September '26 Digital Week III

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Kwaidan 

(Janus Films/Film Forum)

Japanese director Mitsuo Kobayashi’s 1964 classic is unlike other ghost stories, since he is not concerned at all with actual scares or things that go bump in the night (predating Kubrick’s The Shining), and deliberately has made one-dimensional characters who are lacking in motivation throughout these four weird tales. Instead, Kobayashi concentrates on stylized atmosphere above all else: each story’s setting is brilliantly evoked, beautiful and haunting trappings for these eerie meanderings. Stylishness has never been so spectacular, and Kobayashi’s cinematographer Yoshio Miyajima, editor Hisashi Sagara, art director Shigemasa Toda, costume designer Masahiro Katô and composer Toru Takemitsu are up to the formidable task. 

The Oldest Person in the World 

(Assembly Releasing)

For Sam Green, the premise was simple but daunting—track down and interview the world’s oldest person. But since that person inevitably keeps changing, Green has to keep moving, traveling from Brooklyn to Europe and back to the U.S. to talk with centenarians who hold the Guinness age record, however briefly. But that premise is just the beginning of this beguiling documentary, for Green also discovers that mortality is a large part of a 50-year-old filmmaker’s life as well, when he is diagnosed with multiple myeloma (which has been kept under control so far). But Green never loses his sense of humor: while making the film, he and his partner welcome a baby boy, whom Green slyly calls “the youngest person in the world”—if only for a brief moment, until the next baby is born somewhere else.

On a String 

(Joke Zero)

Isabel Hagen, a Juilliard-trained violist turned comedian and filmmaker, has mined her own experiences for the core of this often amusingly grating glimpse at Isabel, a freelance New York City musician who still lives with her overbearing parents and brother while navigating the cutthroat world of musicmaking, where even a friend will betray you, like a fellow quartet member also going to a New York Philharmonic audition and getting a callback instead of her. Hagen writes, directs and also stars as Isabel—she comes off as a less enervating Greta Gerwig, which works well for her jaundiced semi-autobiographical self-portrait. There are also solid turns by New York acting veterans like Dylan Baker, Eric Bogosian and Fred Weller.

Serpent’s Path 

(KimStim)

Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa remakes his own sinister 1998 thriller, about child exploitation and organ trafficking, in France, and it’s another compelling exploration of grief checkered by revenge and ultimately betrayal. Heroes and villains are a slippery concept in Kurosawa’s hands, and he is masterly at transforming ordinary situations that devolve into chaotic cruelty. It might go on a bit too long, especially in a finale as conventional as it is implausible but, led by an excellent group of French and Japanese actors like Damien Bonnard, Ko Shibasaki, Mathieu Amalric and Grégoire Colin, this is a rough but riveting watch. 

Streaming Release of the Week 

Mutiny 

(Lionsgate)

If there’s a Jason Statham vehicle blueprint, it’s this tautly executed, single-minded action flick in which our hero, who plays Cole Reed, a former commando whose life is in danger after he’s accused of murdering his rich boss and stows away on a ship involved in human trafficking. Director Jean-François Richet and writers Lindsay Michel and J. P. Davis waste no time on niceties like characterization or believable dialogue, but they give Statham—and costar Annabelle Wallis as his unlikely but effective sidekick—the chance to continually overwhelm the dastardly bad guys. Special credit goes to Adrian Lester, whose U.S. military ship captain becomes more entertainingly bemused as he gets a fuller picture of what’s happening aboard the rogue boat.

DVD Release of the Week

Colors of Time 

(Distrib Films)

In French director Cédric Klapisch’s latest drama, four cousins meeting for the first time explore their celebrated ancestor Adèle’s home—we meet Adèle herself (a fine Suzanne Lindon) as she leaves the sticks for Paris at the zenith of the 1890s Belle Époque and befriends artists like Claude Monet, who ends up having more to do with the cousins’ extended family than expected. Typically flavorful and spirited, lavish but not overstuffed, Klapisch’s film might be schematic in how it crosscuts between the present-day cousins’ endless zoom calls about Adèle’s valuables—including a painting that may have a surprising provenance—and her adventures in the dazzling city of lights, but it’s a delight from start to finish. Too bad there’s no hi-def release, since the visual wonders Klapisch conjures aren’t seen to their fullest effect on DVD.

June '26 Digital Week III

In-Theater Release of the Week 

Disclosure Day 

(Universal)

In Steven Spielberg’s latest extravaganza, bits of Close Encounters, E.T. and Minority Report—among others—are put in a blender and chopped up into a surprisingly sloppy mess in David Koepp’s script about a whistleblower and a Kansas City weatherwoman who are threatening to tell the public about alien encounters that a quasi-government agency is murderously trying to keep quiet. The stakes seem less urgent than how it is overdramatized here, and the characters act so stupidly at times that it’s often laughable. Still, Spielberg remains a master at orchestrating everything from car chases to the quiet and tense moments, so even John Williams’ recycled-sounding score and the broad acting of a cast led by Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colman Domingo and Colin Firth don’t fatally damage what is admittedly second-tier Spielberg, which has arresting images in spades—even the shamelessly manipulative final shot.

Streaming Release of the Week

Easy Girl 

(Omnibus Entertainment)

German writer-director Hille Norden fearlessly explores the fascinating and carefree Nore, who’s seemingly in a different acquaintance’s bed each night, showing how her sexuality has shaped her very existence. There are many intense and difficult to watch sequences of consensual and abusive sex, often seen through the eyes of Nore’s younger self, as Nora and her closest (only?) friend Jonna watch past episodes of her life play out. Luna Jordan’s Jonna is subtly enacted, but it’s Dana Herfuth’s ferociousness as Nore—in an emotionally and physically naked portrayal—that reverberates in a frank film that has no easy answers to weighty moral questions. 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Eraser 

(Warner Brothers)

In this 1996 by-the-numbers Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle—he’s a U.S. marshal in the federal witness protection program who protects a high-value witness—director Charles Russell stages a couple of amusing action sequences: one in the alligator enclosure in the Central Park Zoo and another in midair as a parachuting Arnold does battle with an oncoming airplane. Also helpful is the supporting cast, including James Coburn, James Caan and Vanessa Williams, whose lively presence makes this forgettable flick somewhat entertaining. There’s an excellent UHD transfer; extras include featurettes containing new interviews with Russell and Williams but not the star.

Scream 4 

(Lionsgate)

For the third sequel (released in 2011) in the Scream franchise—there have been three more as of this writing—creator-writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven returned, along with the leads from earlier incarnations, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, for more Ghostface murders in the anything but bucolic town of Woodsboro. Too bad that the twists and turns are obvious and eye-rolling, as usual, especially in the ludicrously conceived character played by Emma Roberts. The 4K transfer is impressive; extras include a commentary with Craven and cast members, deleted/extended scenes with commentary, a making-of featurette and a gag reel.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

Mozart—Così fan tutte 

(C Major)

Mozart’s classic comic opera (the English title is Women Are Like That) introduces two couples and puts the females through their paces to see if they will cheat on their partners, and in Barrie Kosky’s clever 2024 Vienna State Opera staging, they are rehearsing for a film directed by Don Alfonso, with the maid Despina as a stagehand. Although the conceit doesn’t entirely work, it’s sung and acted persuasively by Federica Lombardi (Fiordiligi), Emily D’Angelo (Dorabella), Filipe Manu (Ferrando), Peter Kellner (Guglielmo), Kate Lindsey (Despina) and Christopher Maltman (Don Alfonso). Philippe Jordan deftly conducts the state opera orchestra. The hi-def video and audio are first-rate; too bad there are no contextualizing extras like a Kosky interview.

DVD Release of the Week

The Most Precious of Cargoes 

(Distrib Films US)

Michel Hazanavicius won best picture and best director Oscars for his charming but slight 2011 paean to silent movies, The Artist, while most of his other films have rarely been seen hereabouts. His latest, an ambitious animated feature about the Holocaust based on an admired novel by French author Jean-Claude Grumberg (who cowrote the script), is another example of the French director’s interesting but lightweight filmmaking. There’s an admirably restrained visualization of the concentration camps, but sentimentality outweighs any nuance in this story of a woodcutter’s wife who rescues and raises a baby girl thrown from the train to Auschwitz by her doomed father. The usually dependable Alexander Desplat’s score is far from his best, but Hazanavicius did get legendary actor Jean-Louis Trintignant to record the narration before his death in 2022.

CD Release of the Week 

Weinberg—String Quartets, Volume 6 

(Chandos)

Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96) sadly never witnessed the renaissance of his strikingly original music that began after his shattering Holocaust opera The Passenger started being performed worldwide; since then, dozens of CDs of his varied orchestral and chamber music have been recorded. His 17 string quartets make up a formidable body of work on their own, and this final volume in a terrific series of discs recorded by the gifted Arcadia Quartet showcases the middle and late periods of his career. Included are the impassioned 10th quartet (1964); the expansive 12th (1969-70), with its gorgeously unusual Moderato final movement; and the 17th (1986)—Weinberg’s final quartet—which is among his most compact and musically eloquent. Rounding out the CD are a couple of attractive early miniatures.

May '26 Digital Week I

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

“Wuthering Heights” 

(Warner Bros)

In Emerald Fennell’s latest pseudo-provocation—following Promising Young Woman and Saltburn—Emily Bronte’s classic novel has been transformed into an often limp romance that drags along for more than two hours: if Margot Robbie (as Cathy) and Jacob Elordi (as Heathcliff) remain watchable, it’s due more to their movie-star magnetism than Fennell’s labored direction and soggy writing. The kids playing the star-crossed couple as youths— Charlotte Mellington and Owen Cooper—are quite natural and might come across better in a less obvious context, but we’re stuck with Fennell’s muddy visuals, choppy editing, on-the-nose symbolism and a score that’s not so much played as smeared over every frame. The film does look eye-popping on UHD; extras include Fennell’s commentary and three brief featurettes (23 minutes total) that include interviews with Fennell, Robbie and Elordi.

In-Theater Reviews of the Week

The Last One for the Road 

(Music Box)

Italian director-cowriter Francesco Sossai’s scrappy comic drama tells the endearing if not poignant story of two drifting, alcoholic con artists who go on what they swear is a final bender, bringing with them a wide-eyed architectural student. Sossai makes up for what he lacks in originality with shrewd observations and a real sense of camaraderie that’s not forced. The acting trio of Filippo Scotti, Sergio Romano and Pierpaolo Capovilla is impeccable, the smaller parts are all well-taken, and Sossai shows a relaxed style that might bode well in the future. 

Our Land 

(Strand Releasing)

The 2009 murder of Indigenous protestor Javier Chocobar in Argentina and its complicated legal and moral aftermath is the center of this enraged documentary by Lucrecia Martel, who has been making provocative features for more than a quarter-century. Martel follows the tense courtroom drama—which plays out nearly a decade after the killing—but more importantly gives voice to the heretofore unheard Chuschagasta community, up against wanton corporate racism and destruction, all set in gorgeous landscapes stunningly rendered by Martel’s camera. 

Two Pianos 

(Kino Lorber)

Iconoclastic French director Arnaud Desplechin—whose My Sex Life and A Christmas Tale are remarkably cutting portraits of messy relationships—returns with another skewered tale of screw-ups: classical pianist Mathias returns to his hometown Lyon from Japan, where he’d been teaching, to perform with his mentor, Elena. Butting heads with her during rehearsals, he finds himself drawn back into the life of his ex, Claude, whose husband has just died—Mathias befriends her young son, who looks strongly like him. Desplechin revels in throwing these characters into highly emotional moments to navigate, and if he sometimes veers into melodramatic territory—Mathias feints when he first sees Claude upon his return—the observations are deeply felt, as are the performances by François Civil (Mathias), Charlotte Rampling (Elena) and Nadia Tereszkiewicz (Claude).

DVD Release of the Week 

The Ties That Bind Us 

(Distrib Films US)

In Carine Tardieu’s sensitive drama, the death of young mother Cécile in childbirth is the catalyst for several people—her shattered husband Alex, her confused young son David, their middle-aged (and childless) neighbor Sandra and young doctor Emillia—to deal with the tragedy in myriad ways, from disbelief and anger to healing and newfound love. Although she skirts sentimentality throughout, Tardieu weaves very human responses into an emotionally stirring portrait of several different forms of parenting. The superlative cast includes Pio Marmaï (Alex), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Sandra), César Botti (David) and Vimala Pons (Emillia). 

CD Release of the Week

Hidden Legacies—Weinberg & Korngold 

(Delos)

When Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg died in 1996, he was a relatively unknown composer; three decades later, his musical renaissance is in full swing, and this disc highlighting two of his significant works for cello and orchestra is an example. The Cello Concerto is one of Weinberg’s most eloquent large-scale pieces, while the Fantasia is less weighty but still enchanting. Rounding out the disc is the one-movement Cello Concerto of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who was more famous for his film scores but also more than capable of this short but enticing orchestral work. Cello soloist Kristina Reiko Cooper, who plays exquisitely, is given solid backup by the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra under conductor Constantine Orbelian.

April '26 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Hamlet 

(Vertical Releasing) 

Updating Shakespeare has become such a mania that it’s rare to find an adaptation that takes the text at face value—unfortunately, director Aneil Karia and writer Michael Lesslie’s modern take, set among London’s South Asian upper-crust, is not that adaptation. If English colonial history of subjugation over South Asia is a subtext, it has little to say about it, while eye-rollingly literal tropes like our hero (a game Riz Ahmed) speeding on a highway in his sports car while contemplating the suicidal “To be or not to be” are misguided. Morfydd Clark makes a perfectly pitiable Ophelia, but her sincere performance might have had greater resonance in a better film. 

Fiume o morte! 

(Icarus Films)

In this endlessly fascinating history lesson, Igor Bezinović’s documentary about Italian fascist writer Gabriele D’Annunzio’s year-long occupation (1919 to 1920) of what is now the Croatian city of Rijeka. Actually, the irony is that most of those who live there today barely know anything about D’Annunzio and what ideas and actions wrought. So Bezinović tells the whole cautionary tale through their eyes—locals reenact the takeover and its aftermath with a combination of bemusement and good humor, which is what Bezinović has said he was looking to do, present history in an entertaining but not dumbed-down way.

Steal This Story, Please! 

(Elsewhere Films)

Journalist Amy Goodman has been fighting the good fight for decades as founder and main face of Democracy Now, one of the few self-sustaining news organizations grappling with tough issues here and abroad. Carl Deal and Tia Lessin’s rage-inducing documentary portrait shows that Goodman’s doggedness and fairness are being increasingly marginalized by a hostile media environment. Several well-chosen clips include one that shows Goodman’s legendary ability to remain independent and hold leaders’ feet to the fire: then-President Clinton is so upset by her tough questions that he stays on the phone talking to her but his team blames her for ambushing him. Of course, the Trump administration’s assault on all norms sweeps away all who came before, but Goodman will continue to fight.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Macbeth 

(Dynamic)

Giuseppe Verdi’s first adaptation of a Shakespeare play came in the middle of his career, and although it’s a tautly told operatic transposition, it’s nowhere near the later masterpieces Otello and Falstaff. Pierre Audi’s absorbing production, from Parma, Italy’s Verdi Festival in 2024, uses the 1865 French version that’s more spectacular and includes ballet music that are among the opera’s highlights. Ernesto Petti is a fine Macbeth but Lidia Fridman steals the show as Lady Macbeth—hers is the juicier role, of course, but Fridman is gripping every time she appears onstage. Roberto Abbado persuasively conducts the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini and Parma Teatro Regio Chorus; hi-def video and audio are well-done. 

DVD Release of the Week 

The Divine Sarah Bernhardt 

(Icarus Films)

The famous French dramatic actress Sarah Bernhardt was a larger-than-life character, and Guillaume Nicloux’s frisky biopic has an actress equal to the task: Sandrine Kiberlain, who hams it up mightily but—crucially—always in character, so her Sarah is not simply a blustering diva but a woman who loved the spotlight even when it came to her own offstage relationships (which were legion). There are many entertaining gossipy moments like her love affair with actor Lucien Guitry and the appearance of his son Sacha, who would later become a great theater and film director in own right. Nicloux also gets credit for well-chosen music of the era by the likes of Chopin, Franck, Ravel and Debussy, which appropriately underscore Kiberlain’s boisterous scenery-chewing.

March '26 Digital Week I

In-Theater Release of the Week 

Wuthering Heights 

(Warner Bros)

In Emerald Fennell’s latest pseudo-provocation, Emily Bronte’s classic novel has been transformed into an often risible and limp romance that drags along for more than two hours: if Margot Robbie (as Cathy) and Jacob Elordi (as Heathcliff) remain watchable, it’s due more to their movie-star magnetism than Fennell’s labored direction and soggy writing. The kids playing the star-crossed couple as youths— Charlotte Mellington and Owen Cooper—are quite natural and might have come across better in a less pretentious context, but unfortunately we’re stuck with Fennell’s ugly visuals, choppy editing, on-the-nose symbolism and a score that’s not so much played as smeared over every frame.

Film Series of the Week

Rendez-Vous With French Cinema (Film at Lincoln Center)

The Stranger 

(Music Box Films; opens April 3)

This popular series of new French films returns for its 31st year at the Walter Reade Theater in Manhattan. For opening night, there’s prolific director François Ozon’s latest, a B&W adaptation of the classic Albert Camus novel about Meursault, a nihilistic young French man in Algiers, who kills a local man in cold blood and stoically faces the consequences. Although Ozon follows Camus’ plot closely, there’s a bloodlessness, so to speak, to his filmmaking, as if he’s mimicking the protagonist’s distance from others, including Marie, the willing young woman he’s sleeping with. Benjamin Voisin, typecast as Meursault, is almost too inscrutable; his opposite number, Rebecca Marder, invests Marie with pathos, sympathy and humanity.

Two Pianos 

(Kino Lorber; opens May 1)

Iconoclastic director Arnaud Desplechin—whose My Sex Life and A Christmas Tale are remarkable portraits of messy relationships—returns with another skewered tale of screw-ups: classical pianist Mathias returns to his hometown Lyon from Japan, where he’s been teaching, to perform with his mentor, Elena. Butting heads with her during rehearsals, he finds himself drawn back into the life of his ex, Claude, whose husband has just died. Mathias befriends her young son, who looks strongly like him. Desplechin revels in throwing these characters into highly emotional moments to navigate, and if he sometimes veers into melodramatic territory—Mathias feints when he sees Claude upon his return—his observations are deeply felt, as are the performances by François Civil (Mathias), Charlotte Rampling (Elena) and Nadia Tereszkiewicz (Claude).

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t 

(Universal)

In the second sequel to the surprisingly successful 2013 heist movie, the group of illusionists called the Four Horsemen rounds up new recruits to help with their latest caper: going up against the ruthless head of a diamond company, Veronika Vanderberg, who’s also a money launderer. Rosamund Pike is deliciously evil as Veronika, but the large cast of Horsemen, old and new—Jessie Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman and an always welcome Lizzy Kaplan alongside newcomers Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa and Ariana Greenblatt —are interchangeably bland, even though they try hard to be clever. Despite its far-flung locations, Ruben Fleischer’s crime flick is quite familiar and monotonous. The Blu-ray image looks fine; extras include featurettes and deleted and extended scenes, along with a director’s commentary.

DVD Release of the Week

The Time It Takes 

(Distrib Films)

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

December '25 Digital Week III

In-Theaters/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Blue Moon 

(Sony Classics)

Ethan Hawke throws himself into playing Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart—one-half of the immortal team of Rodgers and Hart, creators of such indelible musicals as Babes in Arms and Pal Joey—in Richard Linklater’s mostly inert biopic that concentrates on one day in Hart’s life, the opening night of Oklahoma, the first collaboration of Hart’s former partner Richard Rodgers with Oscar Hammerstein II. Set at the venerable theater restaurant Sardi’s, the film has a certain interest for musical theater fans (especially when a young Stephen Sondheim, a protégé of Hammerstein, appears), but Robert Kaplow’s script tries to cram too much into its single setting, taking away from its focus on Hart, who would be dead a few months after this night. Hawke does immerse himself poignantly in the songwriter’s messy personal life, and he’s the main reason to watch until the predictably tragic end.

Sentimental Value 

(Neon)

Danish-Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s latest melodrama explores a fractured family, as film director Gustav returns home after his ex-wife Sissel’s death to tell his two adult daughters—Agnes, a wife, mother and historian; and Nora, a temperamental stage actress having an affair with a married colleague—with the news that he’s making a film (with famous American actress Rachel Kemp) about his mother’s torture as a Nazi resistance fighter leading to her suicide when Gustav was young. The complications of family history rear their heads throughout, but Trier concentrates on too many loose ends, like standard-issue stage or on-set sequences that do little to illuminate matters. Stellan Skarsgård is perfectly cast as the boorish but boyish Gustav, Elle Fanning is an excellent Rachel and Renate Reinsve a fine Nora, but Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas steals each of her scenes as Agnes. Trier should have focused on her instead.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

David Byrne’s American Utopia 

(Criterion)

Director Spike Lee and cinematographer Ellen Kuras capture David Byrne’s groundbreaking 2019 Broadway show combining music and movement in exhilarating fashion, centered on Byrne’s unique stage presence, a savant leading his congregation in the holy gospel of song, with Annie-B Parson’s expressive choreography and Bob Sinclair’s inventive lighting visually complementing Byrne’s songs—from early Talking Heads to his recent solo material—accompanied by a dozen musicians, singers and dancers. Criterion’s new release comprises a 4K disc of the film, which looks and sounds immaculate; and two Blu-ray discs of the film and two extras: a 55-minute documentary about the show featuring Byrne, Kuras, Parson, and Sinclair, and a short Byrne and Lee conversation, socially distanced, from 2020.

Boogie Nights 

(Warner Bros)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature, made in 1997, is now considered a classic—unaccountably, in my view; this shrill, cartoonish, shallow look at the L.A. porn scene of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s fails as both a satire of and affectionate tribute to its dim denizens. In a cast of banal caricatures, Mark Wahlberg and Burt Reynolds come off best; following his auspicious debut Hard Eight, this overstuffed would-be epic is the first of similar films that have dotted Anderson’s career—Magnolia, The Master, Licorice Pizza, One Battle After Another—but I realize I’m in the minority. It all looks great in 4K; extras include commentaries by Anderson and by the cast, American Cinematheque Q&A and deleted scenes.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

Maria Roumagnac 

(Icarus Films)

Two legends of the silver screen—Marlene Dietrich and Jean Gabin—appeared for the only time together in French director Georges Lacombe’s doomed soap-operaish romance between a shop owner very popular with men and a working-class building contractor, whose jealousy over her sexually adventurous past (and present) pushes him over the edge tragically. Despite the stiffness of the characterizations and the dialogue—especially in the climactic court sequence—the onscreen chemistry between Dietrich and Gabin more than compensates. The restored 1946 B&W film looks ravishing on Blu. 

DVD/CD Release of the Week

Nicola Porpora—Polifemo 

(Chateau de Versailles)

Italian composer Nicola Porpora (1686-1768) wanted to challenge reigning opera genius George Frideric Handel at his own game in London, and the result was this 1735 Baroque epic romance populated by the goddess Galatea, the Cyclops, and ordinary men including Ulysses, whose appearance presages a conflict between the gods and the mortals. This live performance from Versailles in 2024 is colorfully over-the-top both vocally and visually; it’s too bad that it’s only a DVD instead of superior sharpness of a Blu-ray. Still, it’s nice to have a visual record of this performance, along with three CDs housing the audio recording.

October '25 Digital Week III

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Auction 

(Menemsha Films/Film Forum)

A painting by Austrian artist Egon Schiele turns up in the house of a young man, and André, an enterprising dealer from a famed Paris auction house, discovers that it was taken from its rightful owner by the Nazis in 1939, and the owner’s heirs are making a claim to it. Director Pascal Bonitzer’s accomplished drama unfolds like a slow-burning thriller, but it’s also a clear-eyed look at ethics and morality in a world that’s anything but black and white. Bonitzer and top actors like Alex Lutz (as André), the great Léa Drucker (as Bertina, his colleague and ex) and Louise Chevillotte (as his oddball intern) help make Auction smart and involving from the get-go. 

It Was Just an Accident 

(Neon/Film at Lincoln Center)

The latest from Iranian master Jafar Panahi—who has made ironical dramas about contemporary Iranian life for the past 30 years, since his debut, The White Balloon—is possibly his most incendiary yet, confronting defenders of the current authoritarian regime through their vicious actions against those in opposition. Vahid, who was arrested years earlier by an unapologetic pawn of the regime who’s nicknamed Peg Leg, realizes his torturer is living an ordinary family life and decides to kidnap him—but then hesitates about what to do next. Suspenseful and tense sequences abound, including a few truly stunning one-shot moments that make the flamboyant visuals of One Battle After Another look like amateurish meandering. Panahi filmed this surreptitiously—and illegally, according to incensed government officials—but every frame is filled with unparalleled urgency and artistry.

The Mastermind 

(Mubi/Film at Lincoln Center)

Kelly Reichardt’s latest stripped-down anti-comic drama is crammed with contrivances that show a filmmaker who’s run out of ideas. When James, a disaffected, unemployed father, decides to steal four Arthur Dove paintings from a Massachusetts art museum, he soon finds himself in trouble with his family, the mob and the law (duh). Although Jack O’Connor gives an appealing hangdog quality to James, a man who doesn’t quite know what his American dream but is desperate to try anything to achieve it, there’s not much else to recommend this shockingly sloppy movie. Rob Mazurek’s rhythmic score is more enervating than tense, while Alana Haim as Terri, James’ wife, is as inexpressive as she was in Paul Thomas Anderson’s worst movie, Licorice Pizza. Though set in 1970, at the height of the Vietnam, evidence of the war is scant until there’s a climactic peace demonstration in which James gets his comeuppance; it’s one of the most leaden bits of dramatic irony I’ve seen in a long time but is the perfect ending for such a lazy film.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Deep Crimson 

(Criterion)

Mexican master Arturo Ripstein’s take on The Honeymoon Killers is a fairly lurid, fairly sensational and fairly interesting crime melodrama—except that all those “fairly”s add up to a well-done missed opportunity. There are some very good, even memorable moments like each of the murder sequences, which are treated in a matter-of-fact fashion that’s all the more disturbing. And Ripstein’s vivid visual sense is made manifest by his subtly roving camera that moves among the criminals and their prey. But a routine atmosphere soon settles in, and by the final scenes of the couple’s capture and execution, what started dynamically ends in lurching fits and starts. Even David Mansfield’s chamber score seems out of place. There’s an exceptional 4K transfer; extras are interviews with Ripstein and cowriter Paz Alicia Garciadiego along with a post-screening Q&A they gave.

Weapons 

(Warner Bros)

In Zach Cregger’s convoluted thriller, new teacher Justine is the prime suspect when all of the young students in her classroom disappear one night, except for one—but there’s much more to the seemingly inscrutable happenings once she, Archer (father of one of the children) and policeman Paul (a married ex she’s still sleeping with) start snooping around. Cregger cheats right from the start—shots of the kids running through the streets at night have an eerily similar look to the famous photo of a Vietnamese child burned by napalm, which I hope isn’t intentional—and he ends up telling a familiar tale of a witch’s spell that destroys all in its nonsensical path. The acting by Julia Garner (Julie), Josh Brolin (Archer), Alden Ehrenreich (Paul) and an unrecognizable Amy Madigan (the witchy villain) partially elevates Cregger’s derivative script and direction. The film looks impressive on UHD; extras are short on-set featurettes and interviews.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

School in the Crosshairs 

(Cult Epics)

Japanese auteur Nobuhiko Obayashi, whose unclassifiable but classic 1977 magnum opus House is his best-known film, made this even more surreal sci-fi parody-cum-homage in 1981. It follows the exploits of a high-school student (played by Hiroko Yakushimaru, a teen heartthrob at the time) who discovers she has telekinetic powers one day at school and soon realizes that a malevolent alien invasion is imminent. Obayashi’s droll social commentary comes to the fore when several students’ minds begin to be controlled by extraterrestrials, stifling free speech; a welcome sense of playfulness in Obayashi’s directing and writing is on display, as it was in House. The restored film looks quite good on Blu; extras include a commentary and visual essay.

DVD Release of the Week 

Niki 

(Distrib Films US)

Charlotte Le Bon’s fiery performance as French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002), who overcame incestuous abuse as a young girl from her father—which led to mental health issues for which things like shock therapy were deemed appropriate treatment—to find her voice in painting, sculptures and collages, centers this conventional but well-made portrait of the artist as a young woman. Making her directorial debut, Céline Sallette imbues time-honored devices like split screens and title cards with remarkable freshness, but it’s all at the service of telling an honest account of a difficult story that ultimately shows how art can be a way to overcome trauma.

CD Release of the Week

Bacewicz—String Quartet No. 4, Piano Quintet No. 1 

(Evil Penguin)

It’s heartening that Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-69), the first 20th-century Polish female composer to earn deserved—if belated—recognition for her startlingly original scores, has in the past few had releases of several excellent discs of her music, even though they have primarily been recordings of her highly expressive orchestral works. This disc features two of her most exhilarating chamber pieces, the Piano Quintet No. 1—which begins with one of the composer’s most haunting musical themes—and the String Quartet No. 4, which was composed in 1951, amazingly just a year before the quintet. The Kinski Quartet, with marvelous accompaniment from pianist Jâms Coleman in the quintet, gives these superlative pieces vigorous workouts alongside a beating heart.

October '25 Digital Week II

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

F1—the Movie 

(Warner Bros)

Brad Pitt’s laconic charm is on display throughout this overlong commercial for Formula 1 racing: for two and a half hours, director Joseph Kosinski takes us on a relentlessly formulaic journey through several races, each of which writer Ehren Kruger tries his damnedest to make singular rather than repetitive. Kosinski and Kruger fail, for the most part, while the off-track scenes of Pitt as retired daredevil driver Sonny (who comes out of retirement), Damson Idris as young hotshot driver Joshua, Javier Bardem as team owner Ruben (who talks Sonny into returning) and Kerry Condon as Kate, the brains of the outfit (who—of course—falls for Sonny against her better judgment) are pretty ordinary. It’s shot and paced efficiently and slickly, and if you’re a fan of cars flying around a track at 200 miles an hour, then your—um—mileage may vary. The film has a sharply detailed 4K transfer; extras comprise several making-of featurettes.

Message in a Bottle 

(Mercury Studios)

Set to 27 Police and solo songs by Sting, this story of the global refugee crisis is told through the mesmerizing movement of Kate Prince’s dance company, ZooNation—and, as jukebox shows go, it’s closer to Twyla Tharp’s take on Billy Joel’s catalog, Movin’ Out, than to the Abba megahit, Mamma Mia. Prince and dramaturg Lolita Chakrabarti have fashioned a narrative of sorts from which to hang Sting’s words and music, which have mostly been extensively rearranged and rerecorded. Whatever one thinks of how Prince and music supervisor and arranger Alex Lacamoire manipulate Sting’s tunes to fit the contrived narrative—sometimes a disservice to the songs, other times a disservice to the story—the dancing of Prince’s company, which specializes in effortlessly combining contemporary and hip-hop styles, is breathtaking. The UHD video and surround-sound audio are tremendous; also included is a Blu-ray of the performance. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street—7-Film Collection 

(Warner Bros)

Wes Craven’s 1983 horror entry has gained stature over the past four decades despite being simply a crudely effective horror film about a teenage girl’s nightmares getting intruded on by the now-legendary Freddy Krueger, who enters the real world and starts a killing spree. No one expected six sequels and spinoffs over the next 11 years, but that is what we got—most are even more forgettable, but each has its moments of dream-like lunacy, whether it’s the cleverly bizarre murders or the sixth installment’s desperate use of 3-D for the finale (yes, 3-D glasses are included in this set). All seven films have an impressive hi-def look; the many extras include commentaries, interviews, featurettes, music videos and alternate endings.

In-Theater Release of the Week

Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 

(Icarus Films/Film Forum)

From the director of 2011’s The Black Power Mixtape, Sweden’s Göran Hugo Olsson, comes another imposingly thorough archival collage that, if nothing else, becomes a valuable historical document of the Israel-Palestine conflict through the unique lens of Swedish journalists in the region. Olsson has assembled footage, shown in this 3-1/2 hour film in mostly chronological order, from Sweden’s state television network SVT’s wide-ranging coverage of the always charged relationship between Israelis and Palestinians that display both the misunderstandings and missteps that have trailed that region and its people for so long. Whether Olsson agrees with what is being presented and how is not the focus; there is no editorializing (which some might perceive as a copout). Instead, it’s an absorbing chronicle of what viewers in Sweden saw on their TV sets over a period of three decades from a network whose stated mission was impartiality in news coverage. It’s a long way from “We report. You decide.”

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Bad Guys 2 

(Universal)

This intermittently amusing sequel to the hit 2022 animated adventure again follows a squad of reformed crooks (Wolf, Shark, Piranha, Tarantula and Snake) who have further misadventures. Director Pierre Perifel hits on some colorful visual inventiveness that mirrors the first film while Yoni Brenner and Etan Cohen’s script has ricocheting one-liners that at times hit their intended targets. What propels it all is the exuberant voice cast: Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Anthony Ramos, Craig Robinson and Awkwafina as the bad guys and Zazie Beetz, Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne and Maria Bakalova as the bad girls. There’s a bright Blu-ray image; extras include a new short, Little Lies and Alibis; deleted scenes; making-of featurettes and interviews.

Peter Gabriel—Taking the Pulse 

(Mercury Studios)

In 2010, Peter Gabriel released an album, Scratch My Back, his cover versions of favorite songs with orchestral accompaniment—on the ensuing tour (which I saw at Radio City Music Hall), Gabriel played those covers as well as his own songs performed with the New Blood Orchestra. This concert from that tour, filmed in Verona, Italy, at the venerable outdoor amphitheater Arena di Verona, comprises only Gabriel’s songs and is all the better for it. Hearing classics “San Jacinto,” “Red Rain” and “Darkness” backed by the power of a full orchestra (led by conductor Ben Foster) is a rare privilege. The highlights are “Blood of Eden” and “Don’t Give Up,” duets with vocalist Ane Brun, who impressively takes the Sinead O’Connor and Kate Bush parts. The hi-def video looks fine, and the surround-sound audio is fantastic.

When Fall Is Coming 

(Music Box Films)

Prolific French director François Ozon’s latest follows the travails of retired grandmother Michelle, who’s been banned from seeing her grandson Lucas after he has an accident while visiting her rural home—but when her daughter Valérie is suddenly gone from the picture, she must deal with that unexpected absence from their lives. There’s a welcome matter-of-factness to Ozon’s storytelling, but it’s too one-note when a fateful twist upends everyone and everything. On the positive side, Ozon gets uncluttered performances from his cast, led by Hélène Vincent (Michelle), Ludivine Seignier (Valérie) and Josiane Balasko (Michelle’s friend and neighbor Marie-Claude).

DVD Release of the Week

Peanuts—Ultimate TV Specials Collection 

(Warner Bros)

What better way to celebrate the immortal Charlie Brown and his pals and commemorate their creator Charles Schulz’s genius than with this comprehensive collection of 40 Peanuts television specials, from A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)—still the greatest animated TV special of them all—to the most recent, Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown (2011). If you have other favorites, they’re probably here, like It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973); along with all 40 specials on five discs, there’s also a collectible 28-page booklet.

CD Release of the Week 

Walton/Britten/Tippett—Works for Piano and Orchestra 

(BIS)

Vibrant works for piano and orchestra by three prominent 20th-century British composers make up this luminous-sounding disc with the exceptional pianist Clare Hammond as soloist. First is William Walton’s Sinfonia Concertante, a sprightly 1927 work that Walton revised in 1943; Hammond beautifully performs the revision, which makes clear this is less a concerto than a symphonic work with a prominent piano part. Benjamin Britten’s 1940 Diversions was originally written for piano left-hand for Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I. Hammond and the BBC Symphony Orchestra led by George Bass get the tricky balance between the soloist and the orchestral players exactly right. Finally, there’s Michael Tippett’s 1953 concerto, one of the composer’s most exuberant works: again Hammond and the orchestra perform with passion, alternating between power and finesse throughout.