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Film and the Arts
Broadway Review: "Cats" Returns
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 10 August 2016 01:32
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Cats
Music & lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber; directed by Trevor Nunn
Opened July 30, 2016
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| The cast of Cats (photo: Matthew Murphy) |
Sure, it’s cheesy and dated, but something about Cats keeps it from becoming wincingly awful: whether it’s the large, lively cast of human felines; the eye-catching direction of Trevor Nunn; the clever, even witty, sets and costumes by John Napier; Natasha Katz’s luminous lighting; or the famous score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who already had Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita under his belt when Cats premiered in 1982 (and still had The Phantom of the Opera in his future).
It’s partially all of those, but it’s mainly what happens at the end of the first act. After an hour of synthesizer-pulsating songs (even the catchiest, like the opener “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” are afflicted with the disease) that sound like bizarre Emerson, Lake and Palmer outtakes, suddenly a sumptuous melody wells up and Grizabella sings “Memory,” one of the greatest Broadway ballads and one of those instantly memorable tunes that Webber had to hand: at least in his early musicals.
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| Leona Lewis (photo: Matthew Murphy) |
Like “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from Superstar and “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from Evita, “Memory” bowls over the rest of the score and show, something which even Webber realizes: in Act II, we not only get two reprises but also variations on and hints of that hummable melody throughout. Webber, knowing he’s written his own “Yesterday,” unapologetically milks it for all it’s worth. British pop star Leona Lewis sings the hell out of it during its final incarnation at the end of the show, but the rest of her performance is stiff and wooden, which says more about her stage inexperience than about Grizabella’s aloofness.
Best of the rest of a harmonious cast are Quentin Earl Darrington’s dignified Old Deuteronomy, Eloise Kropps’ agily tap-dancing Jennyanydots and Ricky Ubeda’s astoundingly athletic Mr. Mistoffelees. It’s too bad that choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler merely spiffs up Gillian Lynne’s original choreography, which survives in the cast’s cat-like poses and movements. Why bring such an inventive—and award-winning—choreographer on board only to handcuff him?
That ultimately is the curse of this new Cats: despite Trevor Nunn’s protestations to the contrary, this is old fur in new bottles, and however entertaining, there was a missed chance to make it resonate for a new generation of theatergoers, not simply traffic in nostalgia for the older ones.
Cats
Neil Simon Theatre, 250 West 52nd Street, New York, NY
catsthemusical.com
Off-Broadway Review—Richard Strand's “Butler”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 05 August 2016 21:54
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Butler
Written by Richard Strand; directed by Joseph Discher
Performances through August 28, 2016
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| Williams and Adamson in Butler (photo: Carol Rosegg) |
On the heels of J.T. Rogers’s Oslo—a splendid three-hour historical drama as riveting and absorbing as the best thrillers—comes Richard Strand’s Butler, which, though more modest in scope (and length: it’s about two hours), is an accomplished dramatization of actual events that’s exciting and immediate.
Although his subject—the Civil War—is more remote than the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and Palestine, Strand invests Butler with passion and incisiveness, and his good old-fashioned dramaturgy makes for an intelligent and thought-provoking play.
Butler’s eponymous Union Major General protagonist—who has just taken over Virginia’s Fort Monroe at the beginning of the War Between the States in the spring of 1861—must immediately deal with a burgeoning crisis: should he return three slaves who escaped from the Confederate army and came to the fort to find shelter—and, they hope, freedom—in the hands of the Union army?
Strand is able, in the space of two hours, to bring to life each of his characters—Butler, escaped slave Shepard Mallory, Butler’s adjutant Lieutenant Kelly, and the Confederate Major Cary, who arrives to take the slaves back—and allow them to argue succinctly (if at times wrongheadedly) about their own points of view on slavery and property, secession and the war, and President Lincoln’s directive governing the return of escaped slaves.
At times, Strand doesn’t entirely trust his material, allowing his characters to banter aimlessly like a TV sitcom, but such occasional flat stretches don’t hurt the drama’s forward momentum. For the most part, the dialogue feels real and true, not simply sounding like mouthpieces of the author, who finds levity enough to balance the serious subjects under discussion.
Smartly, Strand does not bend his subject matter to shoehorn in obvious parallels to our own continuing racial divide; audiences will tease out connections for themselves, as when Butler refuses Cary’s demand to return the slaves with a comment about the Confederacy’s hypocrisy: “Virginia has claimed to be no longer a part of the United States. She has made that claim and I will take her at her word.”
On Jessica L. Parks’s wonderfully detailed small-scale set of Butler’s office, Joseph Discher’s straightforward direction is complemented by a quartet of marvelous performances: David Stitler’s amusingly arrogant Major Cary, John G. Williams’ simultaneously confident and desperate Shepard Mallory, Benjamin Sterling’s likably bemused Kelly, and Ames Adamson’s enjoyably larger-than-life Major General.
Butler
59 E 59 Theatres, 59 East 59th Street, New York, NY
59e59.org
August '16 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 02 August 2016 14:09
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Confirmation
(HBO)
Although she is front and center as Anita Hill in this alternately rote and involving biopic about the controversial 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, Kerry Washington gives a generously understated performance that’s structured to emphatically not steal the show.
The rest of the cast—especially Greg Kinnear as Joe Biden and Wendell Pierce as Thomas himself—is also strong, despite Rick Famuyiwa’s routine direction. There’s a solid hi-def transfer; extras comprise cast interviews.
(Film Detective)
Francis Coppola’s directorial debut was this middling 1963 attempt at terror about a madman who begins murdering members of a family long mourning the premature death of a young daughter.
A scant 75 minutes, at least it doesn’t drag on too long, but in Coppola’s neophyte hands, it stumbles and bumbles its way to a not very startling conclusion. Even accomplished actors like Patrick Magee come off stilted in a film that’s of little interest except to die-hard Coppola fans. The hi-def transfer is good.
The Knick—Complete 2nd Season
(HBO/Cinemax)
The second season of this Steven Soderbergh-directed series about a drug-addicted doctor, his colleagues and patients in turn-of-the-last-century Manhattan consolidates its credentials as a persuasive and absorbing trip through Gotham’s checkered and always colorful history; acing the lead performances are Clive Owen, Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson, Andre Holland and Juliet Rylance.
All ten episodes are included; the visuals look splendid in hi-def, and extras include commentaries, featurettes and episode “post-ops.”
Marguerite
(Cohen Media)
In this fictionalized and Gallicized version of the true story of a rich dilettante who loved to sing in public even though she had no talent for it, Catherine Frot gives a delicious portrayal of a woman willing to remain clueless about her own manufactured reality because she loves being around art and artists.
Director Xavier Giannoli—whose marvelous debut film, 2003’s Eager Bodies, never got released here—keeps a sure but light touch in this often exhilarating study of seriocomic lunacy. The film looks excellent on Blu; extras are a Giannoli interview and deleted scenes.
Mother’s Day
(Universal)
Garry Marshall’s final directorial effort was another multi-character melodrama that stays strictly on the surface when it isn’t burrowing toward silliness and worse: Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Jason Sudekis are never able to rise above the stereotypes, cheap jokes and sentimentality that the movie wallows in.
Sad to say, Marshall made a lot of unimpressive movies, but his legacy as one of the great TV titans (Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley) remains. The film has an excellent hi-def transfer; extras are deleted scenes and a gag reel.
(Weinstein/Anchor Bay)
Director-writer John Carney already consolidated his music bona fides with his previous Once and Begin Again, both of which wedded insightful sequences of music-making with saccharine relationships, and his latest film follows suit. This story of teenagers in Dublin in 1985 has its indisputable charms, notably when Ferdia Walsh-Peelo as Conor meets and falls for adorably intelligent Raphina, played with impossible charm by Lucy Boynton.
But since there’s a lot of dross that one must wade through, Sing Street is of a piece with his earlier work. The film has a first-rate hi-def transfer; extras are a making-of featurette, Carney conversation and cast auditions.
To Have and Have Not
(Warner Archive)
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made their first screen appearance together in Howard Hawks’ loose 1944 adaptation of Earnest Hemingway’s novel, with a screenplay co-authored by William Faulkner. As an American amidst the French resistance on the island of Martinique during World War II,
Bogie is his usual strong but silent self, and Bacall—in her film debut—shows remarkable poise for a 19-year-old, glamorous, tough as nails and with a sultry singing voice. The hi-def transfer is superb; extras comprise a vintage featurette, vintage cartoon and Bogie-Bacall radio broadcast.
Tristan und Isolde
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Even though director Katharina Wagner’s staging at her great-grandfather Richard Wagner’s own shrine to his operas at Germany’s Bayreuth Festival is dramatically wobbly, the performers in what is essentially a two-character, four-hour romantic drama—tenor Stephen Gould and soprano Evelyn Herlitzus—are up to the task and, coupled with Christian Thielemann’s rigorous leading of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, make this a musically vital performance.
Both hi-def visuals and audio are superb; extras comprise interviews with Gould and Thielemann. But it’s too bad that the director herself didn’t discuss her (and her great-grandfather’s) work.
DVD of the Week
In Country
(Warner Archive)
Norman Jewison made this earnest, occasionally treacly 1989 melodrama about a Vietnam vet whose teenage niece wants to know about the father she lost over there when she was too young to remember him: it ends with a powerful visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Bruce Willis gives a sympathetic performance as the uncle, but stealing the film—par for the course during her too-brief career—is Emily Lloyd as the niece. Lloyd disappeared far too soon, but her remarkably authentic, true-to-life portrayals always elevated whatever she was in, including this scattershot but touching drama.
July '16 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 26 July 2016 12:57
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Barbershop—The Next Cut
(Warner Bros)
For much of its running time, this quite belated sequel has very little happening: its shaggy-dog plot strands allow its characters to often just sit around and talk to, at and through one another.
The funniest moments include those conversations, as the zingers fly, the insults are generated and the cast simply goes with the flow. Standouts in the cast for their witty asides are Cedric the Entertainer, Anthony Anderson and Eve. There’s a quite good Blu-ray transfer; extras include a featurette, deleted scenes and a gag reel.
(Lionsgate)
John Travolta—nearly unrecognizable under what looks to be a mash-up of make-up and plastic surgery—plays a pseudo-Charles Bronson in this sub-Death Wish revenge flick about a man who tracks down the killers of his wife (poor Rebecca DeMornay), who was offed in front of him.
The plot gives nobody a chance to do anything resembling acting, and the clichéd story beats, which are hit every step of the way, keep this from even becoming a guilty pleasure. The hi-def transfer looks decent; lone extra is a director and writer commentary.
Outatime
(Virgil Films)
The souped-up DeLorean that was the centerpiece of the beloved Back to the Future trilogy is also front and center of Steve Concotelli’s engaging documentary that recounts how it’s being restored to its pride of place among the most famous movie memorabilia.
It seems that saving a relic from a 30-year-old fantasy film isn’t worth the slavish attention the car receives, but I’m obviously an outlier: I enjoyed the original but hated the two sequels. The hi-def transfer is fine; extras include a commentary, deleted scenes and featurettes.
The Outsider
Hoodlum
(Olive Films)
1980’s The Outsider is director-writer Tony Luraschi’s involving drama about the IRA, with a largely unknown cast underpinning its straightforward exploration of how an Irish-American celebrity finds himself transformed into propaganda when he returns to Ireland.
In 1997’s Hoodlum, Laurence Fishburne adroitly plays real-life gangster Bumpy Johnson and the 1920s Harlem mobster scene. Bill Duke’s colorful production includes an array of stars, from Tim Roth as Dutch Schultz and Andy Garcia as Lucky Luciano to Vanessa Williams as Johnson’s sexy moll. Both films’ solid hi-def transfers have sparkling grain.
A Perfect Day
(IFC)
Set in the war-torn former Yugoslavia in 1995, this drama about a group of war-zone rescuer workers has a lot of strong moments of insight mixed with charcoal black comedy while it shows (for the millionth time) the absurdity of war.
But director Fernando Leon de Aranda never brings its tonal shifts into some kind of coherence, all but stranding a game cast led by Benicio del Toro, Tim Robbins, Olga Kurylenko and Melanie Thierry. The film looks fine on Blu; extras are interviews and making-of featurettes.
The Perfect Match
(Lionsgate)
Alone among his friends, Charlie remains the same skirt chaser he’s been since high school, earning derision and envy from all around him: when he meets the magnetic Eva, he begins a full-blown romantic relationship that threatens to destroy his rep.
This mildly amusing rom-com is greatly helped by its two stars, Terrence J and Cassie Ventura, who persuasively and charmingly play Charlie and Eva. It’s too bad that the supporting cast, especially poor Paula Patton, is pretty much wasted. The hi-def transfer is solid; extras are featurettes and a commentary.
The Ratings Game
(Olive Films)
Danny DeVito’s feature directorial debut was this satiric 1984 movie (the first made for Showtime) in which he stars as a desperate man intent on making it in Hollywood. There are few original ideas but good laughs from a solid supporting cast including DeVito’s future wife Rhea Perlman, Gerrit Graham, Kevin McCarthy and George Wendt.
It’s all a far cry from DeVito’s more daring efforts The Wars of the Roses and Hoffa, but still has its intermittent moments. The film looks acceptable but soft in hi-def; extras are four DeVito-directed shorts, deleted scenes and a featurette.
Silk Stockings
(Warner Archive)
The teaming of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse is what most distinguishes Rouben Mamoulian’s classy 1957 adaptation of the Broadway musical about a possible Cold War thaw between an American in Paris (Astaire) and a Russian envoy (Charisse).
The splendid widescreen compositions maximize the extraordinariness of Astaire’s and Charisse’s dancing, and Cole Porter’s tunes are equally memorable. The Blu-ray transfer is good, if not sparkling; extras are a vintage featurette and two musical shorts.
DVDs of the Week
Born to Be Blue
(IFC)
Anchored by Ethan Hawke’s bravura performance as Chet Baker, the jazz trumpeter whose career was constantly being interrupted by his drug addiction (of which he died in 1988 at age 58), director-writer Robert Budreau has made a fascinating impressionistic look at a musical artist’s career.
There’s an equally great supporting portrayal by British actress Carmen Ejogo as the woman in Baker’s life; their splendid scenes both together and apart make this fictionalized biopic a must-watch. Extras are deleted scenes and a making-of.
Five Days One Summer
(Warner Archive)
Director Fred Zinnemann—who won Best Director Oscars for From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons—ended his career with this turgidly melodramatic 1982 entry starring an embarrassed-looking Sean Connery as an older man in love with a much younger woman, who soon becomes interested in a much younger man.
Although Zinnemann lived another 15 years, the scathing reviews for this swore him off directing. The Swiss Alps are enchanting, but the acting by a blank-eyed Betsy Brantley and wooden Lambert Wilson is anything but.
The Last Diamond
(Cohen Media)
In this diverting if implausible heist picture, the always beguiling Berenice Bejo charms as a woman who stupidly allows a stranger into her life without the slightest bit of questioning that he may not be whom he seems.
Director Eric Barbier tries too hard to make this lighthearted—think Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief—but, although Bejo easily equals Grace Kelly’s elegance, Yves Attal is certainly no Cary Grant. Extras comprise interviews with Bejo, Attal and Barbier and a short making-of featurette.
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