July '26 Digital Week III

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

The Crying Game 

(Criterion Collection)

Neil Jordan’s best film is brilliantly directed and written (he won the 1992 Oscar for best original screenplay), starting out as a thriller, then shifting gears into a tentative romance until becoming a quasi-mystery for its startling finish. All these disparate parts are melded into a seamless whole by Jordan, who combines standard plot elements with refreshing twists and psychologically acute characterizations and motivations as well as uncannily juggling disparate moods and rhythms. And let’s not forget the estimable acting by Stephen Rea, Forrest Whittaker, Natasha Richardson and Jaye Davidson, right down to the smallest parts. Criterion’s UHD transfer superbly accentuates Ian Watson’s tangy cinematography; extras are Jordan’s 2005 commentary, new interviews with Jordan and Rea, 2005 making-of documentary and an alternate ending with Jordan’s commentary.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy 

(Warner Bros)

For 135 messy minutes, writer-director Lee Cronin slogs through several excruciatingly insipid storylines that tie standard mummy legend to obscure Egyptian mythmaking and, of all things, demonic possession films, especially The Exorcist, which could sue for defamation. Sequence after limp sequence marches in front of the camera, and it’s all sadly risible—and the end threatens a sequel. Including his name in the title is quite the flex, as if anyone else would want to take credit. The film does look impressive in UHD; extras comprise Cronin’s commentary, deleted scenes and three making-of featurettes.

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

The Floaters 

(Brainstorm Media)

Director Rachel Israel and a cohort of writers concocted this genial comedy set in a Jewish summer camp that brings together former besties Nomi and Mara, who attended as kids; Nomi takes a job as a counselor from camp director Mara after being kicked out of her own rock band and is told to supervise the “floaters,” camp kids considered misfits. Those who are familiar with—or attended—summer camps might get more laughs and nods of recognition from this, but it is certainly likable, especially when the floaters unsurprisingly win over their critics, and nicely-acted by Jackie Tohn (Nomi), Sarah Podemski (Mara) and Judah Lewis, Nina Bloomgarden and Jake Ryan as the head floaters. 

Hadestown 

(Bleecker Street Media) 

Orpheus and Eurydice have been fodder for artists for centuries, but this musical—which opened on Broadway in 2019—by book writer-lyricist-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, isn’t a patch on Offenbach or Cocteau. Set in a Depression-era burg that recalls the French Quarter, the show at times spits out the swampy, jazzy Big Easy sounds; at its most original, Mitchell’s music grooves robustly. The men (Orpheus, Hades and Hermes) have more to work with vocally than the women (Eurydice and Persephone). That’s no slight on Eva Noblezada and Amber Gray, who sound comfortable in their middle range, but the male leads’ voices—Reeve Carney’s high tenor, Patrick Page’s rumblingly low bass and ageless Andre de Shields in between—go on a more satisfying vocal ride. Although Mitchell’s derivative music, lyrics and book don’t come close to their mythical forebears, director Rachel Chavkin makes the show move, literally—a trio of onstage turntables, combined with Rachel Hauck’s seedy set, Michael Krauss’s sober costumes and Bradley King’s savvy lighting, conjures a sweaty musical purgatory.  

Night Nurse 

(IFC Midnight)

Writer-director Georgia Bernstein’s glossy drama about Eleni, a young nurse at a retirement home who becomes entangled in a sordid emotional and criminal relationship with Douglas, one of her elderly patients, tries to be so many things at once—erotic thriller, crime drama, psychological character study—that it ends up flailing unsatisfactorily. As Bernstein loses control, the film’s moodiness becomes a liability, as scenes of Eleni and Douglas in various stages of their mutually harmful kinship start to become perfunctory and dull—even a surprising murder seems more a desperate way to end things. On the plus side, Cemre Paksoy gives a commanding performance as the needy Eleni and Bruce McKenzie is nearly as good as the dementia-addled but virile Douglas.

CD Releases of the Week

Ottorino Respighi—Chamber Music 

(Brilliant Classics)

Italian composer Ottorino Respighi’s prodigious and impressive output has been reduced over the decades to his best-known orchestral tone poems like Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome; as this excellent disc shows, Respighi was much more than his most popular works. (He even composed several flavorful operas.) The DaVinci Ensemble plays two of Respighi’s string quartets and the masterly F-minor piano quintet—with an assurance that showcases the composer’s characteristic melodic sense and musical structure.

John Williams/Bernard Herrmann—Orchestral Works 

(Pentatone)

John Williams and Bernard Herrmann were two of the greatest film composers—Williams’ long collaboration with Steven Spielberg is equaled by Herrmann’s with Alfred Hitchcock—so this disc, comprising concert works by both composers, is an intriguing left turn. Williams’ Essay for Strings (1965) and Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion (1969) contain the attractive melodies and ear-catching rhythms associated with his later film scores. Herrmann’s 1967 Clarinet Quintet (subtitled Souvenirs de Voyage), adapted by Hans Sorensen for clarinet and string orchestra, is a pensive late work. The soloists (flutist Jin Ta and clarinetist Ma Yue) and Singapore Symphony Orchestra under conductors Darrell Ang and Joshua Tan play with sensitivity to both composers.

Off-Broadway Musical Review—“Girl, Interrupted” at the Public Theater

Girl, Interrupted

Music and lyrics by Aimee Mann

Book by Martyna Majok, based on the book by Susanna Kaysen 

Choreography by Sonya Tayeh; directed by Jo Bonney

Performances through July 12, 2026

Public Theater, New York, NY

publictheater.org

Juliana Canfield and the cast of Girl, Interrupted (photo: Joan Marcus)

Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted—an unflinchingly honest account of her time in a Massachusetts psychiatric hospital in the 1960s—was first turned into a 1999 film, directed by James Mangold, notable for its two central performances: Wynona Ryder as Susanna and Angelina Jolie, who won an Oscar for the showy role of Lisa, one of Susanna’s fellow patients.

The new stage adaptation, a world-premiere production at the Public Theater—which has introduced new musicals for decades, from Hair, A Chorus Line and Hamilton to the more recent Suffs and Hell’s Kitchen, all of which went to Broadway—has an equally impressive pedigree. The book is by playwright Martyna Majok, whose incisive drama Queens was done off-Broadway earlier this season; the show is staged by Jo Bonney, one of our most inventive directors; and the music and lyrics are by Aimee Mann, a master of intimately ironic songs about miscommunication and broken relationships, from her 1985 debut with ‘Til Tuesday through her decades-long solo career.

But Mann’s songs—which made their debut on her stunning 2021 album, Queens of the Summer Hotel—are almost too confessional for the stage, even a small off-Broadway one. What sounds so achingly poignant on Mann’s album loses that poignance when sung by different characters, despite nearly identically restrained and small-scale accompaniment by acoustic guitar, bass, violin and piano. 

When Susanna (a restrained but powerful Juliana Canfield) sings “At the Frick Museum,” a deceptively intricate song that manages to encompass Vermeer—one of whose paintings at the Frick gives the memoir and the show their title—and male predation, her vocal is harrowingly understated, but lost is Mann’s world-wearily forthright voice. The same goes for most of the other songs, especially when they’re performed by more than one character. Another problem is that Mann does not write showstoppers; this works on Queens of the Summer Hotel, where the accumulation of her soulful, incident-filled songs grabs the heart. Yet onstage, though beautifully crafted and orchestrated by Todd Almond, the piling up of these same songs is far less memorable.

Majok’s lively book captures sympathetic snapshots of these misunderstood (and misdiagnosed) women, while Bonney’s precise direction helps smooth over the unavoidably episodic nature of the material. She also effectively uses the conceit of performers playing instruments onstage. Alongside the always authentic Canfield is a captivating cast, although such a forceful singer as Emily Skinner is unfortunately relegated to a small role as one of the hospital’s doctors. 

Broadway Musical Review—“Beaches” with Kelli Barrett and Jessica Vosk

Beaches

Book by Iris Rainer Dart and Thom Thomas

Music by Mike Stoller, lyrics by Iris Rainer Dart

Directed by Lonny Price, co-directed by Matt Cowart

Opened April 22, 2026

Majestic Theater, 245 West 44th Street, NYC

beachesthemusical.com

Kelli Barrett in Beaches (photo: Marc J. Franklin)

Most people remember Beaches as the aggressively sentimental 1988 movie starring Bette Midler. But it was originally a novel by Iris Rainer Dart, who cowrote the book and lyrics for the Broadway musical version based on her book, not the film. Whether this was to avoid comparisons with the beloved screen tearjerker or not, the result is stilted and mawkish.

Beaches follows the lifelong friendship of extroverted Cee Cee Bloom and introverted Bertie White (Hillary in the movie) from the time they meet cute as kids on an Atlantic City beach until the moment Cee Cee drops her show-biz career to look after Bertie when she falls deathly ill. If the movie relied on Midler’s charisma and Barbara Hershey’s weepiness, the musical doesn’t do enough with its two stars. Jessica Vosk plays Cee Cee to the hilt, but she’s been directed to storm around like Midler, even though in interviews she has said she’s definitely not doing that.  

Then there’s Kelli Barrett, one of our most winning and talented musical actresses, who plays Bertie. After making a superb Sherrie in the Off-Broadway musical Rock of Ages, Barrett was bypassed when the show first went to Broadway and then was made into a movie. Since then, she’s been in duds like Getting the Band Back Together and Doctor Zhivago. But Barrett is a trooper, and she makes Bertie a far more complete character than she deserves to be. The performers who play Cee Cee and Bertie as young girls (Samantha Schwartz and Zeya Grace) and teenagers (Bailey Ryon and Emma Ogea) are solid, and the number where all three pairs of friends are together onstage—“Show the World Who You Are”—is the most appealing in the entire show. Otherwise, the co-direction of Lonny Price and Matt Cowart is as uninspired as the lazily minimal sets by James Noone.

Beaches could have been a jukebox musical, since the movie was crammed with period-specific pop songs; instead, Dart has written lyrics for a bunch of unmemorable songs to which vet Mike Stoller has supplied routine melodies. The elephant in the theater is the soaring ballad “Wind Beneath My Wings,” which became a Midler concert staple after it went to number one on the charts in 1989. But it’s used here in the most middling (or Midlering) way: after Bertie’s offstage death (poor Barrett doesn’t even get a good dying scene!), it’s the obvious 11 o’clock number—but since it seems so obviously tacked on, it doesn’t have the emotional weight as it should. 

Botching its biggest hit is an “oof” moment for a show with more than a few of them. On that score, Beaches ends up out of tune.

Musical Review— Michael John LaChiusa’s “The Wild Party” at Encores

The Wild Party

Music and Lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa  

Book by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe; based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March  

Directed by Lili-Anne Brown; choreographed by Katie Spelman  

Performances March 18–29, 2026

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, NYC

nycitycenter.org

The cast of The Wild Party (photo: Joan Marcus)

Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 poem The Wild Party is a strange choice as the basis for a musical—but two shows based on March’s poem both premiered within months of each other in the 1999–2000 season: Andrew Lippa’s off-Broadway version and Michael John LaChiusa’s Broadway version. City Center’s Encores—which has been bringing back obscure and neglected musicals for 30 years—tackled Lippa’s version in 2015 with a game but miscast Sutton Foster as the heroine Queenie and Broadway stalwart Stephen Pasquale (most recently onstage in Encores’ High Spirits last month) as her lover Burrs. This time, Encores does LaChiusa’s adaptation: perfectly cast and energetically staged by director Lili-Anne Brown and choreographer Katie Spelman, its two hours are a frantically entertaining journey into hell.

The Wild Party centers on the volatile relationship between vaudeville dancer Queenie and her lover Burrs, a clown who performs in blackface. Always at each other’s throats, literally and figuratively, they decide to host a party in their Manhattan apartment one evening. Among the array of friends, acquaintances, hangers-on and other theater people, Queenie has invited Kate, her best friend who is a famous name now and with whom she has always had an explosive relationship. Kate has brought her latest beau, the strapping Black, which sets up a night filled with jealousy, recriminations, sex, drugs, music and—fatally—more. 

The book by composer and lyricist LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe (who directed the original Broadway production) presents this evening of debauchery as a series of blackout sketches for Queenie, Burrs and their guests, who all get showstopping spotlights in the midst of arguing, drinking, drugging or pairing off for trysts. These increasingly dark scenes are certainly arresting, but there’s little dramatic arc to the whole thing—instead, it’s a parade of desperate characters acting desperately, and a little of The Wild Party goes a long way. 

Despite that, the acting, staging and music making at City Center are peerless. Mary Mitchell Campbell conducts the superb Encores Orchestra, which gives LaChiusa’s alternately jazzy and dissonant score a full, sumptuous sound. Director Brown and choreographer Spelman make great use of their terrifically agile cast, which includes a legend in Tonya Pinkins—the original Kate on Broadway—who, as fading star Dolores, kills it in her two solo turns, “Moving Uptown” and “When It Ends.”

Then there’s the sublime trio at the heart of the show. Jordan Danica is a quietly insinuating Burrs, Adrienne Warren is a powerhouse Kate, and Jasmine Amy Rogers is a spectacular Queenie, singing, dancing and acting up a storm. If this staging transfers to Broadway, at a minimum Danica, Warren and Rogers should go with it.

Musical Review—“High Spirits” at Encores with Katrina Lenk and Philippa Soo

High Spirits

Music, Lyrics, and Book by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray 

Directed by Jessica Stone; choreography by Ellenore Scott

Performances February 4-15, 2026

New York City Center, 131 West 55th Street, NYC

nycitycenter.org

Katrina Lenk and Philippa Soo in High Spirits (photo: Joan Marcus)

High Spirits is the kind of musical that Encores was made for, since it premiered on Broadway in 1964 but has rarely been seen since. A tuneful adaptation of Noel Coward’s classic ghost comedy Blithe Spirit, High Spirits is a buoyant if conventional show that’s probably too old-fashioned to succeed in today’s musical climate. But for a couple of weeks at City Center with a terrifically agile cast, it fills the bill.

Novelist Charles Condomine lives with his second wife Ruth in his well-appointed Hampstead Heath home, where the memory of Charles’ first wife, the free-spirited Elvira, is palpable. One evening, Charles plans a séance to get ideas for a new story, but it works too well in the hands of the eccentric medium Madame Arcadi—Elvira’s spirit materializes, although only Charles can see her. Soon, Elvira tries her damnedest to ruin Charles’ current marriage or even his life—but after Elvira tampers with Charles’ car, it’s Ruth who takes it for a drive, and soon Madame Arcadi has returned to Hampstead to help Charles with a much bigger problem: the ghosts of both dead wives.

If you know Coward’s play, you know how it turns out, but there’s fun in the musical’s comic twists and turns: Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray expanded the role of Madame Arcadi, giving the redoubtable Andrea Martin opportunities to go overboard at Encores. Still, the witty banter of the original—mostly intact in the musical—doesn’t really need any added songs. If Martin and Gray provide entertaining, sometimes tasty interludes, only “Home Sweet Heaven”—in which Elvira enumerates all the fun she’s having in the afterlife, hanging out with everyone from Bernini and Proust to St. Theresa and Joan of Arc—has satiric bite. 

Jessica Stone’s Encores staging—which continues the half-staged, half-concert format that the series perfected decades ago—centers on the orchestra, conducted by Mary-Mitchell Campbell, which sounds glorious throughout. The starry cast includes the aforementioned Martin and Rachel Dratch (the Condomines’ maid Edith); though both are consummate physical comedians, their shtick becomes distracting—but at least Martin has a showstopping second act song, “Something Is Coming to Tea.” Campbell Scott is the suave narrator, named Noël Coward, while Stephen Pasquale makes an amusingly exasperated Charles. 

Finally, there are two of our top musical performers taking flight as Charles’ wives. Philippa Soo is a delightful Ruth, singing beautifully and showing impressive comic chops along with a happy gift for physical comedy that smartly stops short of mugging. And Katrina Lenk, a force of nature as the cheeky Elvira, is obviously having a great time—her effortlessly powerful voice and impeccable timing are the primary reason why High Spirits still resonated at Encores.

Broadway Musical Review—“The Queen of Versailles” with Kristin Chenoweth

The Queen of Versailles

Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by Lindsey Terrentino

Directed by Michael Arden; choreographed by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant

Performances through December 21, 2025

St. James Theater, 246 West 44th Street, NY

queenofversaillesmusical.com

Kristin Chenoweth in The Queen of Versailles (photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Proof that lightning does not strike twice, the latest Stephen Schwartz musical starring Kristen Chenoweth already posted its premature closing date on Broadway, while an earlier collaboration you might have heard about, Wicked, keeps going. But The Queen of Versailles is a cautionary tale for collaborators about what not to do when creating a Broadway musical.

It’s to Schwartz’s credit to try something original, and the story of Jackie Siegel, as seen in the eponymous 2012 documentary film directed by Lauren Greenfield, certainly qualifies. (Has there been another Broadway musical based on a documentary?) Greenfield’s film explores Jackie’s and ultra-rich husband David’s conspicuous consumption with both sympathy and bemusement, something difficult to finesse in a big-budget stage musical. 

So Lindsey Ferrentino’s book and Schwartz’s songs try and have it both ways. We root for Jackie as she lucks into getting rich after some bad decisions, but as she and David start to throw around their money on a mansion nicknamed Versailles, it becomes increasingly difficult to spend time with them, especially since David is so heartless a millionaire villain, and F. Murray Abraham plays him as a comic caricature.

Chenoweth, on the other hand, remains enjoyable and funny, which makes Jackie less nuanced and, when she’s in financial and personal doldrums—the 2008 recession brings mansion construction to a halt, then her teenage daughter Victoria commits suicide—there’s a gaping dramatic hole that no amount of teary songs—including the Act I finale, “This Is Not the Way,” which Chenoweth carries effortlessly—can fill.

This might have worked shorter, making Jackie’s roller-coaster ride faster. Instead, it lumbers around for a bloated 2-1/2 hours, with sympathy gone and dramatic comeuppance obvious. Even appearances Louis XIV to make explicit the parallels between the Versailles of the 17th and 21st centuries are less amusingly pointed as they recur.

Needless to say, director Michael Arden’s slick staging can’t reconcile the inherent messiness of the subject and Schwartz’s and Terrentino’s treatment, while the first-rate trappings—Dane Laffery’s clever sets and video design, Christian Cowan’s tongue-in-cheek costumes, Natasha Katz’s brilliant lighting—only obscure the dramatic emptiness.

Chenoweth, of course, dominates any show she’s in, but that only shows up the rest of the cast. Abraham’s David has a few amusingly nasty moments and Nina White’s Victoria has the needed pathos, but they are shunted aside by the hurricane at the center. Even though Chenoweth gives it her all, she can’t save The Queen of Versailles from being guillotined.

Off-Broadway Musical Review—“The Seat of Our Pants” at the Public Theater

The Seat of Our Pants

Adaptation, music, and lyrics by Ethan Lipton; based on the play The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder

Choreography by Sunny Min-Sook Hitt; directed by Leigh Silverman

Performances through December 7, 2025

Public Theater, New York, NY

publictheater.org

Shuler Hensley and Micaela Diamond in The Seat of Our Pants (photo: Joan Marcus)

Making Thornton Wilder’s play The Skin of Our Teeth literally sing is not an original concept: the last time it was done here, Off-Broadway in 2017, director Arin Arbus interpolated songs by César Alvarez into the high-concept structure of Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning creation, which takes a tongue-in-cheek but also deadly serious look at the Antrobus family from New Jersey (Antrobus means, not surprisingly, “human being” in Greek), whose 5,000-year existence includes a new ice age, a Biblical flood and an end-times world war in each of its three acts. (Wilder wrote it in 1942 during World War II, for context.)

The Skin of Our Teeth is a structural monstrosity—actors address the audience out of character, stagehands join in on the action, and a dinosaur and a mammoth have speaking parts, to name just a few—so adding songs would seem just another formal conceit that mirrors Wilder’s. The playwright heavily borrowed from James Joyce’s last novel, the punning classic Finnegans Wake—another formal experiment that has challenged readers and scholars for decades—to create the indestructible family that lives through both natural and man-made disasters. 

Ethan Lipton—who adapted the play and wrote the music and lyrics of this latest incarnation, retitled The Seat of Our Pants—has kept most of Wilder’s conceits, so when the Antrobus’ maid, Sabina (who becomes a beauty pageant winner stealing the father away from his family in the second act before reverting back to their maid Sabina in act three) addresses the audience at the beginning, the effect is humorous if bemusing. (Wilder shrewdly put dialogue in Sabina’s mouth that would shut down criticism about what he is trying to do with his play.)

Lipton is better at adapting than writing songs, which, with a couple exceptions, don’t deepen the play’s metaphorical, allegorical or literary conceits but instead regurgitate what Wilder’s alternately pointed and ponderous writing has already covered. The Skin of Our Teeth is a long, exhausting evening of theater—and The Seat of Our Pants, also long, is even more exhausting.

Luckily, the always resourceful director Leigh Silverman stages these seemingly random scenes of a family adrift in a world that’s at war with itself with an unerring sense of the theatrical and the metatheatrical. With choreographer Sunny Min-Sook Hitt, Silverman makes movement more telling than Lipton’s songs or even Wilder’s words. On Lee Jellinek’s cleverly pliable unit set—illuminated by Lap Chi Chu’s canny lighting design and Kaye Voyce’s colorful costumes—Silverman creates a world in which the Antrobus clan, on the precipice of extinction, manages to survive the worst of both nature and their fellow humans.

The large cast tackles these brazenly surrealistic characters with aplomb. Shuler Hensley’s Mr. Antrobus is charming in his dumbness, someone who knows men will always lead however unqualified they are. Damon Daunno, as son Henry, is remarkably adept at aping his father’s brainlessness while Amina Faye, as daughter Gladys, effectively embodies a shrewdness her father and brother will never know. Ruthie Anne Miles, as Mrs. Antrobus, sings beautifully (no surprise) and finds an uncomfortably devastating emotional core, especially in a brief scene when she screams in mortal pain over her dead infant son. 

Then there’s the Sabina of Micaela Diamond, a stage natural who, through a miraculous blend of charm, singing chops and comedic smarts, holds this unwieldy show together. 

November '25 Digital Week II

Streaming Releases of the Week 

Heaven 

(Lightyear)

With the untimely death of Diane Keaton, there was discussion about her legendary screen career, from her indelible collaborations with Woody Allen to her powerful performances in Reds and Shoot the Moon, among others. But Keaton was also an idiosyncratic filmmaker, and her first feature—this weirdly beguiling 1987 documentary—showed off her singular style in ways that were both affecting and head-shaking. This 75-minute exploration rounds up interview snippets with people who discuss their idea of an afterlife alongside dozens of carefully chosen clips from a wide array of movies including Metropolis and A Matter of Life and Death to create something uniquely, lightheartedly Keatonesque.

Sex Diva 

(Breaking Glass Pictures)

Writer-director Giulia Louise Steigerwalt smartly chronicles the fascinating career of Italian pornographer Riccardo Schicchi, who broke through in the ‘90s, helping to create celebrities of some of his female adult-film performers, including his wife Éva Henger and international superstars like Moana Pozzi, who died tragically of cancer at age 33. Steigerwalt’s film is amusing and dramatic, tongue-in-cheek and tragic, and has superb acting throughout, led by Pietro Castellito (Riccardo), Tesa Litvan (Éva) and Denise Capezza (Moana), with—as the calming influence of the Schicchi empire, Debora Attanasio—the magnificent Barbara Ronchi the emotional anchor of the story.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Def Leppard—Diamond Star Heroes: Live From Sheffield 

(Mercury)

For a triumphant return to its hometown of Sheffield in northern England in 2023, Def Leppard played the local soccer stadium for a 90-minute concert before tens of thousands of loyal fans that mixed the group’s biggest hits with a few deeper cuts; highlights are the early tracks “Bringing on the Heartbreak” and “Switch 625.” Singer Joe Elliott can still hit most of the high notes, impressive at his age (63 in ’23), and the band is tight and focused. A bonus concert, at a Sheffield club a few nights earlier, is a 65-minute trek through some of the same hits and a couple different true-fan faves like “Let It Go” and “Wasted.” The UHD video and surround sound are first-rate.

Him 

(Universal)

In this crudely if occasionally effective horror flick, college football player Cameron Cade—after being attacked by an unknown assailant after a game—goes to train privately before the pro combine with veteran NFL QB Isaiah White, whose unconventional methods result in sex, murder and a ridiculously risible final blood-letting. Tyriq Withers is a persuasive, even sympathetic Cam, while Marlon Wayans brings gravitas to the young quarterback’s mentor. For 95 minutes, co-writer/director Justin Tipping hammers everything home so literally that it turns what could have been an enjoyably guilty pleasure into a visually striking mess. It does look terrific on UHD; extras include an alternate ending, deleted scene, and featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Burden of Dreams 

(Criterion)

Les Blank and Maureen Gosling’s perceptive 1982 documentary about the stupendous (and often stupid) lengths that director Werner Herzog went to making his rain forest epic Fitzcarraldo is far more focused than Herzog’s feature, another of the German filmmaker’s adventurous but stillborn studies of madness. A precursor to the making-of featurettes that populate so many home media releases, Blank and Lassiter’s chronicle catches many interesting filmmaking moments—and Herzog, always a charming figure, has himself made far more memorable documentaries than features. The film looks striking on Blu; extras comprise Blank’s, Gosling’s and Herzog’s insightful commentary, Blank’s amusing short Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), deleted scenes and an archival Herzog interview. 

Pavarotti—The Lost Concert 

(Mercury/Universal)

In 1995, the great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti gave a concert in Llangollen, a small town in Wales, 40 years after he won a vocal competition there, to keep a promise he made to return one day: the entire 75-minute concert, where he sang his greatest classical hits in front of tens of thousands, was recorded for posterity. His delight is evident from the start, and he’s in fine form throughout. The video looks decent and the sound is good; lone extra is a 52-minute documentary that follows Pavarotti on his journey to the concert, although some of it repeats performances we see in the actual show.

Rick and Morty—Complete 8th Season 

(Warner Bros)

The latest bonkers season begins with Morty and his sister Summer escaping the matrix into which their mad-scientist granddad Rick sent them after they took his phone charger—and that’s just the beginning of a series of dementedly witty episodes that features clones of the main characters that go off on further adventures. The superb voice cast and the offhandedly clever animation provide special comic (and cosmic) dimension to these eight episodes; lone extra is an inside the season featurette with creator Dan Harmon and others.

CD Releases of the Week

Leoš Janáček—The Makropulos Affair/The Diary of the One Who Disappeared 

(Somm)

Australian conductor Charles Mackerras (1925-2010) was an authority on the music of the Czech master Leoš Janáček (1854-1928), recording all of his major operas, especially in an unparalleled cycle for Decca Records back in the 1970s. One of Janáček’s towering masterpieces, The Makropulos Affair (better known as The Makropulos Case in America) had its London premiere in 1964 at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, under Mackerras’ meticulous direction, with Marie Collier an unforgettable-sounding heroine. Also on this two-disc set is a fine performance (from the BBC Studios in 1956) of the composer’s yearning song cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared, sung in an English translation by tenor Richard Lewis and contralto Maureen Forrester, with Ernest Lush on piano.

Kurt Weill/Alan Jay Lerner—Love Life 

(Capriccio)

This delectable 1948 time-traveling musical was the only collaboration of two musical geniuses: Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner. The amazing thing is that the finished work is so cohesive and flows so entertainingly, considering the outsized talents (and, no doubt, egos) of both men. This excellent recording of a recent production of Opera North—located in Leeds, England—features wonderful singing, especially by the leads, Quirijin de Long and Stephanie Carley, along with the large supporting cast and chorus; while the orchestra, under conductor James Holmes, sounds wonderful throughout. Too bad this is an audio recording—a video of this staging would be unbeatable.

September '25 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Bang Bang 

(Vertigo Releasing)

Tim Blake Nelson’s ferocious portrayal of Bernard “Bang Bang” Rozyski, a washed-up boxer beset by personal foibles and tragedies—his twin brother was brain-damaged after a fight years ago—who has redemption and revenge on his mind in director Vincent Grashaw and writer Will Janowitz’s gritty but ragged character study. Although the relationships (with his daughter, grandson, etc.) don’t always parse plausibly, the acting of Nelson, Nina Arianda (estranged daughter Jen), Andrew Liner (teenage grandson Justin), Glenn Plummer (former ring foe turned politician Darnell) and others is compelling enough to keep one watching.

Dreams 

(Strand Releasing)

The other films in director-writer Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy about nontraditional sexual relationships were better in theory than execution, but this final entry is an intelligent depiction of the confusion of high school student Johanne, whose crush on Johanna, her French teacher, is the trigger for a knotty study of morality and agency when Johanne writes a book about en evening in Joahanna’s apartment when Johanne was a minor. Unlike Sex and Love, Dreams has an urgency thanks to a  lively script that’s populated by authentically believable people like Johanne (Ella Øverbye), her mother Kristin (Ane Dahl Torp) and grandmother Karin (Anne Marit Jacobsen) as well as Johanna (Selome Emnetu), who is given space to breathe as an individual. The exemplary acting is led by Øverbye, whose Johanne is wondrously alive and complex.

Naked Ambition 

(Music Box Films)

She looked like a pinup (and was, actually, winning several beauty pageants), but photographer Bunny Yeager had a fascinating career arc that is only touched upon by Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch’s documentary, which dutifully follows her pathbreaking trajectory amid interviews with friends, family members and colleagues alongside copious archival footage and, of course, photographs. At a fleet 73 minutes, the portrait seems more superficial than it should—after all, Yeager made Bettie Page famous in the ‘50s with her nude photographs of her for Playboy—but if you don’t know Yeager’s story, then this is a decent primer.

Triumph of the Heart 

(Outsider Pictures)

The tragic true story of Maximillian Kolbe, a Polish Catholic priest whom the Nazis put in Auschwitz, where he tended to his fellow prisoners’ spiritual needs before taking the place of another who was sentenced to the gas chamber, was the basis of a shattering 1991 dramatization by the great Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, Life for Life. In this new biopic by writer-director Anthony D’Ambrosio, the sad but uplifting story is retold effectively, although the director’s wallowing in the camp misery mutes some of the power of the martyred Kolbe’s story. (The priest was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982). Still, this story needs telling, and with the inexplicable unavailability of the Zanussi film, D’Ambrosio’s version is an adequate replacement.

Streaming Release of the Week 

Hidden Face 

(Well Go USA)

In this fervid remake of a sordid 2011 thriller by Colombian director Andrés Baiz, the lives of three people—a charismatic young conductor; his wife, the orchestra’s cellist, who goes missing; and a younger woman, who soon takes her spot in the orchestra and the conductor’s bed—are tracked by writer-director Kim Dae-woo. Unfortunately, after an hour confidently setting up the various relationships and the characters’ secrets, he lets the second hour badly get away from him, as the plotting gets more cartoonish. Still, the strong acting from the central trio and an erotic atmosphere keep this watchable right up until the doozy of a denouement. 

DVD Release of the Week

Spenser: For Hire—The Complete Series 

(Warner Bros)

This popular nighttime drama was centered on crime novelist Robert B. Parker’s iconic renegade detective, the mononymously named Spenser, and followed Robert Urich’s earlier television hits—SWAT and Vegas—to last three seasons (1985-87) on ABC. Urich’s charismatic presence was perfect for this Boston-based private detective who marched to his own drum. Alongside Urich and the Beantown setting, the series’ 65 episodes also included a terrific supporting cast led by Avery Brooks, Ron McLarty, Richard Jaeckel, Barbara Stock, and Carolyn McCormick.

CD Release of the Week 

Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady

(Chandos)

One of the all-time classic musicals, My Fair Lady set Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion—a still-relevant exploration of class and gender differences—to equally memorable music, as Lerner and Loewe’s sharp and witty songs bump up against Shaw’s brilliant characters, the low-class Eliza Doolittle and the arrogant Professor Henry Higgins, whose showdown is hilarious, dramatic and thrilling. In this excellent recording—the latest in Chandos’ traversal of legendary Broadway musicals—Scarlett Strallen makes a feisty, powerhouse-voiced Eliza, and she’s matched perfectly by Jamie Parker’s droll Higgins. Eliza’s transformation from guttersnipe to princess is handled beautifully by Strallen, and the sumptuous music is given a wonderful spin by the Sinfonia of London under the sure baton of conductor John Wilson.

Broadway Musical Review—Revival of Adam Guettel’s “Floyd Collins”

Floyd Collins

Music and lyrics by Adam Guettel; book and additional lyrics by Tina Landau

Directed by Tina Landau

Performances through June 29, 2025

Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 150 West 65th Street, NYC

lct.org

Lizzy McAlpine and Jeremy Jordan in Floyd Collins (photo: Joan Marcus)

Daringly downbeat, Floyd Collins is the rare musical that takes chances musically and dramatically. When it premiered off-Broadway in 1996, the show got some raves but nobody was lining up to bring it to Broadway. Based on the one-third empty house the afternoon I saw it at Lincoln Center Theater, maybe they were right. The atypical musical plot is based on a real-life incident in Kentucky in 1925: our eponymous hero, a reckless spelunker, gets trapped in a mine while hoping to carve out a future tourist attraction (which it eventually became, as Mammoth Cave National Park).

Soon the locals hoping to rescue him are overtaken by outsiders who treat the entire tragic episode as a spectacular, media-driven nationwide circus with people hanging on every new development. Indeed, one of the reporters present, Skeets Miller of the Louisville Courier, begins by chasing a good story but finds himself getting personally involved in rescuing Floyd.

Composer Adam Guettel and book writer Tina Landau transform this flavorful bit of Americana into one of our most original musicals. Guettel’s music, powered by bluegrass, folk and Tin Pan Alley, is always in character, so to speak—like the thrilling chorus that opens the show, Floyd’s powerful laments, or his younger sister Nellie’s emotional solo. Landau’s book could be performed as a play without Guettel’s music, so intense is its drama and incisive its characterizations. That they meld together so persuasively is what makes the show a singular achievement. 

Landau directs this revival with a beautifully wrought elegance; she uses the Beaumont’s large stage to her advantage, creating a nearly cinematic dramatization of a story that always seems to have several events happening simultaneously. Landau is greatly assisted by the collective dots’ inventively abstract sets, Scott Zielinski’s subtle lighting, Anita Yavich’s on-target costumes, Dan Moses Schreier’s startling sound design and Ruey Horng Sun’s savvy projections. 

The cast is splendid. Taylor Trensch makes an engaging Skeets, Marc Kudisch is stentorian as Floyd’s father Lee, and Lizzy McAlpine—in a marvelous Broadway debut—is a heartbreaking Nellie whose second-act solo turn, “Through the Mountain,” is as understated a showstopper as you’ll ever hear. At the center of it all is Jeremy Jordan as Floyd, who is not only in imposingly great voice but is physically impressive—terrifically agile while sperlunking and spellbindingly dramatic even as he’s trapped in the cave. Jordan and company make the tragedy of Floyd Collins exhilarating. 

Broadway Musical Review—“Death Becomes Her” with Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard and Christopher Sieber

Death Becomes Her

Book by Marco Pennette; music and lyrics by Julia Mattison & Noel Carey

Directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli

Opened November 21, 2024

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 West 46th Street, NYC

deathbecomesher.com

Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard in Death Becomes Her (photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

In the far too crowded field of movies turned into Broadway musicals—something going on for decades to diminishing returns—Death Becomes Her is a piece of frivolous fun that neither slavishly imitates the original nor strays too far from the beaten path. If it’s not as outrageously sly as it could be, it does provide consistent entertainment, which is nothing to sneeze at.

I barely remember Robert Zemeckis’ black comedy, which I saw way back in 1992. All I remember is the indelible image of Meryl Streep, as bitchy movie star Madeline Ashton, having her head spun around, Exorcist-style, while catfighting with her nemesis, longtime friend Helen Sharp, played by Goldie Hawn. Bruce Willis was also on hand as Ernest Menville, the nerdy plastic surgeon who leaves Helen for Madeline and becomes the vessel for their attempts at immortality.

The musical follows that plotline, with a few detours that give Broadway audiences what they came to see, like the big, campy opening number, “For the Gaze” (get it?), in which Madeline—now a musical theater star who’s on the road, touring middle America—and her dancers demonstrate how campiness is a huge draw onstage. 

Here and elsewhere, the music-and-lyrics team of Julia Mattison and Noel Carey admit they’re aiming at the lowest common denominator; the laughs are plentiful throughout if hardly gutbusting. The amusement scale fluctuates between the genuinely tart dialogue between the two friends as Madeline is in the process of stealing Ernest from Helen and the ridiculous scene where a nervous Ernest, plied by drink pre-immortal op, is serenaded by his entire basement study in the dopey number, “The Plan.”

The original film introduced the immortality subplot through an enigmatic socialite, Lisle von Rhuman, played by Isabella Rossellini; for the stage musical, Lisle has become a more shadowy figure, Viola Van Horn, played by Michelle Williams, who alternates between stiffness and sultriness. Another difference from the movie is that, onstage, Madeline has an assistant, Stefon, who, as played by Josh Lamon, gets many big laughs with his continued carping commentary on what’s happening.

Mattison and Carey’s serviceable songs get us from scene to scene without unduly overstaying their welcome; likewise Marco Pennette’s book, even if there’s an inevitable letdown when the show drags at the end, tacking on a couple of superfluous numbers. But it’s all been cleverly directed and choreographed by Christopher Gatelli, and the physical production—Justin Townsend’s savvy lighting, Paul Tazewell’s sparkling costumes, Derek McLane’s sharp sets and Peter Hylenski’s skillful sound design—is impressive. 

It goes without saying that the two leads give master classes in how to overact and oversing perfectly in character: Jennifer Simard (Helen) and Megan Hilty (Madeline), pros at being divas, have such a grand time that their battle royale is infectious. Christopher Sieber makes Ernest more sympathetic and funnier than Bruce Willis was in the movie, so much so that Death Becomes Her becomes as much a vehicle for the stalwart Sieber as for the scintillating Simard and hilarious Hilty.

September '24 Digital Week II

In-Theater Release of the Week 

My Old Ass 

(Amazon MGM)

Aubrey Plaza is her usual irresistible self as 39-year-old Elliott, who warns the 18-year-old version—who’s about to leave her stifling home life in rural Ontario to attend college in Toronto—not to fall in love with the guy she will definitely fall in love with, but it’s Maisy Stella, as younger Elliott, who gives a revelatory performance. Stella’s film debut is, well, stellar, giving writer-director Megan Park’s shrewd study its added kick. By turns hilarious and sad, goofy and smart, ridiculous and sublime, My Old Ass is a gas—and for that we must thank Park, Plaza and Stella, a most formidable cinematic trio.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Eric Clapton—Slowhand at 70: Live at the Royal Albert Hall 

(Mercury)

To celebrate his 70th birthday, Eric Clapton performed at London's Royal Albert Hall in May 2015 by running through his five-decade career as the preeminent British blues guitar god. His incendiary fretwork on “Key to the Highway” and “Crossroads” remains peerless, but it's surprising that he still insists on digging out the dull acoustic version of “Layla” instead of the fiery original. But that’s the only quibble with this memorable two-hour musical showcase, which also includes matchless contributions from band members Steve Gadd (drums), Nathan East (bass) and Paul Carrack (keyboards and vocals). The film looks and sounds superb in UHD; lone extra is the scintillating blues workout, “Little Queen of Spades,” which for some reason is not part of the concert but a separate 17-minute bonus track.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Late Night with the Devil 

(IFC/Shudder)

The directing-writing-editing team, brothers Colin and Cameron Cairnes, have made a clever horror film that shows reverence for classic late-night TV as well as flicks about possession that proliferated in the wake of The Exorcist. But this eerie story about talk-show host Jack Delroy (a fine performance by David Dastmalchian) who gets his deserved comeuppance on his Halloween show in 1977 shoots its load in the first hour then stumbles badly for the final 30 minutes. The steelbook release features the film on Blu—which looks terrific—and DVD; extras include Dastmalchian’s commentary, the Cairnes brothers’ Q&A and behind the scenes footage, along with a packet of fake memorabilia from Delroy’s show.

Tótem 

(Janus Contemporaries)

For her sophomore feature, Mexican writer-director Lila Avilés has made a gentle but emotionally forceful study of seven-year-old Sol, who is part of the preparations for her father’s birthday party at her grandparents’ house—but her beloved dad is grievously sick, and slowly Sol, her mother and the rest of the family realize the gravity of the impending celebration. Eschewing sentimentality or condescension, Avilés vividly etches Sol’s world with a mix of heartbreaking sadness and earned humor, and her compassionate film is anchored by the amazing young actress Naíma Sentíes. The film looks beautiful on Blu; lone extra is an interview with Avilés.

Verdi—Macbeth 

(Unitel)

Italian master Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) composed two of the best Shakespearean operas, Otello and Falstaff, at the end of his long career: this earlier adaptation is more straightforwardly conventional than those late masterpieces. Still, it’s got a fiercely compelling plot and Verdi does well with scenes like Macbeth’s ghostly apparition and Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking. Too bad Krzysztof Warlikowski’s antiseptically modern staging at last year’s Salzburg Festival is set in what looks like a vast waiting room, losing the tragic grandeur. At least the leads Vladislav Sulimsky and Asmik Grigorian are excellent, while Philippe Jordan leads the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Chorus in a vivid reading of Verdi’s score. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.

CD Release of the Week

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel 

(Chandos)

Yet another Rodgers & Hammerstein classic gets the deluxe Chandos treatment—on the heels of Oklahoma comes this lush-sounding, beautifully sung recording of one of the saddest but most exhilarating musicals in the R&H canon, the story of Billy Bigelow, who watches over his beloved Julie and daughter Louise from the great beyond. Stagings of the musical must deal with its moral complexities, but recordings can concentrate on the fabulous music, from the wonderful “Carousel Waltz” to two of the most shattering songs the pair ever wrote, “If I Loved You” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” sung by a top cast led by Nathaniel Hackmann, Mikaela Bennett and Sierra Boggess, and performed by the Sinfonia of London under conductor John Wilson. 

Berkshires, Summer 2024—“Pipe Dream” at Berkshire Theatre Group, Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood

Pipe Dream

Music by Richard Rodgers, book & lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Directed by Kat Yen, choreography by Isadora Wolfe

Performances through August 31, 2024

Unicorn Theatre, 6 East Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts

berkshiretheatregroup.org

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Performances through August 31, 2024

Tanglewood, Lenox, Massachusetts

tanglewood.org

Ah, summer in the Berkshires—beautiful weather (usually!), bucolic landscapes, great museums, concerts and theater. It’s pretty much been an annual tradition for us for three decades. This summer, we saw the wonderful Mad magazine exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge and the Clark Art Institute’s revelatory exhibition of Caribbean artist Guillaume Lethière, along with a couple concerts at Tanglewood and a Rodgers & Hammerstein revival at the Berkshire Theatre Group.

Joe Joseph and Noa Luz Barenblat in Pipe Dream (photo: Caelan Carlough)

Pipe Dream, one of R&H’s more bizarre items—based on John Steinbeck’s novels Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday—is set among the populace of seaside Monterey, California, and centers around Doc, a marine biologist, and Suzy, a new gal who becomes a prostitute in the local brothel. They fall in love, but take awhile to admit it. The show hasn’t been on Broadway since its disastrous 1955 premiere; it was last in New York in a beautifully sung 2012 Encores revival with Laura Osnes, Will Chase and Leslie Uggams that nevertheless could do nothing with the dramatically diffuse romance.

The tunes are there, of course, but several sound like outtakes or discarded versions of other, better-known R&H tunes, like Suzy’s first number, “Everybody’s Got a Home But Me,” which is similar to “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” And a large ensemble—there are more than a dozen singing roles—dilutes any emotional or dramatic impact, since we keep bouncing around among Monterey’s many outcasts, male and female.

Since the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge is a tiny jewel box, director Kat Yen and choreographer Isadora Wolfe seem hamstrung about what they can accomplish. Jimmy Stubbs’ movable sets help, although a pivotal scene between Doc and Suzy in an abandoned boiler is nearly impossible to see from all the seats. 

The six-piece ensemble, led by pianist and music director Jacob Kerzner, acquits itself well, although we lose the sumptuous orchestral sound Rodgers’ tunes need. Noa Luz Barenblat’s Suzy, though a bit standoffish, has a gleaming singing voice (although the incandescent Laura Osnes at Encores was pitch perfect in the role). The rest of the accomplished cast is led by Joe Joseph’s Doc and Sharone Sayregh’s madam Fauna. Too bad it might be a pipe dream to hope for a perfect Pipe Dream production.

Leila Josefowicz (standing, left) playing Stravinsky's Violin Concerto (photo: Hilary Scott)

Tanglewood has been the go-to summer destination for outdoor classical performances for decades; the Boston Symphony Orchestra has made its summer home there since 1936. Spending a day on the grounds is to immerse oneself in the history of outdoor music making, even if our first performance was indoors, in the Linde Center for Music and Learning, which opened in 2019, and where several Tanglewood Music Center Fellows—students who come from around the world every summer to perform and study—played a lovely chamber recital.

Music by Debussy (sonata for flute, viola and harp) and Ravel (piano trio) bookended Jessie Montgomery’s new Concerto Grosso, which the composer—who spoke before the performance—described as “a contemporary take on the baroque dynamic of solo against ripeno” in a program note. The Fellows played with enthusiasm and precision, bringing out Debussy’s elegance, Montgomery’s spontaneity and Ravel’s ravishment.

Our Tanglewood evening culminated with a marvelous BSO concert in the venerable Koussevitzky Music Shed. Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska led an adventurous summer program, opening with fellow Finn Jean Sibelius’ Canzonetta, in an arrangement by Igor Stravinsky for clarinets, horns, harp and double bass. Then came Stravinsky’s own Violin Concerto, a rare enough appearance on any program, which was played with exuberance by the brilliant Leila Josefowicz, who didn't need a score: she was so focused that she nearly bumped into the BSO violinists behind her—they pulled their music stand back to give her more room.

After intermission, Stasevska corralled her forces for a nimble reading of Sibelius’ brooding Symphony No. 5, whose rousing finale left the audience sated.