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June '12 Digital Week V

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Sunday, 01 July 2012 10:00
Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Gray Blus
And Everything Is Going Fine
and Gray’s Anatomy
(Criterion)
Spalding Gray’s unique theatrical contributions were his subversively funny monologues, and Steven Soderbergh’s films brilliantly take the measure of Gray as performer and human being. 1997’s Anatomy intercuts Gray’s incisive eye-operation monologue with others’ accounts of equally bizarre ocular problems; 2010’s Everything comprises footage of Gray—who killed himself in 2004—that serves as a fine memorial.
Soderbergh’s affection for Gray (who starred in Soderbergh’s King of the Hill) is obvious in both movies and in his interviews on these typically superb Criterion Collection discs. The movies have flawless transfers and, as extras, interviews with his widow Kathleen Russo and ex-partner/producer Renee Shafranksy, and—most important—two of Gray’s early monologues, Sex and Death to Age 14 and A Personal History of American Theater.

Bullhead

(Drafthouse Films)
Writer-director Michael R. Roskam’s nifty psychological thriller—whose title refers to cattle steroids our hero injects—is too clever for its own good, especially when Roskam overexplains his hero’s behavior through flashbacks to a horrific injury suffered as a boy.
Still, led by a hearty performance by Matthias Schornaerts as “Bullhead,” the movie is, if not unforgettable, at least quite diverting. There’s an impeccably detailed hi-def transfer; extras include Roskam’s commentary, Roskam and Schornaerts interviews, a making-of featurette and Roskam’s 2005 short, The One Thing to Do.
Deliverance
(Warners)
Although it’s inferior to James Dickey’s poetically disturbing novel of four businessmen on a weekend canoe trip gone wrong, John Boorman’s 1972 adaptation is rip-roaring entertainment that’s equally disturbing, superbly directed and starring a first-rate cast of then not-well-knowns (Burt Reynolds, Jon Voigt, Ronny Cox, Ned Beatty).
The prodigiously realized photography and editing look equally splendid on Blu-ray, thanks to a terrific transfer. Extras include a Boorman commentary, new featurette reuniting the four principals and vintage featurettes.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
(Cinema Guild)
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest begins as a group of officers travels to a remote area with murder suspects to find a body. Spending interminable time waiting, they engage in small talk (like buffalo yogurt!); we soon find those involved have their own ethical and personal problems.
Magnificent compositions mask a disjointed narrative: would police be so inept and forget a body bag or not have room in vehicles for a body? Would an autopsy be conducted with the victim’s wife and son outside the room? The Blu-ray image is immaculate; voluminous extras include a 95-minute making-of documentary and 50 minutes of Cannes Film Festival footage.
Oranges and Sunshine
(Cohen Media Group)
The shocking true story of thousands of British children being sent to new, orphaned lives in Australia is brought to the screen with the humane anger of Ken Loach—er, that should be Jim Loach, the brilliant director’s talented son. As his father does, Loach fils smartly casts his central role, as Emily Watson (one of those rare actresses believable in anything) beautifully plays the woman who helps the now adult kids discover—or at least find out about—their real families.
This nicely understated drama delivers an emotional punch in the usual Loach tradition. There’s a sturdy, understated hi-def transfer; extras include interviews with Loach, Watson, writer Rona Munro and other actors.
Pink Floyd—The Story of Wish You Were Here
(Eagle Vision)
The making of Pink Floyd’s compelling follow-up to the massive-selling Dark Side of the Moon is recounted in new interviews with the three surviving members, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, along with vintage studio and concert footage.
Best of all—since much of the album comprises tributes and allusions to Floyd founder Syd Barrett—are the members’ touching reminiscences of him. The Blu-ray image is fine; extras include added interviews and “dueling” performances by Gilmour and Waters of “Wish You Were Here” and “Shine on You Crazy Diamond.”
21 Jump Street
(Sony)
I don’t get how Jonah Hill, basically a one-note amateur, has somehow become a big star. His non-talent is on display in this meretricious reboot of the late ‘80s TV show, with a game Channing Tatum as Hill’s inept cop sidekick who’s the only reason to watch this overlong action-cum-comedy flick.
The movie is painful to watch, especially since it promises another unnecessary franchise; that the show’s original stars, Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise, have cameos is depressing. The Blu-ray image looks decent enough; extras include commentary, gag reel, 20 deleted scenes and interviews.
Wrath of the Titans
(Warners)
This sequel to the Clash of the Titans remake has titanic talent—Sam Worthington, Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson—and little imaginative drama. Once again, there are fantastic creatures, less than fantastic humans or gods and less than impressive special effects, despite the use of state-of-the-art CGI. At least Neeson and Fiennes try to keep straight faces throughout.
The hi-def image, despite—or because of—the extensive CGI, looks a bit too unrealistic, more robotized than human in movement; extras include Maximum Movie Mode, storyboards and deleted scenes.
DVDs of the Week
Damages—The Complete 4th Season
(Sony)
Capable young lawyer Ellen comes into her own during the fourth season as she takes the lead in investigating the smug head of a private military organization, a la Blackwater, doing underhanded things in the Middle East.

Damages smartly moves delectable Rose Byrne—by far the best reason to sit through Bridesmaids—into a true co-leading role with Glenn Close (Patty), and the two women’s complex relationship is the main interest of these 10 episodes, although John Goodman chews heavy scenery as the head thug. Extras include outtakes, deleted scenes and featurettes with cast and crew interviews.
Hedgehog DVDThe Hedgehog
(Neoclassics)
A real find, pre-teen actress Garance Le Guillermic is a natural as a young girl who’s planning to kill herself on her birthday, but instead builds an unlikely friendship with her family’s building’s concierge (the sweetly hard-headed Josiane Balasko).
Writer-director Mona Achache’s engrossing character study never condescends; the result is a fascinating look at a real relationship that you wouldn’t see on our screens except as sappy melodrama. The lone extra is a making-of featurette.
Web Therapy—The Complete 1st Season
(e one)
It’s a clever sitcom premise: a psychiatrist conducts sessions online. Lisa Kudrow is funny in the lead, and there are amusing special guests as her web patients: Courtney Cox, Jane Lynch, Alan Cumming and Rashida Jones. There’s even Victor Garber as her husband and Lily Tomlin as her mom.
But despite everyone’s best intentions, the show is extremely hit-or-miss, and the laughs dwindle as the series wears on. Perhaps this could only work as an occasional web series with short episodes, a la Children’s Hospital. Extras include audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurette and outtakes.
CD of the Week

Rising: Music for Flute and Strings
(Bridge)
It’s always good news when famous musicians go beyond their comfort zone, and flutist Carol Wincenc’s new CD is a great example. The three flute quintets she plays with an excellent ensemble from the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival are a cross-section of American composers.
She begins with Joan Tower’s new Rising, an atmospheric and memorable work that shows off Wincenc’s formidable technique and the quartet’s sympathetic support. Also performed are two short but flavorful works by Arthur Foote from 1918, and Theme and Variations by the underrated Amy Beach (1867-1944), finally getting her due as a formidable American composer. 

New Films in Brief: Invisible War, Stella Days, Collaborator

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Wednesday, 27 June 2012 10:00
Written by Kevin Filipski

The Invisible War

Directed by Kirby Dick

Opened June 22, 2012

Stella Days

Directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan

Opened June 22, 2012; available on demand June 19

Collaborator

Written and directed by Martin Donovan

Opens July 6, 2012; available on demand June 20

One of the most important documentaries in years, The Invisible War powerfully gives voice Invisibleto women in the U.S. military who were raped or sexually abused while serving, an outcome shockingly more possible than being shot by the enemy in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Despite our best and brightest women joining the armed forces due to patriotism or long family traditions, their lives have been unconscionably ruined by a strictly male-centered mentality that puts women under enormous added pressure just for being women. Being violated physically is just the beginning of the nightmare: what they endure afterward—if they decide to report the abuse, which many don’t for fear of reprisals—is as distressing emotionally as the rape was.

Director Kirby Dick—whose other valuable documentaries are This Film Is Not Yet Rated and Outrage—not only gets several women to recount their compelling but heartbreaking stories, showing what lies ahead for those still being abused, but also buttresses his argument with head-scratching statistics about how widespread the abuse is and how little the army has done to combat it. (Laughable examples of PSAs designed to raise awareness within the armed services do little but consolidate the “blame the victim” mentality still prevalent in wider society as well.)

The Invisible War lays bare how our otherwise estimable armed forces are tarnished by this horrific debasement of so many unfortunate victims (there are some males among them): in eye-opening interviews with senior members of the military both clued in and clueless, that disconnect remains, despite recent advances, post-screening for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, to try and remedy some of the injustices done to those who make claims against fellow soldiers.


StellaStella Days is based on Michael Doorley’s memoir of rural Ireland in the 1950s when a country still heavily influenced by the Catholic Church is taking baby steps to modernize, despite vociferous opposition by conservative leaders to remain in the dark ages.

Into the breach steps Father Daniel Barry, a liberal-leaning priest who, with the help of new school teacher Tim, to open a small movie theater for a population that’s barely seen any. Leading the anti-movie charge is Brendan, an ultra-conservative zealot running for office, hoping to keep his constituency from entering the 20th century, even belatedly.

Although Stella Days is mainly a feel-good melodrama, director Thaddeus O’Sullivan keeps sentiment at bay by approaching the subject with humor, especially when showing the absurd convictions of Father Barry’s parishioners. However, although Father Barry is skeptical, he’s still a believer, and never does he or O’Sullivan mock such heartfelt sentiments.

With on-target performances by Martin Sheen as Father Barry and Stephen Rea as Brendan, Stella Days is worth spending time with.

 

Martin Donovan first came to attention in Hal Hartley’s romantic comedy Trust (1990), in collaboratorwhich Donovan and the late, great Adrienne Shelley traded quips in Hartley’s arch but affecting classic. So it’s no surprise that Collaborator, Donovan’s first film as writer and director, borrows from Hartley in its deadpan study of two men thrown together by unlikely circumstances.

Donovan plays Robert Longfellow, a playwright on the downside of his career and his marriage, who returns to L.A. from New York City to visit his mother. He also rekindles an affair with Emma, an actress who starred in several of his plays, and runs into Gus, a shady ex-felon from the neighborhood he’s known since they were kids: the men drink beers and kick around old times, and when Gus pulls a gun on Robert as the police surround Robert’s mother’s home, he finds his messy personal life is shown to a riveted television audience.

As writer, Donovan has created intriguingly bizarre characters of the sort Hartley did, as well as tart dialogue between the mismatched men compensating for the contrived relationships between Robert and Emma (underplayed sweetly by Olivia Williams) and his wife Alice (stiffly played by ex-Hole bassist Melissa auf der Maur).

As director, Donovan leans too heavily on the men’s absurd situation, and the title’s double entendre is too literally spelled out in the men’s final confrontation. As actor, Donovan doesn’t stretch himself as the put-upon hero, while David Morse persuasively portrays a loser grasping at anything resembling a life preserver. The actors provide the movie’s true collaboration.

 

The Invisible War

http://invisiblewarmovie.com

Stella Days

http://tribecafilm.com

Collaborator

http://tribecafilm.com

June '12 Digital Week IV

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Monday, 25 June 2012 05:00
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
A Bag of Hammers
(MPI)
This indifferent comedy is another “who-cares” look at annoying people who act unlike anyone in the real world (at least I hope so, for our sake). They insult and cajole one another and other innocent people, but when the chips are down, director Brian Crano and co-writer Jake Sandvig desperately attempt to inject humanity to gain sympathy from viewers. However, I can’t see how any viewer cannot be left unmoved.
The lone interest comes from Rebecca Hall, who creates a lovely character with no help from Crano and Sandvig. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer; the lone extra is a making-of featurette.
Eugene Onegin (Opus Arte)
and Lakme (Opera Australia)
A pair of 19th century operatic masterpieces gets the hi-def treatment: Tchaikovsky’s greatest stage work Eugene Onegin and Hector Delibes’ lone hit Lakme. Onegin, from 2011 in Amsterdam, is hampered by director Stefan Herheim’s goofy concept, but the glorious music—conducted by Mariss Jansons—compensates.

Lakme—filmed at Opera Australia last year—is more traditionally exotic, in keeping with the work’s mysticism, and sung beautifully by Emma and Dominica Matthews, who sing a duet on the famous “Flower Song.” The operas look and sound splendid on Blu-ray.
My Afternoons with Margueritte
(Cohen Media Group)
At age 77 in 2010, director Jean Becker created this affecting portrait of enduring friendship in this sweetly sentimental tale of two lonely people—middle-aged, barely literate laborer and elderly but vigorous woman—who bond over the glories of discovering new worlds through reading.
As the mismatched pair, Gerard Depardieu (appropriately downtrodden) and Gisele Casadesus are wonderful, with a radiant assist by Maurane as Depardieu’s loving but confused girlfriend. The unassuming drama is matched by its subdued photography, which gets a first-rate hi-def transfer.
Nature: The White Lions
and Nova: Hunting the Elements
(PBS)
Another stunning PBS Nature program, Lions sympathetically chronicles the difficulties of two lionesses to survive in the wild with tell-tale white fur; Nova’s equally superb Elements provocatively shows the world of science harnessing elements from inert gold to malevolent phosphorus.
Both programs utilize hi-def visuals to their full: Lions’ superlative nature photography and Elements’ engrossing breakdown of minute particles.
Project X
(Warners)
I know I’m not the target audience for this empty-headed flick about high school losers whose popularity rises when one of them hosts a huge party while his parents are away. Is there a shred of redeeming value to a movie that simply shows brainless teens doing what brainless teens have done since time immemorial?
That hack director Todd Phillips produced this unwatchable mess is unsurprising; that several comely young women consented to take their clothes off for it is saddening: it’s a paycheck, I guess. Undoubtedly, Projects Y and Z are next. Extras comprise three featurettes with interviews.
Red Scorpion
(Synapse)
Dolph Lundgren became an action star in this mindless 1985 flick about a dirty rotten Commie who sees the light and helps defeat the pesky Russians (the same year he was as the ultimate Russian fighting machine in Rocky IV).
While the movie is negligible, the Blu-ray is excellent: a terrific new hi-def transfer, new interviews with Lundgren and make-up ace Tom Saviani, on-set footage and a behind-the-scenes featurette.
Seeking Justice
(Anchor Bay)
Old pro Roger Donaldson directed this flimsy thriller with welcome verve, despite its silly story about a mild-mannered teacher (Nicolas Cage, of all people) who consents to have his wife’s rapist be offed in exchange for “future payment,” which comes when he must kill someone he doesn’t know.
Cage is surprisingly subdued, January Jones (the wife) is gorgeous, and the action competently done; but it falls apart at the end. The Blu-ray image is fine; the lone extra is a making-of featurette.
Stone Temple Pilots: Alive in the Windy City
(Eagle Vision)
This 2010 reunion concert on the heels of the band’s lackluster eponymous CD shows off STP at its hard-rocking best, with Dean DeLeo’s charged guitar stylings, brother Robert’s booming bottom end on bass and Eric Kretz’s blistering drums. Vocalist Scott Weiland is agile physically—his non-stop movement is on display—and vocally, hitting every note and then some.
New tunes “Between the Lines” and “Huckleberry Crumble” stand alongside classics like “Big Empty,” Plush” and “Interstate Love Song,” which has one of the all-time great hooks. The hi-def image is good; a 15-minute interview is included.
DVDs of the Week
Attenberg
(Strand)
Athina Rachel Tsangari’s deadpan study of a young woman’s sexual inexperience gets much right about the terrifying world of adulthood.
But despite the artistry of her rigorous compositions and the strikingly natural performances by Ariane Labed in the lead and Evangelia Randou as her best friend, Tsangari’s film hits an artistic dead end after making its points early, then recycles them for 97 minutes to mute their power.
How Much Does That Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?
(First Run)
The cantankerously inventive British architect Norman Foster’s artsy profile by directors Norberto Lopez Amado and Carlos Carcas does the job in a succinct 80 minutes.
Many of Foster’s brilliantly original designs—like the Hearst Tower in midtown Manhattan and the stunning, towering Millau Viaduct in France—are shown with spectacular aerial photography, while we get to know what makes such a unique artist tick. (Shockingly, the DVD’s back cover notes that the movie is “honing,” not “homing,” in on Foster’s works.)

A Matter of Taste
(First Run)
Paul Liebrandt, wunderkind chef, is profiled in this entertaining documentary covering nearly a decade in the career of a temperamental genius whose goal is to get three stars from the NY Times for his first restaurant venture as a co-owner. Considering her film’s only 69 minutes, director Sally Rowe covers a lot of ground, interviewing Liebrandt, other chefs and even the Times’ reviewers William Grimes and Frank Bruni.
The result is a gastronomic feast that reveals the pressure these people put themselves under in such a rarefied world. Extras include additional chef interviews and two shorts.
CD of the Week
Dmitri Shostakovich: Orango
(Deutsche Grammophon)

Dmitri Shostakovich never finished his satirical opera Orango, only getting through the prologue. In Simon McBurney’s orchestration, it’s a daffy, derivative piece of fluff by one of the 20th century’s Soviet masters. The 30 minutes of music are rarely original but always fun to listen to.

Both Orango and a compelling account of Shostakovich’s massive Fourth Symphony—written in the mid-‘30s but not premiered until 1961—are performed by the L.A. Philharmonic under conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Theater Roundup: Shanley in the Bronx, Shakespeare in the Park

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Friday, 22 June 2012 10:00
Written by Kevin Filipski

Storefront Church
Starring Bob Dishy, Giancarlo Esposito, Zach Grenier, Ron Cephas Jones, Jordan Lage, Tonya Pinkins
Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley

As You Like It
Starring Andre Braugher, Donna Lynne Champlin, Jon DeVries, Susannah Flood, David Furr, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Robert Joy, Oliver Platt, Lily Rabe, Will Rogers, Stephen Spinella
Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Daniel Sullivan

Storefront Church (photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia)
The final play in his “Church and State” trilogy which began with the masterly Doubt and brittle Defiance, John Patrick Shanley’s Storefront Church displays his virtues and vices in abundance. Notably, there’s Shanley’s uncanny ability to not only believably differentiate his characters from one another but allow them their dignity, whether it’s Bronx Borough President Donaldo Calderon or middle-aged neighborhood resident Jessie Cortez, losing her house to foreclosure.
They are just two of a half-dozen characters, all shot through with Shanley’s characteristic humanity. But that’s also where Shanley stumbles. He crams so many of their individual idiosyncrasies into a two-hour running time—along with other interests related to “Church and State” (both institutions interconnect more here than in the other plays)—that the drama is shortchanged.
Donaldo is asked by the intensely religious Jessie to help her and “secular Jew” husband Ethan Goldklang—whose opening-scene heart attack in the office of the local bank’s uncaring loan officer Reed Van Druyten greases the play’s creaky dramatic wheels—in their battle with the bank, but since Donaldo is also teaming with the bank’s slick CEO Tom Raidenberg on a brand new mall that will bring lots of minimum-wage jobs to a borough desperate for them following the 2008 financial meltdown, he feels there might be a conflict of interest to intervene on Jessie’s behalf.
Also as a favor to Jessie, Donaldo confronts Chester Kimmich, a Pentecostal minister from New Orleans living rent-free in a storefront that Jessie has a second mortgage on; spiritually paralyzed by Hurricane Katrina, Charles cannot bring himself to sermonize, so he hasn’t opened the storefront church whose collection money would help him pay his back rent to Jessie.
Eventually, all six characters come together in the title place one Sunday morning, and many of their secrets come out in characteristically revealing ways. Shanley (who also directs) is helped by an immaculate cast led by Giancarlo Esposito’s wounded, weary portrait of a believer and politician realizing that politics and community service may be impossible to reconcile.
If Storefront Church ends with a forced but wearily jubilant finale, there’s much to chew on from our most consistently intelligent playwright.
As You Like It (photo: Joan Marcus)

Right before intermission of Daniel Sullivan’s otherwise lackluster As You Like It are five of the most memorable minutes I’ve encountered in 25 years of attending free Shakespeare in Central Park performances. Although Stephen Spinella’s sing-song recitation of the great “Seven Ages of Man” speech is awkwardly spoken, Sullivan stages the physical action with a welcome awareness of the text and an understanding of Shakespeare’s awesome humanity.
We are in a world of genius for a few fleeting moments, but such gracefulness is missing from the rest of the production, whose Forest of Arden—despite the surrounding foliage of the Delacorte Theater’s environs—is supplemented by a massive wooden fort at stage center whose lone function is to obscure the trees making up the rest of set designer John Lee Beatty’s forest.
Despite the play being nonsensically set in the Wild West (which accommodates Steve Martin’s appealing bluegrass music performed by a group of musicians including the talented Tony Trischka on banjo and vocals), the big problem is that Sullivan misses the big picture to concentrate on individual scenes.
The many comic interludes, led by a jolly Oliver Platt as the clown Touchstone and the invaluable Jon DeVries as the old shepherd Corin, receive the evening’s biggest applause—especially when supplemented by hijinks not written by Shakespeare, always a touchstone for Central Park audiences—but the main plot’s cross-dressing and comic romance featuring our heroine Rosalind, her cousin Celia and paramour Orlando are treated lackadaisically.
David Furr makes an appealing Orlando and Renee Elise Goldsberry is a decent Celia, but the show’s biggest disappointment is the Rosalind of Lily Rabe, an actress whose strident, piercing voice and bulldozing manner are all wrong for Shakespeare’s greatest female creation. Compare the one-note Rabe to Rebecca Hall at BAM in 2005, whose Rosalind I still remember for an affecting, slightly gawky quality that beautifully brought out her vulnerability while in disguise as the boy Ganymede.
At BAM, Rosalind’s audience-pleasing epilogue was spoken by Hall with a winning combination of humility and good humor, while in the Park, Rabe hammily underlines every word to ensure all “get it.” Audiences may eat it up, but the sublime As You Like It should not be treated as a mere rewrite of the crude Comedy of Errors.
Storefront Church
Performances began May 16, 2012; opened June 11; closes June 24
Atlantic Theater Company, 336 West 20th Street, New York, NY

As You Like It
Previews began June 5, 2012; opened June 21; closes June 30
Delacorte Theatre, Central Park, New York, NY

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