July '26 Digital Week I

In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week 

Obsession 

(Universal)

The biggest surprise at this year’s box office so far has been this low-budget horror black comedy, written and directed by comedian/YouTuber Curry Barker, who turns a decent premise for a Twilight Zone episode into an interminable feature that is far less clever than it thinks. When music-store employee Bear makes a wish that his attractive coworker Nikki will fall for him, it leads to crudely shocking but entirely predictable consequences. There are a couple of cheap jump scares, including one telegraphed so blatantly I’m surprised anybody fell for it, while the haphazard plotting and nonexistent characterizations don’t help. Michael Johnston makes a one-note Bear, while Inde Navarrette’s shrill Nikki scores mainly because her opposite number is so invisible. Here’s hoping we don’t get a run on even worse low-budget horror comedies as producers attempt to chase box-office glory. 

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Couture 

(Vertical Releasing)

French director Anna Winocour’s new film brings together intimate stories of three women during Paris Fashion Week: Maxine, an American director making a video; Ada, an African model who’s left home to make her mark; and Angèle, a local makeup artist. As she jumps around this trio’s personal stories, there are moments of insight, but when Maxine gets a cancer diagnosis, the film gets knocked severely out of whack, and the travails of Ada and Angèle come off as relatively trivial. Still, it’s beautifully shot and acted, especially by Angelina Jolie, whose Maxine has a cancer scare that recalls her own decision to have a double mastectomy. It’s almost exploitative, but in Winocour and Jolie’s hands, it’s emotional without becoming melodramatic.

For the Love of a Woman 

(Panorama Films)

In this heavyhanded if earnest drama set in the 1970s, Esther travels to Israel after her mother dies to learn about a closely held family secret, which involves a free-spirited woman named Yehudit, a settler in a rural village in 1930s who affects the live of three local men. Director Guido Chiesa awkwardly handles the film’s flashback structure, and his and Nicoletta Micheli’s script injects sentimentality into what should have been a straightforwardly incisive study of hidden truths. Still, the performances of Mili Avital as Esther and Ana Elaru as the tough-as-nails Yehudit make this watchable throughout.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Maurice 

(Cohen Film Collection)

Following their international breakthrough, 1986’s A Room with a View, the next year director James Ivory and producer Ismael Merchant daringly tackled another Forster novel (with a script by Ivory and Kit Hesketh-Harvey), this one about the intimate relationship between Maurice and Clive, two young men in the stiflingly repressive culture of Edwardian England. The leisurely 140-minute film drags at times but the atmosphere and details are unerringly right. So is the acting from James Wilby (Maurice) and Hugh Grant (Clive) as well as Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow and Billie Whitelaw, among others in a superb supporting cast. The film looks ravishing in 4K; extras include a commentary on the 4K disc and, on the accompanying Blu-rays, the film, alternate takes/deleted scenes with Ivory commentary, interview/Q&A with Ivory and cinematographer Pierre Lhomme, making-of featurette and a conversation between Ivory and director Tom McCarthy. 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Don’t Play With Fire 

(Cult Epics)

Hong Kong master Tsui Hark’s bleak 1980 drama follows three nihilistic teens who are blackmailed by a cunning young woman into committing further acts of violence after she witnesses them set off a bomb in a movie theater. And that’s just the beginning: be warned that there are scenes here that might make some viewers close their eyes, from the opening images of a mouse to a cat being thrown off a balcony—but Hark’s fast-paced immersion in this sordid world is ultimately impossible to look away from. Alongside the uncensored international version, this set includes the banned Chinese version and English dubbed version, a commentary, and interviews with Hark, two actors, an assistant director and Hark’s cowriter.

A Game for Six Lovers 

(Icarus Films)

Jacques Doniol-Valcroze’s 1960 roundelay, which follows three mostly mismatched couples at an imposing French chateau, proves that not all French New Wave directors were masters of their craft:  the director-writer crafted a dull-edged, often tone-deaf film that wavers between comedy and tragedy and wastes a game cast (especially Bernadette Lafont, Alexandra Stewart, and Francoise Brion, who was also Doniol-Valcroze’s wife), Roger Fellous’ lovely B&W cinematography and Serge Gainsbourg’s attractive score. The film looks great in hi-def; lone extra is a 1965 short also starring Lafont, The Botanical Avatar of Mademoiselle Flora, directed by Jeanne Barbillon.

CD Release of the Week 

Nadia Boulanger—La ville morte 

(Pentatone)

Although French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger was an important teacher to countless prominent European and American composers, she was also a composer (as was her talented sister, Lili, whose death at age 24 in 1918 is one of the great tragedies in music history). Nadia—who died at age 92 in 1979—wrote this opera between 1909 and 1913 with fellow French composer Raoul Pugno (who may also have been her lover), based on the text of a play by Gabriele D’Annunzio. The opera follows an archeologist, his wife, his sister and a colleague amid Greek ruins—with more than a little thematic (and musical) resemblance to Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Since the orchestration did not survive, it’s been reconstructed, and this world-premiere recording by the Talea Ensemble led by Neal Goren gives a good sense of its intimacy and restraint. The impassioned vocal performances by the quartet of soloists—soprano Melissa Harvey, mezzo Laurie Rubin, tenor Joshua Dennis and baritone Jarell Williams—are unimpeachable.

June '26 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Honeyjoon 

(Collective)

Young, single June goes to the Azores with her mother Lela on the first anniversary of June’s father’s death in Lilian T. Mehrel’s psychological drama laced with humor and eroticism about the different forms that grief can take. Anchored by buoyant performances from Ayden Mayeri (June) and Amira Casar (Lela), Mehrel’s film is an occasionally meandering but touchingly observed look at how a seemingly unbridgeable generation gap between mother and daughter can be tentatively but optimistically bridged. 

Promised Sky 

(Film Movement)

Tunisian-French director-cowriter Erige Sehiri examines the intertwined lives of several females in Tunisia, including an orphaned young girl who was the lone survivor of a sunken refugee boat in this humane study that skirts—but never succumbs to—melodrama. Although there’s inevitably an anecdotal feel as we jump around among these characters as they navigate the difficulties of being outsiders that includes racism from the top down, Sehiri’s perceptive eye is sure and real, as are the authentically lived-in performances by the entire cast.

This Tempting Madness 

(Vertical Entertainment)

After a horrific incident lands her in the hospital, Mia awakes from a coma physically and emotionally scarred in Jennifer E. Montgomery’s often bluntly obvious but potent psychological study. With her memories jumbled, Mia has to try and piece together what’s happened, including her relationship with her estranged husband Jake. Montgomery (who also cowrote the scattered script with Andrew M. Davis, the film’s inventive cinematographer) can’t thoroughly fight her way past the cliches and tropes of the genre, the intense Mia of Simone Ashley keeps things focused.

Streaming Release of the Week

Changing Lanes 

(First Run Features)

When a beloved local teacher is killed on McGuinness Boulevard, a busy Greenpoint, Brooklyn, thoroughfare, the neighborhood is galvanized to provide more bike lanes and inhibit vehicular traffic in Ben Wolf’s succinct documentary that dramatizes how anger turns to action even as literal roadblocks are thrown up by those against changes. Led by a long-time local business, what began in the DeBlasio administration are slowed to a near-halt by the corrupt Mayor Adams. Wolf packs a lot of info into his 74-minute running time, even though more would have been welcome, especially the asides from long-time bicyclist David Byrne, who extols the virtues of cities that plan for bike lanes as he’s seen while on tours in Europe.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

VD 

(Cult Epics)

Dutch director Wim Verstappen’s crudely provocative (and rarely seen) 1972 melodrama follows Cornelis, the patriarch of a large and successful company that handles both meat and contraceptives (!), who tries to find an heir who will succeed him at the helm. Like any good soap opera, VD involves incest, adultery, abortion, suicide, orgies—Cornelis and his family are not likable people, and if Verstappen sometimes lays it on too thick with on-the-nose satire and commentary (including several look-away shots of animals being butchered), it remains fascinatingly watchable. There’s a fine restored hi-def transfer; extras include a commentary by film historian Peter Verstraten and Festival of Love, Verstappen’s 1969 short.

CD Release of the Week

Aribert Reimann—Ein Traumspiel 

(Wergo)

German composer Aribert Reimann (1936-2024) wrote thorny, 12-tone music he memorably used to underpin the often radical-sounding operas he adapted from prestigious literary sources: Lear, written for legendary German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Diskeau, is his greatest musical triumph, and he also wrote operas based on Kafka’s The Castle and August Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata. Ein Traumspiel, Reimann’s first opera, was composed in 1965; based on Strindberg’s A Dream Play, it’s dramatically riveting but a little diffuse, as if Reimann was still grasping with setting such challenging material to his idiosyncratic music. This compelling 2018 performance was recorded at Bavaria’s Theater Hof in Germany—Walter E. Gugerbauer conducts the orchestra, chorus and a cast led by mezzo Franziska Rabl in the vocally taxing role of the god Indra’s daughter. Also included is Reimann’s monodrama, Denn bleien ist nirgends (For to Stay Is to Be Nowhere), based on an elegy by Reiner Maria Rilke, superbly performed by speaker Martin Engler.

February '26 Digital Week II

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

All the President’s Men 

(Warner Bros)

Alan Pakula’s classic 1976 paranoia thriller is scarier than his earlier The Parallax View because it’s true! Pakula’s low-key documentary style perfectly fits this look at Woodward and Bernstein doggedly pursuing the Watergate story no one cared about, eventually toppling Nixon’s White House. Of course, since the current administration engages in Watergate-style corruption on a regular basis, this story now seems sadly quaint. There’s superb acting by Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Martin Balsam and Hal Holbrook down to the tiniest parts. The UHD transfer retains the grain that underscores the film’s effectiveness as a shadowy mystery. Extras include several vintage featurettes but, strangely, Redford’s commentary from an earlier Blu-ray edition has not been included. Who knows why? 

Ben-Hur 

(Warner Bros)

William Wyler’s costume epic swept the 1959 Oscars with 11 wins, more than any other film before or since. Despite stretches of clunky exposition and dull characterizations, there are many breathtaking moments, like that still heart-stopping chariot race. Charlton Heston won Best Actor for his solid, workmanlike performance, but it’s the color photography, sets, costumes, editing and Miklos Rosza score that make it memorable. Warner has given this jewel another deluxe treatment, with a splendid UHD transfer (smartly spread out over two discs) that features a Heston commentary and music-only track; a Blu-ray disc of extras includes two new featurettes along with a vintage full-length Heston documentary, making-of and screen tests. 

In-Theater Release of the Week 

By Design 

(Music Box)

In Amanda Kramer’s tedious one-note movie, Juliette Lewis plays Camille, a middle-aged woman with a couple of good friends, Lisa (Samantha Mathis) and Irene (Robin Tunney), whose obsession with a chair at a consignment shop has unintended consequences. It’s as bizarre and enervating as it sounds, and Kramer’s single-minded direction heavy-handedly underlines (and undermines) her metaphor of objectification. Lewis is game but overwhelmed, and the supporting cast—the always reliable Mathis, Tunney, Betty Buckley, Udo Kier and Melanie Griffith as narrator—can’t help making this any less wooden.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Lubitsch Musicals 

(Criterion/Eclipse)

Early in director Ernest Lubitsch’s Hollywood career, he made charming pre-code musicals that still (mostly) hold up, as this compilation of four entries, made between 1929 and 1932, starring luminaries as Jeannette MacDonald (all four), Maurice Chevalier (three) and even Claudette Colbert (who brightens The Smiling Lieutenant with her presence) shows. The other titles—The Love Parade, Monte Carlo and One Hour With You—have that distinctive Lubitsch touch, even if there’s occasional creakiness, especially in the overlong Parade (which was Lubitsch’s first sound picture). The films look decent for being nearly a century old. Too bad Eclipse sets still have no contextualizing extras. 

Heaven 

(Lightyear)

The untimely recent death of Diane Keaton at age 75 started an evaluation of her legendary screen career, from her indelible Woody Allen collaborations to her powerful performances in Reds and Shoot the Moon. But Keaton was also an idiosyncratic filmmaker, and her first feature—this weirdly beguiling 1987 documentary—shows off her singular style in ways that are equally affecting and annoying. The 75-minute Heaven rounds up interviews with people (including members of Keaton’s family) who discuss their ideas of an afterlife alongside dozens of carefully chosen clips from movies including Metropolis and A Matter of Life and Death. The film looks fine on Blu, although the old film clips still look ancient.

Song Sung Blue 

(Universal/Focus)

The true story of Mike and Claire, aka Thunder and Lightning, a Neil Diamond tribute duo who went through personal tragedies, was the subject of Greg Kos’ tidy 85-minute documentary in 2008. This new biopic, directed with a sledgehammer by Craig Brewer, lumbers on for 133 minutes with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as the couple—both are persuasive, but only Jackman transcends the shopworn material to be heartrendingly real. At least Brewer doesn’t condescend to these characters, but he piles on enough melodramatic sappiness and awful dialogue to sabotage his own film. Kudos also to Ella Anderson and King Princess, both excellent as Claire’s and Mike’s daughters from previous marriages. The film looks fine on Blu; extras are extended musical performances, featurettes and interviews.

Trifole 

(Cohen Media)

What starts as an absorbing and insightful character study of Igor (Umberto Orsini), a lone elderly man who lives in the Piedmont region of Italy and digs for truffles with Birba, his trusty little dog, and the slow maturation of his relationship with Dalia (Ydalie Turk), his visiting grown granddaughter, morphs into something completely different when Dalia takes Birba to find a fabled truffle—and what was a realistically melancholic drama becomes a bizarre fairy tale. Director/cowriter Daniele Fabbro and cowriter Turk—who makes a sublime Dalia—cannot satisfactorily control their tonal shift, but the first hour remains memorable. Brandon Lattman’s glistening photography shimmers on Blu; extras comprise a making-of featurette and interviews with Fabbro, Turk, Orsini and composer Alberto Mandarini.

CD Release of the Week

Ethel Smyth—Der Wald

(CPO)

I was predisposed against this one-act opera, written in 1902 by English composer Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), since her full-length opera The Wreckers was so middling when I saw it at Bard Summerscape in 2015. But maybe because Der Wald is more compact—barely over an hour—the intimacy of the drama and the Wagnerian and Brahmsian musical touches hit harder than in the other, more sprawling opera. Of course, this rendition helps too: a top cast of vocalists and the Wupperthal Symphony Orchestra and chorus under the baton of conductor Patrick Hahn provide a solid grounding for this terse, tense work. Fun fact: Der Wald was the first opera by a woman composer to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera, in 1903—it took more than a century for another woman to have an opera staged at the Met: L’amour de loin by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.

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.

December '25 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Hamnet 

(Focus Features)

Chloé Zhao has made an enveloping adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novelistic flight of fancy about how the death of 11-year-old son Hamnet affected William Shakespeare and his wife Anne (in the film, Agnes)—directly leading to the Bard’s most celebrated tragedy (which includes the ghost of a beloved father and many ruminations about dying by the protagonist), Hamlet. Beautifully filmed and filled with more nature shots than anything by Terrence Malick—who should get a co-directing credit—Hamnet is at its most persuasive showing how death was perceived four centuries ago, as personal and up-close rather than clinical and distant. The acting is immaculate, especially by Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as Will.

Happy Holidays 

(Film Movement)

Palestinian director Scandar Copti’s drama about the interactions of several family members through four interlocking stories set in Jerusalem insightfully shows how women are still often treated as second-class citizens in supposedly enlightened patriarchal societies. A Jewish woman, Shirley, decides to keep her baby over her Palestinian ex Rami’s objection; Rami’s mother Hanan deals with financial difficulties that are exacerbated by an accident involving her daughter Fifi, who’s having a secret affair; and Shirley’s sister Miri, dealing with her teenage daughter’s depression, tries convincing Shirley to have an abortion. The acting, by a mainly amateur cast, is unforgettably real in front of Copti’s vigorously probing camera.

Little Trouble Girls 

(Kino Lorber)

Slovenian writer-director Urška Djukić’s auspicious debut is set in a girls’ school where the members of the choir—including shy 16-year-old Lucija—become friends and adversaries, finding humor in and mocking each other’s budding sexuality as well as dealing with their mercurial male chorus master. Without condescension, Djukić shows how these teenagers act together and separately, while her excellent young actresses are led by Jara Sofija Ostan, who gives a star-making performance as Lucija. 

Rosemead 

(Vertical)

Lucy Liu is astonishingly good as Irene, a terminally ill Chinese mother in San Gabriel Valley, California, who’s worried about her schizophrenic 17-year-old son Joe’s future without her in director Eric Lin and writer Marilyn Fu’s heartbreaking study that’s enormously sympathetic but also unrelievedly depressing. Liu’s wrenching portrayal, superbly complemented by Lawrence Shou as Joe, leads to a shocking but understandable final decision that makes this film hard to shake.

In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week 

Man Finds Tape 

(Magnolia)

In this cleverly constructed found-footage thriller, documentary filmmaker Lynn returns to her small Texas hometown to study footage that captures weird phenomena happening to locals that no one can remember—and that’s before she has to deal with the legacy of her brother and a newly-arrived stranger. Directors Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman don’t do anything particularly original here, but their eerie premise and the terrific acting by Kelsey Pribilski as Lynn give this just enough to make it weirdly watchable.  

Streaming Release of the Week

After the Hunt 

(Amazon MGM)

The latest mild provocation from Italian director Luca Guadagnino is a soggy #MeToo drama that plays out on the Yale campus as Margaret, a bright student of professor Alma, accuses another professor, Hank—with whom Alma has been carrying on an affair under her therapist husband Frederik’s nose—of sexual abuse, triggering an investigation that could ultimately derail Alma’s chances of getting tenure. There’s some good material in Laura Garrett’s script, but the personal relationships are navigated by Guadagnino in a way that eschews depth for obviousness. The performances follow suit: Ayo Edebiri (Margaret), Julia Roberts (Alma), Michael Stuhlbarg (Frederik) and Andrew Garfield (Hank) give solid but uninspired portrayals, further stranding what aspires to be a mature drama. 

CD Release of the Week 

Saint-Saëns— L’ancêtre

(Palazzetto Bru Zane)

French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) is best known for his glorious Biblical grand opera, Samson et Delilah, which premiered in 1877; nearly three decades later, he wrote this lyrical opera set in Corsica that has much beautiful music but a less well thought-out plot. Happily, listening to this richly produced audio recording means that one can elide the hackneyed story and characters and concentrate on the imposing orchestral and vocal writing.  Kazuki Yamada conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and the Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo in a first-rate performance that includes a top-notch group of singers led by Jennifer Holloway, Gaëlle Arquez, Hélène Carpentier, Julien Henric, Michael Arivony, Matthieu Lécroart. As always with Bru Zane releases, this two-CD set houses an impressive 127-page booklet that comprises the libretto and several essays about the opera, including a report from Saint-Saëns’ most famous student, composer Gabriel Fauré, about its 1906 premiere in Monte Carlo.

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.

May '25 Digital Week I

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

Dirty Harry 

(Warner Bros)

When Clint Eastwood introduced his maverick San Francisco detective Harry Callahan to audiences in 1971, the “shoot first and never ask questions” approach was thought problematic and even fascist—and, indeed, the four sequels were even worse. Still, the first film, efficiently directed by Don Siegel on photogenic Bay Area locations and filled with Harry’s witticisms while taking down bad guys (“’Do I feel lucky?’—Well, do you, punk?”) remains a diverting genre picture. The UHD transfer is first-rate; extras are Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel’s commentary along with vintage and new featurettes.

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Bonjour Tristesse 

(Greenwich Entertainment)

Durga Chew-Bose’s debut feature is a sun-dappled but dark story about teenage Cécile, her widowed father Raymond, his younger girlfriend Elsa and his longtime friend Anne, the latter appearing at their French villa during a summer sojourn to upset the precarious balance among them. Based on Françoise Sagan’s famous novel—previously made into a film in 1958 by Otto Preminger starring Jean Seberg, David Niven and Deborah Kerr—Chew-Bose’s adaptation is fastidious and well-acted (particularly by Lily McInerny as Cécile and Naïlia Harzoune as Elsa) but overly studied and curiously inert, never reaching the emotional depth it strives for. 

The Surfer 

(Roadside Attractions)

Even by the standards of outlandish Nicolas Cage vehicles, this latest one, directed by Lorcan Finnegan and written by Thomas Martin—and set in Australia, where Cage plays a dutiful father hoping to introduce his teenage son to the wonders of surfing where he grew up, only to find himself in nightmarish encounters with locals that leave him homeless, carless and fighting for his sanity—is so ridiculous it plays like a parody of Cage flicks. Still, despite its imbecile and ham-fisted depiction of toxic masculinity, the viewer shouldn’t bail because Cage invests himself so heavily in this risible role that it’s like stopping to watch a car wreck on the side of the road. 

Streaming Release of the Week

The Gullspång Miracle 

(Film Movement)

Maria Frederiksson’s portrait of Norwegian sisters and a family full of secrets has so many twists and turns that you might be forgiven for thinking it’s all a put-on, a mockumentary—but the emotional rollercoaster the three women go on after discovering they might be related after not knowing about each other for decades would be laughable if it was written as fiction. Frederiksson at times seems to be stumped about whether she too has been taken for a ride but by continuing to film—and presenting solid if circumstantial evidence of a unsolved crime—she has made a mesmerizing, frustrating, compelling, blackly humorous documentary.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

The Human Pyramid/The Punishment 

(Icarus Films)

Jean Rouch (1917-2004), the French anthropologist and director, was among the first practitioners of cinéma verité and explored relationships among people of different ethnicities and societies, as witness this fascinating—and in many ways still relevant—double feature. 1961’s The Human Pyramid follows a group of students in an Ivory Coast high school who are asked by Rouch to enact an interracial drama; the shocking ending is recorded by Rouch’s probing camera. The following year’s The Punishment follows a young French girl, sent home from school, who must deal with unwanted and systematic misogyny. Both films have quite good hi-def transfers.

CD Releases of the Week

Janáček—Jenůfa 

(LSO Live)

The first wave of Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s great operas were centered on a trio of tragic heroines: together with Káťa Kabanová and The Makropulos Case, which followed it, Jenůfa is a grimly involving music drama, as this 2024 recording by the London Symphony Orchestra at Barbican Hall triumphantly demonstrates. Swedish soprano Agneta Eichenholz plays the demanding title role with sensitivity and intelligence, Swedish mezzo Katarina Karnéus is equally powerful as Kostelnička, her stepmother, and LSO Conductor Emeritus Simon Rattle leads the orchestra and chorus in a gripping account of Janáček’s intense score. 

Wagner— Der fliegende Holländer 

(Decca)

Richard Wagner’s first mature opera, Der fliegende Holländer is also one of his most musically and dramatically accessible works, and the straightforward story of how love can be redemptive works beautifully with some of Wagner’s loveliest music. Although there is some bumpiness in the musical passages, Edward Gardner ably leads the orchestra and chorus of the Norwegian National Opera, and the central roles of the Dutchman and Senta are wonderfully sung, respectively, by Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley and the great Norwegian soprano, Lise Davidsen.