Kevin's February '11 Digital Week II

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 28 February 2011 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week
All the President’s Men
(Warners)
This classic 70s-paranoia thriller by director Alan Pakula is far more memorable—and scarier—than his earlier The Parallax View because it’s true! Pakula’s low-key, documentary-like style perfectly fits this exploration of reporters Woodward and Bernstein going after the Watergate story no one else cared about, eventually toppling the Nixon White House.

There are superb performances by Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, and so on down to the tiniest bit parts. The Blu-ray transfer, though a little soft-looking, retains the graininess that underscores its effectiveness as a shadowy—and cumulatively exciting—mystery story. Extras include a Redford commentary, a 70-minute retrospective documentary, and a Dinah Shore talk-show episode featuring Robards.

Due Date
(Warners)
I barely chuckled during that desperate laugh-fest The Hangover, so I didn’t hold out hope for director Todd Phillips’ follow-up. I was right: despite a hard-working Robert Downey, Jr., Due Date is even less funny, as it tries grafting sentiment onto zaniness with much more middling results. Add to the fact that Zach Galifianakis comes across as a second-rate Jack Black, and Michelle Monaghan and Jamie Foxx are wasted as Downey’s pregnant wife and best friend and you have a bummer of a time-waster.

For what it’s worth, the movie receives a first-rate Blu-ray transfer, but the extras merely comprise a few minutes’ worth of deleted scenes, an endless gag reel and a clip from Two and a Half Men that extends a not particularly funny gag from the movie.

Raging Bull—30th Anniversary Edition
(MGM)
Martin Scorsese’s pummeling 1980 portrait of boxer Jake LaMotta might not be top-notch film biography, but when you have Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty in top form, why quibble about what’s essentially a one-note biopic about a human (and decidedly unsexy) beast?

The fight scenes still startle, the B&W photography is still extraordinary, and the razor-sharp editing still inventive: and on Blu-ray, the film has more immediacy — I hesitate to say it packs a bigger punch — than ever. Although several extras (like the three highly listenable audio commentaries) were included on the original Blu-ray release, there are four new interview featurettes, totaling nearly 50 minutes: Marty and Bobby, Raging Bull—Reflections on a Classic, Remembering Jake and Marty on Film.

Wild Target
(Fox)
This rather mild black comic romp about a coldblooded hit man whose heart melts when, through crazy circumstances, he finds himself protecting rather than offing a flighty museum attendant nevertheless is worth 90 minutes of your time thanks to the potent comic chemistry between the always-watchable Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt (who gets better with every role).

The movie knocks around for a good half hour or so before throwing them together, but once it does, hearty laughs ensue. Ruperts Grint and Everett provide good support, but this Nighy and Blunt’s show all the way. The movie looks about as good as it’s going to look on Blu-ray, but this is not a film of visual pleasures anyway. The lone extra is a brief featurette about Blunt.

DVDs of the Week
Bill Moyers: A World of Ideas—Writers and
Bill Moyers: In Search of the Constitution
(Acorn Media)
Here are two more additions to the rapidly expanding catalogue of Moyers programs that are being given the deluxe treatment they deserve on DVD. Television’s best and most open-minded interviewer presents discussions, in A World of Ideas, with various authors ranging from E.L. Doctorow to Tom Wolfe, including several who are no longer with us such as Isaac Asimov, Joseph Heller and August Wilson (the series was taped in 1988). In Search of the Constitution—from 1987—is an in-depth, 10-episode series chronicling the living, breathing document our Founding Fathers created two centuries ago, with important observations from scholars and Supreme Court Justices O’Connor, Brennan and Blackmun.

Room in Rome
(IFC)
Although director Julio Medem never realized his potential following Cows, his promising 1993 debut film, he has remained an unapologetic voyeur of the female form and explorer of sexuality. Sex and Lucia is only the most obvious example of his soft-core proclivities, but his new film—surprisingly never released in the U.S., instead going straight to DVD—comes pretty close.

Two gorgeous women, one Spanish and one Russian, spend a memorable evening in a hotel overlooking St. Peter’s Basilica doing things to and with each other that most men would envy. It’s blatantly shallow and often silly, but the astonishingly fearless actresses, Elena Anaya and Natasha Yarovenko, and Medem’s caressing camera make it worth seeing. It’s too bad IFC nixed a Blu-ray release, which it received in Europe.

CDs of the Week
Janine Jansen: Beau Soir
(Decca)
Janine Jansen has already proven herself one of our most exciting young violinists, so this excellent disc of quintessential French music comes as no surprise. The fiery Jansen and her sensitive pianist Itamar Golan play exquisite Gallic chamber music, with the inspired sonatas by Debussy and Ravel as sturdy bookends.

Elsewhere, the pair performs miniatures like Debussy’s title track (in an arrangement by Jascha Heifetz), Gabriel Faure’s lovely Après un reve and even a gem of a Nocturne by ill-fated Lili Boulanger, sister of the famous music teacher who died far too soon at age 25. Rounding out this adventurous set are three short pieces by contemporary composer Richard Dubugnon which don’t sound out of place (high praise indeed) and Olivier’s Messiaen’s hypnotic Theme et variations.

Paul Galbraith Performs Mozart, Bach and Britten
(Mashulka Productions)
Paul Galbraith plays a specially-made guitar with a unique, cello-like set-up, and his inventive, arresting technique works wonders with his chosen repertoire: there are vigorous transcriptions of a Mozart piano sonata and a Bach cello suite, along with short “encore” pieces by Albeniz, Ravel and, again, Bach.

But the emotional centerpiece of this disc is Benjamin Britten’s sublime Nocturnal, ingeniously based on baroque music by John Dowland. This masterly suite has movement titles like “musingly,” “restless” and “dreaming,” and Galbraith plays them true to form, making Britten’s difficult exploration of the limits of guitar technique sound easy and natural.

Movie Review: Hall Pass

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 26 February 2011 20:58

Written by Lloyd Carroll

Hall Pass
Directed by: Peter & Bobby Farrelly
Starring: Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer & Christina Applegate

By Lloyd Carroll

The brotherly directing team of Peter and Bobby Farrelly, who have brought us Something About Mary, Shallow Hal, Kingpin and Me, Myself & Irene among others, are back after a fairly long period of dormancy with Hall Pass. As has long been their wont, there is the usual amount of defecation, flatulence, vomiting and masturbation jokes and sight gags, but it seems as if they’ve gone to the well one time too often because the humor feels forced and contrived where in the past it seemed to flow seamlessly with the plot.

Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) are childhood friends from Providence, RI (the Farrellys’ hometown and the locale for nearly all of their films, although a lot of filming took place in Atlanta) and sell real estate and insurance, respectively. Rick is happily married to Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and has three kids while Fred (Jason Sudeikis) is similarly content with his wife, Grace (Christina Applegate).

Both guys, though, drive their wives nuts with their habit of ogling attractive women that they see in the street or in a supermarket. Maggie and Grace fear that their hubbies are getting a little bored with them. When they explain their fears to their friend, motivational speaker/psychologist Dr. Lucy (Joy Behar of ABC’s daytime talk show, The View), she tells them that they should give their men a hall pass. The expression, long used by students for giving them permission to go to the bathroom during class time, means in this case giving Rick and Fred a week off from marriage so that they can pretend to be single.

Rick is not happy with his wife’s proposal to spice up their lives, but Fred is all in after Grace gives him his hall pass. Their wives agree to go to Cape Cod for a week while Rick and Fred try to recapture their golden single days of a decade ago. Not surprisingly, they find that the realities of being alone don’t measure up with their fantasies.

Hall Pass generates some laughs and the film is watchable because of the film’s cast. Owen Wilson normally plays the goofball party animal in flicks, but he is surprisingly credible as the guy who is a homebody at heart. Jason Sudeikis, best known for being current cast member of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, is terrific playing Rick’s gung-ho wingman and taking the abuse and humiliation that comes with the role. Sudeikis reminds me in many ways of a charter SNL cast member who has gone on to have an enduring film and television career: Dan Aykroyd.

The film’s best moments come towards the end when veteran supporting actor Richard Jenkins shows up as the guys’ longtime friend, the eternal bachelor Coakley. Coakley, with his porkpie hat, black t-shirt and jeans, can read which women in a bar or dance club are interested in hooking up the way that quarterback Peyton Manning can read the most complicated of NFL defenses.

The biggest problem of Hall Pass is that it is rather predictable. It is not a major revelation that once people get married they still can find others attractive and even occasionally be a bit flirtatious. Frankly, there is nothing unnatural nor unhealthy about that. It is not giving away the store to report that Rick and Fred, who have always loved their wives, have a greater appreciation for them at the end of the movie. The Farrellys always make their lead characters easy for us to root for despite the trouble that they get themselves into.

I’ll give Hall Pass a passing grade in spite of its many flaws.

The Bartered Bride Review

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 24 February 2011 09:49

Written by Jack Angstreich

On the afternoon of February 20th, 2011, at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater (where the acoustics are excellent) at Lincoln Center, I attended an enjoyable performance of Bedřich Smetana's lovely comic opera, The Bartered Bride, a collaboration between theMetropolitan Opera and theJuilliard School, sung in English to a libretto translated by the distinguished poet and critic J.D. McClatchy.

Stephen Wadsworth's production was fundamentally uninteresting as theater but, then, rendering opera truly compelling as a total artwork is a formidable challenge, only rarely accomplished (as, for example, by Robert Wilson, in the Metropolitan Opera's recent version of Lohengrin). (One can only presume that the esteemed early film version of The Bartered Bride by the master cinéaste, Max Ophüls, is artistically the most successful effort in setting this opera.) Benjamin Millepied's choreography here was a pleasure but what there was of it was rather modest in its contribution and in no way imaginatively integrated into the production as a whole.

Read more: The Bartered Bride Review