August '25 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight 

(Sony Classics)

For her smart, often dazzling writing-directing debut, actress Embeth Davidtz has made a poignantly personal drama, based on Alexandra Fuller’s memoir of the same name, about a white Zimbabwean family during the Rhodesian Bush War in 1980, from the point-of-view of 8-year-old Bobo who, along with her teenage sister Vanessa, lives with her parents Nicola and Tim on a sprawling family farm full of ghosts, real and imagined. Davidtz’ deeply felt drama of people clinging to a land that’s no longer theirs has a powerfully authentic sense of time, place and stifling atmosphere, and she gives a formidable portrayal of Nicola. But stealing the show is the astonishingly young Lexi Venter, who invests Bobo with a lively and precocious authenticity as our imperfect but captivating guide.

Night of the Juggler 

(Kino Lorber)

A true Manhattan time capsule, this vicious 1980 crime drama follows a former cop literally chasing the maniac who kidnaped his teenage daughter mistakenly thinking she’s a millionaire’s child through the streets is set in a seedy city about to burst from all the dirt, garbage and crime. Robert Butler took over the directorial duties after Sidney J. Furie left, and he pushes the boundaries of taste and logic with every insane chase sequence and bizarrely unrealistic bit of dialogue. The performances by James Brolin (as the dad), Dan Hedaya and Richard S. Castellano (as antagonistic cops) and especially a nutso Cliff Gorman (as the kidnaper) are dialed up to 11, which makes this simultaneously silly and must-see viewing.

Rebel With a Clause 

(Syntaxis Productions)

Only someone who loves language as much as Ellen Jovin would make—with her husband, Brandt Johnson—a documentary recording her visits to all 50 states, where she sits at a grammar desk to interact with curious people who discuss and ask questions about such things as past participles, the use of who/whom, ending a sentence with a preposition and, of course, the ubiquitous Oxford comma. Jovin puts everyone at ease with her easygoing manner; Johnson’s camera catches the nuances of these interactions, even showing without commentary the state of homelessness in this country in a couple of heartrending scenes. But the emphasis is on community in an anything but communal society.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Black Tea 

(Cohen Media)

Malian director Abderrahmane Sissako comes a cropper with this contrived tale of young African woman Aya (a delightful Nina Mélo) who leaves her cheating fiancée at the altar to flee to the Chinese city of Guangzhou, which has a heavily African population and where she learns the subtleties of tea-making from Cai (the charming Chang Han), with whom she slowly falls in love. It’s certainly painless to watch, and Sissako’s eye is as ever precise in his observations, but there’s little here that hasn’t been done better by Sissako in films like Bamako and Timbuktu. The Blu-ray image looks luminous; lone extra is the Berlin Film Festival press conference featuring Sissako, Mélo and Han.

MacMillan Celebrated 

(Opus Arte)

Kenneth MacMillan was a legendary British choreographer whose dances dominated ballet stages for decades; this disc celebrates his exuberant and innovative work with stagings of his Danses concertantes (to the music of Stravinsky), Different Drum (to Webern and Schoenberg) and Requiem (to Fauré). These terrific 2024 performances were staged by the Royal Ballet at its Covent Garden home in London with a cast of exceptional dancers. The hi-def images and audio underline the onstage brilliance; extras include interviews with Benesh choreologists Gregory Mislin and Daniel Kraus as well as Macmillan’s widow Deborah.

Mysteries/Pastorale 1943 

(Cult Epics)

This pair of Dutch films from the 1970s features the estimable pairing of Sylvia Kristel (best known for the Emmanuelle films) and Rudger Hauer (who became a star as an early ’80s villain in Nighthawks and Blade Runner) but are of varying quality— Paul de Lussanet’s Mysteries, in which they play the leads, is a slog of a drama from a Knut Hamsun novel that’s lensed by the great Robby Muller. Krisel and Hauer are excellent, at least. Wim Verstappen’s Pastorale 1943, by contrast, is a hard-hitting drama about Dutch resistance during World War II, with Kristel and Hauer in small supporting roles. In the lead as a Dutchman whose loyalties are murky is the excellent Frederik de Groot. Both films look good and grainy on Blu; extras include commentaries and vintage interviews with Kristel, Hauer, de Laussanet and actor Derek de Lint.

CD Release of the Week 

Tamar Sagiv—Shades of Mourning 

(Sono Luminus)

Israeli cellist Tamar Sagiv’s debut recording is an intensely personal disc that takes the artist—and the listener—through various stages of grief and mourning as well as love and acceptance; the nine short pieces (all original compositions) were inspired by losses in Sagiv’s life along with the precarious state of today’s world. Her playing on solo pieces Shades of Mourning, Roots, Intermezzo and Prelude is starkly expressive and nakedly emotional, while her cluster of works for trio (violin, viola, cello) explores sound worlds both familiar and new. The last piece, In My Blue, is a cello quintet in which Sagiv layers all the parts into a lovely and, finally, moving whole.

July '25 Digital Week III

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

Final Destination—Bloodlines 

(Warner Bros)

The first Final Destination—has it really been a quarter-century?—competently executed a clever idea: after a group of high school students gets off a plane before takeoff and it explodes, killing everyone aboard, death gruesomely takes each survivor. The original was a fun popcorn flick, but the sixth go-round is running on fumes—it’s more of the same, directed with a sledgehammer by Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky from Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor’s sloppy script. The most memorable scene is also the most imbecile: no hospital would have an industrial-grade MRI machine in an unattended, unlocked room—be that as it may, the horrible MRI deaths uncannily resemble what fatally happened to someone on Long Island. The film looks fine in 4K; extras are a directors’ commentary, two making-of featurettes and a tribute to actor Tony Todd.

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Shari & Lamb Chop 

(Kino Lorber)

Ventriloquist Shari Lewis—whom I remember watching as a kid on various TV shows with her unique hand puppets, including the beloved Lambchop—was a trailblazer who has been nearly forgotten, and whom director Lisa D’Apolito resurrects in this entertaining but not entirely sycophantic documentary. Lewis’ fascinating career and complicated personal life are honestly chronicled, with interjections from her daughter, friends, family and associates, and the result humanizes a genuine artist.

Sovereign 

(Briarcliff Entertainment)

Nick Offerman’s performance as Jerry Kane—an angry, widowed father who subscribes to the lunatic notion that he and his teenage son Joseph (Jacob Tremblay) are sovereign citizens and not subject to the laws of the United States, an attitude that ends badly for all involved—is authentically scary and commanding. The film, which director-writer Christian Swegal based on a real incident in Arkansas in 2010, is unsettling to its core, and if it succumbs to clichés like dogs and babies at the end, there’s a lot of difficult but necessary questions about our country’s direction.

Streaming Release of the Week

Mr. Blake at Your Service 

(Sunrise Films)

In this predictably cheesy but cute comedy, John Malkovich plays the title character, a stuffy Englishman who returns to the house where he and his dead French wife met and causes havoc among those living there: Nathalie de Beauvillier and her house servants. Blake becomes de Beauvillier’s butler and by the time the movie ends, all has been put right in everyone’s world. Malkovich is crusty but charming—and speaks French as a stumbling non-native would—as is Fanny Ardant as de Beauvillier. Sadly, Émilie Dequenne, who plays the cook Odile in such a memorably no-nonsense style, died soon after finishing the film of cancer at age 43—a wonderful performer taken far too soon.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Shadow Force 

(Lionsgate)

Kerry Washington and Omar Sy play an estranged couple whose past as paid assassins catches up to them when a vengeful former boss pays a half-dozen killers to go after them—and their young son. In director/co-writer Joe Carnahan’s hands, it all plays out as one improbably violent and explosive sequence after another. Washington and Sy do what they can, although their characters are faceless ciphers. The film looks good on Blu; extras are Carnahan and editor Kevin Hale’s commentary and three making-of featurettes.                                                                                                                                              

Wagner—Der Ring des Nibelungen 

(Accentus Music)

Richard Wagner’s colossal tetralogy about dwarfs and nymphs and gods and mortals and dragons and gold and incest and murder and Armageddon is, at 15 hours of music, punishing for singers, musicians and—sometimes—audiences. Whenever a new Ring staging premieres, Wagner fans worldwide converge, as they did for this staging at the Zurich Opera House last year. Director Andreas Homoki’s concept is minimalist, based on a unit set that has some interesting visual aspects, but the dragon’s appearance is laughably inadequate. 

Still, at least Homoki’s staging never buries the story and music, which—as conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and performed by the Zurich Philharmonia—sounds as glorious as Wagner intended. The acting and singing by such stalwarts as Tomasz Konieczny (Wotan), Camilla Nylund (Brünnhilde), Christopher Purves (Alberich), Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (Mime) and Klaus Florian Vogt (Siegfried) moves the huge plot forward until those final, indescribably beautiful notes. There’s first-rate audio and video; too bad there are no interviews with the conductor, director or singers.

Blu-ray/CD Release of the Week 

Walkin’ After Midnight—The Music of Patsy Cline 

(Mercury Studios)

Country legend Patsy Cline was an inspiration to so many female singers, which this special concert—recorded live at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville last year—showcases with a baker’s dozen of performers ranging from country stalwarts like Wynonna and Pam Tillis to newer voices like Mickey Guyton and Sheya Shepard to Broadway stars like Kristin Chenoweth and rock stars like Pat Benatar. Among these superb performances, highlights are Guyton’s “Walkin’ After Midnight,” Shepard’s “I’ve Loved and Lost Again,” Benatar’s “Imagine That” and Wynonna’s “Crazy.” Hi-def video and audio are impeccable; the accompanying CD includes the same songs. 

Classical Review—Gabriel Fauré Recital at the 92 Street Y

Bell-Isserlis-Denk Trio & Friends

July 9, 2025

92 St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York City

92ny.org

Bell, Duval, Denk, Engstroem and Isserlis performing Fauré’s First Piano Quintet

                                                         (photo: Michael Priest Photography)

Just a notch above Sergei Prokofiev and Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) is my favorite classical composer. A master of small forms, Fauré wrote magnificent chamber music—his piano trio, quartets and quintets; cello and violin sonatas; and string quartet are all masterpieces. I discovered Fauré’s musical elegance about four decades ago, when I saw French film director Bertrand Tavernier’s classic Un Dimanche à la Campagne (A Sunday in the Country), which used excerpts from Fauré’s late chamber pieces to incisive effect. Indeed, critic John Simon, in his 1985 rave of Tavernier’s film, wrote that conductor Herbert von Karajan sent a letter to Tavernier congratulating him on what Karajan considered, in the broadest sense, the most musical film he had ever seen.

To its credit, for its Midsummer MusicFest, the 92nd Street Y on Manhattan’s Upper East Side brought the Bell-Isserlis-Denk Trio & Friends—violinist Joshua Bell, cellist Steven Isserlis, pianist Jeremy Denk, with  their friends, violinist Irène Duval and violist Blythe Teh Engstroem—for two all-Fauré concerts jammed with chamber masterworks. I was only able to attend the first night (even though the second recital had even better works on the program) but was delighted by the passionate and precise performances of such glorious music of quiet clarity and eloquence.

The July 9 concert began with Fauré’s mighty A-major Violin Sonata, the most well-known work on the program, expressively performed by Bell and Denk. Isserlis then joined the pair for an artful reading of the sublime Piano Trio. After intermission, Isserlis and Denk played lovely versions of two of Fauré’s small-scale gems: the Sicilienne (which features one of the composer’s most ravishing melodies) and Berceuse. I would have preferred to hear one of Fauré’s two great cello sonatas—both among the peak works of his late period—instead of these subtle miniatures, but Isserlis must have had a good reason for excluding them. 

This remarkable concert ended with all the musicians onstage to play Fauré’s masterly Piano Quintet No. 1, one of his most brilliant works—although I prefer, by just a hair, the even more majestically intimate second quintet. The interplay, energy and ebullience of the performers during this heavenly half hour was something I haven’t experienced very often.

Kudos to the five friends—and bravo to Gabriel Fauré!

July '25 Digital Week II

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

Sinners 

(Warner Bros)

Ryan Coogler’s ambitious epic, which marries African American and ethnic music history to a metaphorical vampire saga, is an often exhilarating—and quite often enervating—entertainment that’s a more successful popcorn movie than it is the dramatically incisive exploration of racism in the Jim Crow South that it aspires to. Led by Michael B. Jordan’s superb dual performance as the Smokestack twins, the cast also features knockout turns by Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke, Miles Caton and Delroy Lindo—only blues legend Buddy Guy, in an unnecessary epilogue (shown after some of the end credits, a bizarrely awkward choice), comes off amateurishly. Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s magnificent cinematography, Michael Shawver’s razor-sharp editing and Ludwig Göransson’s savvily eclectic score contribute handsomely to making this a visceral thrill. The UHD imagery looks stunning; extras comprise more than an hour of on-set footage and interviews along with 18 minutes of deleted scenes.

In-Theater Releases of the Week

F1—The Movie 

(Apple/Warner Bros)

Brad Pitt’s laconic charm is on display throughout this overlong commercial for Formula 1 racing: for two and a half hours, director Joseph Kosinski takes us on a relentlessly formulaic journey through several races, each of which writer Ehren Kruger tries his damnedest to make singular rather than repetitive. Kosinski and Kruger fail, for the most part, while the off-track scenes of Pitt as retired daredevil driver Sonny (who comes out of retirement), Damson Idris as young hotshot driver Joshua, Javier Bardem as team owner Ruben (who talks Sonny into returning) and Kerry Condon as Kate, the brains of the outfit (who—of course—falls for Sonny against her better judgment) are pretty ordinary. It’s shot and paced efficiently and slickly, but if you’re a fan of cars flying around a track at 200 miles an hour, then your—um—mileage may vary.

40 Acres 

(Magnolia)

What begins as unsettling post-apocalyptic sci-fi whose plot follows an Afro-Indigenous family defending its valuable farm from hordes of cannibalistic marauders in a not-too-distant future of famine and anarchy turns into a standard-issue drama bogged down by the usual genre tropes. It’s too bad that R.T. Thorne’s writing and directing debut doesn’t live up to its potential, for there are a lot of interesting ideas at work—but unsubtlety (the family’s name is Freeman, for example) and implausible characterizations/relationships mitigate the film’s more original moments. The impressively physical cast is led by Danielle Deadwyler and Kataem O’Connor.

In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week

Pretty Thing 

(Shout! Studios)

In this tepid twist on Fatal Attraction, Alicia Silverstone is Sophie, a successful executive who favors casual hookups, but after she hooks up with the younger Elliot (including a torrid Paris weekend), she can’t shake him, leading to serious consequences. Silverstone is surprisingly good in the Michael Douglas role, but Karl Glusman is overwrought and hammy in the Glenn Close part, which—with Justin Kelly’s choppy direction and Jack Donnelly’s by-the-numbers script—makes this a watchable but routine revenge thriller.

Streaming Release of the Week 

Let Me Go 

(Omnibus)

Swiss director-cowriter Maxime Rappaz makes her feature debut with this intriguingly off-kilter study of Claudine, a middle-aged seamstress who cares for her mentally impaired adult son as well as regularly travels from her small town to a Geneva hotel where she hooks up with single male travelers for no-strings-attached trysts. But she soon meets a German who upsets her well-ordered personal world. Rappaz’ offbeat character study ends up too reliant on cliches, but the film is helped immeasurably by Jeanne Balibar’s emotionally vulnerable portrayal of Claudine. 

CD Release of the Week

Ginastera—String Quartets 

(Pentatone)

Argentine master Alberto Ginastera (1916-83) might be best known for his tango music and its variations, but his works in forms ranging from orchestral music to operas to chamber pieces are notable for their originality and vigor. His three string quartets are prime examples of his virtuosity; written in three distinct styles, they respectively integrate his local folk-music studies, mid-century modernism and a distinctive late style of pure emotion. The Miró Quartet plays these thrillingly idiosyncratic works with the necessary power and finesse, while soprano Keira Duffy gives  beautifully ethereal voice to the Spanish-language poems that make up three movements of the third quartet, a remarkably haunting “hallucination,” in Ginastera’s own description.

Broadway Play Review—“Call Me Izzy” with Jean Smart

Call Me Izzy

Written by Jamie Max; directed by Sarnia Lapine

Performances through August 17, 2025

Studio 54; 254 West 54th Street, NYC

callmeizzyplay.com

Jean Smart in Call Me Izzy (photo: Marc J. Franklin)

First, the good news: Jean Smart is killing it on Broadway. Now, the not-so-good news: the play she’s in, Call Me Izzy, is a creaky solo vehicle.

Call Me Izzy is narrated by the chipper and chatty Isabelle, a middle-aged wife living in a trailer park with her longtime husband Ferd, who—we come to discover—has been abusing her for years, physically and emotionally. Izzy was a smart student who loved to write; indeed, she could have attended college but since she—like so many other Southern belles of her generation—married immediately after high school, she had no choice but to be a stay-at-home wife and, soon, mother…although her son tragically died shortly after birth, further alienating Ferd from Izzy.

As the above shows, Max’s play follows a typical—even stereotypical—trajectory, as Izzy narrates a life that unfolds promisingly but is ultimately shut down by a dominating husband. Izzy gets another chance later in her marriage when she joins a free night writing class at the community college and her stories are entered in a contest to spend time at a New England writing retreat. She wins but realizes she’ll never convince Ferd to let her go, so she never mentions it. But soon the couple running the retreat comes to rural Louisiana to meet them for dinner and, they hope, convince her to join them. Unsurprisingly, Izzy pays dearly for that evening, despite Ferd and the husband and Izzy and the wife bonding for a moment. 

Will Izzy break free of Ferd or will she stay, petrified of his drunken rages? It’s all so predictably, sentimentally sketched out by Max, who is not above (or below) relying on such contrivances as Izzy locking herself in the bathroom to secretly write after Ferd destroys decades’ worth of her journals—she uses toilet paper and hides the contraband in a box she hides from Ferd. But would he really not find her latest musings after what he did earlier? And Izzy implausibly has an affair with her writing teacher in her own home, where they carry on merrily without getting caught. 

Call Me Izzy is rife with such inconsistencies, yet Max has written a juicy titular role that Smart dazzlingly makes her own, bringing the audience into her confidence and making us care about as well as laugh and cry along with her. Smart brings haunting heartbreak to the (unfortunately clichéd) final scene, which finds Izzy trapped between confinement and freedom. 

Despite Smart’s acting tour de force and Sarnia Lapine’s understated direction, Call Me Izzy never feels like a fully-formed play. Here’s hoping Smart will return to Broadway in a meatier role, something like Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days.

July '25 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Sorry, Baby 

(A24)

Eva Victor—whom I knew only from her tart turn as a young hot shot in the Showtime series Billions—has made a very auspicious triple-threat debut as a director, writer and actor in an often funny but also heartfelt exploration of how a graduate student turned professor named Agnes deals with being sexually assaulted by her thesis advisor. Divided into sections that go back and forth in time, the film unfolds as an intentionally messy but intimate look into the head space of someone whose emotional trauma doesn’t define her but still holds a powerful grip. At times, Victor’s deadpan delivery, dialogue and direction threaten to derail her carefully thought-out drama, but she is such a winning performer that she keeps viewers enveloped in an awkward but affectionate hug like the one Agnes shares with neighbor-lover Gavin (a lovely turn by Lucas Hedges).

The Last Class 

(Abramorama)

Elliot Kirschner’s fawning documentary follows Robert Reich—one-time U.S. secretary of labor and longtime professor of economics—as he prepares for his final class before retirement, having taught an estimated 40,000 students over his many-decade teaching career. Kirschner mostly eschews politics to concentrate on Reich’s interactions with his students, which makes his 71-minute film often seem more a superficial glimpse at a “teacher of the year” instead of a deeper exploration of the complex legacy Reich leaves behind both in government and in academia.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

A Minecraft Movie 

(Warner Bros)

The special effects are the undeniable star of this bizarre, sporadically entertaining adaptation of the legendary video game; if director Jared Hess isn’t able to corral a game cast—with Jack Black at his scenery-chewing worst/best—into a cohesive ensemble, he does allow them to interact with the often arresting creatures conjured by visual effects maven Dan Lemon. Five writers labored on the lame script, whose ending will undoubtedly allow a sequel to spring forth; there’s a first-rate UHD transfer that shows off this otherworld in its many details, and extras are several featurettes.

Lethal Weapon 

(Warner Bros)

When Mel Gibson and Danny Glover teamed up in this clunky 1987 buddy picture about antagonistic cops who improbably mesh together, no one would have guessed it would be a smash hit that spawned three enervating sequels. By that metric, this first entry is the most watchable: Gibson and Glover have an undeniable chemistry, while director Richard Donner sets the comic repartee against the increasing—and unnecessarily violent—mayhem. Both the theatrical and director’s cuts are included; extras include a Donner appreciation by cast and crew along with a featurette on Glover and Gibson, the latter of whom tellingly isn’t part of the new interviews.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Eephus 

(Music Box)

As baseball movies go, Eephus doesn’t go for the mythmaking of Field of Dreams or sardonic humor of Bull Durham—rather, director/cowriter Carson Lund and cowriters Nate Fisher and Mike Basta tell an engagingly low-key story of amateur ballplayers playing one last game at the local ballfield before it’s scheduled to be bulldozed to make way for a new school. The emphasis is on camaraderie and occasionally, flaring tempers—and if the movie at times is too meandering, it mirrors the characters’ sport of choice and is, finally, affecting in its slow-burn way. The film looks good on Blu; extras include commentaries, deleted scenes, blooper reel, interviews, a making-of and a dozen easter eggs.

Zoraida di Granata 

(Dynamic)

The 75 or so operas of Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), highlighted by classics Lucia di Lammermoor, L’Elisir d’Amore and Anna Bolena, includes this 1822 opera seria about Zoraida, a woman betrothed to a tyrant, whose love for Abenamet—sentenced to death by the king—complicates things. The contrived opera clocks in at over three hours but has beautiful arias for its soloists. Bruno Ravella’s production, seen at the Donizetti Opera Festival in Italy last November, comprises marvelous musicmaking from the orchestra and chorus under conductor Alberto Zanardi and chorus director Salvo Sgro, and the two lead roles are exquisitely sung by Zuzana Markova (Zoraida) and Cecilia Molinari (Abenamet). There are excellent hi-def video and audio. 

Streaming/DVD Release of the Week 

Vainilla 

(IndiePix)

Argentine writer-director-actress Valeria Rowinski plays Alma, in her mid-30s and who has never been fully satisfied by a man; her latest boyfriend is as much of a boor and bore as the rest. But after attending a party that allowed her to shed her inhibitions, she allows herself to more fully explore intimacy on her terms. Although Rowinski is an engaging screen presence, her work as writer and director is less developed: Alma is not as interesting as Rowinski imagines her to be.

CD Releases of the Week 

Bliss—The Composer Conducts

Poulenc Plays Poulenc and Satie 

(Somm Recordings)

These valuable releases collect vintage recordings by two prominent 20th-century composers— Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) from England and Francis Poulenc (1891-1963) from France—that give another perspective on their artistry. In the two-disc Bliss set, the composer conducts several of his own works in performances from the 1960s, including BBC live broadcasts celebrating his 70th and 75th birthdays. One of the more underrated of the crop of British composers that included Malcolm Arnold, Arnold Bax, Edmund Rubbra and Alan Rawsthorne, Bliss wrote varied and significant music in several genres, represented here by his vividly realized A Colour Symphony, the monumental oratorio Morning Heroes, his B-flat piano concerto (played brilliantly by John Ogdon) and his Concerto for Two Pianos. 

Poulenc was an expert pianist, and in this recording, he not only plays the solo parts in his own concerto for two pianos (with Jacques Fevier) and Aubade but also several of his eloquent solo keyboard works including Suite Francaise. As a sweetener, Poulenc also plays several piano pieces by his compatriot, Erik Satie, celebrating Satie’s experimental composing style in his Gymnopedie No. 1, Sarabande No. 2 and Gnossienne No. 3. Although the bulk of both recordings are in mono (one Bliss piece is in stereo), everything sounds immediate and vivid, even the Poulenc recordings from 1930 and 1950.

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.