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April '14 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 02 April 2014 00:04
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
At Middleton
(Anchor Bay)
Unless you are an Andy Garcia and/or Vera Farmiga completist, you’ll want to bypass director/cowriter Adam Rodgers’ cutesy piece of forced whimsy about parents who meet and kinda sorta fall for each other when visiting the campus of Middleton College with their kids, who are incoming students.
Although the two stars—and Spencer Lofranco and Vera’s youngest sister, Taissa Farmiga, as the kids—shine, they must battle trite dialogue and silly rom-com antics that add up to not much. The Blu-ray looks fine.
Brian May/Kerry Ellis—
The Candlelight Concerts/Live At Montreux 2013
(Eagle Rock)
Queen guitarist Brian May and vocalist Kerry Ellis team for an odd-couple pairing that works niftily, May’s signature guitar stylings—both acoustic and electric—complementing Ellis’ crystalline but powerful voice.
Along with a healthy helping of Queen songs that includes left-field choices as “Life Is Real” (Freddie Mercury’s tribute to John Lennon that Ellis dedicates to Mercury), there are wonderful covers like George Harrison’s “Something” and even a schmaltzily effective “Born Free.” The hi-def transfer and audio are stunning to see and hear; the lone extra is a performance of “Nothing Really Has Changed” for its surprised—and touched—writer, Virginia McKenna.
L’Immortelle
(Redemption/Kino)
Alain Robbe-Grillet—who wrote Alain Resnais’ 1961 surreal masterpiece,Last Year at Marienbad—made his directorial debut two years later with this playful but contrived bit ofnouveau-roman filmmaking about a man trying to piece together his relationship with a beautiful but mysterious young woman in Istanbul.
The lusciously photographed movie has the lovely Francoise Brion as an asset; too bad her real-life husband, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, is less than scintillating as the protagonist. The hi-def image is excellent; the lone extra is a half-hour Robbe-Grillet interview.
Little House on the Prairie—Complete 1st Season
(Lionsgate)
The first season (1974-75) of the beloved television series about the Ingalls family—with parents Michael Landon and Karen Grassle and daughters Melissa Sue Anderson and Melissa Gilbert—arrives on hi-def, its 24 episodes (and the original pilot movie) intact.
The show looks far better on Blu-ray than it ever has; extras include a 40th anniversary documentary and Landon and Gilbert’s screen tests.
Meet Him and Die
(Raro)
This watchable but fairly routine thriller directed by Franco Prosperi has a notable appearance by a dubbed Martin Balsam as a mob boss who befriends a failed robber in prison.
A few decent chase sequences and shootouts can’t alleviate the lethargic pacing until a final, predictable climax. Even Elke Sommer in a bathing suit doesn’t help much. The hi-def transfer preserves the grain nicely; lone extra is a short intro.
DVDs of the Week
Altar of Lust/Angel on Fire
A Saint, A Woman, A Devil
(Vinegar Syndrome)
This trio of vintage adult flicks shows that, back in the ‘70s, actual plotlines—however paper-thin—were concocted so the sexcapades had some sort of context, as opposed to today’s “gonzo” online porn.
Altar (1971) features someone named Erotica Lantern, Angel (1974) follows a man who returns from the dead in the body of horny Darby Lloyd Rains, and Saint (1977) stars Joanna Bell as a pious woman who turns into a nymphomaniac (take that, Lars von Trier).
Joseph Andrews
Testament
(Warner Archive)
With 1977’s Joseph Andrews, director Tony Richardson tried to rekindle the spark of his Tom Jones, which swept the 1963 Oscars, but this costume farce comes off less original, less funny and less sexy, despite the efforts of Richardson’s cast (Ann-Margret and Peter Firth head it) and the handsome physical production.
1983’s Testament—director Lynne Littman’s stolid exploration of the effects of a nuclear attack on the ordinary people of a small US town—has one big plus: Jane Alexander’s extraordinary portrayal of a mother caught up in horrific events.
The Punk Singer
(MPI)
Kathleen Hanna, leader of post-punk band Bikini Kill and dance-punk trio Le Tigre—who dropped out of the spotlight a decade ago because she had nothing more to say—gets a proper appraisal in director Sini Anderson’s straightforward documentary portrait.
Interviews with Hanna show her to be as honest as ever in Anderson’s look back at her career, which also includes interviews with her many collaborators and her husband, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz. Extras are deleted scenes and additional interviews.
Viola
(Cinema Guild)
Matias Pineiro’s compact feature follows an actress in a theatrical troupe rehearsing Shakespeare whose life is a mess of romantic entanglements.
If the movie ultimately is like much ado about nothing, there’s wit in the characterization and dialogue, while Agustina Munoz is an appealing heroine: and there’s the always mesmerizing Buenos Aires as a backdrop. Extras include Pineiro and Munoz’s commentary and a filmed Pineiro play.
When Jews Were Funny
(First Run)
Alan Zweig made this amusing if diffuse exploration of Jewish humor that comprises talking heads like Shecky Green, recently deceased David Brenner (RIP!), Marc Maron and Howie Mandel discussing their comic heritage and telling their favorite Jewish jokes.
It’s a pleasant journey that Zweig short-circuits with a rambling, self-serving interviewing style, turning it into a muddled personal diary that culminates with a clip of the 61-year-old director dad and his adorable young daughter. Extras are bonus interviews.
Film Review: "Noah"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 28 March 2014 12:24
- Written by Matt Oakes
"Noah"
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ray Winstone
Adventure, Drama
138 Mins
PG-13
Glenn Beck has spoken. "Noah is just ridiculous," Beck preached, going so far as to call the message contained within Darren Aronofsky's biblical blockbuster "danger disinformation." Wise words from a man defending a story involving "the Creator" committing genocide against humankind, save for a 600-year old hero and his family (Genesis 7:6). For the creationist talk show host, ridiculousness exists only outside the confines of the Bible. But Beck is onto something.
Broadway Roundup: ‘Rocky’ Becomes a Musical & ‘All the Way’ Has Bryan Cranston as LBJ
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 27 March 2014 03:29
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Rocky
Book by Thomas Meehan & Sylvester Stallone; music by Stephen Flaherty; lyrics by Lynn Ahrens Directed by Alex Timbers
Previews began February 13, 2014; opened March 13
All the Way
Written by Robert Schenkkan; directed by Bill Rausch
Previews began February 10, 2014; opened March 6
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| Seibert and Karl in Rocky (photo: Matthew Murphy) |
When Sylvester Stallone created the iconic Rocky Balboa for his captivating, Oscar-winning 1976 movie, I doubt anyone would think the Philly boxing hero would be a candidate for a Broadway musical. Well, these days it seems everything becomes a musical—this season alone, there’s The Bridges of Madison County, Bullets over Broadway, Aladdin and Heathers—so why not Rocky? As this proficient but unnecessary musical makes clear, the real question is: why?
The main problem is that Rocky doesn’t need to be a musical. Anyone remotely familiar with the movie might find it off-putting that the movie is basically reenacted onstage—with the same dialogue—only to be stopped at times for musical numbers that feel shoehorned in from elsewhere. Since director John G. Avildsen’s movie is filled with ordinary people straining to get past their inarticulateness, to suddenly have an onstage Rocky Balboa talk to his trusty turtles then burst into lucid, muscular song, crooning “My Nose Ain’t Broken,” provides a disconnect that continues throughout the show.
There are decent musical moments. The haughtily arrogant champ Apollo Creed seems perfectly at home belting “Patriotic” with a trio of backup singers in tow after he decides to choose a local fighter for the big New Year’s bout. And Adrian, Rocky’s painfully shy girlfriend, has a gentle love song, “Raining,” that’s at least partly in character. But Lynn Ahrens’ banal lyrics are no substitute for the low-class poetry in Stallone’s original movie script: his repeated “yo Adrians” and “you knows” are more authentic than sung lines as “and today’s Thanksgivin’/and I’m sorta free/’cept I got no one but turtles/for company/and I was hopin’ that you’d go out with me.”
It’s a given that “Gonna Fly Now,” the original’s rousing theme song, and “Eye of the Tiger,” Rocky III’s faceless anthem, would appear—the former at the beginning and the latter during the too-long training sequences opening Act II—but what’s surprising is that none of Stephen Flaherty’s songs surpasses them. In fact, Flaherty’s generic power ballads and rockers pale next to Bill Conti’s alternately rousing and intimate movie music—indeed, the show’s most notable sounds feature tantalizing bits of Conti’s score.
Andy Karl’s Rocky adroitly blends Stallone’s original persona with his own take that never steps out of lowly character even while loftily, if incongruously, singing. Margo Seibert’s Adrian is as mousily endearing as Talia Shire, Danny Mastrogiorgio’s Paulie is more an amusing pest than the genuine nuisance Burt Young so memorably was, and if Dakin Mathews’ Mickey can’t hope to equal Burgess Meredith’s charmingly crusty trainer, he comes across with engaging klutziness.
As impressive as director Alex Timbers’ physical production is—utilizing Christopher Barecca’s inventive sets, Christopher Akerlind’s supple lighting and David Zinn’s sensible costumes—it reaches its apogee (or the ultimate in gimmickry) at the end, when audience members in front are herded onto the stage to sit in bleachers as the championship ring is moved into their places, giving everyone a better view of the fight. Steven Hoggett and Kelly Devine’s vigorous fight choreography takes over so completely that, after watching Rocky and Apollo (the excellent Terence Archie) prodigiously fake so many upper cuts and feints—even in slow motion— everyone exiting Rocky will be humming its body blows, not songs.
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| Cranston as LBJ in All the Way (photo: Evgenia Eliseeva) |
A larger than life figure standing six foot four inches and owning a proudly abrasive Texan personality, President Lyndon Johnson was a formidable political opponent to anyone who got in his way. And in All the Way, Robert Schenkkan’s serious and engrossing play about Johnson’s politicking for the passage of the Civil Rights Act and his own 1964 election, Bryan Cranston’s towering portrayal of LBJ is less a matter of height (the actor, who’s shorter, has two-inch lifts in his shoes) than of precision. Giving a big, blustery performance that teeters on the edge of caricature, Cranston deftly exhibits the crusty personality that tempered LBJ’s good-natured charm, the anchor of an endlessly resourceful portrait of a politician for whom unscrupulousness comes naturally.
Although his play could be seen as a cautionary tale for the current president—who for five years has met a hardened opposition party every step of the way—Schenkkan isn’t interested in mere polemics,for he has a rich subject that not only comprises Johnson himself, but the many people and events that revolve around him during a particularly fraught period of our history. The play begins on November 22, 1963—when Johnson assumed the presidency after JFK’s assassination—and ends on Election Day 1964 when LBJ gets four more years in the White House. What happens is well-known, but it’s how we get there, thanks to Schenkkan’s apposite writing, Bill Rausch’s savvy directing and the performances of Cranston and a large cast, that make All the Way a sharp and meaty theatrical event.
Surrounding Johnson on all sides of the political spectrum are FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (a subtly squalid Michael McKean), racist Alabama governor George Wallace (Rob Campbell, good and slippery), LBJ mentor and Southern Dixiecrat senator Dick Russell (played by John McMartin, who oozes smugness like nobody’s business), spineless senator and wannabe VP candidate Hubert Humphrey (a cogent portrayal by Robert Petkoff) and civil rights agitator Martin Luther King (a fiery Brandon J. Dirden). As LBJ skillfully makes deals with, ignores or inflames these people, Schenkkan shows how this brilliant tactician combined opportunism and what he believed was the right thing. (Schenkkan’s new play, The Great Society, will take the measure of the man during his second presidential term.)
Standing front and center during this lengthy but riveting drama is Cranston’s LBJ. Sidling up to a crony, mentor or opponent to tell him another profane yarn filled with homespun and hard-won wisdom, Cranston lays bare the brazen duplicity that was Johnson’s weapon: he was your best friend who also stabbed you in the back. And All the Way shows how high risk brought high reward for our 36th president.
Rocky
Winter Garden Theatre, 50th Street & Broadway, New York, NY
rockybroadway.com
All the Way
Neil Simon Theatre, 250 West 52nd Street, New York, NY
allthewaybroadway.com
March '14 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 25 March 2014 21:10
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Americanization of Emily
(Warner Archive)
Arthur Hiller’s uneven 1964 satire—from Paddy Chayefsky’s hit-or-miss script—shows how idiotic war is as a skeptical navy man goes ashore on D-Day since his superiors want one of their own to be first to die heroically on Omaha Beach.
Acted with gleeful urgency by James Garner, James Coburn, Julie Andrews and Melvyn Douglas, Emily scatters its shots far too widely, which Hiller and Chayefsky would repeat in The Hospital seven years later. The Blu-ray image is good; extras comprise Hiller’s commentary and on-set featurette.
(BBC)
The lost continent has been found in this entertaining retelling of Greek myths and legends, as a group of ancient-world “three musketeers” named Hercules, Pythagoras and Jason deals with the likes of the Medusa, the Minotaur and Pandora’s Box.
Although it’s done lightheartedly, the actors look a little embarrassed to be spouting banal dialogue masquerading as wit; but at least there’s the wonderful Juliet Stevenson as the Oracle. The locations—the series is shot in Morocco and Wales—look stupendous on Blu-ray.
Carlos Kleiber—I Am Lost to the World
(C Major)
One of the most renowned 20th century conductors, German-born Carlos Kleiber was also a major recluse, according to Georg Wubbolt’s first-rate documentary.
His Beethoven and Wagner conducting was sublime, as clips of his work show, and his attentiveness to detail was second to none—as attested to by his many colleagues and friends who are interviewed—but he rarely performed, and if this this doc doesn’t get to the heart of his troubles, it’s still a riveting portrait of a talented artist. The hi-def transfer is decent.
Werther
(Decca)
German tenor Jonas Kauffmann, the hottest voice in opera today, dominates these 19th century French opera stagings. He’s a powerhouse in the title role of Charles Gounod’s Faust, dueling with Rene Pape’s equally mighty Mephistopheles, in Des MacAnuff’s entertaining 2011 Met Opera production.
Kauffmann is also formidable vocally and dramatically in the title role in Werther, Jules Massenet’s lyrical romantic tragedy based on Goethe’s novel, with fantastic support from soprano Sophie Koch as the woman he can never have. The hi-def video looks fine, while the music sounds strong throughout; Faust extras include brief cast and director interviews.
The Hidden Fortress
Persona
(Criterion)
Fanboys know it—if at all—as the inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars (which he readily admits in an included interview), but Akira Kurosawa’s spectacularly entertaining 1958 adventure The Hidden Fortress is a singular B&W widescreen epic seen mainly through the eyes of two nobodies who inadvertently rescue a princess. It works as both a Kurosawa classic and a popcorn movie for anyone to devour; rarely has the Japanese master been so beguilingly light-hearted.
Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 masterpiece Persona, one of the most profound studies of human behavior ever captured on film, comprises a character study of immense psychological depth and penetrating acting by two Bergman muses, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann.
The films’ hi-def transfers are luminous; extras include commentaries and interviews (on both discs), an episode of It’s Wonderful to Create (on Fortress), and on-set footage and documentary Liv & Ingmar (on Persona).
Mysterious Skin
(Strand)
Gregg Araki’s best-known film, which helped launch Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s career in 2004, is an ambitious adaptation of Scott Heim’s book about two friends who deal with sexual abuse at the hands of their little league coach differently.
There’s persuasive acting by Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet as the boys and Elisabeth Shue as Gordon-Levitt’s mom, which gives Araki the chance to explore this subject matter with more assurance than in his other films. The Blu-ray transfer is excellent; extras include an Araki intro and commentary, new Gordon-Levitt, Corbet and Heim interviews and deleted scenes.
(Sony Classics)
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who won the 2011 Best Foreign Film Oscar for A Separation, returns with another look at the effects of a crumbling marriage—this time, on an Iranian husband, his French wife, her children and her Arab fiancée.
Farhadi’s script has much to offer, but ultimately—as in the earlier film—there’s less than meets the eye, as the accumulation of details starts to overwhelm his focus. Still, it’s superbly acted, especially by Berenice Bejo, who showed her comedic side in the frivolous The Artist (did that really win Best Picture?) and demonstrates her raw dramatic chops. The Blu-ray looks sharp; extras include Farhadi’s commentary and Q&A and a making-of.
DVDs of the Week
The Big House
(Warner Archive)
George Hill’s 1930 jailhouse drama—which won Oscars for writing and sound—is dated by muted violence and a squeaky-clean look at hard prison life, but some tough-mindedness remains, thanks to the accomplished cast which works within the narrow strictures of the era.
For added historic interest, both the French and Spanish language versions of the film are included, shot with different casts by different directors on the same locales and with the same (translated) script.
(Kino Lorber)
Even though he’s using a movie star for the first time—the usually luminous Juliette Binoche has been scrubbed down to resemble the famed French sculptress during her lengthy stay in an asylum—director Bruno Dumont has made another typically rigorous and disturbing exploration of extreme behavior.
As usual, Binoche holds the screen—and Dumont’s many close-ups—with intelligence, assurance and anything but star-turn theatrics, but Dumont’s method of casting real non-actors to populate the asylum is questionable at best, mitigating the film’s unblinking look at such a sadly illuminating case of an artist whose life took a tragic turn.
Contracted
(MPI)
When Samantha screws a shady guy from a party, she becomes victim to a most insidious STD that turns her by degrees into a zombie in writer-director Eric England’s initially intriguing but ultimately risible horror movie.
Despite Najarra Townsend’s charged performance—she makes Samantha’s physical and mental deterioration plausibly frightening—England’s movie relies far too much on shock effects. Extras are two commentaries, a making-of and Townsend’s audition.
(Zeitgeist)
This devastating documentary recounts the incendiary standoff between Philadelphia police and radical black group MOVE in 1985, which ended with dozens of people dead (including several children) and the destruction of the group’s headquarters and dozens of houses in a conflagration set—and pointedly not controlled—by authorities.
Director Jason Osder, who cannily utilizes archival footage from the era, unravels one of the most egregious misuses of power against civilians in our history. As a sad postscript, sole child survivor Michael Ward—shown being interviewed afterwards—mystifyingly died last year in a cruise ship pool at age 40. Extras are a 2002 Ward interview and an insightful Q&A with Osder.
Stradella
(Dynamic)
Belgian Cesar Franck composed this tragic opera when merely 20 in 1842 and it was never performed in his lifetime: receiving its 2012 world premiere in Leige, Belgium, it shows an accomplished, mature musical hand.
Film director Jaco van Dormael shows a real affinity for opera with smart pacing and striking visuals, leads Isabelle Kabatu and Marc Laho are strong singers and performers, and Paolo Arrivabeni conducts the opera house’s orchestra and chorus, which sings the extended—and vocally ravishing—finale.
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