April '24 Digital Week IV

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Civil War 

(Neon)

In Alex Garland’s dystopian nightmare, the U.S. has degenerated into war pitting rebel forces from Texas and California—now there’s an unlikely alliance!—against remnants of federal troops that are disintegrating, as several intrepid journalists record the actual breakdown of America in real time. Garland gets the particulars right, from the intense opening of a suicide bomber on a Manhattan street to the final, prolonged shootout as the rebels storm the White House and root out a cowering president. But there’s no overarching theme or point, while visually and narratively, much is borrowed from Full Metal Jacket, with reporters and photographers following the fighting to the documentary-like visuals: one of the photographers even falls into a pit filled with dead bodies, a seeming homage to Kubrick’s classic. Although filmed and edited for maximum tension—and with good performances topped by the peerless Stephen McKinley Henderson as a veteran NY Times reporter on his last legs—Civil War is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.

Kim’s Video 

(Drafthouse Films)

The legendary lower Manhattan video store closed shop in 2009, and directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin—the former a particularly gregarious fan of the store’s legacy and cinema history—track down the collection to, of all places, a rural Italian town in this engagingly messy documentary. On visiting the collection, Redmon gets into a bit of trouble with the authorities, before teaming with the small chain’s owner, Youngkin Kim, to return the discs and tapes to their rightful place in New York. It’s breezy and clunky in equal measure, but by padding the narrative with clips from dozens of movies Redmon alludes to throughout ironically moves the focus away from Kim’s Video and its legacy, making for a strangely unsatisfying film.

LaRoy, Texas 

(Brainstorm Media)

I’ve never been a fan of the Coen brothers, but their most pernicious influence may be the copycats who have tried to remake, say, Miller’s Crossing or No Country for Old Men, blackly comic tales of revenge and murder. The latest wannabe, writer/director Shane Atkinson, checks all the familiar boxes—at times, it’s as if an overeager novice got his hands on the first draft of a Coen script and decided to film it. The twists, the turns and the relationships all come across as arch and forced, while the occasionally biting dialogue is more often than not crude. The acting follows suit, so that even good actors like Dylan Baker and Megan Stevenson can’t create plausible characterizations.

Sweet Dreams 

(Dekanalog)

This parable about the perils of colonialism, written and directed by Bosnian Ena Sendijarevic, is a witty look at a family that owns a Dutch East Indian plantation: when patriarch Jan dies suddenly, his widow Agathe, their son Cornelius and pregnant daughter-in-law Josefin hope to keep the estate in the family—but Jan’s beloved servant Siti bore him a son, who’s been named the lone inheritor. Shot in perfectly boxy Academy ratio, Sendijarevic’s deadpan satire might lose its grip at times but remains an intelligent exploration of how history’s horrors keep reverberating.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker 

(Severin)

A true horror relic, this risible but occasionally entertaining 1981 flick follows the Oedipal relationship of high-school student Billy (Jimmy McNichol) and his overprotective aunt Cheryl (Susan Tyrell), whom he’s lived with since his parents died when he was young (we, of course, get to see the gruesomely fatal car crash). The plot involves dead bodies, a gay basketball coach (Steve Eastin), a homophobic detective (Bo Svenson) and student Julia (Julia Duffy), whom Billy is dating; if director William Asher and three (!) writers can’t make this more than a serviceable genre exercise, it never reaches the depths of its ungainly title. There’s a fine UHD transfer; extras include three audio commentaries, new and archival interviews with cast and crew, including McNichol, Tyrell and Svenson.

Cathy’s Curse 

(Severin)

In the vein of The Exorcist, The Omen and It’s Alive, this crudely made 1976 Canadian entry into the “evil child” genre doesn’t even try very hard as young, seemingly possessed Cathy causes her nanny’s demise out of a second-floor window and makes things dangerous for her parents, especially her weak mother. Director Eddy Matalon can barely muster the energy to make his movie competent-looking, and is further defeated by laconic performances and truly lazy writing. There’s a decent 4K transfer; extras include an audio commentary and interviews.

The Departed 

(Warner Bros)

Martin Scorsese won his lone best director Oscar for this 2006 crime drama (which also won best picture), set in Boston among the Irish underworld and crooked cops—it might not be one of his best films but it has Scorsese’s essential traits in, if anything, overabundance. There are the well-placed rock tunes, opening with the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”; the closely observed world of crime and punishment; the vicious and sudden violence—even the final image is an obvious if nasty joke. It’s brilliantly done, with spectacular performances by Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and even mark Wahlberg, even if there’s a sense of déjà vu after 2-1/2 hours. The film looks magnificent in UHD; extras include a new featurette with a new Scorsese interview, along with two featurettes and deleted scenes (with the director’s intro) from previous releases.

Motley Crue—The End 

(Mercury/Universal)

Once upon a time, you couldn't turn on MTV without seeing and hearing Motley Crue in heavy rotation. For those still-loyal fans, this concert in the group’s hometown of L.A. on New Year’s Eve 2015—billed as The End, even though the Crue has since reformed—brings back those good old days, hitting on every phase of the band’s career: they began as a Kiss wannabe, became huge arena-rockers, then stumbled through new singers and drummers before returning to the original lineup. No true fan will be disappointed with this hit list, including much time-capsule material: “Looks That Kill,” “Girls Girls Girls,” “Dr. Feelgood” and “Home Sweet Home” all contain big hair, makeup, tight pants—from the band and their sleek female dancer-singers. The 4K video and surround sound, are crisp and clear; extras include band interviews and closeup footage of the flame-throwing bass and drum rig.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Doom Patrol—Complete Final Season 

(Warner Bros)

In the final season of this weird but always watchable superhero series, the disposable, deplorable  outcasts once again take on the mantle of being simultaneous saviors and survivors, battling adversaries from without and within. The terrific ensemble, led by April Bowlby, Brendan Fraser and Dianne Guerrero, stays on the edge of being tongue-in-cheek and unabashedly sentimental throughout, and this unlikely blend prevents it all from becoming too sappy or satirical. This season’s dozen episodes look remarkable in hi-def; extras include three featurettes.

Drive-Away Dolls 

(Lionsgate)

I had just watched LaRoy, Texas, the latest Coen brothers’ rip-off, when I encounter a new movie by one Coen brother (Ethan) and his wife (Tricia Cooke)—it’s so cartoonish and insistent on being a piece of blackly comic juvenilia that it has the feel of something from the early Coen years a la Blood Simple or Raising Arizona. It’s also no better than those two films, with annoying characters acting annoyingly while spewing offbeat, deadpan, obnoxious lines of dialogue. On the plus side, Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan make an amusing pair of lesbian friends on the run with some inept crooks’ stash in their trunk of their rental car, and the movie’s only 84 minutes long. It has a very good Blu-ray transfer; extras comprise three making-of featurettes. 

Monolith 

(Well Go USA)

The nameless protagonist tries to resurrect her flailing career by hosting a podcast about conspiracy theories—and is soon caught up in an insane alien conspiracy that she realizes she is also intimately involved with. Matt Vesely’s initially taut thriller unfortunately loses it about two-thirds through, but Vesely and writer Lucy Campbell’s portrait of conspiracist thinking hinges on Lily Sullivan, the only person onscreen (there are voices on phone calls), and she responds with a brilliantly crazed portrayal. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; lone extra is a behind the scenes featurette.

CD Releases of the Week

Frederick Delius—Hassan 

(Chandos)

English composer Frederick Delius (1862-1934) wrote music of great variety, from the tone poems In a Summer Garden and A Song of Summer to the operas A Village Romeo and Juliet and Fennimore and Gerda and the choral works Sea Drift and A Mass of Life. His incidental music for the prose play Hassan comprises about an hour’s worth of a colorful if at times meandering musical atmosphere that’s heightened when accompanied by a chorus or, in its most memorable moments, the haunting tenor voice in the melancholy final scene. This estimable recording combines the stellar singing of the Britten Sinfonia Voices, the first-rate narrator Zeb Soanes, and the fine playing of the Britten Sinfonia, all led by the adept conducting of Jamie Phillips.

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich—Symphony No. 5 and Orchestral Works 

(BMOP/Sound)

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s music is full of bountiful imagination, and this disc, comprising one of her very best works and three other orchestral pieces, shows her at the pinnacle of her artistry. The centerpiece of this superb recording is her Symphony No. 5, which I was fortunate to hear at its 2008 Carnegie Hall world-premiere performance by the Juilliard Orchestra. It’s an inventive, zesty, vital achievement, buoyed by Zwilich’s brilliance at writing melodically and vigorously for the orchestra as both an ensemble and a group of first-rate soloists. The other works on this disc range from the effervescent opener, the perfectly titled Upbeat!, to the subtle coloring of two concertos: Concerto Elegia for flute and orchestra and Commedia dell’arte for solo violin and string orchestra. Flutist Sarah Brady and violinist Gabriela Diaz are perfection in their showcase works, while Gil Rose skillfully leads the Boston Modern Orchestra Project throughout.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Sally & Tom”

Sally & Tom

Written by Suzan-Lori Parks; directed by Steve H. Broadnax III

Performances through May 12, 2024

Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, NYC

publictheater.org

Sheria Irving and Gabriel Ebert in Sally & Tom (photo: Joan Marcus)

Among contemporary playwrights, you’d think Suzan-Lori Parks would be the one to have an original and startling take on the complicated relationship of founding father Thomas Jefferson and enslaved Sally Hemings. But, with Sally & Tom, Parks has created an intermittently lacerating but mainly mild play about one of the most fraught subjects in our fraught national history.

To grapple with and have a contemporary dialogue with the historical subject at hand, Parks introduces a scruffy off-off-Broadway troupe putting on a play titled The Pursuit of Happiness—it was originally called E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One), something that Parks gets some decent mileage out of—in which the relationship between T.J. (as Jefferson is so-called) and Sally is dramatized from a distinctly 21st-century point of view. 

The play-within-a-play is written by Luce, who plays Sally, and directed by Mike, who plays T.J. Luce and Mike are a couple bound by their art and their advocacy but who are starting to get tired of begging for money and shouting their words into mostly empty theaters—perhaps belatedly realizing that leftist politics onstage is an echo chamber.

Parks would seem to the perfect playwright to dig into these parallel provocations: studying a beloved American’s indefensible personal life and if it’s possible to make genuine art in these divided times. But she instead creates distance from the task at hand. Sally & Tom has three distinct levels: T.J. and Sally in The Pursuit of Happiness; Luce and Mike as lovers and artists; and the other players in the troupe, whose backstage interactions might be amusing to those who work in the theater but which are a combination of easy laughs and cheap melodramatics that simply pad the running time.

Such a dramatic and comic imbalance dilutes what Parks is saying about the pedestal our Founding Fathers have been put on; the unfairness of history being written by white men; and the agency of a woman like Sally, who bore seven of Jefferson’s children but was never freed by him, even on his deathbed, unlike both Washington and Franklin, as is mentioned in the play. (Jefferson’s daughter Patsy freed Sally and others after her father died July 4, 1826—significantly the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—along with John Adams in one of history’s best coincidences.)

To be sure, there are fleeting moments of precise observation and ringing insight, but Sally & Tom really only flashes to vivid life in the speeches that climax each act. Act one ends with a long and winding soliloquy by T.J. (of which Gabriel Ebert, who’s most engaging as both Mike and Tom, gives a persuasive reading), which treads the fine lines of self-pity, self-absorption, and self-analysis, thanks to Parks’ acuteness at studying this extraordinary man with extraordinary flaws. 

Even better is the monologue Parks has written for Sally (the gifted Sheria Irving, who’s superb as both Luce and Sally, rises to Shakespearean heights here), in which she—and by extension Parks—grapples with her own place in a history she has officially never been part of, even if recent Jeffersonian history has started to grant her space there. Sally eloquently describes her conflicting emotions:

I want to push his hands off. Tear away whatever of myself makes him want me. And yet, the horror of him wanting me keeps me from other horrors. Some might say we were docile. I say we were resilient. And we pass that down to you. And there were so many things we wanted to say. But didn’t. So many things we wanted to do. But didn’t. We should have burned the whole place down. Instead we built it up.

Sally’s thoughtful, poignant plea overcomes some of the preceding two-plus hours’ repetitiveness.

Steve H. Broadnax III’s direction nicely corrals the three disparate story threads into a nearly cohesive whole, and the ensemble amusingly handles the doubled roles of the other performers and their characters. Riccardo Hernández’ scenic design, Rodrigo Muñoz’ costumes, Alan C. Edwards’ lighting, Dan Moses Schreier’s sound design and Schreier and Parks’ music adroitly dip us in and out of each segment. 

But the final coup de theatre, a list of Monticello’s enslaved names appearing on the back wall, is a visual sledgehammer that unnecessarily underscores the play's bluntness, despite its lofty intentions.

April '24 Digital Week III

Streaming/In-Theater Releases of the Week

The Absence of Eden 

(Roadside Attractions/Vertical)

In writer-director Marco Perego’s sketchy melodrama, Shipp, a rookie border agent with a conscience, must deal with the cynical Dobbins for a partner; a girlfriend, Yadira, who may be undocumented; and an undocumented Mexican woman, Esmee, who is trying to protect a young child. Perego tries to be even-handed in his study of these flawed characters, but his vision is no deeper than that of a driver looking through his windshield in the pouring rain without wipers on. The director’s wife, Zoe Saldaña, gives a committed performance as Esmee, Grant Hedlund is a persuasive Shipp and Adria Arjona is an impassioned Yadira, but they are performing in a vacuum, since the film is so thin dramatically and politically that it suggests a first draft.

Blackout 

(Dark Sky)

If you haven’t had your fill of werewolf movies yet, along comes writer-director Larry Fessenden with his typically astringent take on the nocturnal creature feature, as an artist in a small town thinks that he may be the one who is behind several recent overnight maulings. Fessenden keeps a sense of humor about his material, along with a smattering of social commentary, but there’s little here that we haven’t seen before—An American Werewolf in London anticipated the jokey but gory genre more than 40 years ago—yet it does have its occasional successfully tense moments.

Food, Inc. 2 

(Magnolia)

In 2008’s Food, Inc., director Robert Kenner teamed up with investigative authors Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser to tell a cautionary tale of how Big Agriculture has made it nearly impossible to eat healthfully. Nearly two decades later, the sequel has arrived to tell an even more alarmist story that encompasses the disasters of the recent pandemic, notably that Big Ag corporations carved out exceptions to the many COVID restrictions to keep their factories going—at the cost of sick workers, among other things. As Kenner, codirector Melissa Robledo, Pollan and Schlosser show, this is not a left-right issue, but one that affects all of us, and they allow several individuals (including U.S. senator Cory Booker) to discuss new and innovative ways of food production that might lead toward more food sustainability.

Irena’s Vow 

(Quiver Distributing)

The astonishing true story of Irena Gut Opdyke, a Polish Catholic nurse who was able to hide 13 Jews in the house of a prominent Nazi for whom she worked, is vividly dramatized in Louise Archambault’s feature from a script by Dan Gordon, based on his own play that played briefly Broadway in 2009. Like the play, Gordon’s script is too melodramatic, even saccharine at times, but the humane, believable Irena of Canadian actress Sophie Nélisse rescues this low-key study of an ordinary person who almost backs into becoming a heroine. 

Resistance—They Fought Back 

(Abramorama)

This deeply felt documentary chronicles several instances of successful Jewish resistance against the barbarism of the murderous Nazis throughout Europe that counteracts the prevailing narrative that the Jews were just meek victims. Directors Paula Apsell and Kirk Wolfinger adroitly mix testimony from survivors and their descendants alongside discussion of historians to underline the heroic actions of so many. With narration and other voices by Corey Stoll, Maggie Siff and Lisa Loeb, among others, this necessary portrait illuminates how goodness was able to, at times, overcome evil. 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

The Devil’s Honey 

(Severin)

When her boyfriend Johnny dies on the operating table at the hands of neglectful Dr. Wendell Simpson, vengeful young Jessica kidnaps Wendell and subjects him to torture of the physical and emotional kind, which morphs into a twisted sexual relationship. Italian director Lucio Fulci’s 1986 drama is often risible but always watchable, as he’s unafraid to get down and dirty with his characters—whether it’s the opening music-studio salvo between Jessica and Johnny as he plays his horn or the increasingly creepy interactions between Jessica and Wendell. There’s also the stunningly erotic presence of Blanca Marsillach, the Romanian actress who plays Jessica persuasively. The film looks quite good in 4K as well as on Blu-ray; extras include interviews with Fulci, Marsallich and costars Brett Halsey and Corinne Clery as well as an alternate opening.

The Great Alligator 

(Severin)

Not many would bring up this 1979 monster movie as one of the better rip-offs that arrived in the wake of Jaws, but Sergio Martino’s waterlogged thriller is demented enough to keep one watching, despite the silly dialogue and acting—especially by poor Barbara Bach, who looks properly embarrassed throughout. The plot—an island god, seeking vengeance, takes the shape of a supergator to take down the natives and tourists at a tropical resort—is also ridiculous but keeps one interested for a relatively brief 90 minutes. The UHD transfer is good enough, as is the Blu-ray; extras include several interviews with cast and crew, including Martino, and English and Italian audio tracks are included.

Rambo—Last Blood 

(Lionsgate)

If this is truly the final go-round for John Rambo, as this 2019’s title surely promises, then we’ve had worse before—I gave up after the awful third entry—and this, the fifth go-round, has Rambo going after the drug cartel criminals who have kidnaped and forced into sexual slavery the granddaughter of the woman who comanages his horse ranch. Director Adrian Grünberg knows that Rambo’s—and Sylvester Stallone’s—bread and butter is action, the more violent the better, and this entry checks all the boxes, from the xenophobic treatment of Mexicans to some creative ways of taking out Rambo’s enemies when they attack him at home for a satisfying if predictable conclusion to the series. The UHD transfer is sparkling; extras are a substantial production diary and musical score featurette.

CD Releases of the Week

Benjamin Britten—Violin Concerto 

(BR Klassik)

Just weeks after listening to Baiba Skride tackle the youthful Violin Concerto by English composer Benjamin Britten (1913-76), I got to hear another formidable take on that masterpiece, this time in an excellent recording by soloist Isabelle Faust, who easily dispatches the technical demands of this masterly workout for her instrument. Jakub Hrůša intelligently conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Rounding out the disc are a few enticing chamber works by Britten that predate his concerto, including the world premiere recording of Two Pieces for violin, viola and piano, nicely played by Faust, her violist brother Boris, and pianist Alexander Melnikov. 

Paul Moravec—The Shining 

(Pentatone)

Despite being based on Stephen King’s original 1977 novel—which Mark Campbell’s libretto follows fairly faithfully—Paul Moravec’s opera must deal with the proverbial elephant in the room: Stanley Kubrick’s chilling 1980 film classic that jettisoned much of King’s book and remains The Shining of choice for me. That long shadow includes Kubrick’s music choices: his innovative and original use of works by 20th-century modernists Bartók, Ligeti and Penderecki are are one of the main reasons why the film remains disturbing and indelible. Moravec has gone in a different direction; the rumblings of menace always bubble under the surface of his score but often hold back the terrors that beset the Torrance family once father Jack becomes haunted by the Overlook Hotel’s ghosts. Though it still effectively tells the tale, especially in its quieter moments like the touching finale, this adaptation falls short of the incendiary and baroque visual and musical explosion Kubrick created. Gerard Schwartz ably conducts the Kansas City Symphony and Lyric Opera of Kansas City Chorus, while the main roles are well taken by Edward Parks (Jack), Kelly Kaduce (Wendy), Tristan Hallett (Danny) and, best of all, Aubrey Allicock (Hallorann).

Broadway Musical Review—“Water for Elephants”

Water for Elephants

Book by Rick Elice; music and lyrics by PigPen Theatre Co.

Directed by Jessica Stone

Through September 8, 2024

Imperial Theatre, 249 West 45th Street, NYC

waterforelephantsthemusical.com

Isabelle McCalla in Water for Elephants (photo: Matt Murphy)

Based on Sara Gruen’s 2006 novel that became a mediocre 2011 movie, Water for Elephants has splashed down on Broadway. And the most dazzling moments of this musical set in a circus are exclusively visual: the incredible acrobats and dancers as well as—impressively if derivatively—the puppetry that brings the captive animal performers, including Rosie the elephant, to life.

But despite that, Water for Elephants has songs that are unmemorable and a story that makes soap operas look like Shakespeare. The romantic triangle spotlights our desperate Depression hero, Jacob Jankowski, who joins the circus after a rural New York State performance—since his dad was a vet and Jacob studied it in school, he’s taken on as the new horse doc; Marlena, the beautiful star of the horse show; and ringmaster and circus owner August, who’s Marlena’s loving but brutal husband.

Jacob and Marlena meet cutely when he gives her recommendations about her ailing Silver Star, then they grow closer while training Rosie, who August hopes will be the big new attraction the circus needs. The musical then turns into a romantic rectangle, but its predictability overwhelms it: is anyone shocked by the comeuppance August contrives for aging circus veteran, Camel (who also was close to Jacob)? Then there's the unabashedly sentimental framing device of an elderly Jacob (played by the old pro Gregg Edelman), wandering into a circus from the rest home and telling his story to the workers—and us.

That Water for Elephants isn’t completely risible is due to Jessica Stone’s savvy staging that, whenever the love story cloys, comes to the rescue with spectacular acrobats or boisterously busy dance numbers—credit also to Shana Carroll and Jesse Robb’s clever choreography, Carroll’s lively circus design, Takeshi Kata’s evocative sets, Bradley King’s sharp lighting and David Israel Reynoso’s detailed costumes. 

Then there’s the arresting appearance of several adorable animals, from a pet pooch and the circus monkeys to the unfortunate Silver Star, who gets the show’s best moment when Antoine Boissereau exquisitely performs a ballet in the air to visualize the animal’s suffering. Rosie, by contrast, isn’t very imaginatively thought out; in any case, the anthropomorphic animals’ look and movement are cut from the same cloth as the puppetry of The Lion King and War Horse, tweaked by Ray Wetmore & JR Goodman and Camille Labarre but coming in a distant second.

The merely serviceable songs by PigPen Theatre Co. and book by Rick Elice are enlivened by the large and energetic cast, with the lovers Marlena and Jacob winningly enacted by Isabelle McCalla—who might soon give Lea Michele a run for her money—and Grant Gustin. They might not save Water for Elephants from drowning, but the show is a mild diversion. 

April '24 Digital Week II

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Coup de Chance 

(MPI International)

For his 50th film, Woody Allen returns to the blunt morality tales of Match Point and Solitary Man, this time set in Paris—and spoken in French (a language he doesn’t speak): a beautiful young wife runs into an old schoolmate and begins an affair, which triggers her jealous husband’s radar, with ultimately fatal results. Woody foregoes the complex moral study of a masterpiece like Crimes and Misdemeanors for a straightforward story with an O. Henry twist; it’s minor but satisfying, thanks to his economical directing, Vittorio Storaro’s glistening photography and the persuasive performances, especially by the always winning Lou de Laâge.

The Beast 

(Sideshow/Janus)

French director Bertrand Bonello has tackled provocative subjects as disparate as pornography, prostitution, terrorism and zombies. His latest, though, is a loose, middling adaptation of a fascinating novella by Henry James (The Beast in the Jungle); Bonello follows Gabrielle, a young woman whose DNA has purified and emptied of emotions, and he shows her past lives, from 1910 to 2044. The 145-minute film is turgid and slow-paced, and even the myriad stylishness Bonello partakes in—split screens, changing aspect ratios, freeze frames, slow-motion, rewinding, voiceovers—are desperate stratagems to hide the lack of any compelling characterizations or insights. Even the usually magnetic Lea Seydoux at its center—and with fine support from George McKay, who reportedly learned French for the role—can’t keep this from becoming wan and moribund, except for a stunning underwater sequence halfway through. 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Monster 

(Well Go USA)

Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda has made several memorable films about family bonds and their complexities, and his latest is a riveting, potent drama about the ramifications of a bullying accusation made against a schoolteacher. As usual with Kore-eda, the plot is like a pebble being thrown into a pond: its reverberations take in superbly etched studies of several characters, with flashbacks and shifting points of view keeping us on edge and involved. The director has enormous sympathy for each of them in turn, his sensitive and insightful approach always paying dividends, and leading to a surprising, emotionally devastating finale. It goes without saying it’s exceptionally acted from a large cast. The film looks wonderful on Blu; lone extra is an English dub.

Lisa Frankenstein 

(Focus/Universal)

In this soggy spoof of and homage to silly ’80s horror comedies, writer Diablo Cody has fashioned an occasionally funny but ultimately derivative tale of teenager Lisa, who meets and starts a secret relationship with a male zombie from the Victorian era. It sounds icky and, for the most part, it is—neophyte director Zelda Williams and Cody lean into the goofiness of the era it’s set (1989), but that only goes so far: it’s up to Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse as the unlikely couple to make this enjoyable at times. The Blu-ray transfer is terrific; extras include Williams’ audio commentary, interview with Cody and Williams, deleted scenes, and making-of featurettes.

Night Swim 

(Universal)

This waterlogged attempt at a supernatural horror film is saddled with protagonists—a suburban family consisting of an ill, retired major leaguer, his wife, their son and daughter—that act moronically from the start, as the family buys the house even after the dad nearly drowns after falling into the seemingly haunted pool. Once strange things start happening—which we know about since we saw a girl drown in the pool in the film’s intro—it spirals into true risibility as it steals from better movies like Jaws and Poltergeist. As the parents, Wyatt Russell and especially Kerry Condon try but fail to keep their heads above water, and writer/director Bryce McGuire is unable to throw the cast a lifeline. It looks good on Blu; extras include several on-set featurettes.

Die Walküre 

(Naxos)

The second opera of Richard Wagner’s fabled Ring cycle receives a 2021 Berlin State Opera staging by director Stefan Herheim that’s part perplexing and part powerful—here’s hoping that the production becomes clearer in the final two Ring operas, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung. Conductor Donald Runnicles nicely harnesses the massive orchestral forces, and the singers (especially Iain Paterson’s Wotan, Elisabeth Teige’s Sieglinde and Nina Stemme’s Brunnhilde—handle the treacherous vocal writing spectacularly. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.

CD Releases of the Week 

Fauré—Complete Music for Solo Piano 

(Sony Classical)

French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was a master of smaller forms, as witness his magnificent chamber music—his piano trio, quartets and quintets; cello and violin sonatas; and string quartet are all masterpieces. His larger works—the opera Pénélope; grand cantata Prométhée and his famous Requiem—are equally brilliant, but, as this new set of complete solo piano music attests, Fauré is justly celebrated for his intimately-scaled works. Young French pianist Lucas Debargue tackles Fauré’s solo piano oeuvre with passion and precision; the Nocturnes and Barcarolles that Fauré composed throughout his life are imposing in their variety and majesty, and other works—the early F-major Ballade and the late 9 Préludes—sound both revelatory and reassuringly familiar in Debargue’s expressive hands.

Weinberg—Four Sonatas for Solo Cello 

(Arcana)

Russia’s Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96) sadly never witnessed his musical renaissance, which began with his shattering Holocaust opera The Passenger, several productions of which were followed by many first-rate recordings of his varied orchestral and chamber music released in the past couple decades. Weinberg’s set of four solo cello sonatas (written between 1960 and 1986) nods to Bach’s renowned half-dozen suites—Benjamin Britten also composed three suites for Mstislav Rostropovich between 1964 and 1971—but there’s also a modernity to Weinberg’s technical demands that sets the four works apart. Cellist Mario Brunello plays magnificently throughout, and these formidable sonatas are another aspect of Weinberg’s large body of work that continues to be performed and appreciated.

Film Series Roundup—Director Patricia Rozema Retrospective

Patricia Rozema Retrospective

Through April 11, 2024

Roxy Cinema

2 Avenue of the Americas, New York City

Roxycinemanewyork.com

Director Patricia Rozema

Canadian director Patricia Rozema has been making highly personal and idiosyncratic films for several decades now, although in America she is barely known. The Roxy’s retrospective—the first in New York that I can recall—comprises several films, including several rarely seen ones.

I Saw the Mermaids Singing

In 1987, Rozema made her feature debut with I Saw the Mermaids Singing, a lightweight, alternately enervating and charming comedy about Polly, an aimless young woman who latches onto her new boss Gabrielle, an elegant gallery owner, discovering new things about herself along the way. Although Sheila McCarthy makes a winning heroine, the unfocused film’s literal flights of fancy and narrative tangents are more cutesy than witty.

White Room

With her next film, Rozema would find her own voice, even though she calls it an “abject failure” (whether jokingly or not I don’t know). 1990’s White Room, which has never been released in the U.S., is an unnerving neo-noir about naïve garderner Norm, who witnesses the murder of rock star Madelaine X (an all too briefly seen Margot Kidder), then gets involved with the mysterious Jane, whom he meets at the funeral. Maurice Godin is a wooden Norm, but Kate Nelligan gives one of her best performances as Jane, a sensual and maternal presence that dominates the movie—shot, as many of her films are, in an always photogenic Toronto. 

When Night Is Falling

In 1995, Rozema made When Night Is Falling, a trenchantly observed study of the intimate relationship between Camille, a married philosophy professor, and Petra, a traveling circus performer. Although it sounds like mere softcore titillation, Rozema’s direction and writing as well as the first-rate acting from her cast—Pascale Bussières as Camille, Rachael Crawford as Petra, and Henry Czerny as Camilla’s professor boyfriend Martin—makes it one of the more memorable of the mid ’90s entries into lesbian drama.

Mansfield Park

Also part of the Roxy retro are Rozema’s first two films made outside Canada, unsurprisingly featuring formidable heroines—and stellar performances—at their center. Mansfield Park (1999) remains one of the most original Jane Austen adaptations, with Frances O’Connor at her most winning as Fanny. And Rozema’s contribution to the 2000 omnibus series Beckett on Film, the one-woman play Happy Days, stars a mesmerizing Rosaleen Linehan as one of Beckett’s greatest creations, Winnie, who’s buried up to neck in sand.

Happy Days

Too bad that Rozema’s most recent feature, 2018’s Mouthpiece, does little with the conceit that Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken brought to their original play—both enact aspects of the metaphorically named Cassandra, a woman dealing with her mother’s death. Only an admittedly perfect final image redeems this otherwise one-note film, but that shouldn’t detract anyone from seeing the other titles in this long-awaited retrospective.

April '24 Digital Week I

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

La Chimera 

(Neon)

Alice Rohrwacher has been one of our brightest filmmakers since her unforgettable debut, Corpo Celeste, debuted at the 2011 New York Film Festival. Her 2014 follow-up, The Wonders, relied too heavily on forced Felliniesque whimsy, but 2018’s Happy as Lazzaro got the balance between reality and surrealism right. Her latest cinematic fable again traverses that thin line and is as pointed and poignant as anything she’s done. It follows Arthur (Josh O’Connor, excellent in a bilingual role), an English archeologist who robs Truscan sites of artifacts while pining for his girlfriend Beniamina, his own chimera—an impossible-to-find treasure—and remaining in touch with her family, especially boisterous grandmother Flora (Isabella Rossellini, in her liveliest performance in years). Rohrwacher’s sumptuous film is alternately humorous and sad, angry and melancholic—an enormously affecting exploration of coming to terms with one’s past.

Against All Enemies 

(Mighty Pictures)

Necessary but scary is a good description of Charlie Sadoff’s incriminating study about how and why so many veterans of the U.S. armed forces gravitate toward militias and other white supremacist groups, which look ahead—or even forward—to what many of them consider the next civil war. Sadoff talks with military vets, generals and civilians, along with experts on the subjects (especially Kathleen Belew, who has written expertly about the white power and paramilitary movements), all illuminating a subject that will probably be relevant indefinitely—unfortunately. But why Sadoff ends the film with the fact-free rantings of the unhinged Eric “General E” Braden is a real head-scratcher.

The Lie—The Murder of Grace Millane 

(Brainstorm Media)

The awful story of Grace Millane—a 21-year-old English woman who was brutally murdered while vacationing in New Zealand by her Tinder date—is recounted in Helena Coan’s documentary that’s cannily structured like a procedural. After Grace goes missing, the police question a man who was seen on CCTV cameras with her hours before her disappearance—and his version of the story is methodically debunked by the cops and by Coan, who uses the voluminous footage captured of the suspect’s movements to definitely show that he was, in fact, her murderer. What’s most heartbreaking is his not-unusual excuse that they had rough sex and her death was accident—something she could not rebut. 

4K/UHD Release of the Week

All Ladies Do It 

(Cult Epics)

Now 91, Italian director Tinto Brass has made playfully erotic films full of pulchritude falling just  short of hardcore for several decades, and this 1992 riff on the Mozart opera Cosi fan tutte—also the film’s original Italian title—is a prime example: Diana, the gorgeous, teasing wife of a bespectacled husband, titillates him with made-up tales of sexual escapades, but when he angrily throws her out after seeing marks on her body, she goes further than before. As usual with Brass, there’s a surfeit of simulated sexual sequences, and his lead performer, the Romanian actress Claudia Koll, is a histrionic knockout. The superb UHD transfer allows viewers to gaze at Koll as intimately as her director did; extras include a commentary, Brass interview and on-set footage. 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Doktor Faustus 

(Dynamic)

Italian composer Ferrucio Busoni’s greatest opera—which was completed after he died in 1924—is rarely produced for some reason but has two meaty roles for the leading protagonist and antagonist. This 2023 staging in Florence, directed by Davide Livermore, is a well-paced reading of this complex parable about the nature of good and evil. Busoni’s imposing music is performed superbly by the orchestra and chorus of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, conducted by Cornelius Meister, while the exemplary cast is led by Dietrich Henschel’s Faust and Daniel Brenna’s Mephistopheles. The hi-def video and audio are also excellent.

Maskarade 

(Naxos)

Norwegian composer Carl Nielsen wrote two operas, neither of which is frequently performed—the underrated Biblical tragedy, Saul and David, and the frisky comic romp, Maskarade, the latter getting an enjoyable 2021 production by director Tobias Kratzer at Frankfurt Opera. Despite his reputation as a self-serious composer, Nielsen’s engaging music keeps the pace moving fluidly, and Kratzer’s staging is abetted by a fine and large vocal cast and the Frankfurt Opera orchestra and chorus led by conductor Titus Engel. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.

Polar Rescue 

Born to Fly 

(Well Go USA)

These Chinese films home in on the basics of storytelling to create effective flicks for unfinicky audiences. In Polar Rescue, an 8-year-old boy wanders off into the wilderness after his dad punishes him for his misbehavior, and while they search for him, guilt becomes an overwhelming factor; despite some sloppy writing, director Chi-Leung Law constructs a tidy thriller that has the guts to end on a down note. Liu Xiaoshi’s Born to Fly has exciting aerial sequences that compensate for more moribund segments on earth as daring pilots test updated fighter jets to try and keep pace with the meddling American air force. Both films have crisp, clean hi-def transfers.

CD Release of the Week

Noémie Chemali—Opus 961 

(Dreyer-Gaido)

Noémie Chemali, a gifted Lebanese French-American violist, has titled her first solo album after the area code for Lebanon as a tribute to the people there following the devastating 2020 explosion that damaged the seafront area—as she says in the disc’s program note, her grandmother’s house in that neighborhood was destroyed. Chemali’s disc comprises works by six Lebanese composers written in the past decade, including her own Kadishat, a lovely miniature with a yearning viola line. Chemali displays her formidable technique on the other works, including Mary Kouyoumdjian’s The Revolt of the Stars, inspired by an Armenian fable, and Wajdi Abou Diab’s rhythmically challenging The Moraba’ Dance. Chemali and her musical cohort (including Yann Chemali, who plays the cello on Kadishat) make beautiful, engaging music together.

Off-Broadway Play Review—“Corruption” at Lincoln Center Theater

Corruption

Written by J.T. Rogers; directed by Bartlett Sher

Performances through April 14, 2024

Mitzi Newhouse Theater, 150 West 65th Street, NYC

lct.org

A scene from Corruption (photo: T. Charles Erickson)

In Corruption, playwright J.T. Rogers tackles what he considers an early salvo in our ongoing—and, seemingly, losing—war with alternative facts and media manipulation: the phone-hacking scandal that engulfed Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, News Corp, and specifically his now-defunct tabloid News of the World and its editor Rebekah Brooks. 

Rogers and director Bartlett Sher have constructed a breathless real-life drama that plays like a nail-biting thriller: even those in the audience who know the outcome are on the edge of their seats as it plays out, since Rogers’ writing and Sher’s staging create a kaleidoscope that alternates between the expansive (media shenanigans and the government’s initially hesitant investigation) and the personal (the effects on ordinary people, especially the family of polarizing politician Tom Watson, who made it his crusade to take down Brooks and Murdoch) in an absorbing 2-1/2 hours.

In 2016’s Oslo—which told the complicated story of the attempt to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine—Rogers and Sher created the blueprint for making lively theater about recent history. Like Oslo, Corruption at times moves too quickly and tries to cover too much, sometimes skating superficially across issues. Some of the scenes between Watson and his understanding but frustrated wife Siobhan, while dramatically necessary, simply move the play forward without being truly gripping.

Far more successful are the dramatizations of behind-the-scenes movements by Brooks and Murdoch—the latter through the unseen Rupert’s CEO son, James, and Tom Crone, the mogul’s legal counsel—as well as the unlikely coupling of Watson’s small office and journalists from The Independent and The Guardian, who hope to collect enough evidence proving the culpability of News Corp (whose upper management’s standard line was that they didn’t know what was going on—and, by the way, we’re not doing it any more) and somehow dent the Murdoch empire’s ubiquity.

It’s these scenes—shuttling back and forth among News Corp machinations, Watson and the journalists’ probes (often at great personal risk) and the government’s tardy but welcome inquiry—that are the racing heart of Corruption, as Rogers’ fleet scenes are given an excitingly cinematic sheen by Sher on the small Newhouse stage with major assists from Michael Yeargan’s sets, Donald Holder’s lighting and 59 Productions’ projections. A ring of video screens above the stage displays various news broadcasts’ “breaking news,” also projected onto the rear wall, along with various tweets Watson sends out in a desperate attempt to gain attention for his initially foundering investigation. 

There’s an amusing moment when, despondent, Watson realizes he needs some sort of public acknowledgement of his efforts; suddenly, none other than George Michael approvingly retweets his posts and Michael’s “Freedom ’90” rings out, closing the first act with the song’s supermodel-stuffed music video playing on those very screens. 

In a play with more than three dozen speaking parts, nearly all of the actors in the excellent ensemble do double, triple, quadruple duty, among whom the very able Dylan Baker, Anthony Cochrane, Eleanor Handley, Robyn Kerr and Michael Siberry stand out. In a tricky role, Saffron Burrows makes Rebekah Brooks formidably sinister without ever turning her into a stock villain. 

At the play’s center is Toby Stephens as the fascinatingly flawed Tom Watson, an unlikely whistleblower at the center of a scandal that threatens to destroy previously held norms of democracy and what’s considered the truth. Watson was no stranger to lowdown dirty politics, and Stephens catches every nuance of his abrasive, aggressive personality. 

Stephens even gives Rogers’ concluding soapbox dialogue (“We will fight because the truth matters, and we will not allow it to be chopped up and sold for parts. We will fight, as long and hard as it takes, because this is our democracy. And that is worth fighting for. So you stand up. You hear me? Stand up.”) the honest commitment it needs to end Corruption with a bang.