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October '22 Digital Week II

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 18 October 2022 21:06
Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 
Hail Mary 
(Cohen Film Collection/Quad Cinema)
Jean-Luc Godard’s second film from 1985—the other, Detective, is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the film noirs he grew up watching—is among the just-deceased master director’s most remarkable creations. Banned and picketed when it was first released by those who believed it sacrilegious, the film is a typically Godardian exploration of a young virgin mother, and shows how faith, beauty and art have been co-opted by the chaotic everyday existence of modern life. 
 
 
Hail Mary is preceded by the short The Book of Mary, an equally stunning study of a young girl by Godard’s frequent collaborator—and life partner—Anne-Marie Mieville. This is the penultimate of four weekly screenings at Manhattan's Quad Cinema of Godard classics in memory of the great director, who died last month at age 91.
 
 
 
 
 
My Old School 
(Magnolia Pictures)
It’s not often you can say that truth is really stranger than fiction than in this diverting documentary about Brandon Lee, whose time at a Glasgow High School in the 1990s is dissected by many classmates (including the film’s director, Jono McLeod), and includes no less than actor Alan Cumming, who lipsynchs Brandon’s responses in a recorded interview.
 
 
Just what Brandon did I won’t divulge, but the reveal is surprising enough that McLeod’s trickery—Cumming’s deadpan appearance and the animated sequences a la Daria—at times makes this intriguing character study less than the sum of its illuminating parts.
 
 
 
 
 
Three Tall Women 
(CBC Gem/Stratfest@Home) 
In Edward Albee’s last great play (which I saw at its 1994 New York premiere), that remarkable actress Martha Henry gives a colossal performance in the central role of A, a 92-year-old looking back on her life—and, amazingly, she gave her brilliant portrayal just weeks before she died, a year ago, at age 83.
 
 
Albee’s wit has rarely been so razor-sharp, and his verbal infelicities are kept to a minimum, which was not the case for many of his other post-Virginia Woolf dramas. Director Diana LeBlanc’s Stratford Festival revival also has superior acting by Lucy Peacock (as B) and Mamie Zwettler (as C), but this is a powerfully emotional memorial to one of Canada’s grand dames of the theater.
 
 
 
 
 
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
Beast 
(Universal)
Jaws transplanted to the African bush, Baltasar Kormákur’s thin but tense feature clocks in at an economical 90 minutes, and the first 30 are actually a fairly clever setup for the ensuing hour of monstrous lion attacks on Idris Elba and his daughters, which unfortunately become increasingly repetitive as we go along.
 
 
Still, the CGI that transforms stunt doubles into marauding big cats is impressively done, as Elba proves his bona fides as an action hero. The hi-def transfer looks terrific; extras include a deleted scene and on-set featurettes.
 
 
 
 
 
Going Places 
(Cohen Film Collection)
French director Bertrand Blier would win 1978’s Best Foreign Film Oscar for Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, an aimless, coarse satire about a frigid wife who can’t respond sexually to either her husband or the stud he brings on board yet a callow teenager does the trick. But Blier made his initial splash with this 1974 comic drama, a similarly dishonest film about a pair of aimless drifters who physically and emotionally demean every woman they come across.
 
 
Despite winning performances by Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as the men and a redoubtable trio of actresses—Bridgette Fossey, Jeanne Moreau and the spectacular Miou-Miou—as their marks, Blier’s first attempt to shock middle-class audiences out of their complacency—which he would try to do to diminishing returns throughout his career—mostly falters. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; the lone extra is an engagingly informative commentary by film professor Richard Pena.
 
 
 
 
 
Mack & Rita 
(Lionsgate)
Diane Keaton is her delightfully daffy self in Katie Aselton’s middling take on Big or 13 Going on 30, as a young woman turns 70 after undergoing a past-life regression.
 
 
There’s not much to writers Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh’s conceit, but Keaton—who not only looks smashing in her uniquely inspired Annie Hall-ish outfits but displays her still potent comic chops—is assisted by an able group of performers from Wendy Malick, Lois Smith and Loretta Devine to Elizabeth Lail, who’s likeable and winning as Keaton’s younger self to make this enjoyable. The film looks good on Blu; extras are two on-set featurettes that pointedly don’t feature Keaton.
 
 
 
 
 
Mark of the Vampire 
(Warner Archive)
In this terse 1935 vampire flick, director Tod Browning supplies humor and thrills in equal measure, including a terrific fade-out joke featuring Bela Lugosi, and there’s an eerie atmosphere that’s nicely balanced by a light-heartedness that fits the material.
 
 
In addition to Lugosi, there are nicely observed portrayals by the likes of Lionel Barrymore. The excellent hi-def transfer accentuates the moody B&W imagery captured by cinematographer James Wong Howe; extras include an audio commentary as well as a vintage cartoon and short.
 
 
 
 
 
DVD Releases of the Week
Ed Sullivan’s Rock and Roll Classics 
(Time-Life)
This worthwhile 10-disc set, although only skimming the surface of the riches residing in The Ed Sullivan Show’s vaults, demonstrates how valuable Ed’s Sunday night variety show was as a showcase for the best and most popular pop/rock/soul/R&B artists of the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s.
 
 
The discs are broken down by theme: the British Invasion, Psychedelic Rock, etc., but they’re just an excuse to include performance clips—most live stage appearances but some primitive versions of what were later called music videos—by everyone from the Beatles to the Beach Boys, the Temptations to the Supremes, Vanilla Fudge to Steppenwolf, and the Rolling Stones to Herman’s Hermits. The video and audio quality isn’t great, but these clips are mainly for historical purposes anyway. Only eight discs feature Sullivan Show music clips; the ninth disc features The All Star Comedy Special, with dozens of Sullivan’s comedian guests, and the tenth comprises two episodes from the series The History of Rock’n’Roll. Interview extras include the Lovin Spoonful’s John Sebastian, the Mamas and the Papas’ Michelle Phillips and the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn. 
 
 
 
 
 
Melrose Place—The Complete Series 
(CBS/Paramount)
This evening soap opera about young people living in a West Hollywood apartment complex—executive-produced by Aaron Spelling (who did the same for Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed in the final decade of a legendary career stretching back to the ’60s)—became a hit during its initial run from 1992-99 and either jumpstarted (or reignited) the careers of such performers as Courtney Thorne-Smith, Josie Bissett and Heather Locklear.
 
 
If you’ve always wanted it, this gargantuan boxed set collects every single episode (226 in total) from all seven seasons on 54 discs, along with many extras including featurettes and audio commentaries by series creator Darren Star.
 
 
 
 
 
CD Releases of the Week 
Michael Tippett—The Midsummer Marriage 
(BBC) 
English composer Michael Tippett (1905-98) composed several operas over a long and eclectic career but never equaled by the musical and dramatic invention of this, his first opera (although the harsh spareness of his second, the tragic King Priam, comes close).
 
 
First premiered at Covent Garden in 1955, Tippett’s mystical romance—kind of an abstract Midsummer Night’s Dream—has a surfeit of psychological acuity rare in an operatic work despite Tippett’s own convoluted libretto, but it’s the musical aspect that puts this into rarefied air. This new recording, recorded last year in London’s Royal Festival Hall, is adroitly conducted by Edward Gardner, gorgeously played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and splendidly sung by the London Philharmonic and English National Opera choruses as well as the soloists led by the inimitable leads Robert Murray and Rachel Nicholls.
 
 
 
 
 
Ellen Taafe Zwilich—Cello Concerto & Other Works 
(Delos)
Ellen Taafe Zwilich writes music of bountiful imagination, and this disc of several orchestral works cements her reputation as among our very best contemporary composers. The newest work on this excellent recording, Zwilich’s 2020 cello concerto, was premiered during lockdown and is a remarkably vital achievement, buoyed by brilliant soloist Zuill Bailey.
 
 
The other pieces are equally vigorous, highlighted by the delightful Peanuts Gallery (1996), a subtly colored workout for pianist Elizabeth Dorman and the Santa Rosa Symphony (led by conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong) in six tongue-in-cheek movements mirroring Charles Schultz’s beloved characters: Schroeder, Linus, Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Peppermint Patty and Marcie. 

October '22 Digital Week I

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2022 13:55
Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-ray Releases of the Week 
Sex and Lucia 
(Music Box Films)
Spanish director Julio Medem’s overtly symbolic and surreal films dive headlong into physical and emotional relationships, and his 2001 feature—which follows the title heroine navigating a world of intense love, heartbreaking sorrow and sexual pleasure—is, along with his preceding Lovers of the Arctic Circle, his most erotic expression of his own type of romantic melodrama.
 
 
Anchoring the two-hour, slightly overlong and repetitious film is Paz Vega, unforgettably vivacious as the charming young woman at its center. The film looks fine on Blu; extras are vintage interviews and on-set featurette along with a new video essay. 
 
 
 
 
 
Dexter/Dexter: New Blood—The Complete Series 
(CBS/Paramount)
Television’s most complicated serial killer drama, Dexter, which drew to a close in 2013 after its eighth season, returned with a reboot/sequel of sorts, Dexter: New Blood, in which everyone’s favorite murderer settles in a small New York State town.
 
 
Both the original and the reboot have skimpy plotting and motivation, but the performances help hide the flaws, led by Michael C. Hall’s conflicted antihero and the always winning Jennifer Carpenter as his beloved sister. This massive boxed set contains all 106 episodes of both series, and the hi-def images look terrific.
 
 
 
 
 
Star Trek: Picard—Complete 2nd Season 
(CBS/Paramount)
In the second season of the latest Star Trek series about the now-retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek—The Next Generation, Patrick Stewart gives his usual imposing performance as the former leader who must deal with both his fraility as he ages and the future of the universe.
 
 
The time-travel aspect—Picard has been injected into an alternate reality, set in Los Angeles in 2024—is cleverly done and there’s a welcome weight toward character study rather than action, but at times during the season’s 10 episodes, the stories move a bit too slowly. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer; extras include featurettes, deleted scenes and a gag reel.
 
 
 
 
 
4K Releases of the Week
Night of the Living Dead 
(Criterion)
George Romero’s frightening 1968 debut is still the greatest zombie movie, and what’s amazing fifty-four years later is how relevant it still is as an indictment of American society literally tearing itself apart; its grainy look and shoestring budget makes it even scarier than far more gory films, like Romero’s own sequels.
 
 
The Criterion Collection’s excellent new release features the film in glorious UHD, where the black and white visuals are more vivid than ever, along with two Blu-rays containing the film and many extras, including commentaries, dailies, vintage and more recent featurettes and interviews and even a workprint cut of the film, Night of Anubis.
 
 
 
 
 
DC League of Superpets 
(Warner Bros)
In this supremely entertaining animated feature, Superman’s own superdog, Krypto, joins forces with a motley crew of animals from the shelter whose own new superpowers are still uncontrollable as they attempt to rescue the entire Justice League.
 
 
A super voice cast, led by Dwyane Johnson, Kate McKinnon, Kevin Hart, Vanessa Bayer and Natasha Lyonne, and imaginative touches from director Jared Stern and his crack animation team make this fun for the whole family. The film bright colors look eye-poppingly good in UHD; the accompanying Blu-ray disc includes several featurettes, interviews and deleted scenes.
 
 
 
 
 
In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week
Battleground 
(Abramorama) 
This enraging documentary is mainly an evenhanded exploration of both asides of the abortion debate, but director Cynthia Lowen shows the anti-choice forces in far more depth, as the women leaders of several anti-choice organizations are seen as ragingly hypocritical, making the most ridiculous defenses of their positions time and time again, but that’s the unfortunate effect of the “one-issue” dogma.
 
 
The worst offender may be Marjorie Dannenfelser, head of the ironically named Susan B. Anthony List, who twists herself into a pretzel defending Donald Trump even after the January 6 attempted insurrection. Why Lowen sees fit to give her the last word is mindboggling.
 
 
 
 
 
Dead for a Dollar 
(Quiver Distribution)
Veteran Walter Hill returns with a spry if familiar western whose narrative twists—the woman who runs away from her rich husband is given her own agency, from living with her Black lover to wielding a gun of her own—make this satisfying enough. Hill’s an old pro at violent encounters, which are craftily handled, even if the ending is a disappointing shoot-’em-up.
 
 
Still, it’s forcefully acted by Rachel Brosnahan as the woman, Christoph Waltz as a bounty hunter (far better—and much less hammy—than in his two Oscar-winning portrayals for Quentin Tarantino) and Willem Dafoe as a feisty outlaw.
 
 
 
 
 
Hinterland 
(Film Movement)
For his first film in 15 years, Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky has made a strange, puzzling but compelling murder mystery reminiscent of the expressionistic classic M and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari that was shot on soundstages with green screens, giving the whole film an intentionally disorienting look and feel matching the point of view of Peter, the protagonist (played at a fever-pitch by Murathan Muslu).
 
 
There’s something amiss in the actual story and accompanying romance, which remain secondary to the onscreen stylishness, but Liv Lisa Fries as Theresa, a forensic doctor Peter falls for, provides the film with a detectable beating heart.
 
 
 
 
 
Some Like It Rare 
(Brainstorm Media) 
The clever if blunt English title pretty much sums up the juvenile humor in this one-note black comedy about a butcher and his wife who, after accidentally discovering that the meat of vegans (cue hilarity!) is especially tasty, become serial killers to keep their stock of what they call “Iranian pork” for their satisfied customers.
 
 
Writer-director Fabrice Éboué, who stars as the butcher, acts better than he directs or writes, but he did have the good sense to cast the great Marina Foïs as his wife: she brings intelligence and subtlety to a part and a subject that don’t call for it, making it all seem more daring and funny than it is.  
 
 
 
 
 
CD Releases of the Week
Ludwig van Beethoven—Complete Piano Concertos
(BIS)
In a crowded pool of complete Beethoven piano concerto recordings, young Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang makes an impressive splash with his traversal of one of the most imposing cycles in the entire repertoire.
 
 
With French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann leading the Philadelphia Orchestra, Zhang deftly handles Beethoven’s fiendish runs and cadenzas throughout these five imposing works. Most memorable are the 3rd and 4th concertos, which have the most balance between urgency and delicacy. Only the fifth concerto, the towering “Emperor,” feels less than fully-formed in this performance.
 
 
 
 
 
George Walker—Orchestral Works 
(Cleveland Orchestra)
Throughout an extraordinary career that ended with his death four years ago at age 96, American composer George Walker kept to his path, composing works ranging from solo pieces to orchestral works, the latter being the focus of this wide-ranging survey courtesy by the excellent Cleveland Orchestra and its music director, Franz Welser-Möst. Walker is best known for his lovely and evocative Lyric for Strings, which has taken on a new life recently, but the works included here are equally passionate. 
 
 
Antiphonys (1968) mirrors the chaotic rumblings of its era through percussion-driven rhythms, while the 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning vocal work Lilacs sets fragments of Walt Whitman’s famous eulogy for Abraham Lincoln to emotionally direct music. Rounding out this laudable recording are precise performances of Walker’s 4th and 5th sinfonias. As usual for Cleveland, the recording is housed in a deluxe album including a 44-page booklet with informative and contextualizing essays.

Opening Night Gala at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 04 October 2022 21:54
Written by Jack Angstreich

Pianist Daniil Trifonov and Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Photo by Chris Lee


On the evening of Thursday, September 29th, I had the privilege to attend Carnegie Hall’s magnificent Opening Night Gala concert with the superb musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra under the outstanding direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

The event began marvelously, with an exhilarating version of Maurice Ravel’s astonishing La Valse, which was notable for the conductor’s mastery in eliciting the remarkable diversity of moods in the work. Christopher H. Gibbs, in his excellent program note, provides some very interesting background:

Maurice Ravel composed La valse in the wake of the First World War, after a period of military service, poor health, compositional inactivity, and the death of his beloved mother. Ideas for the work dated back to 1906, when he initially planned to call it Wien (Vienna), an homage to the music of the “Waltz King,” Johann Strauss II. 

In 1919, the great impresario Sergei Diaghilev, for whom he had composed Daphnis et Chloé (1909–1912), expressed interest in a new piece for his legendary Ballets Russes. Ravel played through La valse for him in a keyboard version. Igor Stravinsky and Francis Poulenc were present and, according to the latter, Diaghilev responded, “Ravel, it is a masterpiece … but it’s not a ballet. It’s a portrait of a ballet … a painting of a ballet.” The composer was deeply offended, and the incident caused a permanent breach. 

As with some of his earlier orchestral works, Ravel composed versions of La Valse for solo piano as well as for two pianos. In October 1920, together with Italian composer Alfredo Casella, Ravel presented the premiere of the work in the two-piano version in Vienna at a special concert given by Arnold Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances. The first orchestral performance took place in Paris seven weeks later. As a work originally planned as a ballet, and that carries the subtitle “choreographic poem,” Ravel was eager to have it staged, especially after Diaghilev’s rejection. The first choreographed version was presented in Antwerp with the Royal Flemish Ballet in 1926, and two years later Ida Rubinstein danced it in Paris. Noted choreographers, including George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton, have used the music as well.

In an autobiographical sketch Ravel stated what he had in mind when he wrote La valse: “Eddying clouds allow glimpses of waltzing couples. The clouds gradually disperse, revealing a vast hall filled with a whirling throng. The scene grows progressively brighter. The light of chandeliers blazes out: an imperial court around 1855.” Elsewhere he remarked that he “conceived this work as a sort of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, mingled with, in my mind, the impression of a fantastic, fatal whirling.” Others have heard the piece more as apocalypse than apotheosis, such as the distinguished historian Carl Schorske, who called it a celebration of “the destruction of the world of the waltz.”

The celebrated virtuoso, Daniil Trifonov, then entered the stage as soloist for a revelatory account of Franz Liszt’s engaging Piano Concerto No. 1–the most impressive realization of this piece I have yet heard. Gibbs and Paul J. Horsley, in another fine program note, comment as follows:

Liszt’s responsibilities in Weimar as conductor of the orchestra made continual demands for fresh orchestral music, and this must have prompted him to look back to his concerto sketches once again. Progress was slow. Having composed chiefly virtuosic solo piano music up to this time, he at first lacked confidence in writing for orchestra. Liszt employed the assistance of Joachim Raff (1822–1882), a composer and excellent orchestrator, with whose help he completed a first version of the E-flat–Major Concerto in 1849. Shortly after this he began composing a series of symphonic poems in which he quickly mastered a delicate but rich orchestral palette. With renewed confidence he revised the First Concerto again in 1853. The successful premiere took place in Weimar in February 1855, with the composer at the piano and no less than his friend Hector Berlioz conducting.

Despite the admiring reception accorded these two celebrated musicians at the first performance, the concerto faced a much less sympathetic response when heard in Vienna the following season. Eduard Hanslick, the powerful anti-Wagnerian critic, called the piece a “triangle concerto” because of the prominent role the instrument plays in the second half of the piece. His views were enough to banish the work from Vienna for some years to come.

Liszt defended what he had done in an amusing letter: 


As regards the triangle, I do not deny that it may give offense, especially if it is struck too strongly and not precisely. A preconceived disinclination and objection to percussion instruments prevails, somewhat justified by the frequent misuse of them ... Of Berlioz, Wagner, and my humble self it is no wonder that ‘like is drawn to like,’ and, as we are all three treated as impotent canaille [rabble] among musicians, it is quite natural that we should be on good terms with the canaille among the instruments … In the face of the most wise proscription of the learned critics I shall, however, continue to employ instruments of percussion and think I shall yet win for them some effects little known.

The concerto is cast in several fluidly interwoven movements that are played in a seamlessly continuous gesture. Allegedly, Liszt fitted the loud opening motif (Allegro maestoso), scored for full strings to which the woodwinds and brass respond, with these humorous words: Das versteht ihr alle nicht, ha-ha! (This none of you understand, ha-ha!). Just after comes an extended virtuoso passage for the soloist; the first movement builds to a furious climax before giving way to a tranquil second movement (Quasi adagio), with a theme in low muted strings. Into this is interpolated an animated scherzo-like section (Allegro animato), as well as the infamous emergence of the triangle. The finale begins with a lively Allegro marziale animato and gradually draws the themes together into an organic synthesis.

In this concerto, one of his first large-scale orchestral compositions, Liszt tried to achieve the kind of unity he so admired in Schubert’s “Wanderer Fantasy.” As he remarked in a letter concerning the last movement, it “is only an urgent recapitulation of the earlier material with quickened, livelier rhythm, and it contains no new motifs, as will be clear to you from a glance through the score. This kind of binding together and rounding off a piece at its close is somewhat my own, but it is quite organic and justified from the standpoint of musical form.” 

Enthusiastic applause was rewarded with a beautiful encore from the pianist: an exquisite reading of Johann Sebastian Bach’s exalting “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

Also felicitous was a confident presentation of the Carnegie Hall premiere of contemporary composer Gabriella Lena Frank’s pleasurable “Chasqui,” the fourth of a six-movement work titled, Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, which, according to program annotator Luke Howard, was “composed as a string quartet in 2001 and then arranged for string orchestra in 2003.” He adds that “Chasqui refers to the chasqui runners of the Inca empire, agile and intelligent messenger-carriers who sprinted between towns separated by the high Andean peaks.” About the author of the work, he writes:

Frank studied composition at Rice University and earned her doctorate from the University of Michigan. She has received numerous commissions from leading ensembles that include The Cleveland Orchestra, the King’s Singers, Kronos Quartet, and Brentano Quartet, and has participated with cellist Yo-Yo Ma in his Silk Road Project. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009, the same year she won a Latin Grammy Award. The following year she was named a United States Artist Fellow. Frank is currently composer-in-residence with The Philadelphia Orchestra, having previously served in that capacity with both the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Symphony. Next month, San Diego Opera is scheduled to premiere her first opera, The Last Dream of Frida and Diego.

The evening concluded gloriously with a stunning—indeed a transformatively dynamic—reading of Antonín Dvořák’s gorgeous Symphony No. 8—this was the most extraordinary performance of this work that I have yet heard, one which emphasized its passionate, intense Romanticism. Gibbs provides a useful description:

The piece begins with a solemn and noble theme stated by clarinets, bassoons, horns, and cellos that will return at key moments in the movement (Allegro con brio). Without a change in tempo, this introductory section turns to the tonic major key as a solo flute presents the principal folk-like theme that the full orchestra soon joyously declaims. The Adagiois particularly pastoral and traverses many moods, from a passionate beginning to the sound of bird calls, the happy music making of village bands, and grandly triumphant passages. 

While Dvořák often wrote fast scherzo-like third movements, this symphony offers a more leisurely Allegretto grazioso with a waltz character in G minor. In the middle is a rustic major-key trio featuring music that will return in an accelerated duple-meter version for the movement’s coda. Trumpets proclaim a festive fanfare to open the finale (Allegro ma non troppo), which then unfolds as a set of variations on a theme stated by the cellos. The theme looks back to the flute melody of the first movement and undergoes a variety of variations with wonderful effects along the way, including raucous trills from the French horns and virtuoso flute decorations.

At this concert, the opening Allegro con brio was stirring with almost Wagnerian passages. The Adagio was lovely and bucolic but also powerfully emotional at times. The Allegretto grazioso had a somber undertone with a lyrical middle section the music of which returned in the Coda in an exuberant mode. The finale built to a nearly extreme climax.

September '22 Digital Week III

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:59
Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 
The Good House 
(Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions) 
Not many actresses are as able to navigate the tricky, even treacherous emotional terrain of Hildy Good, an alcoholic real estate agent with a messy professional and personal life, as Sigourney Weaver, who explores every nuance—even finding some that probably didn’t exist in Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky’s direction or their and Thomas Bezucha’s script.
 
 
Weaver even makes the problematic bits (like directly addressing the camera) work like a charm; her winning presence makes this equally toughminded and soggy character study a bit of a must-see. She is joined by her long-ago (Dave and The Ice Storm) costar Kevin Kline, who like Weaver is unafraid to display physical and emotional nakedness onscreen. 
 
 
 
 
 
The Enforcer 
(Screen Media)
Despite Antonio Banderas’ best efforts, which are typically middling to begin with, Richard Hughes’ improbable drama about the brutal enforcer for the vicious head of the local underworld organization (Kate Bosworth, playing gleefully against type) who suddenly develops a conscience and tries rescuing a teenage girl from sexual exploitation—reminding him of his own young daughter—itself exploits its sexually charged scenario.
 
 
The blonde Bosworth, here in a black wig, is a hoot as the nasty crime boss, but little else here is very satisfying, unfortunately.
 
 
 
 
 
The Last Band on Stage 
(Gravitas Ventures)
The Windy City’s own Joe Mantegna is the perfect narrator for this enjoyable trip through rock band Chicago’s storied history; director Peter Curtis Pardini focuses on the group’s fraught last couple of years after performing a final concert in Las Vegas before COVID shut everything down for more than a year.
 
 
We see Chicago’s members either adjusting or not to life at home, not making music, not being on the road, and how they eventually get back in physical and mental shape to perform: first on Zoom, then finally at a real concert venue in the Midwest in the summer of 2021. 
 
 
 
 
 
Life Is Cheap…But Toilet Paper Is Expensive 
(Arbelos Films)
In Wayne Wang’s disappointingly hit-or-miss black comedy, a man arrives in Hong Kong from san Francisco bearing a suitcase that gangsters have handcuffed to him so he won’t lose it before getting it to another mobster, all while assorted others swirl around him, displaying outlandish and antisocial behavior in explicit visualization of the tongue-in-cheek title.
 
 
Wang’s 1989 feature has its admirers, and it’s certainly a spirited effort, but it’s loose and ragged, only coming into focus occasionally through the excess violence and crude humor.
 
 
 
 
 
Railway Children 
(Blue Fox Entertainment)
The original Railway Children, released in 1970, starred a then-teenage Jenny Agutter as one of the title kids: fast forward to 2022, and Agutter returns as the grandmother of a village family taking in city kids during the bombings of the UK in WWII.
 
 
Morgan Matthews’ sequel passes nicely enough; it’s too bad, though, that it mainly stays on the surface, rarely delving into the pathos involved for youngsters at such a fraught moment in their lives. Happily, the acting, led by Agutter and various young performers, is superb, which gives the dramatics more urgency.
 
 
 
 
 
Ten Tricks 
(Cinedigm)
Richard Pagano’s silly but amusingly adult roundelay introduces a middle-aged madam hoping to have a baby and several of her workers—both female and male—who are dealing with their customers, both successfully and unsuccessfully.
 
 
Although an ungainly mix of smuttiness, alternatingly stilted and interesting dialogue and even an occasional insight, it gains a measure of stature from the performances, like the outstanding Brittany Ishibashi as one of the call girls and, as the madam, the touchingly vulnerable Lea Thompson—who, nearly four decades after her debut, remains an appealing presence onscreen.
 
 
 
 
 
4K/UHD/Blu-ray Release of the Week 
The Lost Boys 
(Warner Bros)
Joel Schumacher’s horror comedy about young vampires terrorizing the fictional California town of Santa Carla is drenched in the year 1987 (the summer it was released), as the guys and gals’ big hair, the synth-laden score and smattering of pop songs by the likes of INXS, Echo and the Bunnyman and Foreigner’s Lou Gramm threaten to overwhelm its genuine smarts and funny/icky vibe.
 
 
The cast is top-notch: Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann and Bernard Hughes as the elders complement the dynamic young cast of Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, the Coreys Haim and Feldman and Jami Gertz. The striking visuals look spectacular on UHD, which includes Schumacher’s commentary, while other extras—retrospective featurettes and interviews, deleted scenes, and Gramm’s video for his tune “Lost in the Shadows”—are on the Blu-ray disc.
 
 
 
 
 
Blu-ray Release of the Week
Leonard Bernstein Boxed Set 
(C Major)
This five Blu-ray set contains several of Leonard Bernstein’s European concerts from the last years of his life (he died in 1990 at age 72)—the earliest is from 1976, of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, while the rest are from the ‘80s and early 1990, when he led the Vienna Philharmonic in Jean Sibelius’ seventh symphony.
 
 
These are typically idiosyncratic Bernstein performances, as he remains a whirlwind on the podium, even jumping up and down to punctuate the final notes of the Berlioz, but they’re all worth watching from at least an historical perspective. The fifth disc is a lovely tribute to the composer-conductor, Bernstein at 100, a 2018 concert at Tanglewood’s summer festival in western Massachusetts’ bucolic Berkshires, where the highlights are soprano Nadine Sierra as soloist in Bernstein’s “Kaddish” symphony and mezzo Isabel Leonard singing Maria in excerpts from his West Side Story score. There’s fine hi-def video and audio.
 
 
 
 
 
DVD Release of the Week 
Pissarro—Father of Impressionism 
(Seventh Art Productions)
Although not as well-known as other contemporaries such as Renoir and Monet, Camille Pissarro gets a lot of love in this 90-minute documentary about his life and art, as experts from the art world discuss and dissect his importance and legacy.
 
 
The film follows the straight line of others in the valuable Exhibition on Screen series through narration of his life and glimpses at his art as we hear about how he was thought of by his fellow Impressionists, who named him—unsurprisingly—“the father of impressionism.” 
 
 
 
 
 
CD Release of the Week
Valentin Silvestrov—Requiem for Larissa 
(BR Klassik)
84-year-old Valentin Silvestrov’s music earned added currency this year, as Ukraine’s most important living composer fled to Berlin with his daughter and granddaughter when Putin’s Russian forces invaded. But as this new recording of his very personal Requiem for Larissa demonstrates, it’s a work that will remain relevant for its shining excellence and gripping dramatics. Composed between 1997 and 1999, after the sudden death of Silvestrov’s beloved wife, Larissa, this Requiem is quite simply profoundly shattering to listen to.
 
 
Performed brilliantly by the Munich Radio Orchestra, Choir of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and soloists, all led by conductor Andres Mustonen, this large, formidable, slow-moving cycle of grief is given a greatly sympathetic airing.

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