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Film and the Arts
June '16 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 14 June 2016 00:08
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Le Amiche
(Criterion)
Although one of his lesser works, this 1955 melodrama was an important stepping stone for Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni on his way to cinematic maturity: this study of young women and their relationship troubles hints at his later mastery in L’Avventura and L’Eclisse, for example.
Unsurprisingly, Criterion’s transfer of this brooding black-and-white drama is stellar, but its extras are lacking: there’s a relatively mundane conversation on Antonioni between two scholars and a slightly more informative interview with another scholar.
(Intervision)
Director Francisco Lara Polop’s 1984 soft-core flick, while it has a certain cache among that era’s B-movie cognoscenti, is merely a competently made, indifferently acted tale of an comely heiress who’s been kidnapped by a band of lesbian terrorists.
Nice location shooting and Jewel Shepard’s endearing pseudo-Marilyn Monroe bimbo as our eponymous heroine make it watchable, along with ample—but by no means explicit—nudity and sex scenes. There’s a decent hi-def transfer.
Every Thing Will Be Fine
(IFC)
German director Wim Wenders has made some clunkers, but his latest, impossibly pretentious exercise in dramatic ponderousness leaps to the top of that list. James Franco sleepwalks through the movie as a writer whose life is altered by a fatal car accident, while Rachel McAdams, Marie-Josee Croze and ever-sullen Charlotte Gainsbourg suffer quietly at his side.
It seems like Terrence Malick-lite, but even Malick’s failures like To the Wonder (also with poor McAdams) had lustrous visuals and eclectic music on the soundtrack to compensate. Not so Wenders: Alexandre Desplat’s diverting score notwithstanding, Wenders’ usual impeccable control deserts him, shooting this in 3D for no discernable reason. It all looks fine on Blu; extras are interviews with cast (but not Franco) and Wenders and behind-the-scenes footage.
(PBS)
In the second season of this offbeat detective series, Reverend Sidney Chambers and inspector Geordie Keating consolidate their personal and professional relationships as they investigate another bizarre series of crimes.
If the plots are less than original, it doesn’t matter because the real reason to watch is the chemistry between James Norton and Robson Green, who invest their parts with as much authenticity and even humor as possible under the circumstances. The hi-def transfer is quite good; extras include featurettes and interviews.
Under the Sun of Satan
(Cohen Film Collection)
Maurice Pialat’s magnificent 1987 chamber film is an intimate character study of a failing priest with a dark side and the young woman who may be his salvation—or damnation.
Based on a novel by Georges Bernardos (whose work was also the basis of Robert Bresson’s Mouchette and Diary of a Country Priest), Pialat’s masterpiece has absorbing performances by Gerard Depardieu, Sandrine Bonnaire and Pialat himself as an older priest who gives Depardieu guidance. The film’s grainy hi-def transfer is illuminating; substantial extras—a second disc’s worth—comprise new and vintage interviews, along with an hour of deleted scenes and on-set footage.
(Magnolia)
In Tobias Lindholm’s powerful drama, parts of a Danish soldier’s life are shown in straightforward yet subtle detail: as he leads his men through horrible firefights, his absence from his family back home forces his wife to raise their children alone; later, he is put before a civilian tribunal after he is accused of war crimes for calling an air strike that kills innocent children. Not in the least didactic,
Lindholm’s film is a raging inferno of emotion and adrenaline, culminating in a courtroom sequence remarkable for its nuanced and compelling view of all sides. Pilou Asbæk—so good in the TV series Borgen—is brilliant as our hero, and Tuva Novotny matches him scene for scene as his wife. The hi-def transfer is first-rate; the paucity of extras includes brief servicemen and -women’s reactions, short making-of and Lindholm interview.
DVDs of the Week
A French Village—Complete 3rdSeason
(MHZ)
With the war on for several years now, the inhabitants of the Nazi-controlled village of Villeneuve must contend with a new wrinkle: the rounding up of Jews in the local school.
The endless greys of wartime have rarely been examined so thoroughly and even entertainingly as in this series, and the cumulative dramatic impact of its third season is enormous. Once again, the acting is superlative from top to bottom, with standouts Robin Renucci as the town’s decent mayor and Audrey Fleurot as his unfaithful wife.
(Icarus)
Belgian director Chantal Akerman’s suicide last fall came directly following the death of her beloved mother, and her poignant if meandering final documentary explores that relationship in depth. Natalia was a Holocaust survivor who was always Chantal’s reservoir of strength, shown in the many conversations between them, whether in person or via Skype.
Although the film, like so many others of Akerman, wears out its welcome before it ends, its tragic real-life epilogue gives it a gravitas missing from much of her oeuvre.
June '16 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 08 June 2016 12:33
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Best Intentions
(Film Movement Classics)
Bille August made this 1992 masterpiece from Ingmar Bergman’s script which recounts how his mother and father met, married and started a family—not the most original story, but when filmed with such artistry, written with such insight and acted with such forcefulness by Pernilla August and Samuel Froler as Ingmar’s parents and other great Swedish actors like Max von Sydow and Ghita Norby, it becomes three gripping hours that simply fly by.
In fact, it’s too bad that the original six-hour Swedish TV version isn’t included as an extra, because more of this family’s saga would always be welcome. The film looks absolutely splendid on Blu; the lone extra is Bergman’s extraordinary 1984 short, Karin’s Face, comprising only pictures of his mother as Bergman explores his family history with his usual mastery.
Gods of Egypt
(Lionsgate)
Clive Owen and Jaeden Lieberher make a nice pair as an estranged dad and his young son in Bob Nelson’s understated drama The Confirmation; Maria Bello is wonderfully real as Owen’s ex and Lieberher’s mom, but the contrivances that Nelson builds up in the movie’s second half nearly destroys whatever sympathy was earned earlier.
In Gods of Egypt, director Alex Proyas has made another movie that swallows up his actors with over-the-top CGI: these tales beg for a campy, Clash of the Titans treatment, but instead the likes of Gerard Butler and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau are reduced to cardboard by the visual miasma that fills the screen. Both films have excellent hi-def transfers; Confirmation extras comprise two featurettes, Gods extras are storyboards, featurettes and interviews.
King and Country—Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings
(Opus Arte)
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s decision to perform Shakespeare’s classic tetraology of history plays—Richard II, Henry IV 1 & 2 and Henry V—was an inspired one under Gregory Doran’s accomplished direction and the flawless acting of David Tennant as Richard, Antony Sher as Falstaff and Alex Hassell as Prince Hal, later Henry V. All four plays have been given superlative productions: costumes, sets and lighting are peerless, supporting casts are magnificent and Doran’s pacing is perfect.
For those unable to get to the RSC’s Stratford-upon-Avon home, this set is the next best thing: the filmed performances look first-rate, with extras including Doran’s commentary on all four plays and interviews with historians, scholars, actors and creative team and crew.
(Universal)
This black comedy about a hitman who falls for a young woman desperate for any sort of relationship is often wrongheaded and hits many sour notes as it attempts to balance rom-com deconstruction with gleeful Tarantino-lite violence.
Despite that, director Paco Cabezas has smartly cast Sam Rockwell as the hitman and Anna Kendrick as his girl, and their tart, tongue-in-cheek performances give the movie more amusement and staying power than it deserves. It looks good on Blu; the lone extra is a making-of featurette.
Rolling Stones—Totally Stripped
(Eagle Rock)
During its 1995 tour, the Rolling Stones played a trio of semi-acoustic shows at smaller venues and even re-recorded some re-arranged songs in the studio, and the resulting 91-minute film glimpses not only some of the performances but also the interplay among band members during the studio sessions.
The best performances are of warhorses like “Gimme Shelter” and “Let It Bleed” and lesser-known but still worthwhile cuts like “Faraway Eyes” and “Dead Flowers.” The documentary has good if not overwhelming hi-def audio and video; the accompanying CD includes 14 songs from those fabled Amsterdam, Paris and London shows.
(HBO)
Martin Scorsese directed the two-hour pilot episode of this new HBO series about machinations at a record company in the 1970s, which was the best two hours of the series so far: all of the usual melodramatics are present and accounted for, including lame “appearances” by actors aping David Bowie, Led Zeppelin etc.
It ultimately—and disappointingly—adds up to little that’s compelling or interesting, even if it is well-acted by a top cast that’s led by Bobby Cannavalle as the head honcho and a revelatory Olivia Wilde as his wife. The hi-def transfer is quite good; extras include features and commentaries.
Zootopia
(Disney)
Another visually arresting and hugely popular animated Disney feature, this spoof of buddy pictures has its share of laughs and tugging at the heartstrings—especially with the anthropomorphic animals at the heart of its success—but the constant punning, sight gags and pop-culture references become enervating after awhile, especially when everything’s dragged out to an overlong 108 minutes.
The computer-generated animation has a flawless Blu-ray transfer; extras include featurettes, deleted scenes and characters, Easter eggs and a Shakira music video.
Casual Encounters
(Lionsgate)
Taran Killan is not my idea of a leading man, but he’s better at anchoring flimsy indie comedies than fellow former SNLer Jason Sudekis: still, Killan’s limited acting skills tend to show the same face over and over again. But at least he’s a believable ordinary schlub whose girlfriend leaves him publicly after his latest screw-up.
More surprising is Brooklyn Decker as Killan’s nerdy co-worker who helps guide him through his post-breakup malaise. Director Zackary Adler does little new with his material, but there are scattered laughs throughout mercifully brief running time. Extras include featurettes and music video.
One More Time
(Anchor Bay)
Yes, Amber Heard can act—and not just in her Instagram photos: she demonstrates real chops in this low-key, semi-satisfying broken family comic drama about an aspiring singer who visits her famous crooner father’s Montauk house to mend fences with him and others in her screwed-up family.
Christopher Walken as dad and Heard make a formidable team, whether singing or sparring, and a fine supporting cast (Ann Magnuson, Kelli Garner, Oliver Platt, even Hamish Linklater) keeps Robert Edwards’ film from dragging its feet.
Theater Reviews—“American Psycho,” “The Judas Kiss,” “A Doll’s House/The Father”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 01 June 2016 23:53
- Written by Kevin Filipski
American Psycho
Music/lyrics by Duncan Sheik; book by Roberto Aguirre-Sarcasa; directed by Rupert Goold
Performances through June 5, 2016
The Judas Kiss
Written by David Hare; directed by Neil Armfield
Performances through June 12, 2016
A Doll’s House
Written by Henrik Ibsen; adapted by Thornton Wilder
The Father
Written by August Strindberg; adapted by David Greig
Both directed by Arin Arbus; performances through June 12, 2016
 |
| Benjamin Walker, Jennifer Damiano and Alice Ripley in American Psycho (photo: Jeremy Daniel) |
It’s not surprising that American Psycho is closing prematurely: although it will probably live on as a cult show like Sideshow or Taboo, it’s simply too weird for Broadway, and the youngish audience I saw it with—although they loved it—confirms that fact: multi-million dollar musicals can’t survive without some of the regular local or tourist crowds.
Based on Bret Easton Ellis’ slick 1991 novel, a catalog of lovingly detailed killings by would-be Wall Street master of the universe Patrick Bateman, the musical doesn’t have much at its disposal except for dated references to its era (the late ‘80s) in the dialogue, visuals and music. Duncan Sheik’s score is an almost endless parade of forgettable songs, interchangeable with the mindless dance tunes its pretty people groove and sniff coke to in Manhattan’s trendy clubs.
And when Sheik lowers the volume, his lyrics—straining to be witty but only managing intermittent cleverness—unfortunately come to the fore. Patrick’s girlfriend Evelyn and her vapid pals sing about how much they enjoy their superficial lives in “You Are What You Wear,” a tepidly mocking tune that actually opens with the lines, “I want blackened charred mahi mahi/it works so well with Isaac Mizrahi.”
At least the ‘80s songs that are shoehorned in—“Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Don’t You Want Me,” “Hip to Be Square,” “In the Air Tonight”—are given interestingly skewed new arrangements and come off the better for it: when a prostitute intones “I can feel it coming in the air tonight” while getting into a cab with Bateman cab for a fateful ride to his well-appointed uptown apartment, the undercurrent of menace hits harder than anything else in the show.
Lack of Tony Award consideration also doomed American Psycho, but its best features—scenic and lighting design—were justly recognized. Es Devlin’s inspired soulless set of antiseptic offices and apartments features various screens and scrims on which Finn Ross’s projections place us squarely in the materialistic hellhole of Manhattan during the Reagan years; ominous consolidation is provided by Justin Townsend’s inventively stylized lighting. Katrina Lindsay’s spot-on costumes and Lynne Page’s robotic choreography also fit the show’s creepy vibe, of which a little goes a long way.
Benjamin Walker, a sensationally charismatic Bateman, has the acting chops, powerful singing voice and impeccable pecs to make us believe he could charm his way to murderous infamy. But the talented supporting cast is ill-used, especially the spectacular Alice Ripley, who has so little to do as Patrick’s mother that she’s given other minor roles, where she has even less to do.
Jennifer Damiano, a natural stage charmer, though sweetly naive as Patrick’s love-struck secretary Jean, seems to be in a different show from everyone else. Helene Yorke—who looks fabulous in her designer bathing suit and other outfits—is fun as Patrick’s girlfriend Evelyn, but she could have done so much more with better material, the ultimate failure of a lively but innocuous show.
 |
| Charlie Rowe, Cal MacAninch and Rupert Everett in The Judas Kiss (photo: Richard Termine) |
When it first came to Broadway in 1998, David Hare’s play about the prelude to and aftermath of Oscar Wilde’s trials, The Judas Kiss, was marred by miscasting in the lead roles. Now, nearly two decades later in a new staging at BAM, the play has at least gained an effective Wilde.
Hare takes the measure of Wilde at his lowest, right before he is to be arrested and put on trial in London for what was then called “gross indecency”—a nervous and still puritan nation looked askance at this foreign (Irish) man of letters and impossibly witty bon vivant, which made him an irresistible target for legal action against his profligate immorality.
The first act takes place in the hotel room in which Wilde and his current lover, young Lord Alfred Douglas, or Bosie, are ensconced, along with Wilde’s former lover Robbie, who still takes care of Wilde’s personal affairs. The second act, a few years later, is set in Naples, where Wilde and Bosie are staying after Wilde’s two-year prison stint.
In the first act, Wilde’s witticisms and epigrams pour out of him in a desperate attempt to ward off the arrest he knows is coming. The second act finds a near-prone Wilde slumped in his chair at center stage, still tossing off stinging one-liners but obviously tired of the whole charade with Bosie, who screws other men and goes out on the town without Wilde, but keeps saying he’s been hurt the most by the scandal because he is, after all, a Lord.
While Hare has great admiration for Wilde as an artist and even greater sympathy for him as a human being, he never overcomes his own play’s creaky bipartite structure. Director Neil Armfield’s otherwise sensitive staging follows suit, further undercutting the characters by using the entire depth of the BAM Harvey stage, robbing us of any intimacy for long stretches.
Charlie Rowe’s Bosie certainly looks the part, but the actor’s one-note performance never makes his six-year-long relationship with Wilde remotely believable. Cal MacAninch’s eminently humane Robbie somewhat compensates, while Rupert Everett’s Wilde is far more persuasively epicurean than the miscast Liam Neeson in the original Broadway staging. Along with real gravitas, Everett brings a wink and a nod to the role which, even when Hare’s dramaturgy turns wobbly, allows Wilde to retain his dignity even amid the ongoing indignities.
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| Maggie Lacey and John Douglas Thompson in The Father (photo: Gerry Goodstein) |
Pairing Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House with August Strindberg’s The Father is an inspired choice by director Arin Arbus, whose uncluttered stagings find common ground in these plays about wives suddenly deciding to re-examine their relationships with their husbands, so much so that they clear away the baggage that’s accumulated over more than a century.
Maggie Lacey’s charming but resourceful Nora centers A Doll’s House (in Thornton Wilder’s slightly musty adaptation), with John Douglas Thompson’s Torvald providing initially stolid then overwrought support. But Thompson takes the spotlight in The Father (in David Greig’s modern, and occasionally vulgar, adaptation) as the Captain, a lifelong military man and amateur scientist whose wife of 20 years, Laura, retaliates when he announces that their beloved teenaged daughter is going away to school; Thompson’s bravura performance makes the Captain simultaneously loathsome and sympathetic, while Lacey’s Laura, a most agile if desperate manipulator, gives as good as she gets.
Actual physical violence doesn’t quite rear its head in A Doll’s House, but bursts through the dam in The Father when the Captain is straitjacketed for a mental breakdown. Strindberg hated Ibsen’s play and The Father was written as a partial rebuttal—although it also owes Ibsen’s classic an enormous debt, as shown through Riccardo Hernandez’s realistic sets, Susan Hilferty’s period costumes and Marcus Doshi’s subtle lighting effects. But it’s Arbus’s artistry that makes the greatest contribution to how vividly realized both plays are.
American Psycho
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street, New York, NY
americanpsychothemusical.com
The Judas Kiss
BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street, New York, NY
bam.org
A Doll’s House
The Father
Theatre for a New Audience, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY
tfana.com
May '16 Digital Week V
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 31 May 2016 12:37
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Beggar’s Opera
(Opus Arte)
In this 1983 TV production of this seminal 1728 piece of musical theater—forerunner of Weill and Brecht’s far more subversiveThreepenny Opera—The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey plays MacHeath, and though in fine voice, he conveys little of his attraction to women and penchant for crime.
So director Jonathan Miller smartly surrounds Daltrey with a veteran cast, led by Patricia Routledge as Mrs. Peachum, Carol Hall as her beguiling daughter Polly and Bob Hoskins as a sardonic choir of sorts who frames the action (which concludes with Macheath’s hanging, rather than his being freed). John Eliot Gardiner leads the English Baroque Soloists in a robust reading of the score, even if there’s no “Mack the Knife” within earshot. Hi-def audio and video are decent.
(Arrow USA)
The Terror
(The Film Detective)
Roger Corman churned out low-budget quickies short on sophistication but with occasional thrills. Arrow’s two-disc Blood Bath set is typically well put together, but four versions of the same 1966 film—variously titled Operation Titian, Portrait in Terror, Blood Bath and Track of the Vampire—that’s difficult to sit through in even one version is too much of a mediocre thing. 1963’s The Terror featured Boris Karloff in one of his last lead roles and a young actor named Jack Nicholson as our hero, but Corman does little with the ghostly story and authentic locations. There are compensations for fans: Blood includes all four versions, ranging from 62 to 95 minutes, in hi-def, along with interviews and featurettes; The Terror, well-preserved on Blu, has no extras.
(Cohen Film Collection)
One of Federico Fellini’s most nakedly symbolic dramas, this 1980 extravaganza stars old friend Marcello Mastroianni as a middle-aged man who falls asleep on a train and finds himself in a hotel filled with female, some alluring, others grotesque: there are set pieces as glorious—and ghastly—as anything the maestro ever filmed, and if it all seems like déjà vu, it’s always interesting to watch Fellini attempt to psychoanalyze himself—and his cinematic alter ego—onscreen, however variable the results.
Cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno’s boisterous colors have been lovingly restored for this Blu-ray release; extras are a 30-minute featurette and interviews with production designer Dante Ferretti and fellow filmmaker and Fellini friend Tinto Brass.
Dark Passage
(Warner Archive)
Delmer Davies’ tense 1947 film noir reteamed Bogie and Bacall—the third of their four films together—with a twist: Bogart isn’t seen until after the hour mark, when the bandages covering his face post-plastic surgery are removed (the convoluted plot concerns an escaped prisoner framed for his wife’s murder who puts on a new face to start again with a new identity).
Bacall’s smoldering presence is what the term “femme fatale” was made for, Bogart is always formidable and the San Francisco locations are put to gritty use by Davies. The restored transfer is excellent; extras comprise a vintage featurette and a Bugs Bunny cartoon from the same era.
(Decca)
Although Handel’s music isn’t high on my listening list—especially four–plus hours of it, as in this opera—this 2012 Salzburg Festival performance compensates with an impressively starry cast and eloquent musicmaking under Giovanni Antonini’s baton.
Cecilia Bartoli steals the show as Cleopatra, but Anne Sofie von Otter isn’t far behind as Cornelia, and countertenor Andreas Scholl makes a kingly Caesar. Too bad Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s Eurotrash production sets the whole thing in a no-man’s land of mindless modernity. Hi-def audio and video are first-rate.
Killer Dames
(Arrow USA)
Two of Italian giallo director Emilio P. Miraglia’s most representative entries—1971’s The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave and 1972’s The Red Queen Kills Seven Times—can’t hope to compete with their floridly descriptive titles, but they are trashy fun, especially Evelyn,which brings to the screen a young Sibyl Danning, who later made a bigger impression in 1980s B movies.
Both films have good, grainy new transfers, along with an option to watch in the original Italian or an English dub (which was how American viewers in the ‘70s would have seen them in theaters); extras include interviews, featurettes, commentaries and introductions.
A Married Woman
(Cohen Film Collection)
Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 study of a wife unhappily juggling relationships with her husband and her lover features an actress, Macha Meril, who scorches the screen unlike most of Godard’s usual performers.
Godard’s usual fragmented anti-narrative takes a back seat to a mature, frank look at how morality and politics affects private and public lives that takes its rightful place among the director’s greatest films:W eekend, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, Hail Mary andNouvelle Vague. The hi-def transfer beautifully shows off Raoul Coutard’s exquisite B&W photography; extras are interviews with Meril, filmmaker Agnes B. and film scholar Antoine de Baecque.
The Sum of Us
(Olive Films)
Adapted by David Stevens from his own play that perceptively explored the close relationship between a macho widower and his gay adult son—both of whom are looking for love—this 1994 drama is directed with extreme tact by Kevin Dowling and Geoff Burton.
The acting could not be bettered: Jack Thompson plays the father with his usual blend of ruggedness and sensitivity, while a then-unknown Russell Crowe tackles the trickier part of the son with a nuanced portrayal beyond what one might have expected. It veers too much into soap-opera territory in its final third, but remains a tough yet tender family portrait. The hi-def transfer is impeccable.
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