry Marshall hit it big with his crude ensemble romantic comedy, 2010’s Valentine’s Day, so he’s at it again with an even larger ensemble in another crude romantic comedy set in Times Square on December 31.

Despite its cast—led by a bevy of actresses from Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry to Jessica Biel and Lea Michele—the movie has little humor and even less romance, as stars and director go through the motions. Pfeiffer’s role is particularly embarrassing; this resourceful actress can do little with it. Manhattan glistens, however, on Blu-ray; extras include a gag reel, deleted scenes and interviews.

The Organizer

(Criterion)

Mario Monicelli’s 1963 account of late 19^thcentury Italian laborers striking for better working conditions is a rediscovered classic. A finely wrought, subtle Marcello Mastroianni as a socialist professor who eggs on the workers in their fight against their bosses—which devolves into tragedy when one of their own is killed—is the center of this intelligent piece of agit-prop.

The Criterion Collection edition, while skimpy on extras (Monicelli’s 2006 introduction predates his death in 2010 at age 95), gives the black and white film its due with a superlative, grainy hi-def transfer.

The Wicker Tree

(Anchor Bay)

Nearly 40 years after The Wicker Man,director Robin Hardy returns to the story that made his reputation, but his belated and misbegotten sequel has nothing on the original—and still-shocking—film.

Despite a few scenes of frisky sexuality and black humor, Tree has none of the unsettling horror of Man, and the brief appearance of Christopher Lee is a sad reminder of what’s missing from the new film. The picturesque Scottish locations are enticing on Blu-ray; extras include a making-of featurette and deleted scenes.

DVDs of the Week

Cirkus Columbia

(Strand)

Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, who returned to his homeland to explore the days before post-Communist Yugoslavia was torn apart by a devastating civil war, deals unflinchingly with how petty personal vendettas metastasized into lethal nationalism.

Working from his and novelist Ivica Djikic’s script, Tanovic has created a pungent metaphor for how quickly tiny frictions blow up into outright killing and the worst atrocities since Hitler. The title refers to a local “circus”—more a cheap amusement park with beat-up children’s rides—whose temporary youthful idyll is replaced by the sight and sound of shells exploding as the war finally arrives.

The Double Hour

(New Video)

Giuseppe Capotondi’s sexy thriller is set in photogenic but not overused Turin: widower Guido meets mysterious Sonia at a singles club and falls for her, unaware of her secret past and present.

With true chemistry between leads Filippo Timi and Ksenia Rappoport, the movie moves through many twists and turns, and if Capotondi loses his way (devolving into a semi-twist ending), his movie retains its adultness and interest. Extras include a making-of featurette and deleted scenes.

From the Other Side/South

(Icarus)

Belgian director Chantal Ackerman uses are interest in other cultures to make these chronicles of lives beset by inherent difficulties. 2002’s From the Other Side is an account of desperate existences in a Mexican border town and dreams of life in America; 1999’s South presents the meager lives of inhabitants of small-town America.

Akerman’s directorial eye is better than her ear, as there are precious few piercing truths about her subjects that we haven’t heard before.

Phil Collins: Live at Montreux

(Eagle Eye)

In 2004, Phil Collins performed at Switzerland’s fabled Montreux Jazz Festival for two hours of hits and progressive rock-cum-jazzy forays. The show begins with a smashing drum duet-turned-trio, then moves through radio smashes “Against All Odds,” “Don’t Lose My Number,” “In the Air Tonight” and “Take Me Home.”

A second disc houses Collins’ 1996 Montreux concert, a big band affair in which his crack band plays revamped versions of his songs and even “The Los Endos Suite” by Genesis; he welcomes special guest stars Tony Bennett, saxophonist David Sanborn and conductor Quincy Jones.

Who Do You Think You Are—Season 2

(Acorn)

This NBC reality series, based on a British program of the same name and similar to PBS’ Faces of America,hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., chronicles several celebrities’ ancestries to uncover surprising—and even shocking—episodes from their families’ past.

Included in this two-disc set’s eight episodes are Vanessa Williams, Kim Cattrall, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lionel Richie, Tim McGraw, Rosie O’Donnell, Ashley Judd and Steve Buscemi, all reduced to silence and even tears at the revelations they discover.

CDs of the Week

Renee Fleming: Poemes

(Decca)

Although primarily associated with Mozart and Richard Strauss operatic roles, reigning American soprano Renée Fleming also sings contemporary music, as the works by 96-year-old master Henri Dutilleux on this all-French disc show. Dutilleux’s modern but accessible idiom is on display in his early Deux Sonnets de Jean Cassou (1954) and more recent Le Temps L’Horloge(2007), both of which sound exhilarating sung by Fleming.

Two other cycles—Ravel’s Sheherazade (1904) and Messaien’s Poemes pour mi (1936)—are also excitingly performed by Fleming and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, led by Alan Gilbert, and Orchestre National de France, led by Seiji Ozawa.

The Soviet Experience, Volume 2: Pacifica Quartet

(Cedille)

The 15 string quartets of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich are the 20^thcentury’s most important chamber music cycle and the Pacifica Quartet continues its traversal of them with exacting performances of the four earliest.

The quartets’ juxtaposition of real emotion and bitter sarcasm needs to balance the bombast and subtlety, and the Pacifica’s members come through in spades. Rounding out this excellent set is fellow Soviet master Sergei Prokofiev’s second quartet, sounding as personal and painful as Shostakovich.

On Broadway: New Musicals 'Ghost,' 'Leap of Faith,' 'Nice Work If You Can Get It'

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 03 May 2012 06:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Ghost

With Richard Fleeshman, Caissie Levy, Bryce Pinkham, Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Music and lyrics by Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard

Book and lyrics by Bruce Joel Rubin

Directed by Matthew Warchus

Leap of Faith

Starring Raul Esparza, Jessica Phillips

Book by Warren Leight and Janus Cercone
Lyrics by Glenn Slater; music by Alan Menken

Directed by Christopher Ashley

Nice Work If You Can Get It

With Matthew Broderick, Kelli O’Hara, Judy Kaye, Estelle Parsons, Michael McGrath, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Terry Beaver, Robyn Hurder, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Chris Sullivan

Music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin
Book by Joe DiPietro
Choreographed and directed by Kathleen Marshall

Ghost The Musical (photo by Shawn Ebsworth Barnes)

The most memorable part of Ghost, the 1990 romantic fantasy with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, was the song “Unchained Melody,” which accompanied the scene the movie’s fans swoon over: the heroine doing pottery while her dead husband’s spirit wraps his arms around her.

That scene stands out in the negligible musical adaptation that’s now on Broadway, following other movie-into-musical transformations like The Producers, Hairspray, Urban Cowboy, and the current Leap of Faith (reviewed below). If any movie was not crying out for musicalization, it’s Ghost: the insufferable story of a cute New York couple (an artist and Wall Street wizard) whose love is put to the test when he inconveniently dies rang up hundreds of millions at the box office and Oscars for Bruce Joel Rubin’s cloying script and Whoopi Goldberg’s sassy turn as the fake medium through whom our hero speaks in order to let his beloved know A) who murdered him and—sniff, sniff—B) that he loves her forever.

Those who loved the movie might enjoy the musical, which follows the plot closely enough, while becoming even more sentimental than the original with its several false endings. That the leads are neither Swayze nor Moore doesn’t matter—even if Richard Fleeshman and Caissie Levy are better singers than actors—and that Whoopi’s not around isn’t a liability either: Da’vine Joy Randolph ratchets up the sass and drags the willing audience with her in a scene-stealing performance, but the accolades she’s getting are more for her indestructible comic character than what she brings.

The music and lyrics, a motley crew operation by the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, pop balladeer Glen Ballard and the movie’s writer Rubin, are so forgettable that the lone song worth humming is the haunting “Unchained Melody,” which returns so often that it too becomes annoying.

That leaves Matthew Warchus’ jazzed-up (or rocked-up) staging, which comprises the cleverness of Jon Driscoll’s videos and projections and Hugh Vanstone’s lighting, Bobby Aiken’s snazzy sound design, Rob Howell’s souped-up sets, Paul Kieve’s haunting illusions and Ashley Wallen’s energetic choreography. Such a glittery but empty physical production makes Ghost more of a rock concert than a real Broadway musical.

Raul Esparza (center) in Leap of Faith (photo by Joan Marcus)

Another unnecessary transformation of a movie into a stage musical, the messy Leap of Faith never allows its talented star Raúl Esparza’s singing, dancing and charismatic presence to cut loose from its schematic story. The original movie starred Steve Martin as Jonas Nightengale, an evangelist huckster who travels to small towns to jilt naïve believers of their hard-earned money, only to meet his match in the form of a single mom and her wheelchair-bound son. The intermittently amusing movie never found a balance for its sly humor and the sentiment piled on as Jonas’ well-oiled scam goes off the rails.

The musical has even more trouble with this central relationship because book writers Warren Leight and Janus Cercone never make the characters anything more than stick figures tossing off would-be witty lines, while our hero and his intended marks have no onstage spark. As the boy Jake, Talon Ackerman is tolerable enough, but Jessica Phillips is frightfully wooden as his mother Marla (who is also the sheriff, unlike the movie, where the sheriff was played by Liam Neeson and Lolita Davidovich—remember her?—was Marva).

And while Esparza has charisma to burn, he’s hampered by his less than stellar co-stars and, more damagingly, Alan Menken’s score without a single outstanding song. (Esparza does sing the hell out of his big dramatic number, the climactic “Jonas’ Soliloquy,” but he deserves more credit than Menken does.) What Esparza does best is also scuttled by the gospel-dominated show, which inserts too many joyous tunes for the chorus and leather-lunged Kecia Lewis-Evans (as Jonas’ protective den mother) to belt out periodically, whether or not the situation calls for it.

Such schizophrenic playing against its star’s strengths is among many problems plaguing Leap of Faith, despite being cannily choreographed by Sergio Trujillo and flashily directed by Christopher Ashley. Jokes about atheist New Yorkers and video cameras that show audience members on the theater’s TV monitors most likely won’t bring in the needed tourist trade for this wobbly show to run.

O'Hara and Broderick in Nice Work If You Can Get It (photo by Joan Marcus)

The jukebox musical has worked for the songs of composers from Billy Joel to Abba, so why not George Gershwin? Actually, Gershwin’s songs were already used in Crazy for You, a hit on Broadway in the distant 1990s. So a “new” Gershwin musical, Nice Work If You Can Get It, smacks of opportunism, plain and simple.

Happily, Nice Work If You Can Get It is a funny, frothy concoction that entertains while inviting audiences to hum its classic tunes, a rarity on Broadway since today’s musicals have everything in place but good songs. Here’s an embarrassment of riches, from the title tune to “They All Laughed,” nicely arranged by David Chase and gloriously played by a full orchestra.

Then there’s savvy director Kathleen Marshall’s delicious choreography, Derek McLane’s wonderful sets, Martin Pakledinaz’s flashy costumes, Peter Kaczorowski’s limber lighting, and Joe DiPietro’s goofily amusing book, which apes glitzy ‘30s musicals that teamed a resourceful gal (here a Depression era rum-runner) who snares the “unavailable” guy (here a rich momma’s boy about to marry the fourth time).

Along with first-rate trappings and songs, the performers—for the most part—are also up to snuff. The men and women of the chorus have enough varied personalities to become the polar opposite of the homogeneity that infects today’s musical choruses.

As an anti-alcohol crusader who gets drunk, veteran showstopper Judy Kaye has a sublimely silly chandelier-swinging moment, and Kaye and Michael McGrath (as the heroine’s sidekick posing as a butler) marvelously play off each other during “Looking for a Boy.” If Jennifer Laura Thompson alternately apes Madeleine Kahn and Megan Mullalhy, that’s pretty good company, while Estelle Parsons strides onstage to hilariously close the show as our hero’s domineering mother.

Our stars stick to their strengths—Kelli O’Hara’s “everygal” look and Matthew Broderick’s not-so-eternal youth—but their chemistry is obvious as they climb all over the furniture during “S Wonderful,” turning it into a goofy mini-masterpiece of dance. Broderick’s mined the “boy-man” role for too long but gets away with it once more: it helps that he’s beside the spectacular Kelli O’Hara, one of our musical treasures.

Ghost

Previews began March 15, 2012; opened April 22

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 West 46^th Street, New York, NY

http://ghostthemusical.com

Leap of Faith

Previews began April 3, 2012; opened April 25

St. James Theatre, 246 West 44^th Street, New York, NY

http://leapoffaithbroadway.com

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Previews began March 29, 2012; opened April 24

Imperial Theatre, 249 West 45^th Street, New York, NY

http://niceworkonbroadway.com

April '12 Digital Week IV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Saturday, 28 April 2012 10:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Birdsong

(PBS)

Sebastian Faulks' panoramic novel about the doomed relationship between a British soldier and married French woman during World War I becomes another sophisticated "Masterpiece" entry from PBS, but without the book's framing device, taking place 70 years after these events; that omission loses what made Faulks' story compelling and touching.

Still, this sumptuous production has fine lovers in Eddie Redmayne and Clemence Poesy, and the equally good Marie-Josee Croze as her sister. The nearly three-hour film's nude scenes aren't typical PBS fare, so if that's what you're after, by all means watch. The excellent-looking Blu-ray includes three making-of featurettes.

Camelot

(Warners)

One of the clunkiest movie musicals ever made, this three-hour behemoth of Lerner & Loewe's Broadway hit stars two unlikely stars: Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave, both out of their element as a singing Arthur and Lady Guenevere.

But their discomfort is the least of it: the movie's visual dullness (which the added clarity of Blu-ray accentuates even more) and L&L's routine songs drag the whole thing down. We do get to hear the prelude, entr'acte and end music, which is nice; extras include vintage featurettes.

Contraband

(Universal)

Mark Wahlberg has been in too many mediocre action movies like this tired chase flick about a retired smuggler roped into a last dangerous job to help his sad-sack brother-in-law. Unorthodox setting of a container ship at port notwithstanding, the movie's reduced to laughably "tense" scenes as when Marky Mark and a sidekick must close the container doors before they're spotted. Whew!

Kate Beckinsale is completely wasted as Mark's wife, while Giovanni Ribisi makes a standard-issue crook. The film looks decent on Blu-ray; extras include commentary, deleted scenes and making-of featurettes.

Dark Tide

(Lionsgate)

How the mighty have fallen: Oscar winner Halle Berry is reduced to this lukewarm Jaws rip-off about a shark expert who, after a colleague is killed by a great white on her watch, hangs up her flippers, then is talked into a last dangerous—but lucrative—dive.

Despite amazing underwater photography and shark footage (and Halle in a bikini top), John Stockwell's drama features characters whom you don't care if the get eaten. On Blu-ray, the ocean sequences positively glisten; no extras.

The Fields

(Breaking Glass)

Writer Harrison Smith and directors Tom Mattera and David Mazzoni have made an unsettling thriller about a boy haunted by what may be lurking in the fields near his home.

With a wonderful performance by young Joshua Ormond in a deceptively difficult role, The Fields even has nuanced acting from Cloris Leachman (grandmother) and even Tara Reid (mother). The genuinely creepy movie—nothing is overdone—works even better on hi-def; extras include on-set featurettes, footage and interviews.

The Red House

(HD Cinema Classics)

Delmer Daves—a proficient director of entertaining genre movies in the '40s and '50s like 3:10 to Yuma—made this decently acted, technically sound but forgettable thriller.

Edward G. Robinson is surprisingly subdued as a man leery of his daughter's new beau, but this abandoned-house-in-the-woods tale is too stale to be in any way absorbing. The 1947 B&W film looks good on Blu-ray; the lone extra is a commentary.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

(Acorn)

Alec Guinness' performance as George Smiley, Cold War spy extraordinaire, is unforgettable precisely due to its understatement (contrarily, in the current movie version Gary Oldman works too hard for it to be effortless). Watching John Irvin's six-hour masterpiece—which may be even better than John Le Carre's original novel—in hi-def is a treat.

While the 1979 British mini-series doesn't look appreciably better on Blu-ray, the format's added clarity fits the cerebral story. Included are the same extras as on the DVD (Irvin and LeCarre interviews, deleted scenes).

Titanic

(MPI)

Written by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park and more recently Downton Abbey), this dutiful three-hour reenactment of the legendary ship's demise concentrates on how the boat's class system may have contributed to many needless deaths. The crowded cast, which comprises mainly character actors, features good work by Linus Roache and Maria Doyle Kennedy.

While far better than James Cameron's white whale, this four-part mini-series is not nearly as memorable as the 1958 classic A Night to Remember. The superior production design and special effects nearly jump off the screen on Blu-ray; extras are several featurettes and a commentary.

DVDs of the Week

Eclipse 32: Pearls of the Czech New Wave

(Criterion)

The six films in this essential box set are only the tip of a large iceberg making up the legendary if undervalued Czech New Wave cinema of the late '60s. Although the most famous title, Vera Chytilova's Daisies, is a dated curio easily surpassed by its maker's later films, the others are unimpeachably superlative.

The omnibus Pearls of the Deep combines humor and horror as only Soviet-era Eastern European cinema can, and the others must-watch features (Jan Nemec's A Report on the Party and Guests, Jiri Menzel's Capricious Summer, Jaromil Jires' The Joke, Evald Schorm's Return of the Prodigal Son) brilliantly explore the rigid Communist system with wit and bravery.

The Man on the Train

(Tribeca)

This unnecessary remake of Patrice Leconte's equally vapid crime drama with Johnny Hallyday and Jean Rochefort pairs a past-his-prime Donald Sutherland and U2 drummer Larry Mullen as a dying professor and a tough-guy bank robber who form an unlikely bond. Mullen provides an atmospheric score, which outclasses his acting.

Writer/director Mary McGuckian's low-key style is fatal for a film that has little in the way of surprises or nuance. The lone extra is a deleted scene.

Miss Bala and The Hidden Face

(Fox World Cinema)

These stylish Spanish-language thrillers approach their horrors in opposing ways. Gerardo Naranjo's Miss Bala thrusts its unwitting heroine—a beauty pageant contestant, no less—into the midst of Mexico's extreme gang-related violence, while Andi Baiz's The Hidden Face twists itself into a pretzel keeping a hoary cliché afloat for 95 minutes, when The Twilight Zone could have done it in a third of the time.

The women are each in her own way compelling: Stephanie Sigman in Miss Bala is especially one to watch.

Return

(e one)

Linda Cardellini's poignant portrayal of a wife and mother whose return home from Iraq is more disastrous than the time she spent there—she falls into boozing, neglecting her husband and kids, even sleeping with a Vietnam vet whom she feels a kinship with—is the main reason to see writer-director Liza Johnson's disjointed character study.

There's not much tragic thrust because Johnson is too coy about her protagonist's plight, but Cardellini and the supporting cast (Michael Shannon, John Slattery, Rosie Benton) provide enough dramatic fireworks. Extras include a director/cinematographer commentary and deleted scenes.

Stony Island

(Cinema Libre)

Sixteen years before his hit remake of The Fugitive in 1993, director Andrew Davis made this gritty if slight slice of life among denizens on Chicago's south side.

Despite a game cast—including a newcomer named Dennis Franz and lovely teenagers named Rae Dawn Chong and Susanna Hoffs, future Bangle and daughter of the movie's co-writer, Tamara Simon Hoffs—the movie meanders for 95 minutes and ends where it began: nowhere. Extras include a making-of retrospective and alternate ending.

Strange Fruit: The Beatles' Apple Records

(MVD)

Although the Beatles' Apple label has gotten plenty of ink in the 44 years since it was created (only to implode due to mismanagement a few years later), this informative two-plus hour documentary summarizes how its idealistic communism caused its demise.

Through interviews with journalists and artists from the label (including members of Badfinger, one of its bigger successes) and archival footage of young Apple artists like James Taylor and Mary Hopkin, this doc illuminates one of the Beatles' few failures.

CD of the Week

Peter Gabriel: Live Blood

(Real World)

When I saw Peter Gabriel on his 2010 orchestral tour, the concert's first half comprised cover songs from his album Scratch My Back, followed by a set of Gabriel's own songs. But the concerts recorded (in 2011) for this immaculate-sounding live CD feature an artist who heavily reduced the covers (only 4 of the original 12 are heard) and added more of his own songs, which is what most Gabriel fans want anyway.

His take on Lou Reed's "The Power of the Heart" is achingly personal, but new interpretations of his own classics like "Wallflower," "San Jacinto" and "Biko" are stunningly direct. The New Blood Orchestra, conducted by Ben Foster, sounds magnificent; Gabriel's own daughter Melanie sings beautifully with her father on "Mercy Street" and "Blood of Eden."

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