Fall is the time of year when the leaves change color, the air gets a distinct crispness and the movies all of a sudden get really good. While the year up to this point has certainly had some gems, it's been very hit or miss. With the stocked platter of promising films showing up this back-loaded fall season, I have a feeling that only one or two in current top ten will make it past the end of the year's chopping block. I'm only confident that one, Before Midnight, will make it to the final scoreboard on my Top Ten List.
As for this fall, there is a massive selection for all film-going audiences with blockbusters like Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - sure to be the colon-sporting trio busting the doors off the season's box-office records - alongside fare more intended for the Oscar-conscious.
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Film and the Arts
Ten Movies to Look Out for in Fall 2013
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Wednesday, 28 August 2013 14:34
- Written by Matt Oakes
Fall 2013 TV Preview
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Tuesday, 04 June 2013 13:54
- Written by Lloyd Carroll
Last month the various broadcast networks introduced their new prime time shows to advertisers and the media at events that are called “upfronts” in the trade. Here is a look at what CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and the CW have in store for us this fall.
- CBS
CBS remains the most watched television network in the world and therefore has fewer slots for new programs. Its chief executive officer, Leslie Moonves, is hoping that new shows slated for this September will do better than the quickly cancelled “Made In Jersey” and “Partners” did last fall.
Robin Williams is returning to television after a very successful film career as an advertising executive in the “The Crazy Ones.” Anna Faris, a sexy comedy actress whose film career never caught fire, makes her first attempt at a TV series as a single mother who is also a recovering alcoholic in “Mom.”
Will Arnett is a very funny guy who is respected by his comedy peers but for some reason he has never found a television show that has struck a chord with the masses. The legendary “Arrested Development,” which has been revived on Netflix, is his biggest claim to fame. CBS is hoping that Arnett’s bad luck with the Nielsen ratings will change with “The Millers” in which he replays a recently divorced man.
CBS is banking on a tense drama, “Hostages,” starring Dylan McDermott and Toni Collette. The trailer is designed to make you bite your nails but “Hostages” would seem to be better off as a mini-series than as a weekly one.
- FOX
The decline of “American Idol” was a key reason for Fox garnering less than stellar ratings last season. Fox Entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly can’t count on his network’s old standby to save the day any longer and is investing in a number of new shows.
Seth MacFarlane is responsible for a number of Fox’s successful animated shows over the years including “Family Guy,” and he is trying his hand at his first live action comedy with a project called “Dads” that stars Seth Green, Peter Riegert and Martin Mull. From the laugh-free segment that I saw it seems as if Fox picked up the series as a favor to MacFarlane.
Two other comedies, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” starring former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Andy Samberg, and “Enlisted,” an army comedy in the Stripes mold, don’t look like winners either.
On a more upbeat note for Fox, “Rake” starring Greg Kinnear as a reprobate lawyer, and “Sleepy Hollow,” which transports some of the characters of the Washington Irving classic novel to the 21st century, appear promising.
- NBC
Things have gotten so bad for the Peacock Network that it lagged behind Univision in terms of eyeballs during the February ratings sweeps. It is no wonder that NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt received tepid applause when he was introduced at the NBC Upfront held at Radio City Music Hall.
Greenblatt was able to coax Michael J. Fox to return to his network in an eponymous show in which he stars a WNBC anchorman who has Parkinson’s Disease, something that Fox has valiantly battled in real life. The five-minute preview was warmly received as was the snippet of “The Blacklist,” starring James Spader in what appears to be a knock-off of Silence of the Lambs A reboot of “Ironside” with Blair Underwood taking over the role made famous by Raymond Burr also created buzz.
On the other hand, how can NBC greenlight “Welcome to the Family,” a comedy about teen pregnancy with ugly ethnic stereotypes to boot?
- ABC
The Alphabet Network, to use Variety Magazine lingo, is in the same ratings-challenged boat as NBC. ABC Entertainment president Paul Lee is throwing a lot of things at the wall in the hopes that something will stick. The best of the lot seem to be “The Goldbergs,” an ‘80s version of “The Wonder Years”; “Super Fun Night,” starring Australian comedy actress Rebel Wilson; and an action series, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
- CW
For a network few have watched since “Gossip Girl” departed, the CW is sticking with most of its programs that have been ignored over the years such as “America’s Next Top Model” and “Nikita.” One new offering will be “Reign,” a drama about a young Mary Queen of Scots.
Carnegie Hall Preview: Renee Fleming’s ‘Perspectives’ Ends; ‘Spring for Music’ Begins
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Friday, 03 May 2013 17:07
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Renee Fleming—Vienna: Window to Modernity
May 4, 2013
Spring for Music—Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
May 8, 2013
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall’s current season winds down, with soprano Renee Fleming’s illuminating four-concert Perspectives ending as the Spring for Music festival begins.
Perspectives artists from David Byrne to the Kronos Quartet curate their own programs, often with music not usually performed (although some simply regurgitate their usual repertoire). For her Perspectives, Fleming (at right) performed a joint recital with Susan Graham, sang Blanche Dubois in the first New York performance of Andre Previn’s opera A Streetcar Named Desire (she also sang the 1998 premiere) and last week sang a new work by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic.
Her final Perspectives concert, Vienna: Window to Modernity, gives Fleming the chance to sing chamber works she doesn’t often perform: with a focus on early 20th century music, she will sing her beloved Strauss but also Brahms, Wagner and Schoenberg. Along for the ride are pianist Jeremy Denk and the Emerson String Quartet—in one of its final appearances with original cellist David Finckel.
Fleming spoke recently about her Perspectives concerts.
Kevin Filipski: How did the Vienna concert take shape?
Renee Fleming: I’ve been exploring this period for a number of years, starting with Strauss and Korngold. This late romantic music fits with me vocally, I speak German fluently, and early in my Decca career I worked with producer Michael Haas, who wanted me to record Korngold’s operas. I would have loved to have done them, but the orchestrations are too heavy for my voice—but I have sung them in concerts. When I saw a Korngold exhibit at the Jewish Museum in Vienna along with a fantastic Mahler exhibit, this era really hit home. The influence that these composers had on American composers also interested me. It was also the heyday of the singer: the cultural importance of the opera composers and singers in this period was beyond anything in Hollywood today.
KF: How did you decide which songs you would include?
RF: The Emerson Quartet and Jeremy Denk collaborations originally came from Carnegie, but it was challenging to find appropriate music: we wanted to find music composed for soprano and quartet, but there isn’t that much. So that was our first challenge: the Strauss songs are rarely performed and Brahms’ songs are fragments, and quite different than we are used to. The Weigl, Webern and Zeisl songs are not known—and they’re really just tastes of them, since they come from larger works. So this’ll be fun for us to do.
KF: What will you take away from your Perspectives season?
RF: It’s been wonderful—each project has been so different, so completely unique. Performing Hillborg’s new work with the New York Philharmonic is a good example. It’s a substantial work, its words and imagery are immediate and musical in their own right. I think it’s a beautiful piece. And to finally bring Streetcar to New York—it was only one performance, but we brought it to New York! I didn’t have any luck getting it done at the Met, so this seemed like a good way to do it, no huge sets to construct. And what a special pleasure to sing this opera in what’s considered the best acoustic hall in the world. This was a fun way to do music I don’t perform very often.
The Spring for Music festival—comprising a week of performances by American orchestras which usually don’t play on Carnegie Hall’s vaunted stage—begins May 6 with Marin Alsop conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, continues with Albany (May 7), Buffalo (May 8), Detroit (May 9 and 10) and concludes with the National Symphony Orchestra (May 11).
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) music director JoAnn Falletta (left)—who has led the ensemble since 1999—spoke about what distinguishes Spring for Music: programs of exciting and rarely heard works, like the Russian pair, both pre-revolutionary (Gliere’s massive 3rd symphony, Ilya Muromets) and post-Soviet (Giya Kancheli’s Morning Prayers), which the BPO will play.
Kevin Filipski: How did the BPO get involved with Spring for Music?
Joann Falletta: They have a really different concept and they make it a very special event. They invite orchestras to apply based on what they’re doing in terms of repertoire, and they want very unusual programming. They liked what we are programming—especially the Gliere symphony, which is almost like a cult piece with a lot of fans and not played very often. Our orchestra does romantic music very well, because the acoustics in Kleinhans Music Hall lend themselves to that. We also have a reputation for doing new music, because of our past music directors from Lukas Foss to Michael Tilson Thomas, which is why I chose the Kancheli work: that comes from the end of the Soviet regime, while Gliere comes from the beginning.
KF: What distinguishes these two works?
JF: Both pieces seem to me mystical—the Kancheli is very spiritual in a non-sectarian way, but it’s also quite tragic, it’s about life in the Soviet Union. And the Gliere symphony is also mystical—a composer looking back at this 9th or 10th century Hercules figure whom everyone in Russia knows about. The Gliere uses a huge, lush orchestra, while Kancheli has a very minimal but powerful language. I thought to tie these two mystics together, and it works. No one in the orchestra has played these works before—but the whole Spring for Music concept is to take risks, and I’m thrilled that we’re taking a chance on these works, especially the Gliere, a long, demanding workout for the orchestra. But that’s how we grow as musicians. And we’re recording the Gliere symphony for Naxos: they wanted us to record it for awhile, and it worked out perfectly that we are recording it before we perform it at Carnegie Hall.
Carnegie Hall
7th Avenue and 57th Street, New York, NY
Sebastian Junger Salutes the Life and Time of Tim Hetherington
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Friday, 19 April 2013 14:58
- Written by Laura Blum
Watching Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington is safer than covering combat, but the new HBO documentary by author, journalist and filmmaker Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) is not danger-free. It contains images of maimed bodies that may haunt you on a dark night.
But it also reminds you why you must miss the empathic British war photographer/filmmaker terribly. On April 20, 2011, scant 
weeks after his and Junger’s chronicle of American soldiers in Afghanistan, Restrepo, was nominated for an Oscar, tall, lanky Hetherington was felled by mortar during the siege of Misrata, Libya. He was 40 years old.
Which Way highlights his award-winning ten-year career in such hotspots as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Afghanistan. None of this objective journalism stuff for Hetherington. He jumped right into the soup, asked personal questions, took stances and didn't hesitate to protect lives. Stills, footage and commentary give a glimpse into the singular choices he made both behind and beyond his lens. The film’s title comments on Hetherington’s artistic compass no less than on his war zone reporting.
At a preview screening presented by HBO and the Foreign Press Association, Junger reflected on his film and much-lamented friend. Hetherington plainly excelled at his craft, but it's just as clear that, given the choice between getting the shot or engaging humanity, he’d have happily walked away empty-handed, recalled Junger.
“The point wasn’t the photography; the point was what he was doing with this other human being, and as a result, he got great photos.” The medium wasn’t the message for Hetherington. “He used video; he used audio, exhibits in studios; I think he would’ve used crayons if he could’ve gotten 
away with it to tell stories,” Junger mused.
FilmFestivalTraveler.com chimed in with a few questions.
Q: Your film has a lot of close-ups. How did Tim’s aesthetic and principle of human engagement influence your filmmaking and your aesthetic choices?
SJ: One thing I noticed with Tim in (Afganistan’s) Korangal Valley: we were each shooting video (for Restrepo) and had very different styles. You could always tell his footage because it very often starts in very close up; he grabs the focus and then he pulls out. What he was doing was sort of utilitarian, but it’s really quite lovely stylistically. It really gave me a taste for that. I hadn’t noticed (my close-ups in Which Way), but maybe unconsciously…
Q: How did you match music and image, and how did you avoid being maudlin?
SJ: You need a light touch. You don’t want to force people to have emotions because you’re covering them with music. You have to let people come to the music. I wanted something that was somber but not dispirited. Tim was a very joyful person. I wanted a few slightly Middle Eastern themes in there. Also there are moments where it’s more sounds than music. I wanted not quite sound design, not quite a thumping heartbeat, but something more atmospheric than a score.
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