October '21 Digital Week III

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Frankenstein’s Daughter 

The Amazing Mr. X 

(Film Detective)

Connoisseurs of low-budget flicks will make a beeline to these forgotten films, starting with the Z-grade Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958), a paltry addition to the classic series, shot in muddy B&W on flimsy sets with atrocious acting and a risible, unscary monster. Then there’s The Amazing Mr. X (1948), an eerie drama about a phony clairvoyant who pretends to help a grieving widow contact her dead husband—and who ends up trying to help her survive in a nice twisty finale. Both films have fine hi-def transfers; extras include commentaries and featurettes.

Black Lightning—Final Season 

(Warner Archive)

In the fourth and final season of Black Lightning, school principal Jefferson Pierce again comes out of superhero retirement to become Black Lightning one last time to battle The 100 as well as symbolically pass the torch to his daughters, Thunder and Lightning. A terrific “metahuman” propels it forward: Cress Williams in the title role and Nefessa Wiliams and China Anne McClain as his daughters/protégés. All 13 episodes look sharp on Blu; lone extra is a making-of featurette. 

Chernobyl 1986 

(Capelight)

Making a saccharine melodrama about the horrific happenings at Chernobyl—site of a nuclear disaster criminally covered up by the Soviet government—is what actor-director Danila Kozlovsky has done, centering the film on Alexey, a fireman who bravely enters the smoldering radioactive ruins after rekindling a relationship with Olga, a single mother whose only son has been seriously irradiated by the accident. Kozlovsky (Alexey) and Oksana Akinshina (Olga) have needed chemistry and sequences inside the crippled plant have the requisite tension. But the love story overwhelms the epic tragedy that unfolds. The film looks frighteningly realistic in hi-def.

Ciboulette 

(Naxos)

French composer Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) created this charming operetta about a beautiful young woman with a hold on the men in her small village, as this frothy 2013 staging at Paris’ Opera Comique by director/actor Michel Fau shows. Fau has corralled several topnotch performers—led by Julie Fuchs as the irresistible Ciboulette, along with a French film grand dame, Bernadette Lafont, as Madame Pingret—and paired them with an exquisite-sounding chorus and orchestra conducted by Laurence Equilbey. There are superb hi-def video and audio.

Corridor of Mirrors 

(Cohen Film Collection)

For his first film, director Terence Young (who went to make the first two James Bond films, Dr. No and From Russia with Love) made this tense 1948 drama about a man who, having fallen in love with a young woman, is convinced he already loved her in another lifetime. Christopher Lee also made his onscreen debut in a supporting role, while Edana Romney makes a fine femme fatale. There’s a gritty-looking B&W hi-def transfer.

Deadly Friend 

(Scream Factory)

When this tongue-in-cheek romantic horror flick came out in 1986, it was noted that Wes Craven—of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Last House on the Left infamy—had made a gentler version of his usual slasher flicks in this weird tale of a smart teen with a homemade robot friend who falls for the cute girl next door…until horrors ensue. Too bad the movie is pretty toothless, despite what’s probably the only time you’ll ever see someone decapitated by a basketball. There’s also cute chemistry between Matthew Labyorteaux and Kristy Swanson. The movie has an excellent hi-def transfer; extras are new interviews with Swanson, screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin, makeup effects artist Lance Anderson and composer Charles Bernstein.

Mad Love 

The Ghost Ship/Bedlam

(Warner Archive)

In 1935’s tense Mad Love, Peter Lorre made his American movie debut as a crazed doctor who, through sheer happenstance after an accident, operates on the mangled hands of the pianist husband (Colin Clive) of a theater actress (Frances Drake) he’s infatuated with—of course, things soon spiral out of control. A double feature of thrillers by legendary producer Val Lewton pairs 1943’s The Ghost Ship, a tidy psychological drama about a crazed freighter’s captain, with the creepy and controlled Bedlam (1946), with Boris Korloff perfectly cast as the head of the infamous 18th century London mental hospital. Both B&W films have excellent hi-def transfers; Mad Love and Bedlam include audio commentaries.

Night Shift

(Warner Archive)

Ron Howard’s 1982 feature has a good straight-man role for Henry Winkler—by then typecast as Fonzie from Happy Days, costarring Howard—as a put-upon morgue attendant with an annoying fiancée and an obnoxious new partner, played with explosive energy by then-newcomer Michael Keaton, whose appearance catapulted him to Mr. Mom and stardom. There’s also a bright comic turn by the always appealing Shelley Long as a hooker with a heart of gold. Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz’s script is fairly ridiculous and too often goes for cheap laughs, but the three leads keep us entertained throughout.

Superman & Lois—Complete 1st Season 

(Warner Bros)

This newest reboot of the man of steel saga finds Clark Kent and Lois Lane returning to Smallville to raise their two sons out of the spotlight of Metropolis. Though difficult at this late date to add anything original to the Superman universe, this series is diverting enough, with charming performances by Tyler Hoechlin (Clark) and Elizabeth Tulloch (Lois) and the welcome presence of Emmanuelle Chirqui as a Smallville friend. The first season’s 15 episodes look fine on Blu; extras include extended episodes and featurettes.

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week

La Navire Night 

(Icarus Films)

Marguerite Duras, who died in 1996 at age 81, was an author, playwright, screenwriter and director whose work enraged and infuriated as much as it engaged and fascinated viewers. Her films were marked by a visual and verbal disjunction that deconstructed and reprocessed form instead of following a well-worn narrative. This 1979 feature is a prime example: it consists entirely of Duras and Benoit Jacquot’s voices describing a telephone romance that is decidedly not enacted onscreen by stars Dominique Sanda, Bulle Ogier and Mathieu Carrière. Pierre Lhomme’s photography—especially in a new restoration—is striking, as is Sanda.

Suzanna Andler 

(Icarus Films)

Marguerite Duras’ typically stripped-down play about a middle-aged wife and mother dealing with the fallout of her infidelity with a younger man has been turned into a claustrophobic if not very interesting film by Benoit Jacquot, whose meager speciality—studies of various women, from the pregnant teenager in A Single Girl to the would-be lover of the aging seucer in Casanova, Last Love—would seem tailor-made for this material. But, despite Charlotte Gainsbourg’s intensity in the title role, Jacquot does little than create a handsome-looking but empty character study.

CD Releases of the Week

Leonard Bernstein—Candide 

(LSO)

Although not well-received at its 1956 premiere, Leonard Bernstein’s operetta based on Voltaire’s 18th century classic about an eternal optimist naively believing in the “best of all possible worlds” has grown in stature since, even though its glorious high points like “Glitter and Be Gay” and the ravishing finale, “Make Our Garden Grow,” are separated by stretches of less-than-scintillating music. For this 2018 London recording, Marin Alsop adroitly conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with a capable cast at her disposal, with Leonardo Capalbo’s Candide, Thomas Allen’s Dr. Pangloss and Anne Sofie von Otter’s Old Lady leading the way. 

Leonard Bernstein—Mass 

(Sony Classical)

Another Bernstein work that has grown in stature since its 1971 premiere at the Kennedy Center, Mass remains problematic, thanks to its bumpy attempt to marry the sounds of Broadway and rock with the groovy feeling of the spiritual. There are lovely moments here—even if they often sound like outtakes from West Side Story or On the Town—but the sheer verve of the performers, both vocal and instrumental, more than make up for the lack of coherence musically or philosophically. This world-premiere recording, conducted by Bernstein and starring baritone Alan Titus as the Celebrant, with two choirs and a full orchestra doing the honors. Despite all their efforts, however, Mass is a Mess.

2021 New York Film Festival Roundup

59th New York Film Festival 

September 24-October 10, 2021

filmlinc.org

At the 59th annual New York Film Festival, opening night’s The Tragedy of Macbeth by the Coen brothers, Pedro Almodovar’s closing night entry, Parallel Mothers, and the festival centerpiece, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, will be released by year’s end. I did catch several other films in the main slate as well as the “Revivals” and “Currents” sections. 

Petite Maman

Best among the main slate selections was, unsurprisingly, Petit Maman (Neon), French director Celine Sciamma’s emotionally precise and ingenious followup to her brilliant Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the best film of the 2019 festival. In this understated but shattering chamber piece, an eight-year-old girl, whose beloved grandmother has just died, meets and befriends a familiar-looking young girl while accompanying her parents to clean out the grandmother’s house. Sciamma, possibly the most accomplished and confident filmmaker working today, has created a movie that’s almost impossible to describe: The Twilight Zone meets Ponette gives a broad outline, but Sciamma works on such a fragile, delicate canvas that the effect is of a master miniaturist working at the very height of her powers, like Vermeer or Fauré. 

Ahed's Knee

The films Policeman (2011), The Kindergarten Teacher (2014) and Synonyms (2019) consolidated Nadav Lapid’s position as a formally challenging director, and his latest, Ahed’s Knee (Kino Lorber; opens early 2022), follows suit; it’s about an Israeli filmmaker who, while in a village for a screening of his new film, must deal with the usual personal and professional problems in his art. Made while Lapid’s own mother (his editor on his earlier films) was dying, Ahed’s Knee is shot through with scathing anger against a government that its protagonist—and his creator, most likely—considers the height of self-righteous hypocrisy and censorship.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Magnolia Pictures; opens Nov. 19 at Film Forum, NYC), Romanian director Radu Jude’s latest provocation, announces its intentions at the very start: a long sequence in which the female protagonist—or her body double (she’s wearing a mask)—enagages in enthusiastic sex with her husband, which he records. This opening prepares us for the masks to follow (after all, this was shot during the pandemic last year) as well as the in-your-face filmmaking of the director, who delights in showing the hypocritical, self-serving attitudes of nearly everyone in the film; then there’s the tongue-in-cheek documentary-style section, which is as audacious as the opening, in its own way. The endings—all three of them—are not as clever as they could be, which leaves us with a shaggy-dog feeling despite Jude’s and his lead actress Katia Pascariu’s fearlessness.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

In Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Film Movement; now playing), a triptych of stories about women dealing with the shifting dynamics of their relationships, Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi develops, with an almost casual mastery, the perfect form for character studies that are alternatingly amusing and unsettling while shuddering with palpable tension throughout. 

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground (Apple Films; now playing/streaming on Apple TV), director Todd Haynes’ documentary about the seminal ‘60s rock band, is a litmus test: for those who already love or appreciate or are simply familiar with the group, it’s engaging and witty about its genesis, career and legacy. For those unfamiliar, this might not be the place to start, since Haynes takes it for granted that the viewer already knows about Lou Reed, John Cale, et al. There are glorious vintage performances and interviews alongside new comments by Cale, Mary Waronov, Maureen Tucker, and Sterling Morrison, among others, who provide an insider’s look not unlike a longish episode of Behind the Music.

Hit the Road

In Hit the Road (Kino Lorber; opens early 2022)—which is, astonishingly, his debut feature—director Panah Panahi, son of Iranian master Jafar Panahi, takes the familiar road movie and transforms it from diverting amusement into tense drama without telegraphing his intent. The foursome—father, mother and sons (one a mainly silent adult, the other an irrepressible, often irritating, six-year-old)—that we see together for 90 minutes has singalongs, movie discussions, arguments, disagreements, moments of caring and tenderness, and a subtle sense of family dynamics, all subtly managed by Panahi with the same humane warmth and observation of his father, at the same time that he moves off in his own direction.

Chameleon Street

As usual, the "Revivals" section included films ripe for rediscovery in new restorations. Chameleon Street (Arbelos Films; opens Oct. 22), which won the grand prize at the 1990 Sundance Festival, is an alloyed triumph for writer-director-star Wendell B. Harris Jr., who plays William Douglas Street Jr., a real-life con man who took on many roles (rather like Frank Abagnale of Catch Me if You Can fame), thereby lying bare the racism, bias and structural inequalities of our society. Not much has changed in three decades, unfortunately.

The Round-Up

Hungarian master Miklós Jancsó’s 1966 international breakthrough, The Round-Up (Kino Lorber), is still a fresh, invigorating and voluptuous B&W study of a low point in 19th century Hungarian history—the rounding up of suspected rebels into prison camps—that uses Jancsó’s intricately choreographed camera movements (his singular long takes would come later) to bring this sordid episode to expressive and ultra-realistic life.

Hester Street

Hester Street (Cohen Film Collection; now playing) somehow gained Carol Kane a 1975 best actress Oscar nomination as a newly-arrived Jewish immigrant in 1896 Manhattan whose husband, already assimilated, has little patience for what he sees as her inadequacies. Joan Micklin Silver’s amateurish, threadbare drama does well depicting—in evocative black and white—the Eastern European culture of the Lower East Side (with much authentic Yiddish dialogue), but the characters are less than compelling.

Prism

An adjunct festival section, "Currents" comprised new films not included in the more prominent main slate. Prism (Icarus Films; now playing/streaming), directed by Eléonore Yameogo, An van. Dienderen and Rosine Mbakam, dives deeply into the racism inherent in the actual cinematic image, with formidable philosophical arguments concerning the very act of lighting skin on film—it’s whitecentric, and has been for generations. Intelligent discussions about the bias that’s baked into every component of filmmaking (as art, craft and technique) complement the elegant filmmaking that challenges such perceived realities. 

All About My Sisters

Equally shattering is All About My Sisters (Icarus Films; now playing), Wang Qiong’s brutally honest reckoning with China’s “one child” policy which, especially during the 1980s and ’90s, made abortion—even late into the third trimester—a deeply discomfiting fact for many families. Wang records her family for three hours of intimate, emotionally devastating reminiscences and confessions, showing how the thoughtless and irreversible edicts of Communist leadership played havoc with the very definition of family, and how Wang’s siblings, parents, and other relatives have come to terms with what decades of deceits, denials and admissions have wrought.

October '21 Digital Week II

Boxed Sets of the Week 

The Ultimate Richard Pryor Collection—Uncensored 

(Time-Life)

When Richard Pryor died in 2005 at age 65, the world lost one of the most hilariously intelligent comedians ever, and this near-comprehensive boxed set explores his multifaceted career, reinforcing his originality and genius for his fans and introducing him to those previously unaware. More than 26 hours of material spread out over 13 discs provide many opportunities to watch, enjoy and admire Pryor from his beginnings as a conventional standup on TV variety and talk shows to the explosive and trenchant social-issues comedian and movie star of the ’70s and ’80s. 

Along with his many hilarious appearances on Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and Dick Cavett, Pryor’s anarchic 1977 NBC special is included as well as the four episodes of his ill-fated The Richard Pryor Show (which featured such up-and-comers as Robin Williams and Sandra Bernhard). The no-brainer inclusions are Pryor’s four seminal live-concert films: Live and Smokin’ (1971), Live in Concert (1979), Live on the Sunset Strip (1982) and Here and Now (1983); even his lone directorial effort, the honest if choppy Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986) appears. To round things out, there are two documentaries, the warts-and-all Omit the Logic (2013) and more straightforward I Am Richard Pryor (2018). Extras include an interview with Pryor’s widow Jennifer Lee Pryor, deleted scenes, outtakes and a collector’s booklet.

NCIS: New Orleans—The Complete Series 

(CBS/Paramount)

After seven seasons, the second offshoot of the NCIS franchise took its final bows in the spring, and this massive boxed set comprises 39 DVDs containing all of the series’ 157 episodes since its premiere on September 23, 2014. Completists will be able to relive all the conspiracies that special agent in charge Pride (Scott Bakula) and his ever-revolving crew were able to untangle, including, in the seventh and final season, some that were COVID-19 related. The always photogenic Big Easy was the real star as Bakula and the likes of Vanessa Ferlito, CCH Pounder and Bakula’s real-life wife, Chelsea Field, were solving crimes on its streets. 

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Arrebato 

(Altered Innocence) 

This crazed 1979 thriller by Spanish director Iván Zulueta (1943-2009)—reportedly one of Pedro Almodovar’s favorite films—is the last word in lunatic Cinemania, with its convoluted tale of a frustrated horror-movie director who’s in a heroin-fueled relationship with an irrepressible girlfriend when he hears from a forgotten friend, spurring him on to an even more debauched lifestyle. There’s dazzling imagery of drug highs and lows as well as sex and cinema, all compensating for its incoherent storyline; there’s also the irresistible Cecilia Roth—a later star of Almodovar movies—as the hero’s lover.

Luzzu 

(Kino Lorber) 

First-time director Alex Camilleri’s chronicle of a Maltese fisherman who must decide whether to keep fishing to dwindling results in his leaky family vessel or move on to a better-paying job to help pay for his infant son’s operation is sympathetic and unsentimental, with nary a wasted shot, gesture or line of dialogue. Built around a stunning performance by real Maltese fisherman Jesmark Scicluna—as well as Michela Farrugia as his son’s mother—Luzzu hints at a return to the Italian neorealism of nearly eight decades ago, but Camilleri is too smart for such a reductive reading: instead, this is a humane and heartbreaking portrait of the difficulties of choosing between family tradition and pure survival.

Mass 

(Bleecker Street) 

The always explosive subject of school shootings is explored by writer-director Fran Kranz as two sets of parents meet for an emotional session some time after a deadly incident that has marked their—and many others’—lives forever. While some of Mass is too on the nose—starting with the title, which describes both the kind of shooting and the movie’s church locale—Kranz lets his impeccable acting quartet shoulder the load, finding honesty and intimacy amid the recounted pain and horror: Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs and especially Martha Plimpton keep this singleminded study on track throughout.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Space Jam—A New Legacy 

(Warner Bros) 

Planting the world’s greatest NBA player alongside beloved Looney Tunes characters already seemed passé when Michael Jordan was in 1996’s original Space Jam, although at least it had a modicum of originality and charm when Jordan interacted with the cartoon counterparts. Today, though, with Lebron James in the lead, it all seems stretched out beyond its meager narrative, even though the computerized effects have it all over Jordan’s version. Don Cheadle has fun as the villain, but Sarah Silverman sleepwalks though her role as a Warner exec. On UHD, of course, it all looks astonishing; on the extra Blu-ray disc, extras include deleted scenes and four making-of featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Flash—Complete 7th Season 

(Warner Bros)

The end of season 6 saw the demise of the Speed Force, and Barry/Flash must fend off numerous adversaries—some time travelers—with his superpowers nearly depleted. This engaging superhero adventure has always had just enough tongue-in-cheek humor to get by, alongside a fine cast led by Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Nicolet, Kayla Compton and Jesse L. Martin. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer of the season’s 18 episodes; extras include three featurettes, a gag reel and deleted scenes.

The Nevers—Season 1, Part 1 

(HBO)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.

This Victorian-era fantasy series from the teeming mind of Joss Whedon features The Touched, which comprises several colorful characters who don’t really have a lot of compelling or interesting things on their plate: instead, we are left with a sumptuous-looking piece of dress-up, and whether that’s enough to keep viewers watching over the long haul remains to be seen. Reliable performers like Laura Donnelly, Ann Skelly, Olivia Williams, Rochelle Neil and Eleanor Tomlinson have little to do in a series that follows the effects of a supernatural event that’s given only women extraordinary abilities. The six episodes look terrific on Blu; extras are several making-of featurettes.

A Night at the Opera 

(Warner Archive)

One of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen—and second only to Duck Soup as the Marx Brothers’ best—this gloriously anarchic 1935 comedy pits Groucho, Harpo and Chico against the usual motley crew of clueless opera impresarios and other authority figures, mostly on a cruise ship, the source of much of the claustrophobic humor. The one-liners, physical comedy and general air of mischief are peerlessly balanced by director Sam Wood, and even the romantic subplot and musical interludes are nicely integrated into the madness. The B&W film looks delectable in hi-def; extras comprise a Leonard Maltin commentary, Marx on Marx documentary, Groucho’s 1961 TV appearance and 3 vintage shorts (not starring the brothers).

Night of the Animated Dead 

(Warner Bros)

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.

This nearly shot-for-shot remake/reboot of George Romero’s original horror classic, 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, has its moments as a brightly colored animated riff, with a couple of scenes that are more unsettling than in the original. But since Romero shot his Night in B&W, that makes the gore—even garishly done in cartoon form—redundant here, lessening the impact of the story’s undeniable tension. Still, it’s effective for what it is, and looks terrific in hi-def; the lone extra is a making-of featurette.

99.9 

(Cult Epics)

In Spanish director Agustí Villaronga’s understated 1997 horror film, the host of a paranormal radio show travels to where her ex-lover mysteriously died and discovers what he was working on and the cause of death. Maria Barranco acquits herself well as the heroine in a performance that doesn’t rely on hysterics; Villaronga’s direction also eschews the usual horror tropes, and that lack of grand guignol helps keep 99.9 from fading from memory when it ends. The film looks decent on Blu-ray; extras are a new Villaronga interview and vintage making-of featurette.

Straight Time 

(Warner Archive) 

If this 1978 character study of an ex-con trying to stay out of jail seems more lackluster than gritty, it might be that Dustin Hoffman began directing it himself then turned the reins over to Ulu Grosbard, who is unable to make it jell into a compelling portrait of recidivism. Hoffman is good, of course, but the supporting cast is excellent: Theresa Russell is his heartbreaking love interest, the superb M. Emmet Walsh is a crooked parole officer, and Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Busey and Kathy Bates are realistically shady “friends” of Hoffman’s. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer; lone extra is a Hoffman/Grosbard commentary—there’s a vintage making-of featurette listed on the back cover but it’s missing from the disc. 

Thais 

Jedermann 

(Unitel)

As COVID-19 era stagings trickle out on Blu-ray, we are seeing how directors and theaters dealt with pandemic restrictions. Earlier this year in Vienna, Jules Massenet’s grand opera Thais was performed in director Peter Konwitschny’s glitzy but distant production, highlighted by Nicole Chevalier’s moving portrayal of the tragic title heroine. And in summer 2020, the Salzburg Festival staged German playwright Hugo von Hoffmannsthal’s cautionary tale, Jedermann (Everyman); Michael Sturminger’s clever staging brought out the subtle qualities of a play that can sometimes drift into abstraction. Both discs have superior hi-def video and audio; the must-watch lone extra on Jedermann is an absorbing 55-minute documentary, The Great World Theatre—Salzburg and Its Festival.

The Window 

(Warner Archive)

This 1949 thriller is a blatant contraption—Tommy, a young boy prone to exaggeration, isn’t believed when he actually witnesses a murder, and soon finds himself in the killers’ sights—but it works nicely thanks to Ted Tatzlaff’s no-nonsense direction and a tight 73-minute running time. The youngster playing Tommy, Bobby Driscoll, has a natural shakiness that helps sell this story of an innocent kid in a dangerous situation. (Driscoll won an honorary Oscar for best juvenile performance.) The gritty B&W imagery translates well to Blu-ray.

Witching and Bitching 

(IFC Midnight)

Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia specializes in unhinged, undisciplined films, which often blend genres in helter-skelter fashion to mixed results. A prime specimen is this 2013 entry—that it’s just getting released here is a red flag—that starts as a parody of a heist flick, morphs into a parody of a chase movie, then becomes the most insane witchcraft picture ever. As always, there’s a fast pace and light tone, with gags and wacky dialogue piling up: but that only underscores the thinness of the conceit and the script. And as always, there’s a game cast—led by Carmen Maura, Terele Pávez and Carolina Bang as three generations of witches, the latter soon to be the director’s wife—that keeps it watchable even at 114 overlong minutes. The film looks impressive in hi-def.

DVD Release of the Week

Clarice—Complete 1st Season 

(Paramount/CBS)

Thirty years on, a reboot of the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs—actually, it picks up a year after the events in Jonathan Demme’s classic film—is high on a list of unnecessary TV series, and this dark, dour and brutal drama can be a chore to sit through. That’s despite well-done technical and visual values that back the solid performance of Rebecca Breeds as FBI agent Clarice Starling, the role for which Jodie Foster won an Oscar. All 13 episodes are included on 4 discs; extras comprise three featurettes, a gag reel and deleted scenes.

CD Release of the Week 

Pelléas et Mélisande 

(Alpha Classics)

Claude Debussy’s gossamer masterpiece—one of the very few landmark operas that could be said to have changed the direction of music—receives a truly beautiful reading by the Bordeaux National Opera in France. Although this production premiered in 2018, a 2020 revival was out of the question due to the pandemic, so the decision was made to record a performance, and the sensitivity of conductor Pierre Dumoussaud and the Orchestre Nationale Bourdeaux Aquitaine to Debussy’s singular musical style is matched by the singers: Stanislas de Barbeyac’s Pelléas, Chiara Skerath’s Mélisande and Alexandre Duhamel’s Golaud are wonderfully precise both individually and together.

October '21 Digital Week I

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Cleanin’ Up the Town—Remembering Ghostbusters 

(Screen Media)

More than 35 years after its release in 1984—when it was a huge box-office hit, surprising even its own studio, which thought it had an overpriced modest success on its hands—Ghostbusters remains one of the few hilarious big-budget Hollywood comedies, and uberfans Anthony and Claire Bueno show their love with this affectionate documentary that takes us through the movie’s making from script to release. We hear from almost everyone—stars Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts and the late, great Harold Ramis; director Ivan Reitman; songwriter Ray Parker Jr.; producers, special effects wizards, and other technicians—with the glaring exception of Bill Murray, who’s actually not missed, as there are terrific anecdotes, priceless behind-the-scenes and on-set footage, and pretty much everything any fan of the movie would want to know.

Algren

(First Run Features)

Michael Caplan has made an engaging and intelligent documentary about writer Nelson Algren, whose most famous book, 1949’s The Man with the Golden Arm, was turned into something unrecognizable by director Otto Preminger’s 1955 film adaptation starring Frank Sinatra. (Algren famously sued Preminger, but couldn’t afford the legal fees so the suit didn’t go forward.) Algren wrote with empathy about the lower-class Polish community he knew and observed in Chicago, where he grew up, and despite moments of fame and celebrity—he had a years-long affair with French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir and won the National Book Award for Golden Arm—he never gained the notoriety he deserved. With well-chosen, pithy interview segments featuring film directors William Friedkin, Andrew Davis, John Sayles and Philip Kaufman, author Russell Banks and even musician Billy Corgan, Caplan burrows into the heart of Algren’s artistry and life, which are inseparable from each other.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Batwoman—Complete 2nd Season 

(Warner Bros)

After the supposed death of Kate Kane at the end of season one, homeless woman Ryan Wilder finds the batsuit and picks up the vigilante mantle to fight crime in Gotham City in the second season of this entertainingly “woke” entry in the Arrowverse. Batwoman gets by mainly on the charismatic presence of Javicia Leslie, who makes Ryan/Batwoman a compellingly conflicted superhero. The season’s 18 episodes look smashingly good in hi-def; extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel and two featurettes with cast and crew interviews.

The Damned 

(Criterion Collection)

Italian director Luchino Visconti’s reputation was as inflated as any in film history: case in point is this endless, risibly uninsightful epic about a German family that gets its comeuppance when Hitler takes over. Under the guise of showing how decadence and arrogance heralded the arrival of Nazism, Visconti revels in weirdness and pederasty, which is not the same. Quite able actors like Dirk Bogarde, Helmut Berger, Ingrid Thulin and Charlotte Rampling are unable to fashion real characterizations from disparate fragments, unfortunately. Criterion’s hi-def transfer is clean but has a greenish tint; extras include an alternate Italian-language soundtrack (the film is in English and German); archival interviews with Visconti, Berger, Thulin and Rampling; and a 1969 documentary, Visconti on Set.

In the Good Old Summertime 

(Warner Archive)

The first musical adaptation of Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo’s Parfumerie—which would later beget the classic Broadway musical She Loves Me—pairs Judy Garland and Van Johnson as pen pals who, unknown to each other, also work together in a local music shop. Robert Z. Leonard’s 1949 romantic comedy is a frothy delight, with Garland at the height of her charm and no less an eminence as Buster Keaton stealing scenes as their coworker. There’s a superb hi-def transfer, with the Technicolor visuals popping off the screen; extras are an intro by Garland biographer John Fricke and two vintage travel shorts.

The Naked Spur

Santa Fe Trail 

(Warner Archive)

These two westerns are at opposite ends of the spectrum, dramatically and artistically. Anthony Mann’s The Naked Spur (1953) is a stark and intense drama about the intriguingly shifting dynamics of the relationship between a bounty hunter (James Stewart) and his prey (Robert Ryan). Michael Curtiz’ Santa Fe Trail (1940) throws facts to the wind in its tale of how West Point grads Jeb Stuart and George Custer took on bad guys out west, including fanatical abolitionist John Brown, all while romancing the same woman; stars Errol Flynn (Stuart), Ronald Reagan (Custer), Raymond Massey (Brown) and Olivia de Havilland (woman) do what they can with mainly routine melodramatics. Both films look spectacular on Blu, especially the bright colors of Spur, whose extras are a vintage short and classic Tax Avery cartoon.

The Original Three Tenors 

(C Major)

The first—and best—Three Tenors concert, shot in 1990 in Rome before an enthusiastic outdoor audience, was the ultimate superstar event in the classical music world: tenors Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras are joined by conductor Zubin Mehta and the opera orchestras of Florence and Rome for a lushly entertaining 90 minutes of solos, duets and trios encompassing operatic hits and even a medley of Broadway and pop tunes. It all goes down easily in this remastered version where the hi-def video and audio make it look and sound better than ever. Also included is a new 88-minute documentary, The Three Tenors—From Caracalla to the World, which recaps the seminal show with interviews with the principals—Pavarotti, who died in 2007, is seen in vintage interview segments.

Shadow of the Thin Man 

(Warner Archive)

This 1941 Thin Man sequel (the third) repeats the witty repartee between its stars, William Powell and Myrna Loy, although this time their chemistry is tied to a more routine murder mystery than in the original. No matter: when Powell and Loy are onscreen as Nick and Nora—along with their dog Asta—all is forgiven and Shadow is more enjoyable than it has any right to be. There’s a sparkling new hi-def transfer of this B&W comedy; extras are a vintage live-action short and classic cartoon.

Tex Avery Screwball Classics, Volume 3 

(Warner Archive)

Tex Avery was primarily responsible for the classic cartoon output during the golden age of animation—the ‘40s and the ‘50s—and this third (and final?) volume once again brings together another 20 of his most wanted treasures, including his none-too-subtle swipe at Hitler, “Blitz Wolf,” and one of his most memorable anthropomorphic creations, the airplane family of “Little Johnny Jet.” As usual, some of it is dated and in questionable taste, but much of it amusing and clever. The restored hi-def color images look terrific; the lone extra is Avery’s “Crackpot Quail" with original audio.

DVD Release of the Week

The Equalizer—Complete 1st Season 

(CBS/Paramount)

In this reboot of the mid-‘80s CBS series starring Edward Woodward as a retired intelligence agent who extracts justice for other victims, Queen Latifah straps on a gun and gets to blasting on behalf of the even more downtrodden. As a new slant on an old theme—a couple of movies with Denzel Washington also used the same blueprint—the series is entertaining if unnecessarily and implausibly explosive. But Latifah is a good guide to the show’s action-filled plots. All 10 episodes are on three discs, extras include three featurettes, a gag reel and deleted scenes.

CD Releases of the Week 

Nostalgia—Magdalena Kožená and Yefim Bronfman

Respighi Songs—Ian Bostridge and Saskia Giorgini 

(Pentatone)

Exploring folk tradition is at the heart of these discs by two veteran vocalists who never rest on their considerable laurels. Nostalgia, sung with effortless beauty by Czech mezzo Magdalena Kožená and estimably accompanied by pianist Yefim Bronfman, comprises songs by Béla Bartók, Modest Mussorgsky and Johannes Brahms—and the folk-influenced richness of Bartók’s Village Scenes and Mussorgsky’s
The Nursery is especially poignant.

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In a new disc of lovely songs by underrated Italian master Ottorino Respighi, tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Saskia Giorgini bracingly demonstrate the composer’s broad lyrical scope, in both senses: from Italian literature to Scotland in the words and Debussy-like impressionism to folk idioms in the music.