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Film and the Arts
July '22 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 28 July 2022 19:18
- Written by Kevin Filipski
4K/UHD Release of the Week
Angel Heart
(Lionsgate)
Alan Parker’s brooding 1987 horror film, based on William Hjortsberg’s novel Falling Angel, has a labyrinthine plot consisting of demons, voodoo, murder, incest and madness that risks becoming silly and risible but somehow remains strong, even thrilling stuff. Mickey Rourke gives one of his most intense performances as a NYC private eye whose latest case unfolds strangely, culminating in a New Orleans that’s both unrecognizable and familiar; Robert DeNiro as the creepy antagonist and Lisa Bonet as the mysterious love interest (her and Rourke’s celebrated sex scene is present in all its glory in this unrated version) provide excellent support.
Parker’s indelible visuals (Michael Seresin’s photography and Gerry Hambling’s editing are first-rate) look spectacular and unsettling in 4K; extras on the 4K and Blu-ray discs include Parker’s commentary and interviews; Rourke and Bonet archival interviews; deleted scenes; and making-of featurettes.
Orders from Above
(Gravitas Ventures)
Vir Srinivis’ dry, stagy account of war criminal Adolf Eichmann’s interrogation by Israeli police officer Avner Less after his capture in Argentina and return to Israel for trial doesn’t add much to what we already know about the infamous Nazi’s defense that he was just following orders.
Peter J. Donnelly (Eichmann) and Richard Cotter (Less) are properly intense, but even with such built-in dramatic material, Srinivis doesn’t do much more with it than make it straightforward and less than compelling.
She Will
(IFC Midnight)
In Charlotte Colbert’s sporadically creepy horror debut, Alice Krige plays Veronica, an aging actress who checks into a remote Scottish retreat with her assistant to recover from major surgery and soon finds that the local area, where witches were burned centuries ago, triggers her own imaginings of vengeance.
Writer-director Colbert’s tantalizing setup yields to a bumpy ride where only certain moments come alive in an original way—Krige and Kota Eberhardt (assistant) give full-throated portrayals, but the movie wastes such luminaries as Malcolm McDowell and Rupert Everett while falling back on familiar tropes from the likes of The Wicker Man.
The Adventures of Don Juan
(Warner Archive)
Of course, it’s Errol Flynn playing the swashbuckling, seductive Don Juan in this entertaining 1948 adventure, directed by Vincent Sherman, about how the great ladies’ man meets his match in the form of Queen Margaret of Spain, who assigns him to teach sword fighting when he returns home after a diplomatic fracas in England.
This colorful and sweeping piece of fun finds Flynn—never the subtlest actor—in his element as a movie star, and the supporting cast includes Viveca Lindfors as the Queen. There’s a superb Blu-ray transfer whose colors really pop; extras include an audio commentary and vintage featurettes, short and cartoon.
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
(Film Movement Classics)
In Bruno Barreto’s ramshackle 1976 romantic comedy, Sonia Braga burns a hole in the screen as a young widow who, while grieving her cheating but sexually fulfilling dead husband, gets remarried to a good but dull pharmacist, which causes dead hubby’s spirit to return and once again fulfill her sexually.
Although way overlong at two hours, Barreto’s movie has an unabashed erotic spirit, and Braga began her multi-decade international career of renown with her sexy, free-spirited, uninhibited performance. Too bad the new hi-def transfer leaves something to be desired; extras are a Barreto commentary and vintage making-of featurette.
(Dynamic)
Giuseppe Verdi’s enchanting final opera, based on Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor,” still holds the stage humorously in this 2021 Florence staging by director Sven-Eric Bechtolf.
The great character of Falstaff’s comedic gravitas is well-acted by Michael Volle, but it’s the superb stable of women surrounding him that’s led by Ailyn Perez’s hilarious Alice Ford and Francesca Boncompagni’s bewitching Nannetta. John Eliot Gardiner ably leads the fine orchestra and chorus; both hi-def video and audio are exemplary.
Nathalie…
(Cohen Film Collection)
In Anne Fontaine’s typically elegant 2003 drama, Fanny Ardant plays the wife of philanderer Gerard Depardieu; Ardant hires stripper/call girl Emmanuelle Beart to seduce her husband and report back to her with every detail.
Beart complies—until Ardant realizes that the sexual manipulations may have spiraled beyond her control. Although there’s something familiar, even old-fashioned, about the setup, Fontaine’s execution is subtle and mature, and the three stars—particularly the alluring Beart—are in superb form throughout. There’s a fine hi-def transfer.
(Naxos)
Polish-Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s shattering 1968 opera about the Holocaust’s devastating fallout on its survivors—particularly a former camp guard who recognizes one of the female prisoners on board a cruise ship they are on—receives a fine 2021 staging from Austria’s Oper Graz by director Nadja Loschky.
Weinberg’s emotional music rawly exposes the post-war wounds of characters precisely rendered from Zofia Posmysz’s original novella (also the basis of the great director Andrzej Munk’s last film before his premature death in 1961). The Grazer Orchestra, under conductor Roland Kluttig, and the singers, both the soloists and the Graz Chorus, are top-notch; hi-def video and audio are excellent.
DVD Release of the Week
The Gilded Age
(HBO/Warner Bros)
After his Downton Abbey triumph, Julian Fellowes returns with a series about the haves and have-nots in late 1880s New York City, following the young Marian (Louisa Jacobson, a Meryl Streep daughter), who arrives in Manhattan to be chaperoned by her aunts Agnes (Christine Baranski) and Ada (Cynthia Nixon), as much of the upper crust tries to keep the upwardly mobile upstart Bertha (Carrie Coon) from taking her place among the privileged.
The 10-episode season’s sumptuous costumes and arresting set design notwithstanding, except for Baranski’s sardonic Agnes, those populating the mansions are relatively uninteresting. A slew of theater performers (Audra McDonald, Bill Irwin, Kelli O’Hara, Donna Murphy, and Michael Cerveris, for starters) unfortunately make little impact. There are several on-set featurettes and interviews.
Theater Review: Cirque du Soleil's New Ice Show, "Crystal"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 25 July 2022 22:22
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Crystal
Cirque du Soleil
July 21-24, 2022
UBS Arena, Elmont, L.I.
European tour, September 2022-February 2023
cirquedusoleil.com/crystal
I’ve previously seen two Cirque du Soleil shows—The Beatles LOVE, in Las Vegas in 2007, and Wintuk, the troupe’s ill-fated holiday show, in New York the following year—so I knew what to expect from Crystal, the Cirque’s first ice show: dazzling acrobatics, humorous clowns, impressive jugglers and marvelous stagecraft. And that is what we got—as my wife said, “This isn’t our mothers’ ice capades.”
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| The final "ballroom" sequence in Cirque du Soleil's Crystal (photo: Matt Beard) |
Crystal is about the eponymous creative girl with a tumultuous mind, and she dreams up (through writing, which may confuse some of the younger attendees, especially in a sequence featuring, of all things, typewriters) several fanciful, dream-like sequences that tumble one after another onto the ice. Though narratively choppy, it is, as usual with Cirque du Soleil performances, the visual dazzlement that matters: even if it seems to be too much, there’s no doubt you won’t be bored watching the two-plus hour show.
Cirque du Soleil shows have always been about astounding physical feats, and Crystal has the group’s usual incredible array of acrobats on swings or even precariously balanced chairs, jumping, teetering, twisting, and turning. (The final "ballroom" pas de deux, between Crystal and her suitor, on ropes above the ice, might be the single most memorable moment in any Cirque show I’ve seen.)
The ice adds more excitement and danger, as the fast-skating performers leap through the air, spin around the rink with unbelievable agility, and even—in one silly but amusing sequence—play hockey, with Crystal skating around in an Islanders jersey at one point. And if you never thought you’d ever see tap dancing on skates, well, here’s your chance.
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| The hockey acrobats of Crystal (photo: Matt Beard) |
Crystal is also an audiovisual bath to immerse oneself in. The atmospheric music—composed by Maxim Lepage—includes covers of pop songs by the likes of Rhianna and U2, whose “Beautiful Day” makes a satisfyingly upbeat closer. A violinist, guitarist and pianist all make on-ice appearances as well. Then there’s the visual design team, especially the costumes and lighting, which keeps wowing the audience with each subsequent scene.
My first thought was that such an overstuffed show would be too much for the children in the audience, but to the contrary, they seemed enthralled and were watching intently throughout Crystal. Cirque du Soleil’s own motto could well be, to steal a phrase from the most famous of Cirque collaborators, “a splendid time is guaranteed for all.”
"Romeo & Juliet": A Beautiful Tragedy from The American Ballet Theater
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 21 July 2022 14:57
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Gillian Murphy in Romeo and Juliet. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.
At the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, on the evening of Thursday, July 14th, I had the privilege to attend American Ballet Theater’s production of Kennth MacMillan’s splendid version of Romeo and Juliet—set to the extraordinary score by Sergei Prokofiev, here ably conducted by Charles Barker—bringing a marvelous season to a satisfying close. The handsome scenery and costumes were designed by Nicholas Georgiadis, with effective lighting by Thomas Skelton.
The success of the event owed the most to an impressive cast. The fabulous Gillian Murphy—probably the finest ballerina in the company—was superb in the title role—she excelled this season as Odile/Odette in Swan Lake. Her partner, Thomas Forster, has the appearance of a matinee idol—this season he danced admirably as the lead in Alexei Ratmansky’s new Of Love and Rage, as well as in Swan Lake, as Prince Siegfried—but memories of the the inimitable David Hallberg as Romeo were not eclipsed. However, Garegin Pogossian as Mercutio, was simply dazzling in what I imagine will be a breakout performance.
There were some outstanding dancers in the secondary cast that included Roman Zhurbin as Tybalt, Patrick Frenette as Benvolio, Eric Tamm as Paris, Alexandra Basmagy as Lady Capulet, John Gardner as Lord Capulet, Rubén Martín as both Escalus, Prince of Verona and Friar Laurence, Courtney Lavine as Rosaline, Claire Davison as Nurse, Kiely Groenewgen as Lady Montague, and Duncan Lyle as Lord Montague. Especially exceptional though were the Three Harlots: Katherine Williams, Scout Forsythe, and Courtney Shealy. The excellent corps de ballet were terrific in several scenes. The artists were enthusiastically applauded.
ABT will return to Lincoln Center, at the David Koch Theater, in the fall.
The American Ballet Theater Mixes Things Up
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 20 July 2022 19:10
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Scene from Single Eye. Photo: Marty Sohl.
I had the privilege of attending the marvelous American Ballet Theater matinee performance on Saturday, July 9th—at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center—of this season’s excellent Mixed Repertory program, which upheld the impressively high standard of the current season as a whole.
The program reached its pinnacle with its opening presentation, an exquisitely realized version of the magnificent Theme and Variations, choreographed by the titanic George Balanchine and set to the enchanting eponymous movement of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral Suite No. 3–here splendidly conducted by David LaMarche—and with attractive scenery and gorgeous costumes designed by Zack Brown–it seems certain that no more perfect masterpiece could be encountered in performances by this company during this season. The work is one of the greatest of Balanchine’s highly formalized, gracefulhommagesto the vanished world of the Imperial Russian Ballet.
The fabulous cast was led by a brilliant Herman Cornejo—who with the recent departure of David Hallberg is surely the finest male principal at Ballet Theater—and an astonishing Skylar Brandt, who has ascended to the first rank of ballerinas in the company. The secondary cast included Zimmi Coker, Zhong Jing-Fang, Breanne Granlund, Luciana Paris, Patrick Frenette, Cameron McCune, Garegin Pogossian, and Luis Ribagorda. The dancers were admirably supported by the sterlingcorps de ballet.The artists deservedly drew enthusiastic applause.
Less immediately accessible, but featuring some engaging choreography by Alonzo King, and conveying at least the impression of an ultimate expressive unity, was A Single Eye—a new Ballet Theater commission here receiving its local premiere—set to a contemporary score by Jason Moran, with appealing costumes by Robert Rosenwasser. The accomplished primary cast included: Christine Shevchenko, who was memorable this season in the lead role of Alexei Ratmansky’s new Of Love and Rage; Thomas Forster who also was notable as the other lead in Of Love and Rage, as well as in Swan Lake, as Prince Siegfried; Calvin Royal III; and Devon Teuscher.
More charming was the ebullient Zig Zag—which premiered at Lincoln Center last year during the fall season and held up well on a second viewing—choreographed by the talented Jessica Lang, set to songs performed by Tony Bennett, with delightful costumes by Wes Gordon. As to what the songs are that are featured, I quote here, with slight emendation, from my review of the original presentation:
“What the World Needs Now” by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David; the signature “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”; "Fascinating Rhythm" by George and Ira Gershwin; “Spring in Manhattan”; Cole Porter’s “It's De-Lovely,” a duet with Lady Gaga; "Just One of Those Things,” also by Porter; “Smile” by Charlie Chaplin, from the theme to his classic late feature,Limelight; “Blue Moon” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; Duke Ellington’s "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)”; and "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" with music by Michel Legrand and lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
The alluring main cast included: Teuscher and Paris again, Jarod Curley, Blaine Hoven, Cassandra Trenary, and Joo Won Ahn, who was outstanding in the lead role of Don Quixote, in the opening week this season. The dancers were again rewarded with a standing ovation.
The current season will close with a final week of performances of Kenneth MacMillan’s superb ballet of Sergei Prokofiev’s glorious Romeo and Juliet.
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