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Film and the Arts
March '16 Digital Week V
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 29 March 2016 23:11
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Bicycle Thieves
(Criterion)
Vittorio De Sica's classic—one of those films appearing in all-time greatest polls, as well as being part of any Cinema 101 class—remains an emotionally devastating journey that, along with De Sica's own Shoeshine and Robert Rossellini's Rome Open City, introduced the world to Italian neo-realism.
Made in 1948 with amateur performers on the streets of post-war Rome, the film continuously flirts with soap opera but never succumbs; Criterion's new Blu-ray includes a flawless hi-def transfer and the usual illuminating extras: interviews, neo-realism featurette and 2003 documentary on screenwriter Cesare Zavattini.
Ken Russell's View of The Planets
(Arthaus Musik)
Two idiosyncratic directors provide their unique takes on two musical masters in two highly personal films. Werner Herzog's 1995 Gesualdo recounts the murderous life of a 16th century Italian composer; although more straightforward than usual, the grim material is weighty and bizarre enough to keep Herzog busy for an hour.
In 1983, Ken Russell made his own full-length video, with found footage, of Gustav Holst's The Planets; although coming perilously close to self-parody—shots of Hitler and the Nazis are out of Russell's usual playbook—the editing and sequencing of shots is a singular Russell fingerprint. Both films look soft on Blu; although the box lists it, Gesualdo does not include a bilingual Herzog commentary.
The Hateful Eight
(Anchor Bay/Weinstein Co)
Quentin Tarantino takes such pride in his movie knowledge that his extensive thievery from other, better films is given a pass by many who should know better: unsurprisingly, his latest self-indulgent mess might be his most obnoxious movie yet. For nearly three hours, an octet of annoying characters gets together and, unsurprisingly from the horrible title, proceed to one-up one another.
When not showing a weirdly enervating fantasy about a well-endowed black man, Tarantino gratuitously revels in geysers of blood and (of course) the N-word. Robert Richardson's 70mm cinematography is wasted on the static, interior-bound story, because of which the perfectly adequate hi-def transfer suffers. Extras comprise two featurettes.
(Olive Films)
In John Dahl's disappointing 1989 film noir, then-new off-screen couple of Val Kilmer and wife Joanne Whalley Kilmer are mired in a ridiculously overwrought plot that provides a few scattered moments of tense drama amid routine, recycled moments from better crime dramas.
Dahl directs stylishly, and there's a nicely creepy turn by Michael Madsen as the bad guy, but Kilmer and Whalley-Kilmer—at sea throughout—end up dragging the whole movie down. The Blu-ray transfer is quite good.
A New Leaf
(Olive Films)
Elaine May, who wrote and directed this 1971 black comedy before moving onto Mikey and Nicky (1976) and, more infamously, Ishtar (1987), plays a lonely heiress who marries financially ruined playboy Walter Matthau, after which he tries to get rid of her in any way possible.
May's scattershot script has amusing episodes alongside strained ones, and as director she glosses over some good ideas to inexplicably concentrate on lesser ones. But it has a freshness and daring that hasn’t dated, and both leads are in top form. The movie looks good and grainy on Blu.
(Magnolia)
For those unaware (like me), Noma is a Copenhagen restaurant chosen best in the world several years running, and Pierre Deschamps' portrait of Noma chef Rene Redzepi is sharp and focused, even lucky: when a norovirus fells several diners at the restaurant, cameras record Redzepi and his associates' incredulous, bemused reactions.
Redzepi is forcefully foul-mouthed but engaging, and his unique spin on Nordic cuisine leads to beautifully photographed glimpses of his delectable dishes. The film and the food look splendid on Blu; extras include deleted scenes.
Point Break
(Warner Bros)
In this unnecessary remake of the vapid 1991 Kathryn Bigelow film, an FBI agent and extreme-sports athlete goes up against the ultimate daredevil villain in a movie almost fully bereft of human interaction, instead becoming an excuse for an unending series of excellent stunt sequences awkwardly staged by director Ericson Core.
The astonishing stunt work and photography notwithstanding, most of the movie’s two-hour running time has little in the way of interesting plotting, dialogue and acting. The film looks great on Blu; extras include behind-the- scenes featurettes and deleted scenes.
Killing Them Safely
(Sundance Selects)
The history of the Taser—which quickly entered law enforcement annals as a most effective weapon—is skeptically recounted by director Nick Berardini, who looks at the many incidents of related fatalities when otherwise healthy people died after encountering Taser-wielding cops.
Although the jury's still out on causality, such incidents bring into question the Taser’s efficiency and safety, and despite claims to the contrary by interested parties, even law enforcement officials are starting to gainsay its usefulness.
Mediterranea
(Sundance Selects)
In this sympathetic portrait of Europe’s immigrant crisis, Italian director Jonas Carpignano shoots his gaze at a laborer from Burkina Faso who arrives in Italy prepared to work and send money back to his wife and young daughter: he soon finds that the hard part was not leaving and making the journey to a new country; instead, there is no shortage of difficulties for him and others in their adopted home.
Carpignano takes the measure of his protagonist with intelligence, grace, and not a little humor, ending on a sad but telling incident between our hero and his family back home.
(Anchor Bay)
The second season of Turn continues to chronicle the dangerous adventures of spies who did much of the dirty work for General Washington during fraught times for the ragtag Continental Army against the more imposing, better-trained British troops.
The year is 1777, and events including the horrible winter at Valley Forge and the first arrival of French troops to fight with the colonial army are persuasively dramatized, and the presence of someone named Benedict Arnold portends much traitorous behavior to come. Extras are deleted scenes, extended scenes and featurettes.
Broadway Musical Reviews—Revival of 'She Loves Me'; Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's 'Bright Star'
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 28 March 2016 23:35
- Written by Kevin Filipski
She Loves Me
Music by Jerry Bock; lyrics by Sheldon Harnick; book by Joe Masteroff
Directed by Scott Ellis; choreographed by Warren Carlyle
Opened March 17, 2016
Bright Star
Book and music by Steve Martin; lyrics & music by Edie Brickell
Directed by Walter Bobbie
Opened March 23, 2016
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| Laura Benanti and Jane Krakowski in She Loves Me (photo: Joan Marcus) |
It’s hard to believe, but the team behind the 1963 musical She Loves Me—lyricist Sheldon Harnick, book writer Joe Masteroff and composer Jerry Bock—would the very next year create the earthshaking Fiddler on the Roof. By contrast, She Loves Me is a modest, intimate show based on Hungarian Miklos Laszlo's play, which also spawned the filmThe Shop Around the Corner and its trite update, Nora Ephron's You’ve Got Mail.
The simple story is set in a Budapest parfumerie in 1934, as salesman Georg trades lonely-hearts letters with a young woman he has yet to meet. Enter fiery Amalia, who lands a much-needed job in the store: needless to say (and unbeknownst to either of them), they are the pen pals, and their mutual attraction on paper belies their constantly getting on each other’s nerves at work. It's no spoiler to say that they are destined to fall in love.
She Loves Me fills this unoriginal plot with romance and humor, heartbreak and redemption, along with some of the sturdiest songs to grace the Great White Way. Although none of them lives on separately from the show like Fiddler’s “Sunrise, Sunset” or “If I Were a Rich Man,” the perfectly pitched songs—from beautiful ballads "Will He Like Me?" and "Dear Friend" to charmers "I Don't Know His Name" and "Twelve Days to Christmas"—make a completely harmonious whole.
The rapturous new revival at Studio 54 takes place on David Rockwell’s enormously pleasing jewel-box set, the outside of the store opening into intricate, eye-catching interiors of such enchantment that the audience rightly cheers the dazzling décor. Director Scott Ellis, who provides the entire performance with perfectly paced rhythms, has also cast the show nearly flawlessly: Byron Jennings, Michael McGrath, Gavin Creel and Jane Krakowski—who again shows off her incredible gifts for physical comedy—make a memorable store staff.
If Zachary Levi is merely an adequate Georg, that’s entirely forgotten whenever the radiant Laura Benanti's Amalia is onstage. Finally getting the leading-lady role she’s long deserved, this luminous actress effortlessly shows off her musical-comedy strengths—priceless line readings and facial expressions, gorgeous singing, lithe movement—and makes the most of her opportunity.
Elegantly directed and sharply performed, this She Loves Me revival is, with Laura Benanti at its center, unmissable.
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| Carmen Cusack (center) in Bright Star (photo: Nick Stokes) |
Bright Star, the inconsequential new musical by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, is supposedly based on a true story, which it tells with all the persuasiveness of your average soap opera. Spanning more than 20 years, the parallel plots encompass young love, adoption, mistaken identity, and finding one's way in the world in ways that are more dramatically (and comically) suspect than one would expect from Martin, one of our most literate writers.
Set in North Carolina in the '20s and '40s, Bright Star features so many cliches and caricatures that at first it seems its creators are putting us on: indeed, when the big plot twist (easily guessed in advance) is finally explained, it's done for laughs, since it's so patently absurd. But mostly this is a painfully earnest show with a negligible bluegrass score of mind-numbing sameness, the lone exception being "I Had a Vision," an emotionally trenchant number that describes the fallout after a woman finds out from her ex-lover what happened to their son 22 years earlier.
Brickell's superficial lyrics actually feature howlers like "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do/When a man's gotta do what he's got to." Martin has, in his occasionally adroit book, come up with enough witty lines to make one wish that there was more of his smart humor to balance the rote melodramatics that drag down the show.
Director Walter Bobbie applies a welcome light touch, especially in the amount of detailed movement on Eugene Lee's spare set, which comprises desks, chairs and shelves moved on and off by cast members, along with a cabin housing several musicians at center stage. Bobbie and choreographer Josh Rhodes are particularly adept at making the songs come alive visually, a needed diversion whenever the creaky plot and repetitive music become too much.
Two accomplished performances, from a compelling and forceful Carmen Cusack and a lively and polished Hannah Elless, help brighten this too often dim Bright Star.
She Loves Me
Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, New York, NY
roundabouttheatre.org
Bright Star
Cort Theatre, 138 West 48th Street, New York, NY
brightstarmusical.com
March '16 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 23 March 2016 00:47
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
The Big Sleep
Key Largo
(Warner Archive)
Hollywood glamour couple Bogie and Bacall were together onscreen and off from 1945 until Humphrey Bogart's 1957 death from cancer, and these classics show them at their tough but tender best, with their undeniable chemistry on display in Howard Hawks' 1946 The Big Sleep, the best Dashiell Hammett adaptation, Bogart's iconic Sam Spade falling for Lauren Bacall's unhappy wife, and director John Huston's taut 1948 Key Largo, with B&B well-supported by Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore and Claire Trevor's Oscar-winning turn as an abused gangster's moll.
Both B&W films look splendid on Blu; Sleep extras are an alternate cut of the film with an intro and comparison.
Rage of Honor
(Arrow)
One of the best mid-70s buddy teams was Pam Grier and Margaret Markov, together for the 1973 prison B-movie Black Mama, but also in the next year's The Arena (when is that finally out on Blu?): Mama is nothing special, but its real virtues are Grier and Markov. Too bad that (as she says in a new, included interview) Markov retired shortly after when she married Mama's producer.
Rage, the 1986 sequel to the equally tepid Pray for Death, is another rote martial-arts flick starring Sho Kosugi, who shows as little charisma as he did in the original. Genre fans may like it, though. Both films have good, grainy transfers; extras include interviews and featurettes.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2
(Lionsgate)
Four lengthy films later, The Hunger Games finally ends, and if the enterprise's self-importance rarely allows those who hadn't read Suzanne Collins's original novels to enter their insular futuristic world of rebellion, there is one reason to watch: Jennifer Lawrence.
This extraordinarily empathetic actress makes everything (even Joy) worth sitting through, and her presence makes this jumbled, dour, overlong third sequel less than risible. There are entertaining bits by Woody Harrelson, Natalie Dormer, Julianne Moore and Donald Sutherland, but it's Lawrence's show all the way. The film has an excellent hi-def transfer; extras include a commentary and an eight-part making-of doc.
(Olive Films)
The last film directed by Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Shootist) was a 1982 adaptation of a Frank D. Gilroy novel that's a mishmash of farce, road movie, Bette Midler musical numbers and an implausible murderous plot that never coheres, despite a few genuinely amusing moments.
Most of those are provided by Rip Torn, gloriously sleazy as Midler's sugar daddy, and Midler's impeccable comic timing. But the reported bumpiness of the production—both Siegel and co-star Ken Wahl reportedly disliked Midler, and vice-versa—unfortunately shows up onscreen in spades, jinxing the whole enterprise. The new hi-def transfer is solid, with good grain.
The Trip
(Olive Films)
Jack Nicholson, of all people, scripted this psychedelic mess by director Roger Corman, an attempt to chronicle the "tune in turn out" Summer of Love in 1967: Peter Fonda plays a director given LSD by friend Bruce Dern to help expand his creative mind, but all it does is give him anxiety over his recurring, mind-blowing "trips."
There's rudimentary visualizing of acid trips with quick cuts, blasting music, exaggerated settings and dream-like, woozy kaleidoscopic colors, but there's little here unless one is a fan of Fonda, Dern, Dennis Hopper or Corman himself. The bright hi-def transfer looks authentically trippy.
(Warner Archive)
In Alfred Hitchcock's most straightforward drama, Henry Fonda plays an innocent musician taken into custody when witnesses finger him as an armed robber: based on a true story, this 1952 drama shows that Hitchcock could spin tension out of any kind of material.
Fonda, typically understated, is nicely complemented by Vera Miles as a wife who loses her bearings once her husband is accused. On Warner Archive's first-rate Blu-ray transfer, the black and white compositions have an authentically grainy look; lone extra is a making-of featurette.
DVDs of the Week
40 Love
(First Run)
The continually shifting dynamics of a modern family are on display in this acute psychological study of a father with employment difficulties, a wife with her own issues and an 11-year-old son with a passion (and talent) for tennis.
Director Stephane Demoustier's precisely observed drama is beautifully acted, and his shrewd script leads to a devastating twist ending that further illuminating his characters' behavior.
(Anchor Bay)
A mildly amusing satire of grandly self-important television dramas, this IFC mini-series is too late to the party: parodying the likes of Rich Man Poor Man, among many others, is just too dated and scattershot to be consistently funny, and its huge cast follows suit.
For every priceless comic turn by Tim Robbins, Michael Sheen or Val Kilmer, there are misfired appearances by Tobey McGuire, Kristen Wiig and Will Farrell. Of course, if you enjoy such obvious parody, then your mileage will vary.
Welcome to Leith
(First Run)
The invasion of a small North Dakota town by white supremacists—and how citizens fought back—is fascinatingly recounted by Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker's documentary, which plays as a cautionary tale, a horrifying look at our new reality and even a mesmerizing thriller in which the outcome is in doubt.
Led by Craig Cobb, "nationalists" attempt to take over, while those already there—including an interracial couple next door to Cobb's property—try to make sure it doesn't happen. In the supposed post-racial age of Obama (not to mention the rise of Trump), this is necessary viewing. Extras are an extended and deleted scene and an interview.
Theater Review—'The Humans’ on Broadway
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 20 March 2016 23:36
- Written by Kevin Filipski
The Humans
Written by Stephen Karam; directed by Joe Mantello
Opened February 18, 2016
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| The cast of The Humans (photo: Joan Marcus) |
On Broadway, Stephen Karam’s The Humans shows its seams more readily than it did in its earlier off-Broadway incarnation. In this 95-minute play, the Blake family gathers for a Thanksgiving dinner in youngest daughter Brigid and boyfriend Richard's new Chinatown apartment: father Erik, mother Deirdre and grandmother Fiona drove down from Scranton, while oldest daughter Aimee took the train from Philadelphia.
Although he writes intelligent dialogue for his believable characters, Karam often stacks the deck dramatically, whether spilling family secrets at regular intervals—usually when someone overhears something near the winding staircase separating the apartment's two floors—or dragging in September 11th to give the Blakes another near-tragedy to deal with, as if what's going on in their daily lives isn't enough.
In addition, what was a mere laugh-getter before (upstairs noises, presumably from an annoying neighbor) has been turned into something quasi-supernatural, as the noises get progressively louder until they eventually seem like a horror movie soundtrack. Similarly, the play's final image of a darkened apartment with a door opened onto the building's hallway is the most forced attempt at a desperate shock effect than anything I've seen on Broadway since a ghost's appearance at the end of Shining City.
Then there's Karan asking us to believe that a 60-year-old man and his 61-year-old wife would drive in a Thanksgiving snowstorm for more than three hours with his sickly 79-year-old mother in tow, only to leave after visiting their daughter in Manhattan for a mere hour and a half. Allowing them to spend the night, either at Brigid's place or a nearby motel, and start fresh in the morning would be more—well, humane.
Happily, Joe Mantello's confident direction and the superlative cast—Reed Birney, Jayne Houdyshell, Cassie Beck, Arian Moayed, Lauren Klein and, most impressively, Sarah Steele—make The Humans seem more substantial than it ultimately is.
The Humans
Helen Hayes Theatre, 240 West 44th Street, New York, NY
thehumansonbroadway.com
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