August '25 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Eden 

(Vertical Entertainment)

Based on the sordid true story of a group of Europeans moving to an isolated island in the Galapagos in the early 1930s to escape what they see as the decline of civilization only to discover they are also capable of destroying themselves in utopia, Ron Howard’s drama is blunt and often eye-rollingly unsubtle, but the strange goings-on hold interest for two hours along with an array of bizarrely idiosyncratic performances. There’s Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby, intense as the original couple; Daniel Bruehl and Sydney Sweeney, understated as the first visitors to arrive; and Ana de Armas, brazenly scenery-chewing as a self-styled, sexually voracious Baroness. A 2013 documentary, The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, covers the same tale but gives the disappearances and deaths a more mysterious air.

Angelheaded Hipster 

(Greenwich Entertainment)

Although Marc Bolan and his band T. Rex are known here solely for the hit “Bang a Gong (Get It On),” in England Bolan was a national treasure, as popular in his early ’70s heyday as Bowie, Elton John and Queen. In keeping with their near-invisibility stateside, Ethan Silverman’s illuminating documentary was made in 2022 and is only getting released—it returns to that moment to show how Bolan’s personality and unique genius bolstered his popularity until his seemingly inevitable early death, at age 35 in a 1980 car crash. Voluminous archival footage, concert clips and interviews present a colorful portrait of a singular artist in rock history.

Checkpoint Zoo 

(Abramorama)

Russia’s unprovoked 2022 invasion of Ukraine has not only put people and property at great risk for the past 3-1/2 years but also countless animals; Joshua Zeman’s wrenching documentary focuses on Feldman Ecopark, an animal refuge near Ukraine’s second-largest city where those in residence needed to be removed from their dangerous location to safer spaces once the invasion began. Zeman also introduces the many brave people, from zoo workers to volunteers, who risk their very lives to try and get the animals to safety, all while the deadly war rages around them. In fact, the most memorable moments of the documentary are the raw footage from the front lines that these same people record for posterity.

The Glassworker 

(Watermelon Pictures)

In the first hand-drawn animated film to be produced entirely in Pakistan, director Usman Riaz has created an often visually stunning if diffuse drama about Vincent, who follows in his father Tomas’ footsteps to become an original glassmaker; he also falls in love with Alliz, a young musician from an army colonel’s family. There’s also a war that kills Alliz’s father and indirectly cripples Tomas; if parts are borderline cheesy and shamelessly sentimental, there’s no denying the mindblowing animation that spectacularly recreates the exacting glassworks. 

My Mother’s Wedding 

(Vertical Entertainment)

Although it’s laudable that Kristin Scott Thomas makes her directorial debut from a script she cowrote with her current husband John Micklethwait based on how her father’s and stepfather’s tragic deaths affected her and her family, the resulting film is a soggy mess, with the director herself playing Diana, marrying for the third time while her grown daughters—Victoria, a famous Hollywood actress; Katherine, a Navy officer; and Georgina, a harried wife and mother—must deal with the heavy emotional baggage of the event and family history. To be sure, some of the acting is excellent, with Sienna Miller particularly effective as the pampered Victoria, Scott Thomas her incandescent self as Diana and Emily Beecham a heartbreaking Georgina, but Scarlett Johannsen is out of her element as Katherine, with a wavering British accent and no chemistry with the charming Frieda Pinto as her lover Jack. 

My Undesirable Friends: Part I—Last Air in Moscow

This monumental five-hour documentary by director Julia Loktev is an upsetting yet hopeful chronicle of the state of opposition journalists in Russia—specifically, those who, against all odds and with punishment hanging over their heads, counter the party line that Putin is infallible. (According to law, they must admit, in their writings and TV appearances, that they are “foreign agents.”) Anna Nemzer, one of these enterprising and unabashedly brave journalists, codirects, and together she and Loktev have created an urgent time capsule of Russian resistance just before and immediately after Putin’s illegal 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

The Burmese Harp

Fires on the Plain 

(Criterion Collection)

Japanese director Kon Ichikawa (1915-2008) made several classics, including An Actor’s Revenge (1963) and Tokyo Olympiad (1964)—both also released by Criterion—but his greatest may be this pair of anti-war dramas that home in on how individual soldiers are forever changed by the insanity of war. The Burmese Harp (1956) follows several prisoners of war in a British labor camp and how their spirituality helps them overcome all odds, while Fires on the Plain (1959) poetically but terrifyingly evokes the complete loss of humanity among a group of soldiers lost inside war’s horrors. Ichikawa was a humanist who was also a realist and his films are a difficult but worthwhile watch. Both films have luminous UHD transfers; extras include interviews with Ichikawa, actors Rentaro Mikuni and Mickey Curtis and an intro by scholar Donald Richie.

The Accountant 2 

(Warner Bros)

Did we really need a sequel to the autistic hitman movie of a few years ago? Apparently so—and, it must be admitted, the second go-round of accountant/killer Christian Wolff’s exploits is more entertaining than the first time. If director Gavin O’Connor takes his sweet time setting things up—and almost losing control during a drawn-out set piece concerning a bus filled with migrant children—the payoff is in the chemistry between Ben Affleck’s Christopher and Jon Bernthal’s Braxton, Christian’s brother and fellow hitman. (How’s that for keeping it in the family?) There are already rumblings that there will be a third chapter, and if they can make it sleeker and swifter (under two hours, please!), I’ll gladly partake. The film looks splendid on UHD.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Donizetti—Roberto Devereaux

(Dynamic)

In this historical opera by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), the real-life tale of England’s Queen Elizabeth I and her favorite, the Earl of Essex, has attractive music and fast-moving—if often fanciful—storytelling. Stephen Langridge’s 2024 staging at Bergamo, Italy’s Donizetti Festival keeps the focus on the central relationship, and the performances of Jessica Pratt (Elisabetta) and John Osborn (Roberto Devereux) are musically and histrionically satisfying. The playing of the Orchestra Donizetti Opera under conductor Riccardo Frizza and singing of the Coro dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala under chorus master Salvo Sgrò are equally fine. The hi-def video and audio are first-rate.

His Motorbike, Her Island 

(Cult Epics)

Maverick Japanese director Nobuhiko Obayashi (1938-2020) made several films about ordinary young people on the margins of society, and his 1986 drama follows Koh, a biker who meets and falls for Miyoko, a young woman who also rides motorcycles. Obayashi cleverly uses much visual and aural trickery to his advantage, and his leads, Riki Takeuchi and the beguiling Kiwako Harada, are thrillingly alive as the young lovers. The film looks quite good on Blu; extras comprise a commentary, two visual essays and an archival Obayashi interview. 

Rather 

(Giant Pictures)

The long and storied career of veteran CBS reporter and anchorman Dan Rather is recounted by director Frank Marshall in this breezily informative—but not hagiographic—documentary. Rather’s many highs (coverage of the JFK assassination, the 1968 Democratic Convention, the Vietnam War) are documented alongside lows like his antipathy for the Bush family that culminated in the sad spectacle of forged documents about Dubya’s national guard exploits that nearly derailed Rather’s career. Rather himself, of course, is heard from, in archival footage and in a new interview, along with family members, colleagues and analysts like Margaret Sullivan of the Buffalo News. The sad truth is that the sort of journalism Rather practiced is sorely missing from today’s imbecile news cycle and will probably never come back.

CD Release of the Week

Yuliya—Forgotten Songs of Julia Weissberg Rimsky-Korsakov 

(Azica)

As the daughter-in-law of famed Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov—whose elaborate operas never gained a foothold in the repertory but whose evocative orchestral piece Scheherazade did—you’d think Julia Weissberg Rimsky-Korsakov (1878-1942) would have had a higher prominence based on name alone. But that was the not the case: although her music was played in Russia and Germany, after her death she faded in obscurity, possibly because she didn’t use her famous father-in-law’s last name. Now, thanks to the intrepid efforts of American soprano Sarah Moulton Faux, here’s a group of 15 of Weissberg’s songs that will likely be an impressive introduction for many listeners. These harmonically adventurous songs have fluid vocal lines that Faux sings beautifully; piano accompanist Konstantin Soukhovetski plays sensitively; and the disc makes us want to hear more from a mostly forgotten composing voice.

Off-Broadway Play Review—“Gene & Gilda”

Gene & Gilda

Written by Cary Gitter

Directed by Joe Brancato

Performances through September 7, 2025

59 E 59Theatres, 59 East 59th Street, NYC

59e59.org

Jordan Kai Burnett and Jonathan Randell Silver in Gene & Gilda (photo: Carol Rosegg)

The romance of actors Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner is the stuff of showbiz legend. The beloved comedians, who met on the set of the 1982 flop Hanky Panky, had a relationship (and marriage) that ended prematurely in 1989 when Radner died of ovarian cancer. Now, the couple’s time together has been dramatized by playwright Cary Gitter as an accumulation of scenes that resemble both the sketches for which Radner was famous on Saturday Night Live and the alternately silly and memorable comic films Wilder starred in during his ’70s and ’80s heyday. 

Which isn't to say that Gene & Gilda is not entertaining. Gitter has done his homework, and his chronology of their passionate relationship provides moments that are genuinely amusing and, later, touching and tragic. His script also dutifully checks off allusions to—and recreations of—Radner’s beloved SNL characters Lisa Loopner, Candy Slice, Baba Wawa, Roseanne Roseannadanna and Emily Litella, along with bits from Wilder’s big-screen hits Young Frankenstein and The Producers. The downside is that those riffs on the couple’s greatest hits are ready made for nods and easy laughs of recognition, while the framing device of Wilder being interviewed by Dick Cavett breaks the play into bumpily sitcomish segments that are only partially resolved by director Joe Brancato.

Happily, Brancato has resourceful performers to help smooth over much of the rest. As Gene, Jonathan Randell Silver, although at times simply a superior impersonation rather than a characterization, does a good job of catching the almost offhand neuroticism in the actor’s demeanor. And Jordan Kai Burnett gives a beautifully three-dimensional portrait of Gilda, showing her comic brilliance alongside her endlessly charming innocence. Burnett also handles the various impressions of Gilda’s characters with comic aplomb, never getting hung up even during a whipsaw scene when she speeds through several of them in a crazy sort of conversation.

Silver and Burnett play off each other—and even dance together—well enough to provide an extra dimension to this fateful romance that Gitter’s play sometimes lacks.

Art Review—"Vermeer’s Love Letters” at the Frick

Vermeer’s Love Letters

The Frick Collection

1 East 70th Street, New York, NY

Through August 31, 2025

frick.org

The 3 Vermeer paintings at the Frick exhibit 

In 2021, when the Frick Collection began renovating the venerable mansion housing its art and put on display some of its invaluable collection at the nearby Breuer building on Madison Avenue, it seemed the opposite of the Frick’s mission to show its stunning art in its original location, Henry Clay Frick’s ornate home. What worked at the Breuer was that several items—always seen far above or away from visitors—were at eye level and easier to study and admire. However, the sense of a collector arranging his valuable artworks and furnishings where he wanted to place them was lost.

Mistress and Maid

Now, more than four years later, that is no longer the case: the Frick has reopened in its original space, which has been beautifully expanded. It was my first time visiting the upgraded building, so I was able to see what’s been updated as well as view the dazzling new exhibit, Vermeer’s Love Letters, in the new Ronald S. Lauder Exhibition Galleries. 

The enlarged Frick now includes access to rooms on the second floor that were previously off-limits to the public, where there are more paintings and other objects like a collection of medals. It's still satisfying to visit the city’s best small art museum, although it’s less small now.

Vermeer’s Love Letters brings together three of Vermeer’s works—the Frick’s own Mistress and Maid, The Love Letter from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid from Dublin’s National Gallery of Ireland—for a detailed look at how the artist treated the subject of letter writing as well as one of his favorite subjects: women in domestic situations.

Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid 

Exploring this magnificent trio in a single gallery is a once-in-a-lifetime experience—these intimately-scaled works contain so much painterly and poetic detail that they invite the exceptionally close viewing this exhibit allows. (At the press preview, my wife and I were the only ones in the gallery since everyone else was attending a talk in the auditorium, allowing us several precious minutes alone with these exceptional beauties.)

As these paintings show, Vermeer often worked on a small scale, amazingly packing so much aliveness, truth and humanity into his canvases. When looking at Vermeer’s works, you get lost in their singular worlds: what are these women thinking or saying, and what do the precisely placed objects—for example, in the Amsterdam and Dublin pictures, the paintings on the walls behind the women—symbolize? Even the large dark space behind the women in Mistress and Maid speaks volumes. 

The Love Letter

It’s not often one gets the chance to see Vermeer paintings from outside the U.S. Indeed, at the 1995-96 Vermeer exhibition in Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art I attended, 21 of his extant paintings were included, but The Love Letter was not there, so this exhibit is my first time seeing it. Its miniature magnificence is as breathtaking as the other two paintings.

Vermeer’s Love Letters is a small exhibit only in quantity—it’s monumental in every other sense.

August '25 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight 

(Sony Classics)

For her smart, often dazzling writing-directing debut, actress Embeth Davidtz has made a poignantly personal drama, based on Alexandra Fuller’s memoir of the same name, about a white Zimbabwean family during the Rhodesian Bush War in 1980, from the point-of-view of 8-year-old Bobo who, along with her teenage sister Vanessa, lives with her parents Nicola and Tim on a sprawling family farm full of ghosts, real and imagined. Davidtz’ deeply felt drama of people clinging to a land that’s no longer theirs has a powerfully authentic sense of time, place and stifling atmosphere, and she gives a formidable portrayal of Nicola. But stealing the show is the astonishingly young Lexi Venter, who invests Bobo with a lively and precocious authenticity as our imperfect but captivating guide.

Night of the Juggler 

(Kino Lorber)

A true Manhattan time capsule, this vicious 1980 crime drama follows a former cop literally chasing the maniac who kidnaped his teenage daughter mistakenly thinking she’s a millionaire’s child through the streets is set in a seedy city about to burst from all the dirt, garbage and crime. Robert Butler took over the directorial duties after Sidney J. Furie left, and he pushes the boundaries of taste and logic with every insane chase sequence and bizarrely unrealistic bit of dialogue. The performances by James Brolin (as the dad), Dan Hedaya and Richard S. Castellano (as antagonistic cops) and especially a nutso Cliff Gorman (as the kidnaper) are dialed up to 11, which makes this simultaneously silly and must-see viewing.

Rebel With a Clause 

(Syntaxis Productions)

Only someone who loves language as much as Ellen Jovin would make—with her husband, Brandt Johnson—a documentary recording her visits to all 50 states, where she sits at a grammar desk to interact with curious people who discuss and ask questions about such things as past participles, the use of who/whom, ending a sentence with a preposition and, of course, the ubiquitous Oxford comma. Jovin puts everyone at ease with her easygoing manner; director Johnson’s camera catches the nuances of these interactions, even showing without commentary the state of homelessness in this country in a couple of heartrending scenes. But the emphasis is on community in an anything but communal society.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Black Tea 

(Cohen Media)

Malian director Abderrahmane Sissako comes a cropper with this contrived tale of young African woman Aya (a delightful Nina Mélo) who leaves her cheating fiancée at the altar to flee to the Chinese city of Guangzhou, which has a heavily African population and where she learns the subtleties of tea-making from Cai (the charming Chang Han), with whom she slowly falls in love. It’s certainly painless to watch, and Sissako’s eye is as ever precise in his observations, but there’s little here that hasn’t been done better by Sissako in films like Bamako and Timbuktu. The Blu-ray image looks luminous; lone extra is the Berlin Film Festival press conference featuring Sissako, Mélo and Han.

MacMillan Celebrated 

(Opus Arte)

Kenneth MacMillan was a legendary British choreographer whose dances dominated ballet stages for decades; this disc celebrates his exuberant and innovative work with stagings of his Danses concertantes (to the music of Stravinsky), Different Drum (to Webern and Schoenberg) and Requiem (to Fauré). These terrific 2024 performances were staged by the Royal Ballet at its Covent Garden home in London with a cast of exceptional dancers. The hi-def images and audio underline the onstage brilliance; extras include interviews with Benesh choreologists Gregory Mislin and Daniel Kraus as well as Macmillan’s widow Deborah.

Mysteries/Pastorale 1943 

(Cult Epics)

This pair of Dutch films from the 1970s features the estimable pairing of Sylvia Kristel (best known for the Emmanuelle films) and Rudger Hauer (who became a star as an early ’80s villain in Nighthawks and Blade Runner) but are of varying quality— Paul de Lussanet’s Mysteries, in which they play the leads, is a slog of a drama from a Knut Hamsun novel that’s lensed by the great Robby Muller. Krisel and Hauer are excellent, at least. Wim Verstappen’s Pastorale 1943, by contrast, is a hard-hitting drama about Dutch resistance during World War II, with Kristel and Hauer in small supporting roles. In the lead as a Dutchman whose loyalties are murky is the excellent Frederik de Groot. Both films look good and grainy on Blu; extras include commentaries and vintage interviews with Kristel, Hauer, de Laussanet and actor Derek de Lint.

CD Release of the Week 

Tamar Sagiv—Shades of Mourning 

(Sono Luminus)

Israeli cellist Tamar Sagiv’s debut recording is an intensely personal disc that takes the artist—and the listener—through various stages of grief and mourning as well as love and acceptance; the nine short pieces (all original compositions) were inspired by losses in Sagiv’s life along with the precarious state of today’s world. Her playing on solo pieces Shades of Mourning, Roots, Intermezzo and Prelude is starkly expressive and nakedly emotional, while her cluster of works for trio (violin, viola, cello) explores sound worlds both familiar and new. The last piece, In My Blue, is a cello quintet in which Sagiv layers all the parts into a lovely and, finally, moving whole.

July '25 Digital Week III

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

Final Destination—Bloodlines 

(Warner Bros)

The first Final Destination—has it really been a quarter-century?—competently executed a clever idea: after a group of high school students gets off a plane before takeoff and it explodes, killing everyone aboard, death gruesomely takes each survivor. The original was a fun popcorn flick, but the sixth go-round is running on fumes—it’s more of the same, directed with a sledgehammer by Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky from Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor’s sloppy script. The most memorable scene is also the most imbecile: no hospital would have an industrial-grade MRI machine in an unattended, unlocked room—be that as it may, the horrible MRI deaths uncannily resemble what fatally happened to someone on Long Island. The film looks fine in 4K; extras are a directors’ commentary, two making-of featurettes and a tribute to actor Tony Todd.

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Shari & Lamb Chop 

(Kino Lorber)

Ventriloquist Shari Lewis—whom I remember watching as a kid on various TV shows with her unique hand puppets, including the beloved Lambchop—was a trailblazer who has been nearly forgotten, and whom director Lisa D’Apolito resurrects in this entertaining but not entirely sycophantic documentary. Lewis’ fascinating career and complicated personal life are honestly chronicled, with interjections from her daughter, friends, family and associates, and the result humanizes a genuine artist.

Sovereign 

(Briarcliff Entertainment)

Nick Offerman’s performance as Jerry Kane—an angry, widowed father who subscribes to the lunatic notion that he and his teenage son Joseph (Jacob Tremblay) are sovereign citizens and not subject to the laws of the United States, an attitude that ends badly for all involved—is authentically scary and commanding. The film, which director-writer Christian Swegal based on a real incident in Arkansas in 2010, is unsettling to its core, and if it succumbs to clichés like dogs and babies at the end, there’s a lot of difficult but necessary questions about our country’s direction.

Streaming Release of the Week

Mr. Blake at Your Service 

(Sunrise Films)

In this predictably cheesy but cute comedy, John Malkovich plays the title character, a stuffy Englishman who returns to the house where he and his dead French wife met and causes havoc among those living there: Nathalie de Beauvillier and her house servants. Blake becomes de Beauvillier’s butler and by the time the movie ends, all has been put right in everyone’s world. Malkovich is crusty but charming—and speaks French as a stumbling non-native would—as is Fanny Ardant as de Beauvillier. Sadly, Émilie Dequenne, who plays the cook Odile in such a memorably no-nonsense style, died soon after finishing the film of cancer at age 43—a wonderful performer taken far too soon.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Shadow Force 

(Lionsgate)

Kerry Washington and Omar Sy play an estranged couple whose past as paid assassins catches up to them when a vengeful former boss pays a half-dozen killers to go after them—and their young son. In director/co-writer Joe Carnahan’s hands, it all plays out as one improbably violent and explosive sequence after another. Washington and Sy do what they can, although their characters are faceless ciphers. The film looks good on Blu; extras are Carnahan and editor Kevin Hale’s commentary and three making-of featurettes.                                                                                                                                              

Wagner—Der Ring des Nibelungen 

(Accentus Music)

Richard Wagner’s colossal tetralogy about dwarfs and nymphs and gods and mortals and dragons and gold and incest and murder and Armageddon is, at 15 hours of music, punishing for singers, musicians and—sometimes—audiences. Whenever a new Ring staging premieres, Wagner fans worldwide converge, as they did for this staging at the Zurich Opera House last year. Director Andreas Homoki’s concept is minimalist, based on a unit set that has some interesting visual aspects, but the dragon’s appearance is laughably inadequate. 

Still, at least Homoki’s staging never buries the story and music, which—as conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and performed by the Zurich Philharmonia—sounds as glorious as Wagner intended. The acting and singing by such stalwarts as Tomasz Konieczny (Wotan), Camilla Nylund (Brünnhilde), Christopher Purves (Alberich), Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (Mime) and Klaus Florian Vogt (Siegfried) moves the huge plot forward until those final, indescribably beautiful notes. There’s first-rate audio and video; too bad there are no interviews with the conductor, director or singers.

Blu-ray/CD Release of the Week 

Walkin’ After Midnight—The Music of Patsy Cline 

(Mercury Studios)

Country legend Patsy Cline was an inspiration to so many female singers, which this special concert—recorded live at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville last year—showcases with a baker’s dozen of performers ranging from country stalwarts like Wynonna and Pam Tillis to newer voices like Mickey Guyton and Sheya Shepard to Broadway stars like Kristin Chenoweth and rock stars like Pat Benatar. Among these superb performances, highlights are Guyton’s “Walkin’ After Midnight,” Shepard’s “I’ve Loved and Lost Again,” Benatar’s “Imagine That” and Wynonna’s “Crazy.” Hi-def video and audio are impeccable; the accompanying CD includes the same songs. 

Classical Review—Gabriel Fauré Recital at the 92 Street Y

Bell-Isserlis-Denk Trio & Friends

July 9, 2025

92 St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York City

92ny.org

Bell, Duval, Denk, Engstroem and Isserlis performing Fauré’s First Piano Quintet

                                                         (photo: Michael Priest Photography)

Just a notch above Sergei Prokofiev and Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) is my favorite classical composer. A master of small forms, Fauré wrote magnificent chamber music—his piano trio, quartets and quintets; cello and violin sonatas; and string quartet are all masterpieces. I discovered Fauré’s musical elegance about four decades ago, when I saw French film director Bertrand Tavernier’s classic Un Dimanche à la Campagne (A Sunday in the Country), which used excerpts from Fauré’s late chamber pieces to incisive effect. Indeed, critic John Simon, in his 1985 rave of Tavernier’s film, wrote that conductor Herbert von Karajan sent a letter to Tavernier congratulating him on what Karajan considered, in the broadest sense, the most musical film he had ever seen.

To its credit, for its Midsummer MusicFest, the 92nd Street Y on Manhattan’s Upper East Side brought the Bell-Isserlis-Denk Trio & Friends—violinist Joshua Bell, cellist Steven Isserlis, pianist Jeremy Denk, with  their friends, violinist Irène Duval and violist Blythe Teh Engstroem—for two all-Fauré concerts jammed with chamber masterworks. I was only able to attend the first night (even though the second recital had even better works on the program) but was delighted by the passionate and precise performances of such glorious music of quiet clarity and eloquence.

The July 9 concert began with Fauré’s mighty A-major Violin Sonata, the most well-known work on the program, expressively performed by Bell and Denk. Isserlis then joined the pair for an artful reading of the sublime Piano Trio. After intermission, Isserlis and Denk played lovely versions of two of Fauré’s small-scale gems: the Sicilienne (which features one of the composer’s most ravishing melodies) and Berceuse. I would have preferred to hear one of Fauré’s two great cello sonatas—both among the peak works of his late period—instead of these subtle miniatures, but Isserlis must have had a good reason for excluding them. 

This remarkable concert ended with all the musicians onstage to play Fauré’s masterly Piano Quintet No. 1, one of his most brilliant works—although I prefer, by just a hair, the even more majestically intimate second quintet. The interplay, energy and ebullience of the performers during this heavenly half hour was something I haven’t experienced very often.

Kudos to the five friends—and bravo to Gabriel Fauré!

July '25 Digital Week II

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

Sinners 

(Warner Bros)

Ryan Coogler’s ambitious epic, which marries African American and ethnic music history to a metaphorical vampire saga, is an often exhilarating—and quite often enervating—entertainment that’s a more successful popcorn movie than it is the dramatically incisive exploration of racism in the Jim Crow South that it aspires to. Led by Michael B. Jordan’s superb dual performance as the Smokestack twins, the cast also features knockout turns by Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke, Miles Caton and Delroy Lindo—only blues legend Buddy Guy, in an unnecessary epilogue (shown after some of the end credits, a bizarrely awkward choice), comes off amateurishly. Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s magnificent cinematography, Michael Shawver’s razor-sharp editing and Ludwig Göransson’s savvily eclectic score contribute handsomely to making this a visceral thrill. The UHD imagery looks stunning; extras comprise more than an hour of on-set footage and interviews along with 18 minutes of deleted scenes.

In-Theater Releases of the Week

F1—The Movie 

(Apple/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, but if you’re a fan of cars flying around a track at 200 miles an hour, then your—um—mileage may vary.

40 Acres 

(Magnolia)

What begins as unsettling post-apocalyptic sci-fi whose plot follows an Afro-Indigenous family defending its valuable farm from hordes of cannibalistic marauders in a not-too-distant future of famine and anarchy turns into a standard-issue drama bogged down by the usual genre tropes. It’s too bad that R.T. Thorne’s writing and directing debut doesn’t live up to its potential, for there are a lot of interesting ideas at work—but unsubtlety (the family’s name is Freeman, for example) and implausible characterizations/relationships mitigate the film’s more original moments. The impressively physical cast is led by Danielle Deadwyler and Kataem O’Connor.

In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week

Pretty Thing 

(Shout! Studios)

In this tepid twist on Fatal Attraction, Alicia Silverstone is Sophie, a successful executive who favors casual hookups, but after she hooks up with the younger Elliot (including a torrid Paris weekend), she can’t shake him, leading to serious consequences. Silverstone is surprisingly good in the Michael Douglas role, but Karl Glusman is overwrought and hammy in the Glenn Close part, which—with Justin Kelly’s choppy direction and Jack Donnelly’s by-the-numbers script—makes this a watchable but routine revenge thriller.

Streaming Release of the Week 

Let Me Go 

(Omnibus)

Swiss director-cowriter Maxime Rappaz makes her feature debut with this intriguingly off-kilter study of Claudine, a middle-aged seamstress who cares for her mentally impaired adult son as well as regularly travels from her small town to a Geneva hotel where she hooks up with single male travelers for no-strings-attached trysts. But she soon meets a German who upsets her well-ordered personal world. Rappaz’ offbeat character study ends up too reliant on cliches, but the film is helped immeasurably by Jeanne Balibar’s emotionally vulnerable portrayal of Claudine. 

CD Release of the Week

Ginastera—String Quartets 

(Pentatone)

Argentine master Alberto Ginastera (1916-83) might be best known for his tango music and its variations, but his works in forms ranging from orchestral music to operas to chamber pieces are notable for their originality and vigor. His three string quartets are prime examples of his virtuosity; written in three distinct styles, they respectively integrate his local folk-music studies, mid-century modernism and a distinctive late style of pure emotion. The Miró Quartet plays these thrillingly idiosyncratic works with the necessary power and finesse, while soprano Keira Duffy gives  beautifully ethereal voice to the Spanish-language poems that make up three movements of the third quartet, a remarkably haunting “hallucination,” in Ginastera’s own description.

Broadway Play Review—“Call Me Izzy” with Jean Smart

Call Me Izzy

Written by Jamie Max; directed by Sarnia Lapine

Performances through August 17, 2025

Studio 54; 254 West 54th Street, NYC

callmeizzyplay.com

Jean Smart in Call Me Izzy (photo: Marc J. Franklin)

First, the good news: Jean Smart is killing it on Broadway. Now, the not-so-good news: the play she’s in, Call Me Izzy, is a creaky solo vehicle.

Call Me Izzy is narrated by the chipper and chatty Isabelle, a middle-aged wife living in a trailer park with her longtime husband Ferd, who—we come to discover—has been abusing her for years, physically and emotionally. Izzy was a smart student who loved to write; indeed, she could have attended college but since she—like so many other Southern belles of her generation—married immediately after high school, she had no choice but to be a stay-at-home wife and, soon, mother…although her son tragically died shortly after birth, further alienating Ferd from Izzy.

As the above shows, Max’s play follows a typical—even stereotypical—trajectory, as Izzy narrates a life that unfolds promisingly but is ultimately shut down by a dominating husband. Izzy gets another chance later in her marriage when she joins a free night writing class at the community college and her stories are entered in a contest to spend time at a New England writing retreat. She wins but realizes she’ll never convince Ferd to let her go, so she never mentions it. But soon the couple running the retreat comes to rural Louisiana to meet them for dinner and, they hope, convince her to join them. Unsurprisingly, Izzy pays dearly for that evening, despite Ferd and the husband and Izzy and the wife bonding for a moment. 

Will Izzy break free of Ferd or will she stay, petrified of his drunken rages? It’s all so predictably, sentimentally sketched out by Max, who is not above (or below) relying on such contrivances as Izzy locking herself in the bathroom to secretly write after Ferd destroys decades’ worth of her journals—she uses toilet paper and hides the contraband in a box she hides from Ferd. But would he really not find her latest musings after what he did earlier? And Izzy implausibly has an affair with her writing teacher in her own home, where they carry on merrily without getting caught. 

Call Me Izzy is rife with such inconsistencies, yet Max has written a juicy titular role that Smart dazzlingly makes her own, bringing the audience into her confidence and making us care about as well as laugh and cry along with her. Smart brings haunting heartbreak to the (unfortunately clichéd) final scene, which finds Izzy trapped between confinement and freedom. 

Despite Smart’s acting tour de force and Sarnia Lapine’s understated direction, Call Me Izzy never feels like a fully-formed play. Here’s hoping Smart will return to Broadway in a meatier role, something like Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days.

July '25 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Sorry, Baby 

(A24)

Eva Victor—whom I knew only from her tart turn as a young hot shot in the Showtime series Billions—has made a very auspicious triple-threat debut as a director, writer and actor in an often funny but also heartfelt exploration of how a graduate student turned professor named Agnes deals with being sexually assaulted by her thesis advisor. Divided into sections that go back and forth in time, the film unfolds as an intentionally messy but intimate look into the head space of someone whose emotional trauma doesn’t define her but still holds a powerful grip. At times, Victor’s deadpan delivery, dialogue and direction threaten to derail her carefully thought-out drama, but she is such a winning performer that she keeps viewers enveloped in an awkward but affectionate hug like the one Agnes shares with neighbor-lover Gavin (a lovely turn by Lucas Hedges).

The Last Class 

(Abramorama)

Elliot Kirschner’s fawning documentary follows Robert Reich—one-time U.S. secretary of labor and longtime professor of economics—as he prepares for his final class before retirement, having taught an estimated 40,000 students over his many-decade teaching career. Kirschner mostly eschews politics to concentrate on Reich’s interactions with his students, which makes his 71-minute film often seem more a superficial glimpse at a “teacher of the year” instead of a deeper exploration of the complex legacy Reich leaves behind both in government and in academia.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

A Minecraft Movie 

(Warner Bros)

The special effects are the undeniable star of this bizarre, sporadically entertaining adaptation of the legendary video game; if director Jared Hess isn’t able to corral a game cast—with Jack Black at his scenery-chewing worst/best—into a cohesive ensemble, he does allow them to interact with the often arresting creatures conjured by visual effects maven Dan Lemon. Five writers labored on the lame script, whose ending will undoubtedly allow a sequel to spring forth; there’s a first-rate UHD transfer that shows off this otherworld in its many details, and extras are several featurettes.

Lethal Weapon 

(Warner Bros)

When Mel Gibson and Danny Glover teamed up in this clunky 1987 buddy picture about antagonistic cops who improbably mesh together, no one would have guessed it would be a smash hit that spawned three enervating sequels. By that metric, this first entry is the most watchable: Gibson and Glover have an undeniable chemistry, while director Richard Donner sets the comic repartee against the increasing—and unnecessarily violent—mayhem. Both the theatrical and director’s cuts are included; extras include a Donner appreciation by cast and crew along with a featurette on Glover and Gibson, the latter of whom tellingly isn’t part of the new interviews.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Eephus 

(Music Box)

As baseball movies go, Eephus doesn’t go for the mythmaking of Field of Dreams or sardonic humor of Bull Durham—rather, director/cowriter Carson Lund and cowriters Nate Fisher and Mike Basta tell an engagingly low-key story of amateur ballplayers playing one last game at the local ballfield before it’s scheduled to be bulldozed to make way for a new school. The emphasis is on camaraderie and occasionally, flaring tempers—and if the movie at times is too meandering, it mirrors the characters’ sport of choice and is, finally, affecting in its slow-burn way. The film looks good on Blu; extras include commentaries, deleted scenes, blooper reel, interviews, a making-of and a dozen easter eggs.

Zoraida di Granata 

(Dynamic)

The 75 or so operas of Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), highlighted by classics Lucia di Lammermoor, L’Elisir d’Amore and Anna Bolena, includes this 1822 opera seria about Zoraida, a woman betrothed to a tyrant, whose love for Abenamet—sentenced to death by the king—complicates things. The contrived opera clocks in at over three hours but has beautiful arias for its soloists. Bruno Ravella’s production, seen at the Donizetti Opera Festival in Italy last November, comprises marvelous musicmaking from the orchestra and chorus under conductor Alberto Zanardi and chorus director Salvo Sgro, and the two lead roles are exquisitely sung by Zuzana Markova (Zoraida) and Cecilia Molinari (Abenamet). There are excellent hi-def video and audio. 

Streaming/DVD Release of the Week 

Vainilla 

(IndiePix)

Argentine writer-director-actress Valeria Rowinski plays Alma, in her mid-30s and who has never been fully satisfied by a man; her latest boyfriend is as much of a boor and bore as the rest. But after attending a party that allowed her to shed her inhibitions, she allows herself to more fully explore intimacy on her terms. Although Rowinski is an engaging screen presence, her work as writer and director is less developed: Alma is not as interesting as Rowinski imagines her to be.

CD Releases of the Week 

Bliss—The Composer Conducts

Poulenc Plays Poulenc and Satie 

(Somm Recordings)

These valuable releases collect vintage recordings by two prominent 20th-century composers— Arthur Bliss (1891-1975) from England and Francis Poulenc (1891-1963) from France—that give another perspective on their artistry. In the two-disc Bliss set, the composer conducts several of his own works in performances from the 1960s, including BBC live broadcasts celebrating his 70th and 75th birthdays. One of the more underrated of the crop of British composers that included Malcolm Arnold, Arnold Bax, Edmund Rubbra and Alan Rawsthorne, Bliss wrote varied and significant music in several genres, represented here by his vividly realized A Colour Symphony, the monumental oratorio Morning Heroes, his B-flat piano concerto (played brilliantly by John Ogdon) and his Concerto for Two Pianos. 

Poulenc was an expert pianist, and in this recording, he not only plays the solo parts in his own concerto for two pianos (with Jacques Fevier) and Aubade but also several of his eloquent solo keyboard works including Suite Francaise. As a sweetener, Poulenc also plays several piano pieces by his compatriot, Erik Satie, celebrating Satie’s experimental composing style in his Gymnopedie No. 1, Sarabande No. 2 and Gnossienne No. 3. Although the bulk of both recordings are in mono (one Bliss piece is in stereo), everything sounds immediate and vivid, even the Poulenc recordings from 1930 and 1950.

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.