Broadway Musical Review—Revival of Adam Guettel’s “Floyd Collins”

Floyd Collins

Music and lyrics by Adam Guettel; book and additional lyrics by Tina Landau

Directed by Tina Landau

Performances through June 29, 2025

Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 150 West 65th Street, NYC

lct.org

Lizzy McAlpine and Jeremy Jordan in Floyd Collins (photo: Joan Marcus)

Daringly downbeat, Floyd Collins is the rare musical that takes chances musically and dramatically. When it premiered off-Broadway in 1996, the show got some raves but nobody was lining up to bring it to Broadway. Based on the one-third empty house the afternoon I saw it at Lincoln Center Theater, maybe they were right. The atypical musical plot is based on a real-life incident in Kentucky in 1925: our eponymous hero, a reckless spelunker, gets trapped in a mine while hoping to carve out a future tourist attraction (which it eventually became, as Mammoth Cave National Park).

Soon the locals hoping to rescue him are overtaken by outsiders who treat the entire tragic episode as a spectacular, media-driven nationwide circus with people hanging on every new development. Indeed, one of the reporters present, Skeets Miller of the Louisville Courier, begins by chasing a good story but finds himself getting personally involved in rescuing Floyd.

Composer Adam Guettel and book writer Tina Landau transform this flavorful bit of Americana into one of our most original musicals. Guettel’s music, powered by bluegrass, folk and Tin Pan Alley, is always in character, so to speak—like the thrilling chorus that opens the show, Floyd’s powerful laments, or his younger sister Nellie’s emotional solo. Landau’s book could be performed as a play without Guettel’s music, so intense is its drama and incisive its characterizations. That they meld together so persuasively is what makes the show a singular achievement. 

Landau directs this revival with a beautifully wrought elegance; she uses the Beaumont’s large stage to her advantage, creating a nearly cinematic dramatization of a story that always seems to have several events happening simultaneously. Landau is greatly assisted by the collective dots’ inventively abstract sets, Scott Zielinski’s subtle lighting, Anita Yavich’s on-target costumes, Dan Moses Schreier’s startling sound design and Ruey Horng Sun’s savvy projections. 

The cast is splendid. Taylor Trensch makes an engaging Skeets, Marc Kudisch is stentorian as Floyd’s father Lee, and Lizzy McAlpine—in a marvelous Broadway debut—is a heartbreaking Nellie whose second-act solo turn, “Through the Mountain,” is as understated a showstopper as you’ll ever hear. At the center of it all is Jeremy Jordan as Floyd, who is not only in imposingly great voice but is physically impressive—terrifically agile while sperlunking and spellbindingly dramatic even as he’s trapped in the cave. Jordan and company make the tragedy of Floyd Collins exhilarating. 

June '25 Digital Week III

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Materialists 

(A24)

In her second feature—her debut Past Lives earned her an Oscar nomination for best screenplay—writer-director Celine Song again explores the intimate relationships of her protagonists, this time among a subset of Manhattan residents: Lucy, a matchmaker; John, her former boyfriend and struggling actor; and Harry, a charming billionaire she falls for. As in the earlier film, Song’s dialogue is beautifully written—clever without being cloying and articulate without being overbearing; but she can’t completely break free of the rom-coms she is deconstructing, so the characters interact predictably and, in the end, conventionally. In the leads, Dakota Johnson (Lucy) has never been better, and Chris Evans (John) and Pedro Pascal (Harry) are equally good as the men in her lives. 

Sex 

(Strand Releasing)

The second film in Norwegian writer-director Dag Johan Haugerud’s triptych about nontraditional intimacy follows two married men who work together in Oslo—a chimney sweep and his supervisor—who discuss intimate subjects including their sex lives: the supervisor admits to having had pleasurable sex with another man. The sweep is surprised, but when the supervisor confesses his escapade to his wife, she feels (not wrongly) that their entire relationship has shifted because he cheated, even if he says it was a one-off with no lasting repercussions. Like Love, Sex is an intriguing theoretical exercise masquerading as a deep dive into intimate relationships. Since Haugerud plays coy throughout, the film’s emotional and dramatic stakes of these endless conversations never seem genuine or urgent—what will the final film, Dreams, bring? 

In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week

Simple Minds—Everything Is Possible 

(Greenwich Entertainment)

Joss Crowley’s entertaining documentary about the Scottish rock band—founded by and still comprising singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill—touches on its storied history, from forming in high school in the late ‘70s to still going today, in a fleet 87 minutes. Although it glosses over a lot, Kerr and Burchill are forthcoming, and their stories (and those of musical colleagues and friends) are often uproarious and even poignant. Molly Ringwald is on hand to inform us that she told The Breakfast Club director John Hughes that Simple Minds should record what turned out to be the group’s biggest hit, “Don’t You Forget About Me.” Although Kerr and Burchill admit to being reluctant to record a song they didn’t write, they’ve since come to terms with it overshadowing the rest of their career—at least in America.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Drop 

(Universal)

The latest Blumhouse horror is less horrific than occasionally unnerving: widowed mom Violet has a first date that goes wrong in every way, especially when someone begins drop-texting her, threatening her young son and babysitter sister if she doesn’t kill her date. Director Christopher Landon and writers Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach’s lean thriller speeds through so many unlikely twists and turns that there’s no time to stop and say, “WTF.” It helps, too, to have a sympathetic and appealing lead like Meghann Fahy as the harried Violet. There’s a super UHD transfer; extras include featurettes and a director’s commentary.

The Wiz 

(Criterion)

When Sidney Lumet’s vivid cinematic adaptation of the hit Broadway show that tweaked L.L. Baum’s The Wizard of Oz for a funky generation was released in 1978, it was met with either guffaws or indifference, despite its pedigree and starry cast led by Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Lena Horne and Richard Pryor. Yes, it’s overlong and overstuffed and Lumet doesn’t have a complete handle on the musical numbers, but it’s a riotously colorful snapshot of mid-’70s New York, especially in the finale at World Trade Center Plaza. Criterion’s restoration looks eye-poppingly impressive; too bad extras are so meager: short archival interviews with Lumet and Ross as well as an audio commentary.

A Working Man 

(Warner Bros)

In his latest routine action flick, Jason Statham plays a former black-ops soldier now working as a construction foreman who returns to his old job when his boss’ daughter is kidnaped by a group of violent Russian thugs. Unsurprisingly, Statham and director David Ayers follow the blueprint of last year’s The Beekeeper, although to meager returns. But there is fun to be had in watching Statham do in so many bad guys (and gals), even if the thread of credibility is stretched thin to breaking. The film looks sharp in 4K; there are no extras.

CD Releases of the Week 

Ligeti—Concertos 

(Harmonia Mundi)

Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) is best known for his otherworldly music, which was so brilliantly used by Stanley Kubrick in three films: 2001, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. But Ligeti’s genius stems from his wide-ranging oeuvre, which makes up a singular musical vision. The concertos on this disc bear that out, from the early Concert Românesc for small orchestra to the dizzying flights of fancy of his violin and piano concertos, fiendishly difficult to perform but still playful and light on their musical feet. The soloists—violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuburger—are more than up to the task, as is the ensemble Les Siècles led by François-Xavier Roth. 

Shostakovich—Suites and Concertos 

(Capriccio)

The great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75) was prolific in many genres, from chamber music to symphonies to operas; in fact, his cycles of 15 string quartets and 15 symphonies are among the most imposing of the 20th century. This superb compilation of several recordings made between 1996 and 2005 contains three discs of some of his signature works for orchestra, like his Jazz Suite No. 2, suites from the ballets The Bolt and The Age of Gold, and two of his concerto masterworks: the Piano Concerto No. 1 (which includes the famous obbligato turn for a trumpet) and the Violin Concerto. Various orchestras and conductors acquit themselves well in these works, and the concerto soloists—pianist Thomas Duis, trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich and violinist Vladimir Spirakov—give estimable performances.

Film Festival Roundup—2025 Tribeca Festival

2025 Tribeca Festival

June 6-15, 2025

Various locations in Manhattan

Tribecafilm.com/festival

Once again, the annual Tribeca Festival premiered dozens of features, shorts and documentaries—the latter are what I concentrated on, and as always, the films made for interesting, informative and at times exasperating viewing. 

Marlee Matlin—Not Alone Anymore (Kino Lorber, opens June 20)

In Shoshannah Stern’s perceptive portrait of the first deaf performer to be nominated for and win an Oscar—for best actress in Children of a Lesser God (1986)—Marlee Matlin (above) lays herself bare, as a deaf person, an actress, and an advocate for the hearing-impaired community. She is remarkably candid about her upbringing, her addictions, her volatile romantic and professional relationship with William Hurt, her uneasiness at becoming the global “face” of the deaf community after winning the Oscar and her satisfaction at the nearly four-decade career she’s had despite many saying she was a one trick pony. Stern also speaks with Aaron Sorkin (who wrote a part in The West Wing specifically for Matlin), Henry Winkler (a close friend for many years), Lauren Ridloff (who played the same role in Lesser God a few years ago and received a Tony nomination) and Randa Haines (who directed the Lesser God film), all of whom illuminate the subject as a performer and, even more importantly, as a person.

Backside

Everybody knows that Churchill Downs is where the Kentucky Derby has been run for more than 150 years, but director Raúl O. Paz Pastrana focuses his camera on those whom the millions of visitors to horseracing’s most famous race never see—or even knew about. It’s the many workers behind the scenes (at what is considered the track’s “backside”) who groom and clean and pamper and feed and ensure that the horses are ready for training or racing. Pastrana takes his cue from the great Frederick Wiseman for this fly-on-the-wall record of the people (several of whom are migrants) who get no glory but are indispensable in keeping a booming industry going.

The Inquisitor

Briskly directed by Angela Lynn Tucker, this is an edifying examination of Barbara Jordan (above, center), who was a political trailblazer in many ways, including her being the first Black Southern woman elected to Congress, in 1972, which also enabled her to become a clear and articulate voice of reason during the Nixon impeachment hearings. Tucker not only uses well-chosen archival clips of Jordan herself but also conducts new interviews with admirers from Dan Rather to Jasmine Crockett. Narrator Alfre Woodard provides Jordan’s strong, eloquent voice.

Natchez

The Mississippi town that still clings to the fantasy of antebellum—that the South before the Civil War was a beautiful and glorious place, ignoring that it was built on the backs of its enslaved people—is chronicled in Suzannah Herbert’s thoughtful documentary that contrasts the booming antebellum tourist business with how local residents and officials are dealing with what’s often been an unspoken history. In this look at a wide array of people on all sides of the divide, Herbert’s camera displays the observational muscle of a Frederick Wiseman, which is high praise indeed.

Re-Creation

Although not a documentary per se, Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s tantalizing hybrid tackles a vexing criminal case: in 1996, a French woman was murdered in rural Ireland, and journalist Ian Bailey was a prime suspect who never faced an Irish jury. Playing off 12 Angry Men, the film posits a theoretical trial with evidence presented, actor Colm Meaney playing Bailey, Sheridan himself as the frustrated foreman and the amazing Dutch actress Vicky Krieps as the lone “not guilty” holdout who tries to convince the others that contradictory evidence and witnesses make a conviction anything but clear-cut. 

Something Beautiful (Trafalgar Releasing/Sony Music)

In this “visual album” based on her just-released eponymously titled recording, Miley Cyrus (above) and codirectors Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter look for some variety in what are basically videos for all 13 songs, mixing straightforward performance clips with elaborately staged and costumed fantasy trips. I’m not a Miley fan, finding her songs repetitive mindless pop, but she does have a good singing voice and a real onscreen presence, so it’s too bad that this comes off as slight and self-indulgent instead of slight and fun. 

Watch Over Us

In this devastating short, director Carlos Garcia de Dios follows Victoria Lopez (above), a Minnesota mother of four sentenced to a stupefying 88 months in jail for selling meth, who sees her kids before surrendering to the authorities and starting her jail term. (I’d love to know what sentence that judge would give to a white male frat boy for the same offense). Even though Lopez had her sentence commuted after a year in prison, the film still mortifyingly displays how our unfair justice system affects so many people, including family and friends of those convicted.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Donald Margulies’ “Lunar Eclipse”

Lunar Eclipse

Written by Donald Margulies; directed by Kate Whoriskey

Performances through June 22, 2025

Second Stage Theater at Pershing Square Theater Center, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

2st.com

Lisa Emery and Reed Birney in Lunar Eclipse (photo: Joan Marcus)

At his considerable best, playwright Donald Margulies has a rare gift for creating characters whose down-to-earth realism makes them iconic, as in Dinner with Friends and Sight Unseen. When he’s at his less than best—as in his latest play, Lunar Eclipse—Margulies is still deft with his dialogue, but there’s something lacking in plotting, exposition and insight.

Longtime married couple George and Em sit in a dark field on their midwestern farm in lawn chairs and discuss their long and winding lives together while watching a lunar eclipse unfold. Margulies rotely sketches their decades-long relationship, as difficulties with childbirth led to adopted children: daughter Mary Ann turned out fine and is living in Denver, while son Tim (“Poor Tim,” Em calls him) became a drug addict. George and Em themselves are similarly perfunctorily sketched out—he’s sullen and quick to anger while she is a consoler and optimist. Indeed, at one point, George berates her for being too cheerful (“the smiley-face act,” he derisively calls it).

That’s not to say that there aren’t couples like this, seeming opposites whose decades together were meticulously cultivated to form a more or less stable family. Unlike in his masterpiece Dinner with Friends, here Margulies’ psychologically acute analysis is less than penetrating. Sure, his crisp, tart dialogue can still reverberate, as in George’s touching monologue about weeping over the death of Belle, the latest in a long line of beloved family dogs. 

But the conceit of the eclipse itself—each segment of the play is prefaced by a description of how far into the eclipse we are, e.g.,” Moon enters penumbra. Penumbral shadow appears”—lacks poetic power, especially when Em spells it out: “Everybody’s got their own sad and messy lives to deal with. What do they need to hear me belly-aching for? My sadness is not unique. It’s the oldest story there is: Eve lost a son. The trick is not to let it take over. Cast its shadow over everything else. Like an eclipse.”

Still, as enacted by Reed Birney and Lisa Emery, George and Em become vivid and immediate, even in a strained epilogue that shows them on their first date—a solar eclipse, naturally. Director Kate Whoriskey’s understated direction, on Walt Spangler’s marvelously evocative set, rarely lets their talk go slack—but Amith Chandrashaker’s often resourceful lighting doesn’t mirror the ongoing eclipse. George and Em’s intimate drama would benefit from such moodier shading, especially from its talented creator.

June '25 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Ballerina 

(Lionsgate)

This entry into the John Wick universe introduces Eve, an assassin out to avenge her father’s murder at the hands of a syndicate headed by the Chancellor, who seemingly has an entire village in central Europe at his lethal disposal. Director Len Wiseman doesn’t vary the blueprint for these shoot-’em-ups that resemble nothing more video games on the big screen, and despite how dopily entertaining it is, two hours of dozens (and dozens) of killings, however cleverly executed—Eve and adversaries wield guns, grenades, knives, swords, ice skate blades, water hoses and flamethrowers—make its star, the usually magnetic Ana de Armas, secondary to the action. The ending leaves room for a sequel, which is either a promise or a threat, depending on one’s point of view. 

Our War 

(Cohen Media Group)

French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has already made films about Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion—Why Ukraine, Slava Ukraini, Glory to the Heroes!—and his latest (codirected with Marc Roussel) is another urgent dispatch from the front lines, showing that the fighting spirit of the armed forces, ordinary citizens and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not wavered despite years of wanton destruction and death. Lévy smartly shows, without comment, the disgusting gotcha Oval Office display by Trump and his lapdog Vance when they jumped on Zelenskyy as if he invaded Russia and not the other way around—letting its idiocy speak for itself. But the bulk of Lévy’s film records the depth of the brave patriotism of so many Ukrainians.

Redlands 

(Dekanalog)

Made in 2014, John Brian King’s film about Vienna (Nicole Arianna Fox), a nude model who poses for creepy photographer Allan (Clifford Morts) while living with her creep of a boyfriend/pimp, Zack (Sam Brittan), is a slow-burn drama in which not much is burning. It’s a series of stiffly staged sequences that leads to a final scene in a morgue, and it ends up resembling a snuff film. It’s sharply photographed by Ioana Vasile and unevenly acted by Morts as Allan and Brittan as Zack, while Fox’s winning presence as Vienna make us feel that both performer and character deserve a better fate. 

Streaming Releases of the Week

The Amateur 

(20th Century Studios)

Based on a novel by Robert Littell that was previously adapted as a 1981 drama with John Savage and Christopher Plummer, James Hawes’ mild thriller follows a CIA cryptographer, Charlie Fuller (Remi Malek), who forces himself into action to track down the quartet of terrorists responsible for the gruesome execution of his innocent wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan). Jumping around Europe following Charlie ingeniously planning his revenge against the foursome—and evading his complicit superiors—the movie covers a lot of geographical ground but haphazard plotting and a lack of an emotional connection (Ramek is surprisingly distant in what could have been a bravura turn) mitigate its efficiency.

Hurry Up Tomorrow 

(Lionsgate)

Pop star vanity projects are a dime a dozen, but not since the mid-’80s—when Prince’s Purple Rain and Under the Cherry Moon and Paul McCartney’s Give My Regards to Broad Street soiled screens—has there been a wrongheaded entry like this, which the Weeknd cowrote and stars in as a version of himself dealing with emotional and relationship turmoil while being the biggest star in the world. At least Prince and Paul had good tunes to assuage their egos; the Weeknd’s synth-laden, autotuned pop is tough to hear over and over. The usually appealing Jenna Ortega only has one good scene, when she dances deliriously; poor Barry Keough is also wasted as the star’s manager. Director Trey Edward Shults (also a cowriter) has little sense of pacing or drama, and the result is a dreary 105 minutes.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Brazil 

(Criterion)

Terry Gilliam’s dystopian vision was made in 1985, but its bleak look at a society crushed by an oppressive government might even be more relevant today, in the second era of Trump. Despite its subject matter—our hero ends up being crushed like the bug at the beginning that sets everything in motion—the movie is awash with the brilliantly original visuals that have made Gilliam one of our premier cinematic stylists. The 4K image looks superlative, and this set (one UHD, one Blu-ray) ports over numerous extras from Criterion’s three-Blu-ray set: Gilliam’s sparkling commentary; on-set documentary What Is Brazil?; The Battle of Brazil, a one-hour documentary about the friction between Gilliam and Universal Studios; interviews; storyboards; visual essays; and Universal’s 94-minute, mercilessly butchered “Love Conquers All” version of the film that Gilliam disowned and which was only shown in syndication.

Sean Connery 6-Film James Bond Collection 

(Warner Bros)

Debates have gone on for decades about who was the best James Bond; Pierce Brosnan came close with his mixture of sardonic suavity, but the OG, Sean Connery, still reigns supreme, as witness this set of his first six appearances as 007. The movies, of course—1962’s Dr. No, 1963’s From Russia With Love, 1964’s Goldfinger, 1965’s Thunderball, 1967’s You Only Live Twice and 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever (his abortive return in 1983’s Never Say Never Again is mercifully skipped)—remain sniggeringly sexist and offhandedly racist, but Connery’s charisma and a raft of plots, gadgets and guest villains make them as entertaining as ever. The films have superb UHD transfers; and the voluminous extras include director and crew commentaries as well as many archival featurettes, interviews, TV ads, and documentaries.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Caitlin Saylor Stephens’ “Five Models in Ruins, 1981”

Five Models in Ruins, 1981

Written by Caitlin Saylor Stephens

Directed by Morgan Green

Performances through June 1, 2025

Claire Tow Theatre, 150 West 65th Street, New York, NY

lct.org

The cast of Five Models in Ruins, 1981 (photo: Marc J. Franklin)

The title of Caitlin Sayor Stephens’ Five Models in Ruins, 1981 overexplains the obvious that these models are in ruins both literally (at a rundown mansion in the English countryside, where they will wear the just-married Princess Diana’s discarded wedding gowns for a shoot with a famous American photographer) and figuratively (all five—and the photographer, Roberta—are in various states of emotional distress).

There’s arrogant supermodel Chrissy; cynical Tatiana; nervous newbie Grace; sardonic former superstar Alex; and Sandy, an English makeup artist and former model whom Roberta talks into joining the shoot after the fifth model doesn’t show since they’ve worked together before. As everyone prepares for the shoot, dealing with no phone or food (the former maybe, the latter unlikely), they argue, commiserate, battle, bond. The dialogue is lively but superficial, as each woman gets the chance to kvetch about sexually menacing men in the industry or the worst photo shoot of her career.  But none of this makes any of the models truly thought-out and differentiated individuals.

Roberta, a driven if cynical industry vet (apparently based on American photographer Deborah Turbeville), comes closest to being fully rounded, and she’s played by Elizabeth Marvel with her usual intensity. As the models, Stella Everett (Chrissy), Maia Novi (Tatiana), Britne Oldford (Alex), Sarah Marie Rodriguez (Grace) and Madeline Wise (Sandy) do what they can with their underwritten characters, but only Everett overcomes Stephens’ script with a performance of imposing physicality and biting humor.

Needless to say, Five Models doesn’t build to any kind of apotheosis. Instead it climaxes after Roberta hears from her editor at Vogue that he’s pulling the plug on the shoot and she loses it, letting out a primal scream that the others join until it builds to a clamorous crescendo that’s technically impressive but dramatically ineffectual. Morgan Green adroitly directs on Afsoon Pajoufar’s detailed, cluttered mansion set that, along with Cha See’s ingenious lighting, is a delicious visual asset for an undernourished play. 

June '25 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Ghost Trail 

(Music Box Films)

French writer-director Jonathan Millet makes his feature debut with this tense, intelligent slow-burn thriller about a Syrian refugee in France who one day notices a man who looks like the person who tortured him in the infamous Sednaya Prison in Damascus. Hamid (a remarkable portrayal by Adam Messa) works as a construction worker in Strasbourg, but once he sees his adversary, he is obsessed with plans for revenge—how that plays out, and how it affects his life and those around him, is dramatized with finesse by Millet, who demonstrates his sympathy for migrants and others marginalized by society without becoming strident.

Ron Delsener Presents 

(Abramorama)

Anyone who went to rock concerts in the New York City area since the late ’60s has probably noticed “Ron Delsener Presents” on the ticket—and this entertaining documentary, directed by Sting’s son Jake Sumner follows Delsener’s storied career as a concert promoter, from his early days working on the Beatles’ 1964 appearance in Forest Hills, through concerts at the Fillmore and the Palladium until today: he was 85 and still going strong when this was filmed a few years ago, attending shows and keeping up with whatever he could. Sumner not only speaks with Delsener, his wife and children—and shows copious archival footage from many iconic concerts—but also colleagues and an array of stars who touchingly remember his guiding hand, from Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel to Patti Smith and Paul Simon.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII 

(Sony Music)

Pink Floyd’s 1972 performance at the ancient Roman amphitheater in Pompeii (sans audience) is folded into Adrian Maben’s documentary that’s an artifact of its time, with the Pompeii concert footage supplemented by interviews with Gilmour, Mason, Waters and Wright as well as glimpses of them at Abbey Road recording Dark Side of the Moon. There’s a surfeit of crude, cliched visuals (split screens, front projection, superimposition, slow-motion) that haven’t aged well—but the film anticipates the MTV video era and remains an eye- (and ear-) opening document of the band right before becoming rock royalty. The Blu-ray release includes the 85-minute film and the 62-minute concert separately; the hi-def video looks good and the superb audio remixed by Steven Wilson is available in Dolby Stereo, 5.1 TrueHD Surround and ATMOS.

Ann Wilson and Tripsitter—Live in Concert 

(Mercury/Universal)

In this 2023 concert, Heart lead vocalist Ann Wilson leads her solo band Tripsitter—with which she released an album, Another Door—through a deftly-balanced set of solo songs, well-chosen covers and classic Heart tunes, including the vigorous opener, “Crazy on You,” the band’s first hit. The 16-song set shows that Wilson, even in her mid ’70s, still sings impressively and with little vocal strain. Heart’s brooding, mystical “Mistral Wind” and John Lennon’s biting “Isolation” let her alternate between lung-shredding power and exquisite delicacy. Of course, Led Zeppelin, one of Ann and Nancy Wilson’s biggest influences, is never far away: Ann pairs the Heart hit “Alone” with “Going to California,” while a powerhouse “Immigrant Song” is Ann at her vocal best. The hi-def video and the audio are excellent, although only a stereo mix is included.

Prokofiev—War and Peace 

(Bayerische Staatsoper)

Sergei Prokofiev’s operatic masterpiece distills the essence of Leo Tolstoy’s massive novel about the 1812 war between Napoleon and Russia into an expressive, emotional 3-1/2-hour music drama. Director and set designer of this 2023 Munich production, Dmitri Tcherniakov, nods to the present conflict between invading Russian forces and defending Ukrainian patriots, but that layer doesn’t detract from the powerful musical storytelling at the heart of Prokofiev’s work. Vladimir Jurowski deftly conducts the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra and choruses, while the lead roles of Prince Andrei, Natasha and Pierre are strongly embodied by Andrei Zhilikhovsky, Olga Kulchynska and Arsen Soghomonyan. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio; extras are an interview with Tcherniakov and Jurowski as well as a short featurette.

DVD Release of the Week

The Drew Carey Show—The Complete Series 

(Warner Bros)

Standup comic Drew Carey’s eponymous sitcom ran for nine seasons, from 1995 to 2004, giving audiences an alternative version of his real-life persona as an everyman working a menial job in middle America (in this case, Cleveland). Carey and the large cast—including Christa Miller, Kathy Kinney, Craig Ferguson and Ryan Stiles—project a warm appeal that underlines the mild jokes audiences could identify with. All 200-plus episodes are included (excepting four “special” episodes), with some music cues different from the original broadcasts; lone extra is the featurette Life Inside the Cubicle.

Film Series: Open Roads—New Italian Cinema 2025

Open Roads—New Italian Cinema 2025

Through June 6, 2025

Film at Lincoln Center

165 West 65 Street, New York, NY

filmlinc.org

Battleground

This year’s edition of Open Roads, Film at Lincoln Center’s annual survey of new films from Italy, includes the latest by master director Gianni Amelio, one of the mainstays of the festival circuit since arthouse hits Open Doors (1989), Stolen Children (1992) and Lamerica (1994). In Battleground, Amelio sets his sights on World War I, where two friends, both doctors in a hospital for wounded soldiers, take opposite tacks in treatment: Stefano looks for fakers to send back to the front line while Giulio tries to help patients desperate to go home. When the deadly Spanish flu breaks out, both men must deal with another unpredictable mortal danger. Amelio’s messy, complicated and disturbing exploration of human behavior provides no pat or easy answers.  

The Time It Takes

Francesca Comencini’s The Time It Takes is a touching if occasionally saccharine reminiscence about growing up the daughter of Luigi Comencini, one of the most successful filmmakers during Italy’s cinematic golden age. Francesca dramatizes life with a famous father as something that was simultaneously wondrous and strange, culminating in her drug addiction before straightening herself out and becoming a filmmaker in her own right. There are delightful moments on the set of Luigi’s films, and the splendid performances of Fabrizio Gifuni (Luigi), Anna Mangiocavallo (young Francesca) and Romana Maggiora Vergano (adult Francesca) help smooth over the film’s lapses into sentimentality.

Familia

The horrific results of domestic abuse are harrowingly rendered in Familia, Francesco Costabile’s vivid adaptation of a memoir by Luigi Celeste, whose estranged father returns to continue brutalize his mother (a magnificently shellshocked Barbara Ronchi)—while Luigi joins a group of skinheads to separate himself from his awful home life. The film’s bluntness, culminating in a fatal meeting between father and son, is almost too on the nose, but Costabile’s unflinching depiction of the fallout from abuse is undeniably compelling.

The Great Ambition

The Great Ambition, Andrea Segre’s absorbing political biopic about Italian Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer, is centered by an extraordinary performance by Elio Germano as Berlinguer, who was at present at the many upheavals in 1970s Italian politics, culminating in the kidnaping and murder of prime minister Aldo Moro. 

Sicilian Letters

Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia’s Sicilian Letters is a cleverly constructed crime drama, based on real events, that pits Carello (the great Toni Servillo), a disgraced former politico, against his godson Matteo (Elio Germano, excellent), a mob boss on the run, who begin corresponding and become friendly again—but their relationship is, as current parlance has it, very complicated. 

Diamonds

Ferzan Özpetek’s latest film, Diamonds, was a huge hit in Italy, and it’s not hard to see why. Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca—luminous actresses both—play sisters who run a successful fashion house in 1970s Rome, and the film follows their attempts, as often comic as dramatic, to deal with their most difficult client: an Oscar-winning costume designer. Although it’s an overstuffed 135 minutes, Diamonds is an entertainingly high-gloss soap opera that’s a valentine to cinematic costumes as well as the unbreakable bond among women. The large, mainly distaff ensemble is perfection, but Özpetek intrudes on his characters too often by appearing onscreen to diminishing returns. 

May '25 Digital Week III

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Drop Dead City 

(Pangloss Films)

The mid-’70s were anything but a glorious time for New York City: its finances were a mess, and when Abe Beame became mayor, it was discovered that the city was $6 billion in debt. Michael Rohatyn and Peter Yost’s engrossing documentary does a fine job telling the complex story of the complex machinery among local, state and federal government to try and correct the economic downturn before the city’s default would create a domino effect, taking down banks across the country and internationally. The famous Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” is the impetus for the title; the directors—Michael Rohatyn is the son of Felix Rohatyn, who headed the committee to fix the city’s finances—make excellent use of archival footage to tell a complicated but straightforward story alongside new interviews with those present for the mess. (RIP, congressman Charles Rangel.)

E. 1027—Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea 

(First Run Features)

Irish architect Eileen Gray designed a house for herself in France’s Côte d’Azur in the 1920s, which is the focus of Beatrice Minger and Christoph Schaub’s intriguing but diffuse hybrid that alternates documentary footage with reenactments of Gray dealing with rivals like Le Corbusier, the Swiss architect who took it upon himself to “improve” her house by painting murals on the walls, something Gray considered an act of vandalism. Although Minger and Straub marry nonfiction and fiction with aplomb—and Natalie Radmalle-Quirke makes a persuasive stand-in for Gray herself (who is also seen in actual interview clips)—the end result is more often opaque and on the surface rather than insightful. 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Alto Knights 

(Warner Bros)

Despite firepower both in front of and behind the camera—Robert DeNiro plays mob bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, Barry Levinson directs, Nicholas Pileggi wrote the script, Irwin Winkler produces—this mob saga about infighting in the New York/New Jersey underworld never shakes the feeling that it’s déjà vu all over again. Levinson is no Scorsese, who breathed new life into shopworn material in The Irishman; Levinson lets DeNiro ham it up in both roles (and the actor’s prosthetic nose as Costello is unintentionally funny). A game supporting cast led by Debra Messing as Costello’s wife and Kathrine Narducci as Genovese’s wife has little to do, and the two-hour drama moves along with little urgency. There’s a superior hi-def transfer, but no extras.

Wan Pipel 

(Cult Epics)

Pim de la Parra, a Surimanese-Dutch director who died last year at age 84, made this 1976 drama about Roy, an Afro-Surimanese man, who’s in relationships with two women: Karina, who’s Dutch, and Rubia, who’s Hindu. Historically, the film is important, as the first feature made after Suriname’s 1975 independence. But even if it’s crudely made, there’s an almost documentary-like realism to it, and it has superb performances by Willeke van Ammelrooy (Karina) and Diana Gangaram Panday (Rubia); Borger Breeveld, however, seems straitjacketed as Roy. There’s a nicely grainy texture on the Blu-ray; extras include a director intro, Ammelrooy interview and archival featurette.

The Woman in the Yard 

(Universal)

A widowed mom living with her two children on a remote farm must deal with the sudden appearance of an elderly crone on their lawn who soon terrorizes the family in Jaume Collet-Serra’s glossy but one-note horror yarn written by Sam Stefanak, whose lean script is too obvious and—in its final reveal—risible. Danielle Deadwyler is intensely unwound as the mom, Peyton Jackson and Estella Kahihaare are quite good as her kids, and Okwui Okpokwasili is properly scary as the title character, but the film is too familiar and not inspired enough, more like an overlong Twilight Zone episode that misses the mark. The film looks good on Blu; extras are two making-of featurettes.

CD Release of the Week

Rautavaara—Complete Piano Works 

(Piano Classics)

Although Finnish master Einojuhani Rautavaara—who died in 2016 at age 87—is probably best known for his symphonies and operas, he was prolific in all types of music, as this superb disc by the imposing Lithuanian pianist Morta Grigaliūnaitė demonstrates. Rautavaara’s solo piano works spanned his entire composing career—indeed, his Op. 1, from 1952, is the vibrant piano suite titled The Fiddlers. Among the many gems are his two expressive piano sonatas—titled Christ and the Fishes and The Fire Sermon and written in 1969 and 1970, respectively—along with sets of Preludes and Etudes and even an arrangement of his otherworldly seventh symphony, Cantus Arcticus. Grigaliūnaitė holds all these varied pieces together with her formidable technique and eloquence.

May '25 Digital Week II

Film Series of the Week 

Kira Muratova—Scenographies of Chaos 

(Film at Lincoln Center, NYC)

One of Ukraine’s greatest directors, Kira Muratova toiled for much of her career under the oppressive Soviet system, and several of her films, pre-Glasnost, were banned or suppressed for years, even decades. This near-exhaustive survey of 16 of her features, made between 1964 and 2012 (she died in 2018 at age 83), shows Muratova as an uncompromising artist whose work artfully dissects quotidian lives with a pinpoint scalpel. Her early classics Brief Encounters (1967) and The Long Farewell (1971) are messy in the best way, mirroring her female protagonists’ unstable personal and public lives. The Asthenic Syndrome, Muratova’s 1989 international breakthrough, is a profoundly cutting critique of the USSR’s last days told through her dazzling formalist technique. Some Muratova films will be released by Criterion, but to see them on the big screen, visit the Walter Reade Theater by May 25.

Films of Vicente Aranda 

(Film Movement Plus)

Vicente Aranda—the best post-Bunuel Spanish director after Carlos Saura—made artfully erotic explorations of female sexuality for several decades (he died in 2015 at age 88). Film Movement Plus has resurrected a quartet of his films, a grab bag of his work that showcases his singular mix of seriousness, sleaziness and potent political commentary. The Girl in the Yellow Panties (1980) introduces a former Francoist writer who’s beguiled by his sexy young niece (played by Aranda’s muse, the great Victoria Abril, in one of her first—and most memorable—roles). Abril returns majestically in Lovers (1991), an absorbing true-life adultery drama a la The Postman Always Rings Twice, as a widowed landlord who seduces her young tenant as he tries to navigate pre-married life with his virginal fiancée (Maribel Verdu, another superb Spanish actress in one of her earliest starring roles). The other two Aranda films, 1994’s The Turkish Passion and 1998’s The Naked Eye, are like late-night Cinemax softcore flicks distinguished by Aranda’s precise direction and the performances of his leading ladies Ana Belén (Turkish Passion) and Laura Morante (Naked Eye).

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

The Kiss 

(Juno Films/World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation)

Director Bille August, who made masterly character studies like Pelle the Conqueror and The Best Intentions early in his career, made a late-career classic with A Fortunate Man in 2018, while his latest, an adaptation of German/Austrian writer Stefan Zweig’s only novel, is a well-mounted bittersweet romance between an army officer and a crippled but beautiful and headstrong woman. It’s beautifully shot, compellingly acted and keeps one engaged from start to finish, but August allows a certain sentimentality to creep in that’s not present in Zweig’s more tough-minded novel, and the result is less than the sum of its considerable parts.

Love 

(Strand Releasing)

Norwegian writer-director Dag Johan Haugerud’s triptych about forms of nontraditional intimacy—titled Love, Sex, and Dreams—comprises standalone works that can be seen in any order; the first being shown here, Love, introduces two colleagues at an Oslo hospital: Marianne, a single straight doctor, and Tor, a single gay nurse, who have conversations about pursuing sexual gratification without love or personal attachments. Although a fascinating philosophical exercise, Haugerud’s film never achieves any emotional or dramatic resonance since it feels that the director is randomly moving his pieces on a chessboard, with little that’s organic or truly felt in the relationships or character motivation. It will be interesting to see if the other two films can avoid this self-inflicted impediment.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Dune Prophecy 

(Warner Bros)

The Dune franchise, starting with Frank Herbert’s books, seems the most self-important and humorless of all sci-fi/fantasy worlds, and this prequel—which takes place more than 10,000 years (!) before the events of the original Dune—is another example. It focuses on the women of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, who foretell the birth of hero Paul Atreides, but—at least in this six-episode telling—the dourness and violence of the protagonists (embodied without much distinction by eminent performers like Emily Watson and Olivia Williams) are dramatized with po-faced inscrutability. The UHD image looks excellent; extras are the featurette Building Worlds and five Behind the Veil featurettes.

Mickey 17 

(Warner Bros)

Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up to his ham-fisted but Oscar-winning Parasite is a sci-fi story set in 2054 during a space expedition where our eponymous hero is an “expendable,” taking on dangerous jobs and being cloned every time he dies. It’s a strangely inert, even risible black comedy that purloins Edward Ashton’s underlying novel (pointedly titled Mickey 7) to little effect but stultifying repetition. Bong’s direction—despite accomplished cinematography, editing, sets and costumes—is plodding and his actors follow suit, particularly a sleepy Robert Pattinson as Mickey and hammy Mark Ruffalo and Toni Colette as the colony’s leaders. The film looks quite impressive in UHD; extras comprise several on-set featurettes.

CD Release of the Week 

Weinberg—Complete Music for Cello and Orchestra 

(Naxos)

Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96) died before his musical renaissance began with his emotionally shattering Holocaust opera The Passenger, several productions of which were soon followed by the dozens of recordings of his varied orchestral and chamber music. His symphonies and string quartets took precedence in several of these releases, his modest but still significant output of orchestral music for cello gets a hearing on this satisfying disc. The Concertino for Cello and String Orchestra is an enticing run-through for his weighty Cello Concerto, which is one of Weinberg’s most eloquent large-scale pieces; rounding out this recording is the enchanting Fantasia. Cello soloist Nikolay Shugaev performs impressively, backed by the solid Tyumen Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Yuri Medianik.