April '23 Digital Week IV

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Twilight 

(Arbelos Films)

Hungarian director György Fehér, an associate of Béla Tarr—whose use of slow tracking shots and stark B&W camerawork became ubiquitous in his films—made his debut with this strikingly composed procedural. Although he only made one more film (Passion, a 1998 adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice) before his death in 2003 at age 63, the accomplished Fehér has made a resonant exploration of a detective who investigates horrific child murders. Instead of Tarr’s existential dread, Fehér zeroes in on society’s alienation; there are several extraordinary sequences—shot by master cinematographer Miklós Gurbán, who also did the grading of this brand-new, beautifully restored print—including very unsettling close-up “interviews” with two young girls.

Other People’s Children 

(Music Box Films)

Virginie Efira won the best actress Cesar (the French version of the Oscar) for her devastating performance in Revoir Paris (opening in June), which makes that film seem more penetrating than it is. Efira performs a similar miracle in Rebecca Zlotowski’s film, playing Rachel, a schoolteacher without children of her own who loves her boyfriend Ali’s young daughter Leila as if she is her own—until his ex-wife initiates a reunion that might squeeze Rachel out of their lives altogether. Zlotowski’s delicate writing and directing provide Efira with another showcase for her emotionally shattering acting; ideally, she should have won the Cesar for her draining portrayals in both films.

Somewhere in Queens 

(Roadside Attractions)

Ray Romano has not gotten his hit TV show Everybody Loves Raymond out of his system, as this sitcom-ish feature he wrote, directed and stars in proves for 105 middling minutes. Multiple generations of a Queens extended family are always quarreling and eating—but always circling the wagons when necessary. It’s amusing but rarely biting, providing little of substance for actors as good as Laurie Metcalf (who plays Romano’s cantankerous cancer-survivor wife) and Tony Lo Bianco (who plays Romano’s cantankerous father). Romano always falls back on stereotypes and clichés, wasting the usually delightful Jennifer Esposito (as a neighboring widow) and Sadie Stanley (as Romano’s son’s erstwhile girlfriend) in nothing parts.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge 

(Shudder)

For those waiting with bated breath for the sequel to Scare Package, it’s finally arrived: I haven’t seen the original, but it seems obvious that the sequel trods pretty much the same ground, using a thread of a plot—the death of Rad Chad, a horror movie buff whose funeral becomes a series of death traps for the attendees—as an excuse for an anthology of short genre parodies. The sequences, directed by Aaron B. Koontz, Alexandra Barreto, Anthony Cousins, Jed Shepherd and Rachele Wiggins, are tongue-in-cheek homages that are definitely hit-or-miss, as these sorts of things tend to be. The package itself is presentable: there’s a fine hi-def transfer; and the extras are a directors’ commentary; making-of; bloopers and deleted scenes; and other cheeky bonus material. 

Time of Roses 

(Deaf Crocodile)

Hot on the heels of the label’s last resurrection, last month’s The Assassin of the Tsar, Deaf Crocodile now unveils another restored, rarely-seen film: Finnish director Risto Jarva’s brooding 1969 sci-fi opus, set in the then near-future of the year 2012. It’s an antiseptically perfect world whose key word is “progress,” so when a journalist looks into the death of a nude model a half-century earlier for his TV program, he belatedly discovers that this perfect world is not nearly as progressive as he thought. It’s a thought-provoking concept that comes across onscreen as less than full formed; still, Jarva—who died in a 1977 car accident at age 43—made a major contribution to aesthetically interesting sci-fi. The film has been beautifully restored in hi-def.

Tosca 

(C Major)

In Giacomo Puccini’s classic—and tragic—love triangle, the intense emotions in the music are put across superbly by the trio of singers who take on these roles in Davide Livermore’s traditional but gripping production at Milan’s La Scala in 2019. Francesco Meli as Tosca’s lover, the painter Cavaradossi, Luca Salsi as the evil antagonist, Scarpia, and Anna Netrebko as the heroine, Floria Tosca, are all startlingly effective under conductor Riccardo Chailly’s baton, as are the La Scala orchestra and choir. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.

CD Release of the Week 

Thomas Adès—Dante 

(Nonesuch)

For choreographer Wayne McGregor’s ballet based on Dante’s Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradiso trilogy, Thomas Adès has composed a fantastically visceral, marvelously elastic score that is mirrored by the lithe movements of London’s Royal Ballet dancers on the recently released Blu-ray video. This recording allows one to concentrate on the music as Adès shrewdly consolidates his early avant-garde leanings, like his operatic success de scandale, Powder Her Face, with his later, more sophisticated work like the Shakespearean opera, The Tempest. This remarkable score is given a remarkable performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under music director Gustavo Dudamel.

Art Review—“Beyond Van Gogh” on Long Island

Beyond Van Gogh

Through May 14, 2023

Samanea New York, 1500 Old Country Road, Westbury, NY

vangoghlongisland.com

Beyond Van Gogh

I must admit that the prospect of immersing myself in a famous artist’s works has never been appealing; that’s why Beyond Van Gogh—different versions of which have set down roots seemingly everywhere, including in Manhattan recently—became my first such experience when it opened just a 15-minute drive from my home.

My skepticism came about from my familiarity with Van Gogh’s work—I’ve seen hundreds of his paintings in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller Museum in rural Holland, along with the obvious masterpieces at the Met, MOMA and other collections—and knowing that looking at real artworks is much more satisfying. Still, it must be admitted that the multimedia Beyond Van Gogh is a different way of looking at an artist: visual and thematic connections are shown to viewers through reproductions of several similar paintings—like a lineup of Van Gogh’s famous self-portraits—as well as replicating the atmosphere of the settings of his well-known works, including an outdoor café, a bedroom or wheat fields.

Beyond Van Gogh

Standing in the main room where the action, so to speak, takes place, viewers are surrounded by a riot of colors that morphs from mere sketches to full-blown, and impossibly vibrant, paintings, accompanied by music like instrumental versions of “Here Comes the Sun” and Don MacLean’s “Vincent” as well as voices intoning Van Gogh’s thoughts in his letters to his beloved brother Theo (in both English and French), some of which can be read on the walls. The effect is of a Cliff Notes version of an immortal artist’s life and art: although it doesn’t give the full sense of what makes Van Gogh such a singular artist, it’s certainly a diverting way to spend an hour or so.

Also worth attending at Beyond Van Gogh—for an extra fee—is the virtual-reality A Life in Letters. My first VR experience, it immerses (that word again) viewers in the landscape that the artist immortalized in his paintings and, as one listens to Vincent narrate excerpts from letters to his brother about making art and getting inspiration, one sees (and feels) the seasons flow by; the deep greens, blues, yellows and even winter whites all make vivid appearances. 

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

While wandering around the exhibit, I thought of that memorable segment in Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s 1990 omnibus film Dreams, where a man finds himself inside several Van Gogh’s paintings as he tries to find the artist himself (played by a strangely attenuated Martin Scorsese). While I’d prefer to get lost in Kurosawa's film, Beyond van Gogh will do nicely in the meantime.

April '23 Digital Week III

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

The Lost Weekend 

(Iconic Events)

When John Lennon went to L.A. without Yoko Ono in 1973, their assistant, 22-year-old May Pang, accompanied him—he ended up staying there partying and recording while he and Pang began a romance that lasted for 18 months, until Ono decided she wanted him back. Most Lennon fans are familiar with that basic outline, but Eve Brandstein, Richard Kaufman, and Stuart Samuels’ documentary recounts those heady days through the eyes of Pang herself, who narrates her version of events, saying that Lennon was ready to leave Yoko for her, a claim that is seemingly backed by Lennon’s son, Julian, who not only chats engagingly about his dad and his own friendship with Pang, but is also seen, at the end, hugging her and walking down the street arm in arm, a pointed visual about John and May’s relationship if there ever was one.

Passion 

(Film Movement) 

Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi has made his mark with the mammoth character study Happy Hour and last year’s international breakthrough—and Oscar-winning best international film—Drive My Car. That notoriety has led to the release of his 2008 student film, in which the themes and directorial hallmarks of his later films are given rough, choppy form. Unlike his mature films, where dialogue is meaningful and has its own kind of narrative propulsiveness, here the characters falling in and out of relationships sit around and don’t have much to say that’s memorable. Still, this is an interesting blueprint for what would be (mostly) perfected later. 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Cool Hand Luke 

(Warner Bros)

Stuart Rosenberg’s 1967 chain-gang drama, which has earned its status as an American classic, came out at a time when anti-establishment rebels started appearing in movies and novels; Luke could be a cousin of McMurphy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And like McMurphy, his legend lives on among his fellow prisoners. Paul Newman as Luke is perfection and George Kennedy indelible in his Oscar-winning turn as compatriot Dragline headline a first-rate cast (including Strother Martin, who gets to say the immortal line, “What we have here is a failure to communicate”). It’s beautifully directed by Rosenberg, grittily photographed by Conrad Hall and satisfyingly scored by Lalo Schifrin. The film looks great in 4K; extras are a commentary by Newman biographer Eric Lax and a vintage making-of featurette.

The Maltese Falcon 

(Warner Bros)

One of Hollywood’s first—and best—detective stories, with Humphrey Bogart as the immortal private eye Sam Spade, is this 1941 classic directed confidently by John Huston and featuring an unforgettable cast led by Mary Astor as femme fatale Ruth and Peter Lorre as bad guy Joel Cairo. It’s unbeatable entertainment, and Warner’s UHD transfer gives the B&W photography by Arthur Edeson added luster. Extras on the accompanying Blu-ray are another Eric Lax commentary; “Warner Night at the Movies”; featurettes The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird and Becoming Attractions: The Trailers of Humphrey Bogart; short Breakdowns of 1941; makeup tests; and three radio broadcasts.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Cocaine Bear 

(Lionsgate)

The title tells all in this crazy little movie about a bear who downs the drug stash dropped from a plane and ends up tearing several poor suckers to pieces when they happen to cross its path in a Georgia national forest. It’s sort of based on a true story, but director Elizabeth Banks and writer Jimmy Warden have instead turned it into a rollickingly idiotic comedy. Good sports like Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Jason Whitlock Jr and (in his last role) Ray Liotta provide the human fodder and make this more entertaining than it has any right to be. There’s a good hi-def transfer; extras are interviews, a gag reel and deleted/extended scenes. 

Magic Mike’s Last Dance 

(Warner Bros)

We didn’t really need another Magic Mike movie (although my wife disagrees); still, director Steven Soderbergh finds ways to subvert genre clichés, managing to make Mike’s final go-round if not particularly substantial at least intermittently diverting. Channing Tatum is better at moves than speaking, and he has a perfect partner in Salma Hayek, better at wearing well-tailored clothes than speaking. There are amusing if old-hat U.S. vs. Britain jokes (it takes place in London), along with sensational dance numbers, including one on a double-decker bus and a drenched pas de deux finale between Tatum and the spectacular Kylie Shea that’s worth sitting through the other 110 minutes for. The film’s saturated look is well-captured on Blu; extras are a making-of featurette and a deleted scene.

DVD Release of the Week 

Martin Roumagnac 

(Icarus Films)

This 1946 tragic romance stars the great French actor Jean Gabin and international sensation Marlene Dietrich—surprisingly, the only time they ever made a film together even though they were real-life lovers for seven years—as an odd couple separated by class and ultimately united in murder. Georges Lacombe helmed this sophisticated drama that has pockets of dry wit and a sober view of how snobbery is two sides of the same coin, as the tense trial that serves as the film’s histrionic climax (followed by a rather obvious O. Henry ending) flavorfully shows.

CD Release of the Week

Alfred Schnittke—Psalms of Repentance 

(Pentatone)

The music of Russian composer Alfred Schnittke (1934-98) often tended to the spiritual—in addition to his varied film scores, symphonies and chamber music, he composed much religious and choral music, including his lovely Requiem. This disc tackles one of his most ambitious vocal compositions, a 40-minute, multi-movement work for mixed choir, written in 1988; it’s movingly sung by the choir Cappella Amsterdam, led by Daniel Reuss, in a masterly performance that’s an absolute balm for the soul.

April '23 Digital Week II

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

The Fisher King 

(Criterion Collection)

Terry Gilliam's 1991 fantasy is, despite the bravura lunacy going on around his main characters, his most heartfelt film: the sympathetic portrayals by Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges and Mercedes Ruehl (who won an Oscar) keeps the drama earthbound and personal even when Richard LaGravenese’s scattershot script threatens to really go off the rails. Gilliam’s dazzling direction juggles the bizarre fantastical stuff and the humanity underneath in a way unlike his other films, while his outlandish visuals look even more spectacular on Criterion's new UHD transfer; extras feature Gilliam’s commentary; interviews with Gilliam, LaGravenese, Bridges, Ruehl and Amanda Plummer from the 2015 Blu-ray release; 2006 Williams interview; and deleted scenes with Gilliam commentary.

Rebel Without a Cause 

(Warner Bros)

When James Dean died at age 24 in a car crash, he had made only three films, all classics: Elia Kazan’s East of Eden (1954), Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and George Stevens’ Giant (1956). But it was perhaps Ray’s Rebel—which also launched the careers of Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo and Dennis Hopper—that best exemplified how Dean’s magnetic presence could fill the screen. There’s an immaculate 4K transfer; extras comprise an audio commentary, screen and wardrobe tests, deleted scenes, “James Dean Remembered” (1974 TV special) and featurettes “Rebel Without a Cause: Defiant Innocents” and “Dennis Hopper: Memories from the Warner Lot.” 

Streaming Release of the Week 

Hunt Club 

(Latigo Films)

If you lost track of Mena Suvari after her appearances in American Pie and American Beauty, it might be strange to see her headline Elizabeth Blake-Thomas’ feature, ostensibly a straightforward revenge flick but with interesting little blackly comic weirdness going on. Suvari plays a woman freshly dumped by her girlfriend who agrees to accompany a teenage boy and his dad on a weekend getaway to their “hunt club”—it turns out she (and other unfortunate women) are the hunted. It’s silly and predictable, but Blake-Thomas has a few reversals up her sleeve and Suvari carries herself commandingly as the heroine, upstaging Mickey Rourke and Casper van Dien, who are the main antagonists. It’s a real guilty pleasure for anyone in the mood.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Amnesia 

(Cult Epics)

Martin Koolhoven is a name I haven’t encountered before, but his offbeat 2001 drama, resurrected by Cult Epics, shows a writer-director with a talent for engaging and enraging audiences; an unsettling experience, it’s anchored by terrific performances by Fedja van Huet (another name I’m unfamiliar with) and the always explosive Carice van Houten. The story of a family trying to keep its closely held, deplorable secrets is old-hat, but Koolhoven, van Huet and van Hauten make it come alive with authority. The film looks expressively grainy on Blu; extras are new and vintage interviews and making-of featurettes with the director and his two actors along with a Koolhoven and van Huet commentary. A most welcome second disc includes the director’s TV films, both in a similarly creepy vein: 1999’s Suzy Q, with a brilliant van Houten, and 1997’s Dark Light.

Rick and Morty—Complete 6th Season 

(Warner Bros)

For a remarkable six seasons and 61 episodes, this blissfully nutty animated series about mad scientist Rick and gleefully supportive grandson Morty keeps reaching new levels of insanity as its creators keep cramming more visual hijinks and verbal zaniness into the mix. As these latest 10 episodes aptly demonstrate, the show always threatens viewers with overload, but endless crude jokes and the inventive animation make the pair’s journeys to many alternate realities deliriously entertaining. The sixth season looks dazzlingly colorful on Blu-ray.

Up Down Fragile 

(Cohen Film Collection)

Jacques Rivette’s 1995 film is a sweetly entertaining look at a trio of women navigating romance and friendship in Paris; although it’s too long, as most Rivette films are, at least it has some unaffected and simpleminded song-and-dance interludes to fill out the running time. The three actresses are given co-writing credits, but even if the dialogue and subplots are less than scintillating, Laurence Côte, Christine Laurent and Marianne Denicourt are captivating enough to make it watchable. The hi-def transfer looks quite good; the lone extra is Richard Pena’s commentary.

CD Release of the Week 

Edmund Rubbra—The Jade Mountain 

(Chandos)

English composer Edmund Rubba (1901-86) and his music are all but unknown in America: I’ve never gotten to hear even one of his works live in concert, despite their masterly quality, especially his cycle of 13 varied but uniformly excellent symphonies. Luckily, much of his orchestral, chamber and choral work is available on disc, and this new recording of a few dozen of his artful songs is a welcome addition to that canon. The breadth of Rubbra’s elegant songwriting—from his first, “Rosa Mundi” (1921), to his last, “Fly Envious Time” (1974)—is represented here, with the lovely 1962 song cycle The Jade Mountain, beautifully performed by soprano Lucy Crowe and harpist Catrin Finch, especially memorable. Equally fine contributions come from mezzo Claire Barnett-Jones, baritone Marcus Farnsworth, violist Timothy Ridout, and pianist Iain Burnside.

April '23 Digital Week I

Special Screening of the Week 

Hilma 

(Juno Films)

Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was a Swedish artist barely appreciated or known in her lifetime; only recently have her unconventional paintings received attention, as writer-director Lasse Hallström shows in his straightforward, intelligent biopic. Presenting her as a fiercely independent free spirit who was attracted to women, more strikes against her along with being an artist, Hallström sharply defines her as a trailblazer with her own principles who pushed back against those who uncomprehendingly attacked, ignored or belittled her. The director has scored a coup with the title role: the younger Hilma is played by his daughter Tora Hallström, who is guilelessly natural, while the older Hilma is played by Hallström’s wife and Tora’s mother, the formidable Lena Olin. 

On April 5, Scandinavia House in Manhattan is hosting the NY premiere including a Q&A with the director and his two stars. (ScandinaviaHouse.org) The film opens at the Quad Cinema in Manhattan and in Los Angeles on April 14.

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week

Warm Water Under a Red Bridge 

(Film Movement Classics)

Shohei Imamura’s documentary-like portraits of the underbelly of Japanese society are filled with underdogs who are allowed to display their genuine humanity. His last feature, made in 2001 (Imamura died five years later, at age 80), is of a piece with his other films: shot through with sardonic humor and humane observation, it follows a middle-aged Tokyo office worker who goes to a small village where he meets and has a sexual relationship with a woman who shoots out a geyser of water during sex, whenever she’s “full,” as she tells him. Simultaneously realistic and symbolic—which the title wittily alludes to—what in lesser hands might have been contrived or stilted becomes a wonderfully offbeat romantic comedy of manners, carried along by Shin'ichirō Ikebe’s inventively boisterous score.

Eight Deadly Shots 

(Janus Films)

This five-hour, four-part 1972 Finnish miniseries is a truly remarkable discovery: the heretofore obscure director Mikko Niskanen—who also wrote and stars as the protagonist—has made a stark, illuminating chronicle of ordinary people living ordinary lives as the crushing banality of their existence is underlined by a shocking crime. Based on a true story, Niskanen’s film provocatively concentrates the weight of its human drama—and the mindnumbing sameness of these lives in a rural village consisting of church, family, manual labor and drinking—into a vortex where the duration of time itself means nothing.

Enys Men 

(Neon)

On a remote Cornish island studying a rare flower, a nameless female volunteer begins hallucinating that mold from the plant is also growing on her body along with her seeing other people—or is it all really happening? Mark Jenkin’s heavyhanded piece of psychological horror has its moments—there’s a crude effectiveness to his one-man operation (he directed, wrote, photographed, and wrote the music)—but it often comes off, deliberately but self-consciously, like a too-clever experiment. The local standing stones on the island provide the evocative title (which is Cornish for “Stone Island”), but this look at a descent into isolation and possible madness never satisfyingly coheres. 

Fugue 

(Dekanalog)

Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska, whose disturbing debut, 2015’s The Lure, marked her as someone to watch, in 2018 made this equally unsettling study of an amnesiac middle-aged woman who’s returned to her husband and son after a two-year disappearance—she tries desperately to fit (even if she cannot remember if she was ever with them before) but cannot be just a dutiful wife and loving mother. Smoczyńska dramatizes ugly truths about our memories and relationships in uncomfortable scenes that lead to an unsurprising but still devastating finale; it’s enacted with lancingly truthful subtlety by Gabriela Muskała.

Imagining the Indian 

(Ciesla Foundation)

With racist team logos, nicknames and mascots around for decades, some battles that Native Americans have waged against entrenched owners and willfully oblivious fans have been partly won—the Cleveland Indians are now the Guardians and the Washington Redskins are now the Commanders—but there’s still a long way to go, as this informative documentary shows. Directors Aviva Kempner and Ben West have collected a lot of archival and contemporary material alongside substantive interviews with commentators from all walks of life (most impressive in their perceptiveness are Joely Proudfit and Mary Kathryn Nagle) to tell a still-ongoing struggle, as witness the Atlanta Braves’ tomahawk chop or the Chicago Blackhawks’ logo.

In Viaggio—The Travels of Pope Francis 

(Magnolia)

Using archival footage, director Gianfresco Rosi has fashioned an intriguing if somewhat diffuse documentary about Pope Francis’ foreign trips throughout his papacy, from Cuba and Rio to Armenia and Iraq, and how he speaks his truth no matter how difficult for him to say (the priest molestation scandals) or for others to hear (the Turkish government was upset at his remarks on the Armenian genocide). We glimpse Francis speaking in several languages to appreciative, often adoring audiences and visiting places as diverse as Canada’s indigenous first nation settlements and the urban battlefields of Africa, but Rosi provides little more than glimpses without much context—the footage could have been thrown together in any other order. Even his use of film clips (some from his own singular documentaries) alongside the Pope’s own journeys comes off as arbitrary, almost willfully offbeat. 

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Plane 

(Lionsgate)

Bluntly if boringly titled—why not at least Plane Hit by Lightning?—this by-the-numbers actioner follows a resourceful pilot who, after safely crash-landing his plane on a Philippine island swarming with rebels, teams with a convicted murderer on his flight to free his passengers after they’re kidnaped for ransom. Director Jean-François Richet makes much of this routine but at other times there’s excitement, while Gerard Butler gives a gruff action-hero performance—it’s a serviceable time waster for those so inclined. It does look terrific in 4K; extras are three on-set featurettes.

CD Release of the Week 

Nino Rota—Orchestral Music 

(Capriccio)

Last week I reviewed a delightful recording of The Florentine Straw Hat, a comedic opera by Nino Rota (1911-79); this week, it’s a superlative disc of several of Rota’s most attractive orchestral works, played by the excellent WDR Funkhausorchester Köln under the capable batons of Felix Bender and Michael Seal. The five pieces on the disc show the many sides of this accomplished composer: the lush suite from the 1956 film of War and Peace and a trio of diverting segments from his final score, for his old friend Federico Fellini’s Orchestra Rehearsal, before Rota’s death at age 67; the propulsive Concerto for Strings; and two lovely concertos: the ballade for horn and orchestra (with soloist Marcel Sobol) and concerto for harp and orchestra (with soloist Esther Peristerakis).