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February '25 Digital Week II

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 20 February 2025 21:26; Written by Kevin Filipski

In Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week

Becoming Led Zeppelin

(Sony Classics)

How a quartet of British musicians—guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist John Paul Jones, drummer John Bonham and singer Robert Plant—got together to form one of the planet’s legendary rock bands is at the heart of Bernard MacMahon’s straightforward portrait. Introducing each member, born in 1940s war-torn England, and taking their story until the start of 1970—following the huge success of the group’s first two albums and tours—MacMahon lets the four speak for themselves: Page, Jones and Plant give new interviews, and Bonham (whose death in 1980 effectively disbanded the group) is heard in an unearthed 1970s interview.

The result is two hours of musical bliss for Zepheads: not only are there fresh nuggets like the many mid-’60s hits Page and Jones both played on as session musicians or the besotted female fan calling Plant a “fox” in a call-in interview on an American radio station (“what’s that?” Plant ignorantly asks), there are also incendiary live performances of “Dazed and Confused,” “Communication Breakdown,” and other Zep classics, all looking and sounding brilliant in restored video and audio. A must-see in IMAX, with its killer sound, but even a smaller screen and less than optimal sound system aren’t a dealbreaker.

The Annihilation of Fish

(Kino Lorber)

Charles Burnett’s 1999 romance starring James Earl Jones and Lynn Redgrave was never released after a bad review scared off the original distributor—although not THAT bad, it’s more than a bit of a mess. Burnett, who made Killer of Sheep and To Sleep with Anger, shows a less than sturdy directorial hand in this slapstick, rom-com, tragedy and heartache.

Anthony C. Winkler’s scattershot script deserves its share of blame as well. Jones’ and Redgrave’s performances swing from wildly overdone to nicely subtle, sometimes in the same sequence, while Margot Kidder (whom I didn’t recognize at first) provides needed levity as the couple’s landlord.

Something Is About to Happen

(Film Movement)

Director-cowriter Antonio Méndez Esparza’s account of middle-aged Lucia’s horrifying spiral when she’s laid off and becomes a cabbie has been compared to Taxi Driver itself—but the outbursts of violence that climax Lucia’s story are miles from Travis Bickle’s cleaning the “scum” off NYC streets; rather, Lucia has been wronged, in her mind, by friends and lovers and exacts her own sort of vengeance.

Malena Alterio plays Lucia forcefully but also with an understated ability to keep her sympathetic even if the bloody final act has been all but foreshadowed by Esparza and Clara Roquet’s script; baring herself emotionally and physically, Alterio makes Lucia and her plight worth watching however unnerving.

Three Birthdays

(Good Deed Entertainment)

Jane Weinstock directed Nevin Schreiner’s script that’s a choppy look at a liberal Ohio family—father Rob, mother Kate (both professors) and their free-spirited 17-year-old daughter Bobbi—on their birthdays in the pivotal year of 1970. The movie brims with so many signposts of the “hippie” era—open marriages, female sexual awakening, racism, sexism—that when the Kent State shootings are brought in (Kate’s birthday is May 4, the day of the shootings), it tips the scales into lazy contrivance.

It’s too bad, for some family confrontations are realistically fraught, while the acting of Josh Raynor (Rob), newcomer Nuala Cleary (Bobbi), and the always great Annie Parisse (Kate) is first-rate. I chuckled during the end credits at an aria from Camille Saint-Saëns’ opera Samson and Delilah mistakenly listed as being composed by Claude Debussy.

Trinity

(First Run Features)

The sorrowful legacy of the atomic bomb, brought back into the spotlight after the success of Christopher Nolan’s supremely flawed Oscar winner Oppenheimer, is vividly if haphazardly recounted in Martina Car and Anthony Audi’s short but wandering documentary, which lets residents of New Mexico—site of the “Trinity” testing site—discuss the lingering physical, emotional and even political effects of the decades of stonewalling, sweeping under the rug and ignoring their plight by the government.

Along with the often heartrending interviews, the directors also provide a broader political and human context, although even at a succinct 75 minutes, Trinity could use a bit more meat on its bones.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

In the Summers

(Music Box)

Writer-director Alessandra Lacorazza’s auspicious feature debut is this intensely personal memory film about two sisters, Violeta and Eva, who visit their dad Vicente during several summers over a number of years. Although the drama is sometimes too on the nose as the girls discover how complex their relationship is with a father they only see a couple of weeks a year, only once does Lacorazza stoop to melodrama—a drunken car accident that injures Violeta—but even that sets the stage for a final, touching reunion.

It’s enacted by a group of fine young actors playing the sisters at various ages and who rotate around the impressive Puerto Rican rapper René “Residente” Pérez Joglar as Vicente: best are Sasha Calle and Lio Mehiel as, respectively, the adult Eva and Violeta. The film looks splendid on Blu; extras include Lacorazza’s commentary, interviews with the director and cast, deleted scenes, bloopers and Lacorazza’s short film, Mami.

Handel—Theodora

(Naxos)

George Frideric Handel’s 1750 oratorio about fourth-century Christian martyrs Theodora and her husband Didymus contains some of the composer’s most glorious music—and has also been staged as an opera over the centuries, as this misguided Vienna production by director Stefan Herheim shows. Set in Vienna’s modern-day Café Central, which is inappropriate enough, the staging hits its nadir after the chorus sings movingly about Christ raising a man from the dead, and…a waitress brings out tea trays filled with desserts.

The music, at least, lives up to Handel’s high standards: the Arnold Schoenberg Choir (under chorus master Erwin Ortner) and La Folia Barockorchester (under conductor Bejun Mehta) perform superbly, and Jacquelyn Wagner (Theodora) and Christopher Lowrey (Didymus) sing beautifully. There’s fine hi-def video and audio.

CD Releases of the Week

Getty—Goodbye, Mister Chips

(Pentatone)

Now 91, Gordon Getty—yes, he’s one of the Gettys—has been composing operas for 40 years, and his latest, a 2017 stage work that premiered as a film in 2021, is an attractive adaptation of the James Hilton novella about beloved teacher Mr. Chipping at an English boys’ school. Getty also penned the libretto, and his music is accomplished and, by its end, quite moving (Chipping’s wife Kathie has a couple of emotionally climactic appearances).

This excellent recording, by the Barbara Coast Orchestra and San Francisco Boys Chorus under conductor Dennis Doubin, highlights wonderful vocal performances by soprano Melody Moore as Kathie; bass-baritone Kevin Short in several smaller roles; and tenor Nathan Granner as Mr. Chips himself, a man whose personal tragedies color his natural optimism for his students.

MacDowell—Piano Concerto No. 1, Other Orchestral Works

(Chandos)

It might be difficult to believe that Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) was considered a leading American composer of his generation; but then, who else was there at the time? Whatever the case, MacDowell’s music, at least on the basis of this elegantly played survey of his orchestral works by the BBC Philharmonic led by conductor John Wilson, is perfectly structured and lushly orchestrated.

Although his shimmery Piano Concerto No. 1 is the main draw—especially as played by the exquisite soloist Xiayin Wang—the two symphonic poems, Lancelot und Elaine and Lamia, are also beautifully wrought.

New York Philharmonic Play Debussy & Saariaho

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 20 February 2025 14:50; Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee

At Lincoln Center’s excellent David Geffen Hall on the night of Tuesday, February 18th, I had the exceptional privilege to attend a splendid New York Philharmonic subscription concert—which continued a strong season—impressively led by Karina Canellakis.

The event started very promisingly with an admirable realization of Kaija Saariaho’s powerful and striking Light and Gravity from 2009. The background to the work is usefully discussed in an informative program note by Nicholas Swett, who is described as “a cellist, writer, and music researcher who is a PhD candidate and Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and who has annotated programs for Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the BBC, Music@Menlo, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and others.” He writes:

The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho came upon Weil's writings as a teenager. She later described how

the Finnish translation of her book Gravity and Grace was one of the few things I packed into my suitcase when I travelled to Germany in 1981 to continue my studies in composition. … The combination of Weil's severe asceticism and her passionate quest for truth has appealed to me ever since I first read her thoughts.

Weil's work became a lifelong resource; in a 2021 interview Saariaho said, “I never totally understood what she is saying, but I am still trying. And I don't agree with her thoughts, but they force me to create my own opinions and they are very contemporary.”

In the early 2000s, while on the set of her opera L'Amour de loin, Saariaho discovered that her interest in Weil was shared by the director Peter Sellars. In 2006 they worked with librettist Amin Maalouf to channel their admiration into La Passion de Simone, an oratorio based on Weil's life and work. The piece followed the tradition of J.S. Bach's St. John and St. Matthew Passions, in which the composer interleaved declamatory recitatives describing the final stages of Jesus's life with more emotional, poetic commentary to be sung by chorus and soloists. Saariaho wrote 15 movements, or “Stations,” for a massive orchestra, a choir, the recorded voice of actress Dominique Blanc reading Weil's writings, and a solo soprano, who narrates and tenderly addresses Simone as “my sister.” Early performances of the oratorio were staged by Sellars. Saariaho dedicated the work to her children, and 15 years after its premiere she maintained, “this piece is maybe the most important piece I ever wrote.”

In January 2009 conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic put on a well-received production of La Passion. Salonen told Saariaho that he especially liked the Eighth Station, the composition's shining cornerstone. At the start of that movement, the soprano sings just one phrase. Her words eerily double a recorded reading of Weil's explanation for the absence of God in everyday life — that he “withdraws himself” because he doesn't want to be “loved like the treasure is by the miser.” The soprano's lonely melody is repeated several times with slight variations by a diverse suite of instruments, a strategy that structures the meditative middle chapters of many of Saariaho's large-scale works.

Saariaho made an orchestral transcription of the Eighth Station and dedicated it to her fellow Finn. She called it Lumière et Pesanteur (Light and Gravity) after two cardinal elements of Weil's philosophy.

A remarkable soloist, Veronika Eberle—who debuted with this ensemble with these performances—then entered the stage for a memorable account of Alban Berg’s estimable Concerto for Violin and Orchestra from 1935. The first movement has a somewhat mysterious, Andante introduction, but its main body, marked Allegretto, is agitated and concludes relatively quietly and unexpectedly. The second and final movement opens portentously and with considerable urgency but this Allegro section is followed by a more reflective although still highly emotional, Adagio conclusion that then turns more intense once again; after several, mostly more subdued episodes, it closes rather gently. Enthusiastic applause elicited a rewarding encore from Eberle: the second movement, Andante dolce Theme and Variations, from the Sergei Prokofiev Sonata for Solo Violin.

The second half of the event was even stronger, beginning with a haunting account of Olivier Messiaen’s exalting, seldom played The Forgotten Offerings: Symphonic Meditation for Orchestra, from 1930. The composer authored these stanzas in conjunction with the piece:

Arms extended, sad unto death,
On the tree of the Cross you shed your blood.
You love us, sweet Jesus: we had been forgetting that.

Driven by folly and the serpent's tongue,
On a course panting, unbridled, without relief,
We had been descending into sin as into a tomb.

Here is the spotless table, the spring of charity,
On the banquet of the poor, here the Pity to be adored, offering
The bread of Life and of Love.
You love us, sweet Jesus: we had been forgetting that.

The initial part is luminous, if solemn, while the second is turbulent and breathless in pace, and the ultimate segment is hushed, serious and introspective.

The last work on the program was its greatest: Claude Debussy’s astonishing masterpiece, La Mer: Three Symphonic Sketches—it was partly inspired by Hokusai’s amazing woodblock print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa—which was gloriously rendered here. The often contemplative, opening movement—titled From Dawn till Noon on the Sea—begins evocatively and bewitchingly; it unforgettably climaxes just before its sudden close. The next movement, The Play of the Waves, is more energetic, even hurried at times and invokes East Asian music; it finishes softly. The concluding movement, Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea, starts suspensefully and almost ominously and then becomes tempestuous with driving rhythms but also with moments of calm and shimmering passages—it vaguely recalls the compositions of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, particularly his Scheherazade—and it ends brilliantly and stunningly.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

Broadway Play Review—“English” by Sanaz Toossi

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 20 February 2025 02:20; Written by Kevin Filipski

English

Written by Sanaz Toossi

Directed by Knud Adams

Performances through March 2, 2025

Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

roundabout.org

The cast of Sanaz Toossi's English (photo: Joan Marcus)

Set in the Iranian city of Karaj in 2008, Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer-winning English follows four students with varying degrees of proficiency in the eponymous language and how they interact with their teacher as well as one another. Structured as several episodes that play off the characters’ shifting dynamics, English has moments of ringing insight but is hampered by the very constraints it’s made for itself inside the four walls of an English as a Foreign Language classroom.

The students range from idealistic 18-year-old Goli; 28-year-old Elham, frustrated at already failing the test; 29-year-old Omid, surprisingly fluent already; and 54-year-old Roya, desperate to learn English so she can converse with her American grandchildren. Marjan, their 40ish teacher, spent nine years living in the U.K. after learning American English at home.

Toossi throws this quintet together for a clever 90-minute sitcom with humor stemming from basic misunderstandings as well as malapropisms of tentative speakers. The play shrewdly works in two languages and cultures side by side, as the actors speak both Farsi and English, but with a twist: when they converse in their native language, they speak perfect, unaccented English; when they speak English, it’s with various accents. The terrific cast of five expertly masters the linguistic back and forth so that, even early on, it’s easy to follow what language they’re supposed to be speaking.

But even more impressive is how the entire cast—Tala Ashe (Elham), Ava Lalezarzadeh (Goli), Pooya Mohseni (Roya), Marjan Neshat (Marjan) and Hadi Tabbal (Omid)—meshes with remarkable skill and humanity. Knud Adams directs resourcefully for the most part, although the choppiness stemming from English’s episodic nature—putting a drag on its dramatic momentum—isn’t completely solved.

Finally, there’s the issue of some of the blocking: there are several chairs strewn about Marsha Ginsberg’s revolving classroom set that block some audience members’ view (including mine) of the actors at times. Perhaps it worked better on the small Atlantic Theater stage, where English debuted in 2022.

February '25 Digital Week I

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 12 February 2025 19:17; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Releases of the Week

A Complete Unknown

(Searchlight Pictures)

James Mangold’s by-the-numbers biopic of Bob Dylan, which follows him from his arrival in New York in 1961 to his legendary appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival where he scandalized some with his electric set, shrewdly puts the actors front and center, which allows the audience to ignore that Mangold and Jay Cocks’ script hits familiar dramatic beats and biopic tropes.

Monica Barbaro is a real find as Joan Baez, Edward Norton makes a splendid Pete Seeger, and Timothee Chalamet illuminates Dylan as a cocksure young genius who balances respect for his forebears with a yearning to break free of folk’s strictures; and his singing voice approaches Dylan’s own without the usual tongue-in-cheek mockery.

I’m Still Here

(Sony Classics)

Based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Walter Salles’ emotionally shattering drama follows Paiva’s mother, Eunice, wife of liberal politician Rubens who is taken by the military in 1971 and disappeared (and his remains never found): she must navigate an impossible situation of learning what happened to her husband and keep her family—they have five children—together during a fraught time in Brazil.

Salles takes material that could have easily become sentimentalized and keeps it direct and honest; he is immeasurably aided by Fernanda Torres’ subtle portrait of Eunice, an understated performance for the ages.

The Fishing Place

(Cinema Parallel)

Rob Tregenza was one of the cinematographers on Bela Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies, among other visually striking films—his latest directorial effort, which follows Anna, a middle-aged Norwegian housekeeper who must spy on a priest’s activities in exchange for her release from prison by the occupying Nazis, is a snail’s-paced drama that’s less than the sum of its parts.

Although Tregenza’s camera is always moving, it rarely takes the interior measure of these characters, leaving Ellen Dorrit Petersen’s portrayal of Anna adrift; then there’s the final third of the film, taken over by a literal making-of section that seems more desperate than organic.

Paint Me a Road Out of Here

(Aubin Pictures)

Pioneering Black artist Faith Ringgold (who died last year at age 93) is the main focus of Catherine Gund’s ardent portrait of the history and legacy of one of her most valuable and important paintings, For the Women’s House, a huge canvas she painted for the women’s house of detention on Rikers Island.

In addition to following the ups and downs of the painting’s journey—it was almost destroyed by an uncaring bureaucracy until finally being rescued—Gund has also made a fascinating meditation on art, activism and prison reform that also introduces Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, whose own life after incarceration provides the necessary connection to Ringgold’s mighty work of art.

A Woman Is a Woman

(Rialto)

One of Jean-Luc Godard’s least memorable films, this paper-thin 1961 entry stars Anna Karina as free-spirited heroine Angela, who wants a child with reluctant boyfriend Émile (Jean-Claude Brialy), so enter the tongue-in-cheekly named Alfred Lubitsch (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who may just give her what she wants.

For 85 minutes, this trio circles in an enervating roundelay, and Godard’s attempts to lighten the mood—obvious nods to classic Hollywood musicals, Michel Legrand’s soupy score—end in weirdly glossy failure. Our three stars are far less charming than they’ve been in other movies (including Godard’s own), while Raoul Coutard’s glistening color photography is the film’s lone successful facade.

4K Release of the Week

Wicked

(Universal)

It starts with an ugly, CGI-drenched opening and ends more than two and a half hours later with the showstopper “Defying Gravity”—and that’s only the end of the first act of Steven Schwartz’s blockbuster Broadway musical. That means we have to sit through another two-plus hours next holiday season to finish this thing. Too bad it’s a mighty slog to get through, with mostly negligible songs and a story not as clever as it thinks—only Cynthia Erivo has the requisite vocal chops and acting prowess that makes Elphaba soar into the stratosphere.

Ariana Grande also has a powerhouse voice, but her acting is laughably inadequate. Bowen Tang, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh are wincingly hammy under Jon M. Chu’s direction, which consists of making things bigger, louder and more garish without settling on a consistent tone or style. The 4K images look fine overall; extras include theatrical and sing-along versions of the movie, Chu’s, Erivo’s and Grande’s commentaries, deleted and extended scenes and a making-of featurette.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Juror #2

(Warner Bros)

In Clint Eastwood’s latest straightforward drama, Nicholas Hoult plays Justin, a recovering alcoholic picked to serve on a jury in a murder case and who realizes he may have been involved with the events leading up to the victim’s death.

As always, Eastwood’s direction is unadorned, but Jonathan Abrams’ heavily plotted script needs more swagger in the telling; despite fine acting by Hoult and Zoey Deutsch (Justin’s pregnant wife Ally), the subtext and twists remain superficial—and Toni Colette’s scenery chewing as the aggressive DA doesn’t help. The film looks quite good on Blu; there are no extras.

CD Releases of the Week

Sergei Prokofiev—Ivan the Terrible

(Vox)

Although he composed only a handful of film scores, Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) is one of the most important film composers in history—his collaborations with fellow Russian, director Sergei Eisenstein, are indelible marriages of music and image.

Alexander Nevsky (1938) is by far the most famous, but the multipart Ivan the Terrible (1947) is also nothing to sneeze at; his formidable score was arranged as an oratorio in 1961 by Abram Stasevich. This excellent 1981 recording, by the St. Louis Symphony Chorus and Orchestra under the steady baton of Leonard Slatkin, features tremendous contributions by narrator Arnold Voketaitis, mezzo-soprano Claudine Carlson and bass Samuel Timberlake.

Kurt Weill—The Seven Deadly Sins

(LSO Live)

The vocal works of German composer Kurt Weill (1900-50) remain relevant thanks to their stinging, often bitter wit and universal themes. Case in point: The Seven Deadly Sins, the final collaboration between Weill and writer Bertolt Brecht, a sardonic “sung ballet” that follows a young woman, Anna, who tries but fails to always behave morally. Simon Rattle conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a vivid reading of this memorable music, with Magdalena Kožená in top form as Anna.

The rest of the disc comprises The Little Threepenny Music—a suite of instrumental pieces from the best-known Weill-Brecht collab, The Threepenny Opera—as well as excerpts from a couple of Weill’s “American” works, two of the lovely Four Whitman Songs and the song “Lonely House” from the opera Street Scene: all handled beautifully by Rattle, the LSO and several vocalists.

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