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Film and the Arts
March '12 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 16 March 2012 20:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week 
The Descendants
(Fox)
Alexander Payne (Election, Citizen Ruth, Sideways) makes movies that aren’t as substantial as he thinks. The Descendants is no different: a superbly befuddled George Clooney plays a Honolulu lawyer who discovers--once she’s in a coma--that his wife cheated on him, so he gathers his two daughters to track down her lover. What begins as a nicely observed adult comedy about dealing with everyday disasters switches gears, and spins its wheels, once the race is on to find the adulterer.
Payne builds to a satisfyingly melancholic ending, but too often finds easy, sitcom laughs a la James Brooks. The Blu-ray has a first-rate image; extras are featurettes on casting, Hawaiian locations, the real family behind the story, music videos and conversation between director and star.
Killer’s Moon and Virgin Witch
(Redemption/Kino Lorber)
This pair is the latest in Redemption Films’ attempt to redeem schlocky guilty pleasures. Alan Birkinshaw’s Killer’s Moon (1978) follows mental patients gleefully killing off teenage girls and their strait-laced chaperones; Ray Austin’s 1972 Virgin Witch follows innocent wannabe models discovering the agency is a front for a murderous witches’ coven.
They’re both as silly as they sound, but with plentiful gore and nudity, there’s definitely a built-in--and unfinicky--audience. The movies retain blemishes on hi-def but look good enough; Moon extras include director and star interviews.
The Last Temptation of Christ 
(Criterion)
Martin Scorsese’s deeply personal adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ controversial novel was labeled anti-Christian to those who obviously never saw it; watching it in the Criterion Collection’s glorious hi-def version is a treat.
Shot on authentic Holy Land locations and propelled by Peter Gabriel’s otherworldly score, the film even overcomes some questionable casting with tremendously committed performances by Willem Dafoe (Jesus), Harvey Keitel (Judas) and Barbara Hershey (Mary Magdalene). Michael Ballahus’ cinematography shines on Blu-ray; extras include a Paul Schrader/ Dafoe/Jay Cocks commentary, Gabriel interview and Scorsese-shot location footage.
Melancholia
(Magnolia)
Ham-fisted and relentlessly clumsy--narratively, psychologically and metaphorically--Lars von Trier’s latest provocation begins with a ponderous wedding sequence that plays like a slack-eyed parody of The Deer Hunter, and his leaden dramatics are on display for a mind-boggling 135 minutes.
Kirsten Dunst is fatally hamstrung by her character’s essential shallowness: this depressive’s troubles are small potatoes compared to the title planet (who named it?) moving toward earth. Trier even repeats trite effects: Antichrist’s slo-mo Handel opening returns, as Armageddon is here scored to Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. On Blu-ray, Trier’s clever imagery gets its digital due; extras are four featurettes.
My Week with Marilyn 
(Anchor Bay)
Michelle Williams’ gently affecting portrayal of Marilyn Monroe dominates Simon Curtis’ incredibly thin biopic that does little with a great subject: the battle royale between Marilyn and Lord Olivier on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl.
Despite Kenneth Branagh’s excellent Olivier impersonation, the movie never livens up, with bland scenes between Williams and Eddie Redmayne as the lowly assistant whom MM gloms onto (at least according to his memoir) mere filler. The movie looks strong on Blu-ray; extras include a Curtis commentary and making-of featurette.
Neverland
(Vivendi)
This lengthy (three hours!) Peter Pan prequel does Spielberg’s Hook one better by actually fleshing out characters and leaving the big-names to Keira Knightley’s voice (as Tinkerbell). Despite occasional dawdling and repetition, Neverland scores in the person of Anna Friel, a delightfully frisky, criminally underused actress who steals scenes as a pirate any man would love to be the enemy of.
The rest of the cast and effects are fine, but some story streamlining would have helped. No qualms about the Blu-ray image, which is fantastic; the extras comprise commentary, cast interviews and special effects featurette.
The Search for One-Eyed Jimmy 
(Kino Lorber)
This 1993 Brooklyn-shot indie by Sam Henry Kass (remember him? I didn’t think so) has the dubious distinction of casting future stars of film, stage and screen--Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Rockwell, John Turturro, Steve Buscemi (and Jennifer Beals and Ann Meara for good measure)--and letting them flounder with an unfunny script and non-story that would bore any shaggy dog.
The movie looks decent in its leap to hi-def; no extras.
The Three Musketeers
(Summit)
In this lukewarm swashbuckler, director Paul W.S. Anderson puts a middling cast (Orlando Bloom, Milla Jovavich, Logan Lerman, Luke Evans) through its paces, but never approaches the grand fun and swordplay heroics of earlier adaptors Richard Lester and Bertrand Tavernier.
The movie looks gorgeous--Anderson’s refusal to use more green screen than in-camera effects is refreshing for an action director today--especially on Blu-ray. Extras include filmmakers’ commentary, deleted scenes with commentary and scene-specific featurettes and interviews.
DVDs of the Week
Bellissima and La terra trema
(e one)
Before such luscious, opulent spectaculars as The Leopard and The Innocent, Italian director Luciano Visconti made small, neo-realist pictures, and two of his classics return, superbly restored.
1948’s magnificent Trema was shot on Sicilian locations with non-professional actors, while 1951’s Bellissima stars Anna Magnani as the most overbearing stage mother ever; here Visconti uses neo-realist techniques to great effect, not least in the unaffected acting of young Tina Apicella. Would that those annoying yellow subtitles didn’t detract from the near-pristine black and white pictures.
House of Pleasures
(IFC)
Bertrand Bonello’s unerotic turn-of-the-century character study about prostitutes in a high-class Parisian brothel is more successful at relationships than sex, even if dividing screen time among several women robs them of their individuality, despite their compelling stories, like one whose mouth has ghastly scars from a crazed john and a teen whose “career” is off to a rocky start.
Costumes, sets and lighting are exquisite, but Bonello--as in his other films--takes a good idea then does little with it. Extras include casting and making-of featurettes.
In Their Own Words 
(Athena)
These fascinating, informative BBC documentaries do more than save the words and voices of the 20th century’s prominent writers and intellectuals: they intelligently and learnedly place them in context so one can appreciate their achievements in art, science, politics and economics.
The first program features seven decades of British writers from Virginia Woolf to Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie; the second chronicles thinkers from Sigmund Freud and Margaret Mead to cultural attaches from the BBC and others.
My Joy
(Kino Lorber)
Sergei Loznitsa’s astonishing debut feature makes little narrative sense: if you don’t pair the first half’s clean-shaven truck driver with the bearded man of the second, you’ll be lost during a corrosive series of unsettling vignettes showing the anarchic society that Putin’s Russia has become.
But Loznitsa is in total command of the frame: rarely has widescreen seemed so terrifying, especially the breathtaking final shot on a snow-bound road in near-total darkness. Too bad there are burnt-in subtitles, no extras and no Blu-ray.
Savage Sisters, Sinful Davey, Timbuktu 
(MGM)
Three decades are represented in this latest trio from MGM’s Limited Edition Collection, on DVD-Rs instead of official DVDs. There’s Jacques Tourneur’s vaguely ludicrous sand epic, 1958’s Timbuktu, starring Victor Mature and Yvonne DeCarlo in a romantic adventure set in the French colony in 1940.
John Huston’s 1969 Sinful Davey, a Tom Jones retread, is as forced and hollow as the earlier film was witty and relaxed; John Hurt’s performance as the title rogue is wasted. And 1974’s Savage Sisters is a weak attempt at a T&A epic set in an unnamed jungle nation, as three buxom heroines get caught up in a disastrous coup attempt. The films look decent on DVD, at least; no extras.
CDs of the Week
Marlis Petersen: Goethe Lieder
(Harmonia Mundi)
German soprano Marlis Petersen--whose torrid Lulu at the Met a few years back introduced her New York audiences in a big way--sings a well-programmed recital of songs by 16 composers on texts by Goethe about the “eternal feminine.”
With excellent pianist Jendrik Springer along for her adventurous ride, Petersen begins with Ernst Krenek’s epic “Stella’s Monologue” and performs 18 more songs, from Schumann, Wagner and Liszt to rarities by Walter Braunfels and a new work by Manfred Trojahn, all in a crystalline voice conveying the varied moods of Goethe’s unreachable, ideal females.
Massenet: Don Quichotte 
(Mariinsky)
Jules Massenet’s grand opera, loosely based on Cervantes’ classic novel, has the requisite rousing choral numbers and vivid orchestral passages that give a sense of the mock-grandeur of literature’s most absurdly heroic buffoon. But intimate scenes between Don and sidekick Sancho Panza or Dulcinea, the woman of his dreams, lack comic and romantic fire.
At least that’s what we get in this workmanlike 2011 Mariinsky Theater performance--the indefatigable Valery Gergiev leads orchestra, chorus and his academy’s young singers in a dutiful, occasionally inspired interpretation of a twilight work from the French composer.
Making the Leap with A New "21 Jump Street"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 15 March 2012 21:54
- Written by Lloyd Carroll
21 Jump Street
directed by Phil Lord & Chris Miller
starring Jonah Hill & Channing Tatum
Married With Children and 21 Jump Street were two shows that helped put the fledgling Fox Broadcasting Corporation on the map when it started 25 years ago. Until then, the broadcast world was dominated by CBS, NBC and ABC although a few cable networks were starting to gain traction as more homes were willing to pay for both better reception and more programming choices.
The plot of the TV show, about a bunch of young cops who infiltrate a high school as current students, was basically lifted from the 1960s ABC classic, “The Mod Squad,” and it ran for five seasons on Fox. It made a huge star out of a previously unknown actor named Johnny Depp.
Nowadays it seems as if every television series that ran more than two years gets its own movie version. To its immense credit, the filmmakers blatantly acknowledge Hollywood’s creative laziness by having one of the characters, Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman of NBC’s “Parks & Recreation”), grouse on screen “Every piece of crap from the Eighties gets recycled.!”
Doug Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Craig Jenko (Channing Tatum) were both members of the same high school class who ran different circles. Doug was the quintessential nerd while Craig was the bully who enjoyed tormenting him on occasion. Seven years after graduation, they are partners in an unnamed city’s police department and are so little regarded by their superiors that their beat is riding a bicycle around a park.
After blowing their first arrest by failing to read a suspect his Miranda rights, Schmidt and Jenko are assigned to an undercover unit run out of—where else—21 Jump Street. The commander of the unit is Captain Dickson played by rapper/actor Ice Cube who is clearly having fun spoofing his angry persona. Dickson assigns our heroes to a high school where a dangerous and potentially lethal synthetic hallucinogen is being distributed. He makes it clear what is expected out of them and the consequences if they screw up in a very profane and hysterical manner.
In a clever twist, it turns out that in seven years a lot of the high school clique rules have changed. Here it is the ecologically conscious and more empathetic characters seem to run the show while the muscular jocks are the outsiders. It is Schmidt who finds himself the object of a very attractive girl’s affections while it’s Jenko who is forced to bond with members of the AP chemistry class in order to have friends.
There is little doubt that the filmmakers pad the screen time with endless car chases. That is the film’s most notable drawback but it’s a relatively minor one when it comes to overall enjoyment .
The good more than outweighs the bad. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum may be Hollywood’s ultimate co-starring odd couple but they have a very believable chemistry. The supporting cast is spectacular with the always-welcome “Saturday Night Live” alum Chris Parnell, Comedy Central vet Rob Riggle, and the aforementioned Ice Cube and Nick Offerman pitching in. They are assisted by some terrific newcomers, Brie Larson and Dave Franco (the younger brother of actor James Franco.)
In a terrific nod to the TV series, most of the original cast: Richard Grieco, Peter DeLuise, Holly Robinson, and of course, Johnny Depp, have cameos here. I guess that Dustin Nguyen must have been busy. 21 Jump Street is great combo of laughs and action.
Making the Leap with A New "21 Jump Street"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 14 March 2012 00:36
- Written by Lloyd Carroll
21 Jump Street
directed by Phil Lord & Chris Miller
starring Jonah Hill & Channing Tatum
Married With Children and 21 Jump Street were two shows that helped put the fledgling Fox Broadcasting Corporation on the map when it started 25 years ago. Until then, the broadcast world was dominated by CBS, NBC and ABC although a few cable networks were starting to gain traction as more homes were willing to pay for both better reception and more programming choices.
The plot of the TV show, about a bunch of young cops who infiltrate a high school as current students, was basically lifted from the 1960s ABC classic, “The Mod Squad,” and it ran for five seasons on Fox. It made a huge star out of a previously unknown actor named Johnny Depp.
Nowadays it seems as if every television series that ran more than two years gets its own movie version. To its immense credit, the filmmakers blatantly acknowledge Hollywood’s creative laziness by having one of the characters, Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman of NBC’s “Parks & Recreation”), grouse on screen “Every piece of crap from the Eighties gets recycled.!”
Doug Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Craig Jenko (Channing Tatum) were both members of the same high school class who ran different circles. Doug was the quintessential nerd while Craig was the bully who enjoyed tormenting him on occasion. Seven years after graduation, they are partners in an unnamed city’s police department and are so little regarded by their superiors that their beat is riding a bicycle around a park.
After blowing their first arrest by failing to read a suspect his Miranda rights, Schmidt and Jenko are assigned to an undercover unit run out of—where else—21 Jump Street. The commander of the unit is Captain Dickson played by rapper/actor Ice Cube who is clearly having fun spoofing his angry persona. Dickson assigns our heroes to a high school where a dangerous and potentially lethal synthetic hallucinogen is being distributed. He makes it clear what is expected out of them and the consequences if they screw up in a very profane and hysterical manner.
In a clever twist, it turns out that in seven years a lot of the high school clique rules have changed. Here it is the ecologically conscious and more empathetic characters seem to run the show while the muscular jocks are the outsiders. It is Schmidt who finds himself the object of a very attractive girl’s affections while it’s Jenko who is forced to bond with members of the AP chemistry class in order to have friends.
There is little doubt that the filmmakers pad the screen time with endless car chases. That is the film’s most notable drawback but it’s a relatively minor one when it comes to overall enjoyment .
The good more than outweighs the bad. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum may be Hollywood’s ultimate co-starring odd couple but they have a very believable chemistry. The supporting cast is spectacular with the always-welcome “Saturday Night Live” alum Chris Parnell, Comedy Central vet Rob Riggle, and the aforementioned Ice Cube and Nick Offerman pitching in. They are assisted by some terrific newcomers, Brie Larson and Dave Franco (the younger brother of actor James Franco.)
In a terrific nod to the TV series, most of the original cast: Richard Grieco, Peter DeLuise, Holly Robinson, and of course, Johnny Depp, have cameos here. I guess that Dustin Nguyen must have been busy. 21 Jump Street is great combo of laughs and action.
March '12 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 11 March 2012 07:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Disclosure and Striptease
(Warners)
Back in the mid 90s, Demi Moore tried to resuscitate a moribund career by starring in Andrew Bergman’s Showgirls-lite disaster, Striptease (1996), in which a sullen Moore sleepwalks through a risible melodrama about a single mom turned stripper.
Moore fares better in 1994’s Disclosure, Barry Levinson’s crackling adaptation of Michael Crichton’s hot-button bestseller about reverse sexual harassment, which co-stars Michael Douglas. Both movies look quite good on Blu-ray; no extras.
Elite Squad
(Flatiron)
From the maker of Bus 174 comes an equally taut cop drama which dismantles the notion that kid gloves are the best way to deal with Brazil’s rampant crime wave.
Director Jose Padilha dives into the muck of police corruption and political inefficiency with vividly shot and edited action sequences that showcase an unraveling society that makes ours look spotless. The Blu-ray looks spectacularly sharp; the lone extra is an hour-long making-of featurette.
Immortals 
(Fox)
Tarsam Singh Dhandwar uses CGI to hide storytelling and character deficiencies in his unoriginal telling of ancient mythology, with fantastical episodes flying by so quickly that any initial excitement wears off and a pall takes over.
Also, the movie is so dark that it’s hard to discern just what’s going on, which takes away the luminousness of his Phaedra (a gorgeous Frieda Pinto) and the chiseled warriors (played by Henry Cavill and Stephen Dorff, among others). At least there’s Mickey Rourke’s hamminess as King Hyperion for occasional laughs. The hi-def image looks slightly artificial thanks to so many special effects. Extras include a making-of, deleted scenes, alternate opening and ending.
Jack and Jill
(Sony)
I’m no Adam Sandler fan, so two Sandlers--a “normal” Adam and one in drag--is too much to take in this would-be comedy. Playing twin brother and sister, Sandler is unfunny and unappealing as ever. Even with cameos by Norm Macdonald, David Spade, Christie Brinkley, Dana Carvey, Shaquille O’Neal and Johnny Depp and with an always likeable Katie Holmes as his wife, its 90 minutes are nearly unendurable.
The only reason to watch is Al Pacino’s over-the-top but amusing work as himself: his ranting on a cell phone onstage while playing Shakespeare is the best scene by far. The Blu-ray image is good; extras include featurettes, interviews, deleted scenes and bloopers.
Mandrill
(Magnet)
This fast-moving, flimsy Spanish thriller stars Marko Zaror as a hired killer as good with the ladies as he is knocking guns out of enemies’ hands with fancy footwork.
Despite the silliness, Zaror and Celine Reymond (as the beautiful daughter of his intended target) together have a frisky sex appeal that perks up a movie otherwise bent on endless routine showdowns between our antihero and the even badder guys. With an excellent Blu-ray transfer, the disc’s extras are making-of featurettes.
9-1/2 Weeks
(Warners)
Adrian Lyne’s 1986 study of a lonely art dealer degrading herself in a sexual relationship with a walled-off Wall Street broker isn’t nearly as naked psychologically as it is physically.
Lyne’s gauzy, Vaseline-lensed style doesn’t lend itself to gritty filmmaking, but thanks to Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke’s immersion in their characters and down-and-dirty, mid-80s Manhattan, the movie succeeds at showing the depths of sexual depravity. The image--with the perfect amount of grain--is very film-like.
Recoil 
(Vivendi)
If you like Stone Cold Steve Austin, be warned that not only has he dropped the first half of his moniker, but he proves that his acting is also “stone cold.”
Although he’s amazingly stiff as a bounty hunter against an array of sleazy bad guys, the relentless action and colorful support by Danny Trejo as his wife and child’s killer and the bright, sexy Serinda Shaw as the woman he protects. The hi-def transfer is first-rate; extras include a making-of featurette, interviews and deleted scenes.
Scarlet Street
(Kino Classics)
One of his best American films, Fritz Lang’s 1945 character study stars the always reliable Edward G. Robinson as a company cashier embroiled in a dead-end love affair with a streetwalker (Joan Bennett at her alluring best).
Lang creates an unnerving atmosphere of undeniable dread and uncontrollable destiny on stage bound Manhattan streets. The movie, despite the flickers of age in the print, has an immediacy and vibrancy on Blu-ray; extras are commentary and photo gallery.
DVDs of the Week
Above Suspicion
(Acorn)
This commanding British TV series combines the talents of writer Lynda La Plante (Prime Suspect), director Gilles MacKinnon and outstanding acting by Ciaran Hinds and Kelly Reilly, who comes into her own as the novice detective who learns on the job.
The tension between Hinds and Reilly isn’t exclusively sexual, but their plausibly fraught relationship compels us to keep watching as the cases they’re working on become gorier and stranger. MacKinnon’s sharp direction holds the stories together as his actors create nuanced characters. Extras include on-set footage and interviews.
London River
(Cinema Libre)
This touching and intimate study of two parents desperately trying to uncover information about their missing children after the 2005 London bombings is distinguished by director Rachid Bouchareb’s refusal to sentimentalize, even as the story--Guernsey mom and African dad slowly come to an understanding after piecing together that her daughter and his son were in love--settles for inflated melodrama.
Great acting by Brenda Blethyn and Sotigui Kouyate contribute to making this modest soap opera a must-watch.
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg 
(Coviello)
At its Nuremberg “home,” Wagner’s lone comic opera--all 4-1/2 hours of it--gets a spacious staging by director D. Mouchtar-Samorai and an excellent musical performance by orchestra and chorus under the baton of Marcus Bosch.
In such a lengthy opera, stamina is all--it always is in Wagner--and the leads give it their best, despite the occasional vocal hiccup: Albert Pesendorfer (Hans Sachs), Jochen Kupfer (Beckmesser), Michael Putsch (Walther) and Michaela Maria Mayer (Eva) are superb singers all.
The Myth of the American Sleepover
(MPI/Sundance Selects)
David Robert Mitchell’s sometimes incisive glimpse at American teenagers, circa the 1970s, deals with a group of school kids dealing with one another on the last night before the school year begins.
It’s too bad Mitchell’s script starts to meander after awhile; the early, funny yet melancholy and intimate scenes succumb to wishful thinking by the end. Still, it’s well-acted by a cast of mostly unknown young performers, and so worth seeing.
Octubre and The Sky Turns 
(New Yorker Video)
These distinctive films give a good impression of what revamped New Yorker Films has to offer. Peruvian directors Daniel and Diego Vega’s Octubre is a quietly droll character study with shades of Bresson and Jarmusch in its deadpan style; in The Sky Turns, Mercedes Alvarez eloquently records her impressions of the Spanish region she returns to after 35 years away, and finds her small village literally disappearing: only 14 people remain.
Both films look striking in their transfers; bonuses include earlier short films (on both discs) and an interview with Daniel Vega (Octubre).
CDs of the Week
Penderecki: Sinfoniettas
(Naxos)
Polish master Krzysztof Penderecki, now age 78, has been through several stylistic changes in a lengthy career; this disc concentrates on his string music spanning 35 years, from 1963’s baroque-influenced Three Pieces in Old Style to the modernist intensity of 1997’s Serenade.
In between, Sinfoniettas 1 & 2 (1992, 1994) are captivating orchestrations of chamber works, while the Capriccio for Oboe has a lightheartedness atypical of the usually overwrought composer. Antoni Wit conducts the fine Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, and soloists Artur Pachlewski (clarinet) and Jean-Louis Capezzali (oboe) shine in the spotlight.
Rautavaara: Cello and Percussion Concertos 
(Ondine)
The greatest living composer (he’s 83) is a vital Finnish modernist, and this disc premieres two recent compositions and a revised early work.
The moody, introspective but vibrant Cello Concerto No. 2 has a perfect advocate in soloist Truls Mork; the propulsive Percussion Concerto, titled Incantations, is played by another Rautavaara advocate, soloist Colin Currie. 1957’s Modificata, with an opening movement added in 2003, bridges his early 12-tone work and his later, staunchly post-romantic style. Conductor John Storgards ably leads the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.
Zwicker: Death and the Maiden
(Musiques Suisses)
Obscure Swiss composer Alfons Karl Zwicker wrote this opera based on Ariel Dorfman’s play--and subsequent Roman Polanski movie--about an Argentine woman revisiting her earlier torture when the man who was behind it shows up on her and her husband’s doorstep.
Cleverly interpolating Schubert’s famous string quartet into his aggressively dissonant score, Zwicker never stoops to sentimentality but fails to find the drama underlying the material. The cast of three and choir perform exceptionally well.
