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Reviews
January '16 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 12 January 2016 23:08
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The American Friend
(Criterion)
In Wim Wenders' accomplished 1977 adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel, the shabbiest locales in New York, Paris and Hamburg are stars of a slow-building but ultimately gripping crime drama that centers around Ripley, played by Dennis Hopper, whose usual insouciance is only partially counterbalanced by an uncommanding Bruno Ganz as his opposite number.
Wenders toys with film noir clichés as he uncoils the mystery behind Ripley's game. Criterion's new transfer is luminous; extras comprise Wenders' and Hopper's commentary, deleted scenes with Wenders' commentary and Ganz and Wenders interviews.
Irrational Man (Sony Classics)
Woody Allen's semi-rewrite of his own Match Point follows a philosophy professor who creates a perfect murder scenario with no moral complications—and soon finds the opportunity to test out his thesis. Shorn of anything resembling credible characterization, subplots or even atmosphere—the college town setting is appropriately generic—the drama marches straight ahead from A to B, which is the movie's saving grace.
Woody follows his theorist in action in a clinical, detached way, and Joaquin Phoenix (prof) and Emma Stone (student turned paramour) work well within his minimalist mindset. Darius Khondji's cinematography shimmers in hi-def; lone extra is a red-carpet featurette.
Sinister 2
(Universal)
I doubt that missing the original Sinister is a disadvantage in assessing yet another attempt at the tired found-footage horror movie, but this sequel lulls the viewer into a stupor for 90 minutes before rousing itself for an effective, if nonsensical, climax involving the demonized young protagonist-videographer and his terrified family.
Despite that unsettling few minutes, the movie is not particularly arresting overall, despite a nice performance by Shannyn Sossamon as the mom. There's a good hi-def transfer; extras include deleted scenes, featurette and director commentary.
The American Invasion
Frontline—Immigration Battle
(PBS)
The American Invasion, a persuasive history lesson, tells the true story of the U.S. airmen who went overseas after we joined the war on the Allied side to help keep the Brits safe from Nazi sorties, with many casualties but also the eternal gratitude of those who were protected by the selfless Yanks.
The must-see PBS series Frontline jumped into the Congressional fray in Immigration Battle,investigating what happened on both sides of the aisle in a unique attempt at bipartisanship after Obama's re-election to come up with a comprehensive immigration plan. Although we know what did (or didn't) happen, this behind-the-scenes peek at political maneuvering is a riveting 90 minutes.
The New Rijksmuseum
The Storm Makers
(First Run)
The New Rijksmuseum, Oeke Hoogendijk's exhaustive account of the great Amsterdam art institution's 10-year renovation, is an extraordinary achievement in its original four-hour version. Here, at a streamlined two-plus hours, we get some sense of what went on behind the scenes, but without the director's original vision, the decade-long struggles to finish what was scheduled to take five years are only hinted at.
In The Storm Makers, director Guillaume Suon exposes the 21st century slave trade in his native Cambodia, telling the heartrending story of one young woman as he shows the chillingly matter-of-fact confessions of a couple of unrepentant "capitalists."
January '16 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 05 January 2016 23:52
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Experimenter
(Magnolia)
While writer-director Michael Almereyda relies too heavily on gimmickry like rear projection, direct camera address and (literally) an elephant in the room, he has made an intelligent biopic about psychologist Stanley Milgram and his controversial behavioral experiments.
Peter Sarsgaard’s commandingly aloof and brooding Milgram, Winona Ryder’s welcome return as his faithful wife and nicely turned appearances by Jim Gaffigan, John Leguizamo, Anthony Edwards, Josh Hamilton and Taryn Manning greatly assist. The movie looks good on Blu; extras comprise featurettes and an interview with Milgram’s brother.
(Universal)
As usual, director Eli Roth takes a workable premise—naively idealistic students take a trip to the rainforest to defend tribes from greedy developers—and turns the horrors they discover to the most ridiculous extremes.
Fans of his movies may not squirm throughout the by-numbers plotting and extensively gory bloodlettings, but even they may shrug at Roth's final, tepid twist that places his heroine in an unflattering light. The hi-def transfer is first-rate; lone extra is a commentary.
Infinitely Polar Bear
(Sony Pictures Classics)
Mark Ruffalo gives a powerful and sympathetic portrayal of a husband and father whose bi-polar condition makes for fraught relationships with his loving daughters and wife in this sensitive but unsentimental drama based on writer-director Maya Forbes's own dad.
Although his full-bodied performance is anything but an obvious star turn, Ruffalo is superbly complemented by the wonderful Zoe Saldana as his wife and two remarkable young actresses as his daughters: Ashley Aufderheide and the director's own daughter Imogene Wolodarsky, basically playing her own mother dealing with her own grandfather's difficulties. The Blu-ray transfer is exceptional; extras are a commentary, deleted scenes and Q&A.
(Universal)
After many years (and films) in the wilderness following his breakout The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan has thrown in the towel and jumped on the found-footage bandwagon with this lukewarm thriller pitting two kids against their grandparents, whom they discover to be nothing like how their mother remembered them while she was growing up.
The problem, apart from this genre’s inherent silliness, is that the kids’ mom—who hadn’t seen her own parents since she left home years earlier—assumes that having them visit would have no complications: the movie proceeds to pile up implausibilities faster than you can spell Shyamalan. The film looks fine on Blu; extras are an alternate ending, deleted scenes, and a making-of featurette.
DVDs of the Week
Jenny's Wedding
(IFC)
For a movie that was dumped onto DVD with little fanfare, Mary Agnes Donoghue’s dramedy about a successful young woman who decides to out herself to her family by announcing her marriage to her long-time girlfriend is serviceable entertainment.
With a top cast—Tom Wilkinson and Linda Emond are unsurprisingly excellent as the parents, while Katherine Heigl gives a robust performance as Jenny—the movie passes by harmlessly, coming to a satisfying conclusion with minimal maudlin or sappiness. Lone extra is a making-of featurette.
Divide in Concord
(First Run)
In 1971, director Johanna Hamilton chronicles the break-in of a Pennsylvania FBI office during the height of the Vietnam War: those responsible not only made public secret documents about illegal surveillance, but they eluded authorities for the next four-plus decades.
Hamilton has caught up to them: her absorbing look at a politically fraught era features interviews with the men and women who did it, and raises still-pertinent questions about our own culture of paranoia and secrecy; the lone extra, an hour-long post-screening Q&A, features none other than Edward Snowden.
A microcosm of our society's widening societal gap, Kris Kaczor's Divide in Concord is a heartening documentary about Jean Hill, who in her ninth decade fights the good fight by spearheading a bill that bans water bottles from being sold in Concord, Mass: this plucky David goes up against many Goliaths, from local businesses and shrill activists to water bottle corporations themselves.
Tokyo Fiancée
(First Run)
Amelie arrives in Tokyo to teach French, fulfilling a cherished dream since she was young: and when she falls in love with her first (and seemingly only) student, it complicates many things both about their relationship and how she's decided to live her life.
Director Stefan Liberski's fey romantic comedy is too often forced, and the heroine’s name is too obviously a nod toward the Audrey Tautou Amelie that's the blueprint for this kind of you-either-love-it-or-hate-it movie. Even though it moves into darker territory, weird whimsy predominates, centered on Pauline Etienne's boyish appeal.
Theater Reviews—Broadway Musical “The Color Purple”; Off-Broadway Play “Steve”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 28 December 2015 23:58
- Written by Kevin Filipski
The Color Purple
Music & lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis & Stephen Bray; book by Marsha Norman
Directed by John Doyle
Opened December 10, 2015
Steve
Written by Mark Gerrard; Directed by Cynthia Nixon
Closes January 3, 2016
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| The cast of The Color Purple (photo by Matthew Murphy) |
There didn't seem to be any compelling reason to revive the musicalThe Color Purple—especially in John Doyle's typically sterile staging—at least until British actress Cynthia Erivo, as Celie, the downtrodden but resourceful heroine of Alice Walker's tough but poetic novel and Steven Spielberg's more sentimental movie adaptation, holds forth for her 11 o'clock number, “I’m Here.”
Erivo—who gives a poignant portrayal of a woman who has been impregnated by her father, had her babies taken away from her, has been beaten and dehumanized by her abusive husband Mister and has had her beloved sister Nettie banned from ever seeing her again—slowly builds Celie's declaration of independence until she belts out the liberating words the audience has wanted to hear for more than two hours. Erivo delivers the goods, bringing the dramatically bumpy show to a rousing, and cathartic, climax.
Thanks mainly to Erivo, The Color Purple works as well onstage as onscreen. Although Marsha Norman's book adroitly streamlines events in Walker's novel—primarily written in Celie’s voice as letters to God, obviously tough to recreate in the film or in the theater—the story as shown never entirely escapes its soap opera-ish leanings. The songs of Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray skillfully range across a variety of genres, from gospel to blues to jazz to romantic balladry, with occasional moments of heartfelt power.
Director John Doyle came to prominence through gimmicky Sondheim revivals with performers playing their own instruments onstage; shrewdly, he then changed to productions set against foreboding, often massive backdrops, from the ugly wall overwhelming his disastrous Metropolitan Opera Peter Grimes to the grey, decaying city of Broadway’s The Visit last spring.
For Purple, Doyle has designed an imposing wall made of wooden planks, with several chairs jutting out from it at different heights. Other chairs are the only furniture available for the characters to sit on; what this has to do with Celie’s drama is anyone's guess: and, although it quickly gets tiresome, for a few moments the set does have a pleasing look.
In an accomplished cast—of the men, Kyle Scatliffe stands out as a sympathetic Harpo, Mister's grown son—the spectacular voices make the music and drama soar. As Harpo's wife Sofia (Oprah Winfrey’s role in the movie), Danielle Brooks is over the top but never gratuitously so, with a powerhouse voice to match; as famed singer Shug Avery, who bewitches Mister and Celie and everyone in between, Jennifer Hudson shows off her amazingly controlled vocals, even if her ability to act like a sex symbol leaves something to be desired. And, as mentioned before, Erivo is a flat-out unstoppable Celie, equaling LaChanze and Fantasia’s turns in the initial Broadway production.
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| The cast of Steve (photo by Monique Carboni) |
Steve—Mark Gerrard's comedy and the second play this fall to track gay fathers through the minefields of contemporary Manhattan (after the wiser and less wisecracking Dada Woof Papa Hot)—is simply too clever for its own good.
The main couple, Stephen and Steven, have a young kleptomaniac son, whose theft of Stephen's cell phone allows Steven to discover that Stephen has been sexting with one of their closest friends, Brian, long-time lover of another close friend, Matt; this causes Steven to have a dalliance with a younger, gorgeous dancer/waiter Esteban. In addition, the main quartet's lesbian BFF, the endlessly snarky Carrie, is dying of cancer.
All of this allows Gerrard the chance to display gallows humor, which at times is funny but is mostly gratuitous. And the play must also set some kind of record for how many inside theater jokes and insults can be flung in 90 minutes. Again, some of these sting amusingly while others simply wither and die.
As schizophrenic as Gerrard's script is (there are actually four characters named some variation of Steve, including an unseen—but hot—trainer at the local gym with whom Brian and Matt end up cohabitating), director Cynthia Nixon shows a remarkable ability to orchestrate the madness into a semblance of coherence; when she can't, there are bouncy theater tunes that the cast performs with aplomb, even at the curtain call. Nixon’s harmonious cast—Matt McGrath (Steven), Malcolm Gets (Stephen), Mario Cantone (Matt), Jerry Dixon (Brian), Ashley Atkinson (Carrie)—goes above and beyond to make Steve broadly entertaining, if rarely insightful.
The Color Purple
Jacobs Theatre, 242 West 45th Street, New York, NY
colorpurple.com
Steve
Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
thenewgroup.org
December '15 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 23 December 2015 21:38
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Blood Rage
(Arrow)
Opening with a 10-year-old fatally stabbing a fornicating man at a drive-in, John Grissmer's 1987 slasher flick doesn't blink from the get-go, especially when the kid is released 10 years later: but was it he or his twin brother who's the real killer?
Gleefully gore-filled—Ed French's inventively cheesy effects culminate with a head split in two—Blood stars Louise Lasser, TV's Mary Hartman, as the boys' deranged mother, and features the usual sex leading to death, as it always does in these movies. An R-rated version, Nightmares at Shadow Woods, and a version comprising both cuts are included; the hi-def transfers look terrific, and extras include Grissmer’s commentary and interviews with Lasser, other actors and makeup artist French.
(Warner Bros)
This noisy, messy contraption purports to tell how Peter Pan met Captain Hook and took on Bluebeard before J.M. Barrie's original story begins. Although young Levi Miller makes an ingratiating Peter, Hugh Jackman is a hammy Bluebeard and Rooney Mara is as dull as ever as Tiger Lily.
Then there's director Joe Wright, whose tone wavers so that his movie uncomfortably swings between loud, lumbering set pieces and quiet moments that barely register. Too bad: in the right hands Pan could have been charming rather than something to be panned. On Blu-ray, it all looks incredible; extras include Wright’s commentary and featurettes.
Time Out of Mind
(IFC)
Oren Moverman's earnest homeless drama has its heart in the right place but ends up a feel-good film about a middle-aged man forced to wandering New York's streets and finding some hope in the form of his estranged daughter.
Richard Gere does his best to seem mentally and physically run-down, but he looks more like a man who simply hasn't shaved for a few days: in support, Ben Vereen and Kyra Sedgwick are far more persuasively homeless. The movie has a fine hi-def transfer; extras are a featurette and Gere PSA.
Queen of Earth
(IFC)
As a woman devastated by her father's death and boyfriend's unexpected betrayal, Elisabeth Moss is alternately exasperated and angry or docile and distant, but she can't turn such disparate elements into a coherent whole in Alex Ross Perry’s slender study content to display petty outbursts sans any psychological complexity.
Katharine Waterston is sensational as the best friend discovering how difficult it is to help our heroine recover, but despite both actresses, Perry relies too heavily on Keegan DeWitt's derivative score, uncomfortably reminiscent of Penderecki’s eerieShining music, which fails to transform Queen into a horror movie of the soul. Extras are a commentary by Perry and Moss and a making-of featurette.
Xmas Without China
(Icarus)
Can an American family celebrate Christmas without having anything in their house that was made in China? That question hangs over director Alicia Dwyer's lively, incisive documentary about how much cheap products are part of our daily lives: after awhile, the family talked into becoming part of this experiment openly questions why they are doing it, since it's basically ruining their holiday—and their lives.
Tom Xia, who came up with this challenge, also introduces his Chinese family, whose dual allegiances provide more sets of eyes open to the cultural clash of identity and consumerism.
The Wiz—Live!
(Masterworks/Broadway)
For its third live musical telecast, NBC resurrected the hip 1975 Wizard of Oz update that was a Broadway hit with Stephanie Mills as Dorothy and a bomb onscreen in 1978 with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, despite director Sidney Lumet’s inventive use of familiar New York locations.
The latest version, populated by an eclectic but very able cast, has a cameo by Mills and the good sense not to give a disastrous Common any more screen time than he deserves. Happily, the singing is often on-target (Queen Latifah, Ne-Yo, Uzo Aduba) and sometimes more than that, especially from the powerhouse 19-year-old newcomer Shanice Williams.
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