May '24 Digital Week III

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Queen Rock Montreal/Live Aid 

(Mercury Studios)

When this concert was filmed in 1981, Queen was literally at the top of its game: the tour supported the smash album The Game, the group’s only U.S. number-one album, and Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon were a well-oiled machine cranking out 90 minutes of pure rock’n’roll every night. (I saw Queen in Toronto on this tour and can confirm.) Showcasing the band playing one Queen classic after another, from the opening, punkish “We Will Rock You” to the final celebratory “We Are the Champions,” the film is the most satisfyingly shot of the many Queen concert movies, with excellent camerawork and editing as well as tremendous sound. There are two 4K discs, one with the film in widescreen, the other in its original 1.33:1 ratio—both look and sound spectacular. Also on the first disc is rehearsal footage for Live Aid; the second disc contains the actual historic Live Aid performance. A commentary by May and Taylor rounds out this essential document of one of the great rock bands at the height of its powers. 

Dune—Part Two 

(Warner Bros)

Frank Herbert’s colossal epic sci-fi novel has been stubbornly resistant to movie adaptation, if David Lynch’s 1984 fatally flawed version (starring a vapid Kyle McLachlan as youthful savior Paul Artreides) and Denis Villenueve’s two long entries (with a less bad but not fully plausible Timothee Chalamet as Paul) are anything to go by. As in his first film, Villeneuve has a visual sense that’s more conventional than Lynch’s, but since there’s vastly superior technology to play with, it looks more imaginative than it is. The second film is more coherent, but about halfway through it starts to repeat itself visually, narratively and thematically, and the ending is a huge anticlimax. There’s a gorgeous 4K transfer; the accompanying Blu-ray disc includes more than an hour of extras that comprise on-set featurettes and cast, crew and director interviews.

One From the Heart 

(Lionsgate)

Francis Coppola’s 1982 musical bankrupted him and his studio, Zoetrope, even though it was a labor of love: wildly stylized and surreal, the film does have its defenders, but watching it makes one realize that, despite the bold colors, Vittorio Storaro’s stunning photography and Dean Tavoularis’ vivid production design, it’s a botch as a song-and-dance musical (although not as awful as Peter Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love). This two-disc set tries to resurrect its reputation with the “Reprise” cut, apparently Coppola’s now-preferred version, on one disc and the original 1982 cut on the other. There are also a Coppola commentary and several extras, both old and new, including featurettes, interviews and deleted scenes. At least the film still looks smashing in both versions, especially in 4K. 

In-Theater Release of the Week

Time of the Heathen 

(Arbelos)

The restoration of this obscure 1960 B movie unearthed the interestingly offbeat talent of director Peter Kass, whose intriguing if crude drama follows Gaunt, a drifter who stumbles on a rape-murder and is forced to flee—along with Jessie, the victim’s young mute son—when those responsible try to frame him. Even at 76 minutes, the story comes off as thin, while the acting is, to put it politely, very uneven. Still, there’s a kernel of originality here, particularly in Ed Emshwiller’s moody B&W visuals and the relationship between Gaunt and Jessie (played by John Heffernan and Barry Collins), which is never exploitive. 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Noryang—Deadly Sea 

(Well Go USA)

In the final film of his trilogy about Korean nautical history, director Kim Han-Min effectively paints on a large canvas to dramatize the pivotal battles in the 16th-century invasions of Korea by Japan, as venerable Korean admiral Yi Sun-Sin’s decisions led to the victorious end of the war. Imposingly mounted—with eye-popping battle sequences—Kim’s film suffers from gigantism at the characters’ expense: we know precious little more about the admiral at the end as we did at the beginning, when we first see him on his death bed. The hi-def image looks impressive.

Das Rheingold 

(Unitel)

Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle opens with the shortest of the four operas, which Wagner titled a “prelude,” a two-hour-plus setup of a long and winding epic that wends its way through many subplots over the following three large-scale works. In director Dmitri Tcherniakov’s new Berlin State Opera, the disharmonious setting is an antiseptically modern office building that removes the grandeur from Wagner’s meticulously worked-out conflict among gods and humans. But there’s first-rate music making—by the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin conducted by Christian Thielemann—and splendid performances by a cast led by Michael Volle’s Wotan, the supreme god, and Rolando Villazón’s mischievous Loge. The opera looks and sounds superb in hi-def.

CD Release of the Week 

Danny Elfman—Percussion Concerto 

(Sony Classical)

Anyone who knows the music of Danny Elfman—especially the title theme from The Simpsons or the soundtracks of various Tim Burton films—will be trodding familiar territory with the trio of works on this disc. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since Elfman’s music is always spirited and attractive to the ear; here, in something like the Percussion Concerto, with the peerless Colin Currie as soloist, it gains weight without ponderousness. Wunderkammer and Are You Lost? round out this entertaining recording, their choral parts (the musicians themselves on the former and Kantos Chamber Choir on the latter) adding extra layers of interest. It’s all played with verve by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under versatile conductor JoAnn Falletta.

Off-Broadway Play Review—World Premiere of “Jordans”

Jordans

Written by Ife Olujobi; directed by Whitney White

Performances through May 12, 2024

Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, NYC

publictheater.org

Kate Walsh, Naomi Lorrain and Toby Onwumere in Jordans (photo: Joan Marcus)

Before it goes completely bonkers in the second act, Ife Olujobi’s Jordans is a bluntly effectively satire about how ingrained American racism affects Blacks, specifically receptionist Jordan, the lone Black employee at Atlas Studios, a Brooklyn event space that’s populated by interchangeable white employees and led by a stereotypically fiery middle-aged white woman named Hailey.

Jordan hopes to move up in the company but is treated like a mere servant (or worse) by the others, for whom she makes coffee or cleans up after when there’s vomit or backed-up sewage. When the company hires a second Black employee, a man also named Jordan (the playwright cheekily names him 1. Jordan, and his last name is, yes, Savage) who’s in a position of supposed power as the new director of culture, our exasperated heroine at first is on her guard, then drops her guard, then…well, that’s all in the second act.

The first half of Jordans moves swimmingly and has some pointed laughs, although there are easy jokes as well, since the targets (clueless whites, office politics) are obvious. Then act two begins, and Olujobi’s play awkwardly moves toward more abstract, surreal lunacy that includes a surprising pregnancy (the two Jordans increasingly become interchangeable, to themselves and the others) and a literally bloody denouement.

Jordans climaxes with its heroine staring hauntedly at the audience, but in this context, the ending makes little sense, either as reality—it’s not as if Jordan is brandishing a gun and can’t be subdued—or as a stark metaphor for unleashing her cumulative anger over her subjugation. 

Whitney White’s brisk production plays out on Matt Saunders’ antiseptically white set, dominated by a large, curved wall that acts as a mocking hulk against Jordan’s aspirations, all cleverly underscored by Cha See’s lighting. The script has Jordan moving around chairs, tables and props between scenes as a way of showing both her subordination and indispensability to all, but since it’s the third straight off-Broadway show where I saw performers move props, it was less than effective. 

The supporting cast provides amusing caricatures, while Toby Onwumere, as 1. Jordan, and Kate Walsh, as Hailey, are better, making Olujobi’s lines far more biting than they are on the page. Best of all is Naomi Lorrain, who as Jordan carries the weight of this serious but stretched-out joke on her shoulders, giving a colossal performance that is funny, sympathetic and even touching. 

May '24 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Evil Does Not Exist 

(Sideshow/Janus)

In the slow-burn follow-up to his Oscar-winning, nearly three-hour Drive My Car, Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi has created a mythic journey into the ongoing—and possibly eternal—tug of war between human civilization and the natural world. When a clueless entrepreneur plans to turn an unspoiled rural village into a new “glamping” site for the affluent, the local citizenry fights back in a carefully calibrated town meeting—then Hana, the young daughter of easygoing widower Takumi (our erstwhile protagonist), goes missing. The film has its share of seeming longueurs that are actually part of the director’s scheme (Hamaguchi rarely goes where he think he will), and the final moments of this melodrama-cum-environmental plea-cum existential horror film are as confoundingly powerful as anything he’s ever done.

Slow 

(KimStim)

When dancer Elena and sign-language interpreter Dovydas meet, they are instantly attracted to each other, then Dovydas admits that he is asexual, with no interest in physical intimacy. How this revelation affects their relationship is at the heart of Marija Kavtaradze’s intimate character study. Despite the bumpiness of the narrative, Kavtaradze has a real ability of homing in on this couple’s psychology, and that—coupled with persuasive performances by Kęstutis Cicėnas (Dovydas) and especially Greta Grinevičiūtė, who creates in Elena a character of intensity and lived-in truthfulness—makes this worth watching.

In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week 

Catching Fire—The Anita Pallenberg Story 

(Magnolia)

She was best known for being the girlfriend of the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones followed by the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards—and the muse who inspired the songs “Gimme Shelter” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”—but directors Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill want to show Anita Pallenberg as much more. She was a model and actress who had a life of her own after splitting with Richards in 1980. Included are numerous interviews with Pallenberg’s children, Richards, and others who knew her (she died in 2017), along with priceless archival video, audio and photographs, and even excerpts from her unpublished autobiography narrated by Scarlett Johansson. Yet the directors hedge their bets by only devoting the last 15 minutes of a 110-minute running time to Pallenberg’s post-Richards life and career, even dragging in model Kate Moss to speak on her behalf. It probably wasn’t intended that way, but it comes off as special pleading for a woman who didn’t need—or want—it. 

4K Releases of the Week

Ocean’s Trilogy

(Warner Bros)

When Steven Soderbergh got together with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac (RIP), Brad Pitt, et al, for a trio of supremely entertaining, infectious heist movies, it was the last word in ultra-cool Hollywood glamor—Ocean’s Eleven (2001) is the best of the lot, but both Ocean’s Twelve (2004) and Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) are excellent time-wasters as well, slickly made and directed by Soderbergh with generosity for his many stars on display. All three films look perfectly coiffed on UHD; extras include commentaries on all three films, making-ofs and other on-set featurettes as well as deleted scenes for Twelve and Thirteen.

Peter Gabriel Live in London—Back to Front 

(Universal/Mercury)

Like most classic rockers, Peter Gabriel decided that a gimmick for his 2013 tour would draw audiences, so he played his breakthrough 1986 album So in its entirety in order—or, at least, in the order Gabriel wanted to play it. He stuck “In Your Eyes,” side two’s lead track, at the end, so the concert would finish with a rousing audience participation number rather than the offbeat “This Is the Picture.” Filmed in London, Gabriel and his crack band—the same musicians he toured with in ’86, when I saw him twice—tear through the nine So tunes and a dozen other Gabriel classics with often wild abandon; the show climaxes with the always emotional encore “Biko.” The 4K image looks incredibly sharp, and the surround sound is even better; lone extra is an interview with Gabriel and tour director Rob Sinclair.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

The Enchantress 

(Naxos)

Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s 1887 opera has never held the stage as memorably as his masterpiece Eugene Onegin or the flawed but fascinating Queen of Spades, although this 2022 Frankfurt production by director Vasily Berkhatov makes a credible attempt to wrestle with this riveting but unwieldy tragic romance, updated from 15th-century Tsarist Russia to modern times. Although the music is often beautiful, there are stretches when it’s not—still, this is an impressive musical performance with Valentin Uryupin conducting the orchestra and chorus master Tilman Michael leading the chorus. Canadian baritone Iain MacNeil is a tower of strength as antagonist Prince Nikita while Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian makes a gorgeous-voiced heroine Nastasya. The hi-def video and audio are unbeatable. 

CD Release of the Week 

John Adams—Girls of the Golden West 

(Nonesuch)

John Adams’ operas have often taken the pulse of 20th century history, from Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer to Doctor Atomic (which preceded—and bettered—Christopher Nolan’s overrated Oppenheimer by more than a decade). His most recent opera—premiered in 2017 and extensively revised in 2019 and now, for this 2023 concert performance—goes back another century, to the California of the 1850s gold rush. The only similarities to Puccini’s own The Girl of the Golden West are the title and setting; otherwise, Adams and librettist Peter Sellars strike out in different territory, like miners panning for gold in a new stream. This forceful recording reunites much of the original cast with Adams conducting the LA Phil and the Los Angeles Master Chorale in a riveting performance of a richly textured if occasionally meandering work. The vocal soloists, led by Julia Bullock, Davóne Tines, Paul Appleby, Daniela Mack and Ryan McKinny, are unimprovable, as is the magisterial chorus. If it’s ultimately not as gripping as it could be, perhaps a future filmed performance will give it its due as music-theater, not simply a concert version.

Dance Theater Review—“Message in a Bottle” to Songs by Sting

Message in a Bottle

Songs by Sting; directed and choreographed by Kate Prince

With Zoo Nation—The Kate Prince Company

Performances through May 12, 2024

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

nycitycenter.org

The cast of Message in a Bottle (photo: Christopher Duggan)

Set to 27 songs by Sting—with the Police and from his solo career—Message in a Bottle is a story of the global refugee crisis told through the mesmerizing movement of choreographer Kate Prince’s brilliant dance company, ZooNation. Although it does get cheesy entwining the music and the dancers, as jukebox shows go, it’s much closer to Twyla Tharp’s take on the Billy Joel catalog, Movin’ Out, than to something like the Abba megahit, Mamma Mia.

In an unnamed desert country (hence the unsurprising opener, “Desert Rose,” with its North African feel), a family of five—father, mother, two sons and a daughter—becomes separated when a civil war throws the entire region into turmoil. Happy events like the marriage of one son are soon overtaken by awful 21st-century realities: abuse, trafficking, displacement, death. Prince and dramaturg Lolita Chakrabarti have fashioned a narrative of sorts from which to hang Sting’s words and music, which, with a few exceptions, have been extensively rearranged and rerecorded (with Sting’s and others’ solo and ensemble voices).

As the songs and the tale unfold, musical motifs from “Fields of Gold” and “Brand New Day” hover over the proceedings, hinting at the happy ending to come. There are times when the relationship of Sting’s lyrics to what’s happening onstage is tenuous—several men sexually abuse a young woman to “Don’t Stand so Close to Me,” which narrates a completely different kind of inappropriate relationship—or, conversely, too on the nose—the second act opens in jail as a chorus intones “Free, free, set them free” and, later on, the married son discovers his bride, forcibly separated from him, works in a brothel, so on comes “Roxanne.” (When she rejects him, we get “So Lonely,” of course.)

But the marriage of music and movement is spot on in several spots, notably in the show’s most affecting number, a tender pas de deux between the younger son (Deavion Brown) and the man (Harrison Dowzell) he’s fallen in love with, set to one of Sting’s loveliest songs, “Shape of My Heart.”

Whatever one thinks of the way Prince and her excellent music supervisor and arranger Alex Lacamoire have manipulated Sting’s tunes to fit into the contrived narrative—sometimes it’s a disservice to the songs and at others it’s a disservice to the story—the breathtaking dancing of Prince’s company, which specializes in effortlessly combining contemporary and hip-hop styles, is beyond reproach. Although the entire ZooNation is magnificent in its athleticism—the leaps, the flips, the freestyling, even the break dancing—the main dancers (as the children) are particularly dazzling.

Brown, Natasha Gooden and Lukas McFarlane convey as much with simple gestures as they do in the more athletic movements (too often, the stage is filled with busyness just for its sake). At those moments, the music and the stunning visuals—Anna Fleischle’s costumes, Ben Stones’ sets, Natasha Chivers’ lighting and Andrezjh Goulding’s projections—take over. 

But however bumpy the journey, when the final healing strains of “They Dance Alone” arrive, Message in a Bottle delivers its message.

Broadway Musical Review—Alicia Keys' "Hell's Kitchen"

Hell’s Kitchen

Book by Kristoffer Diaz; music and lyrics by Alicia Keys

Directed by Michael Greif; choreographed by Camille A. Brown

Opened April 20, 2024

Schubert Theatre, 225 West 44th Street, NYC

hellskitchen.com

The cast of Hell's Kitchen (photo: Marc J. Franklin)

It was inevitable that Alicia Keys’ semiautobiographical musical would jump from downtown to uptown—now that it’s on Broadway, it’s playing right near the neighborhood in which it’s set. Hell’s Kitchen comprises songs Keys had already written, recorded and turned into hits as well as new songs created specifically for the show. It introduces a rebellious 17-year-old, Ali (short for Alicia), who lives with her harried single mom in a high-rise apartment building a few blocks from the Schubert Theatre, where the show is now playing: Ali pines for a romance with an older street drummer and begins a burgeoning musical career that might give her a way out of a neighborhood she considers stifling. 

Hell’s Kitchen is your garden-variety generation-gap musical comedy-drama, as Ali’s mom—whose name is, no lie, Jersey—tries to protect Ali from the temptations Jersey herself fell prey to as a teenager, finding herself pregnant with Ali while she was too young and immature to handle it. Ali’s dad is a musician named Davis (the fiery Brandon Victor Dixon) who’s charming but extremely unreliable. Of course, Ali fights back at every turn, complaining that whatever her mom wants or says are simply unfair restrictions. 

Fortuitously, one day while seething over something her mom is making her do (or not do), Ali wanders into her building’s music room—seemingly for the first time, which is kind of strange in this context—and immediately becomes spellbound by wise old Miss Liza Jane (the scene-stealing and vocally formidable Kecia Lewis), who becomes a sort of surrogate mother to her, teaching her to play the piano along with other needed life lessons. 

Despite the material’s shopworn quality, which has been accentuated on the larger Broadway stage, Hell’s Kitchen is always energetic and nearly as often exuberant, thanks to Keys’ rhythmically propulsive songs, which include those (sort of) showstoppers she has already written—and had huge hits with: a smart reconceiving of “Girl on Fire” is perfectly placed near the end of act one, and (no surprise) “Empire State of Mind” is the show’s big finale, even if, in this context, it’s somewhat anticlimactic. A song that wasn’t in the original Public Theater incarnation, “Kaleidoscope,” has been shoehorned into the middle of the first act, neither hindering nor improving its surroundings.

Since everything is bigger in the move to Broadway, it’s to director Michael Grief’s credit that his staging retains an impeccable proportion of the visual and the dramatic, thanks to Robert Brill’s multi-tier, multi-use fire-escape sets, Peter Nigrini’s clever projections of various areas of Manhattan and Natasha Katz’s always inventive lighting. As ever, Camille A. Brown’s dazzling choreography both complements and roars past Keys’ catchy tunes.

But Hell’s Kitchen is, ultimately, a vehicle for two remarkable leads. Although Maleah Joi Moon (Ali)—who made a stupendous professional debut when the show premiered at the Public—was unfortunately out the night I saw the show on Broadway, her understudy Gianna Harris was a more than capable singer, actress and especially dancer. 

But the center of the show—which she wasn’t in the original incarnation—is Ali’s mom, Jersey, and Shoshana Bean runs with it, not only acting the hell out of the standard role of the difficult but loving mom but also lending her powerhouse voice to several songs. If Hell’s Kitchen settles in for a long Broadway run, it will be interesting to see who may replace Bean as Jersey—Idina Menzel? Sutton Foster? Sierra Boggess? In the meantime, run to the Schubert Theatre to see Shoshana Bean at the top of her game.

May '24 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Challengers 

(MGM)

If a menage a trois among a female tennis player turned coach and the tennis pros in her life, each on opposing career trajectories, sounds like fun, director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes make sure it’s anything but. The flimsy, impossibly cutesy rom-com is crammed with flashbacks within flashbacks to try and present some variety, but even that doesn’t help—something that Guadagnino is obviously aware of, since he uses a surfeit of camera tricks and ridiculous angles to keep things bouncing. Then there’s the awful use of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ pounding electronic score, which always seems to begin and end at the wrong time, as if the music cues are slightly but obviously off. The threesome enacted by Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist is impressive on the court (they all look and move like tennis players) but off the court the trio is saddled with stilted dialogue and must deal with desperate symbolism like a windstorm of Biblical proportions that actually happens twice. It’s all about as sexy as a celebrity doubles match.

The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed 

(Magnolia)

Lena Dunham’s shallow confessional fingerprints are all over this feature debut by Joanna Arnow, which is both self-effacing and extremely self-absorbed in its leaden look at Ann, a 30ish Brooklynite, whose boring life is also meaningless. It’s one thing for Arnow to show Ann’s roundelay of overbearing parents, dull corporate job, robotic S&M play with male doms and a tentative new romance quite different from her other relationships—but it’s quite another to provide neither insight into nor an explanation for how Ann ended up here. Maybe a 15-minute short would have handled the material more succinctly and less tediously than 85 minutes do.

Terrestrial Verses 

(KimStim)

In this daring piece of advocacy filmmaking, writer-directors Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari brilliantly dramatize how Iranian officialdom (governmental, cultural, even religious) tamps down individualism through several self-contained vignettes that pit ordinary persons—a man registering his baby’s name with the authorities; a woman wearing a hijab and a tattooed man each interviewing for a job; a young girl in a store who must wear a school uniform that completely covers her—against a person of authority. Each segment is shot with a fixed, unmoving camera and begins normally, even informally, then soon morphs into a theater of the absurd as the invisible interlocutor pushes back at each individual’s individuality. The resulting horror grows cumulatively until the end, when an impending, if symbolic, event becomes all too awfully real.

Uncropped 

(Greenwich Entertainment)

The life and career of photographer James Hamilton—whose masterly portraits were done mainly for the Village Voice but also other publications like Harper’s Bazaar and the New York Observer—are recounted in D.W. Young’s richly entertaining documentary, in which Hamilton narrates his own fascinating story from his beginnings at the Voice to the esteemed elder statesman he is considered today, an influential chronicler of pop culture and alternative journalism in New York. There are interviews with his wide circle of friends and admirers, from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and director Wes Anderson to journalists Joe Conason and Alexandra Jacobs, all adding anecdotal detail to his legendary journey, along with a copious amount of his classic photos.

4K Release of the Week 

Frivolous Lola 

(Cult Epics)

Italian director Tinto Brass, in his titillating, not-quite-hardcore sex comedies, relied on finding a young beauty with screen presence to shoulder the load, so to speak. For this 1998 entry, he cast the beguiling Italian actress Anna Ammirati as the free-spirited Lola, a magnet to every man in town, from her boyfriend to local priests; Ammirati’s refreshing naturalness unsurprisingly dominates this slight but amusing film, whether she’s clothed or unclothed. The UHD transfer looks excellent; a Blu-ray disc also includes the film, and extras comprise an interview with Brass and an audio commentary.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

The Beekeeper 

(Warner Bros)

In Jason Statham’s latest revenge flick, he plays Adam, who takes care of the bees on the farm of retired teacher Eloise, who kills herself after an online scam robs her of her considerable life savings and charity funds. Adam immediately jumps into action, tracking down the scammers and destroying their offices—but that’s just the beginning, for he is part of a dangerous group, the Beekeepers, secret and highly skilled operatives. It’s all risible, which Statham and director David Ayer know, so they keep upping the ridiculous ante as the hero takes care of wave upon wave of bad guys—including the corrupt son of the U.S. president. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer, but no extras.

Stigmata 

(Capelight)

In this creepy 1999 horror entry, Father Andrew (Gabriel Byrne) fights the church hierarchy as he tries to help atheistic hairdresser Frankie (Rosanna Arquette), whose mystifying stigmata stems from a rosary she got from her mother. Director Rupert Wainwright puts his cast through its paces well enough; Nia Long, Jonathan Pryce and Rade Šerbedžija lend able support, while Byrne and Arquette intermittently make this silliness—Frankie tries to seduce Andrew at one point—watchable. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; extras include Wainwright’s commentary, making-of featurette, deleted scene and an alternate ending.

Tormented 

(Film Masters)

The definition of a guilty pleasure, Bert I. Gordon’s 1960 B-movie take on Edgar Allan Poe’s chilling short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, follows jazz pianist Tom Stewart, who sees his ex Vi fall to her death and is haunted by her ghost (in the form of her disembodied head) as he tries to resurrect his music career and marry Meg, his current girl. It’s borderline inept at times—and the cheesy effects don’t do justice to Vi’s ghostly presence—but those who are the target audience for this sort of thing will get something out of it. The film looks decent on Blu; extras include Mystery Science Theatre 3000’s 1992 version of the film, archival Gordon interview, documentary about Gordon, visual essay on the film and an audio commentary.

CD Release of the Week 

Ligeti—Concertos and Other Works 

(Alpha Classics)

If Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) is best known for the otherworldly music so memorably used by Stanley Kubrick in three of his most unsettling films—2001, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut—the composer’s genius consists of an unclassifiable oeuvre whose singular vision always looked forward even while it nodded to the past. And the magnificently curated works on this splendid two-disc set brilliantly demonstrate Ligeti’s musical ethos; in fact, the three concertos on disc one—for violin (1990-92), cello (1966) and piano (1985)—may lay claim to the most astounding concerto set of the second half of the 20th century. Of the five striking works on disc two, the pair of early ones for piano only give a hint of the shattering sounds to come. Then there are the Chamber Concerto (1969-70), Solo Viola Sonata (1991-94) and the Horn Trio (1985), each marvelously unique in their sound world, all innovative and vital. The performances by members of Ensemble Intercontemporain led by Pierre Bleuse are thrillingly intense, especially the concerto soloists: Hae-Sung Kang (violin), Renaud Déjardin (cello) and Dimitri Vassilakis (piano).

April '24 Digital Week IV

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Civil War 

(Neon)

In Alex Garland’s dystopian nightmare, the U.S. has degenerated into war pitting rebel forces from Texas and California—now there’s an unlikely alliance!—against remnants of federal troops that are disintegrating, as several intrepid journalists record the actual breakdown of America in real time. Garland gets the particulars right, from the intense opening of a suicide bomber on a Manhattan street to the final, prolonged shootout as the rebels storm the White House and root out a cowering president. But there’s no overarching theme or point, while visually and narratively, much is borrowed from Full Metal Jacket, with reporters and photographers following the fighting to the documentary-like visuals: one of the photographers even falls into a pit filled with dead bodies, a seeming homage to Kubrick’s classic. Although filmed and edited for maximum tension—and with good performances topped by the peerless Stephen McKinley Henderson as a veteran NY Times reporter on his last legs—Civil War is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.

Kim’s Video 

(Drafthouse Films)

The legendary lower Manhattan video store closed shop in 2009, and directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin—the former a particularly gregarious fan of the store’s legacy and cinema history—track down the collection to, of all places, a rural Italian town in this engagingly messy documentary. On visiting the collection, Redmon gets into a bit of trouble with the authorities, before teaming with the small chain’s owner, Youngkin Kim, to return the discs and tapes to their rightful place in New York. It’s breezy and clunky in equal measure, but by padding the narrative with clips from dozens of movies Redmon alludes to throughout ironically moves the focus away from Kim’s Video and its legacy, making for a strangely unsatisfying film.

LaRoy, Texas 

(Brainstorm Media)

I’ve never been a fan of the Coen brothers, but their most pernicious influence may be the copycats who have tried to remake, say, Miller’s Crossing or No Country for Old Men, blackly comic tales of revenge and murder. The latest wannabe, writer/director Shane Atkinson, checks all the familiar boxes—at times, it’s as if an overeager novice got his hands on the first draft of a Coen script and decided to film it. The twists, the turns and the relationships all come across as arch and forced, while the occasionally biting dialogue is more often than not crude. The acting follows suit, so that even good actors like Dylan Baker and Megan Stevenson can’t create plausible characterizations.

Sweet Dreams 

(Dekanalog)

This parable about the perils of colonialism, written and directed by Bosnian Ena Sendijarevic, is a witty look at a family that owns a Dutch East Indian plantation: when patriarch Jan dies suddenly, his widow Agathe, their son Cornelius and pregnant daughter-in-law Josefin hope to keep the estate in the family—but Jan’s beloved servant Siti bore him a son, who’s been named the lone inheritor. Shot in perfectly boxy Academy ratio, Sendijarevic’s deadpan satire might lose its grip at times but remains an intelligent exploration of how history’s horrors keep reverberating.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker 

(Severin)

A true horror relic, this risible but occasionally entertaining 1981 flick follows the Oedipal relationship of high-school student Billy (Jimmy McNichol) and his overprotective aunt Cheryl (Susan Tyrell), whom he’s lived with since his parents died when he was young (we, of course, get to see the gruesomely fatal car crash). The plot involves dead bodies, a gay basketball coach (Steve Eastin), a homophobic detective (Bo Svenson) and student Julia (Julia Duffy), whom Billy is dating; if director William Asher and three (!) writers can’t make this more than a serviceable genre exercise, it never reaches the depths of its ungainly title. There’s a fine UHD transfer; extras include three audio commentaries, new and archival interviews with cast and crew, including McNichol, Tyrell and Svenson.

Cathy’s Curse 

(Severin)

In the vein of The Exorcist, The Omen and It’s Alive, this crudely made 1976 Canadian entry into the “evil child” genre doesn’t even try very hard as young, seemingly possessed Cathy causes her nanny’s demise out of a second-floor window and makes things dangerous for her parents, especially her weak mother. Director Eddy Matalon can barely muster the energy to make his movie competent-looking, and is further defeated by laconic performances and truly lazy writing. There’s a decent 4K transfer; extras include an audio commentary and interviews.

The Departed 

(Warner Bros)

Martin Scorsese won his lone best director Oscar for this 2006 crime drama (which also won best picture), set in Boston among the Irish underworld and crooked cops—it might not be one of his best films but it has Scorsese’s essential traits in, if anything, overabundance. There are the well-placed rock tunes, opening with the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”; the closely observed world of crime and punishment; the vicious and sudden violence—even the final image is an obvious if nasty joke. It’s brilliantly done, with spectacular performances by Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and even mark Wahlberg, even if there’s a sense of déjà vu after 2-1/2 hours. The film looks magnificent in UHD; extras include a new featurette with a new Scorsese interview, along with two featurettes and deleted scenes (with the director’s intro) from previous releases.

Motley Crue—The End 

(Mercury/Universal)

Once upon a time, you couldn't turn on MTV without seeing and hearing Motley Crue in heavy rotation. For those still-loyal fans, this concert in the group’s hometown of L.A. on New Year’s Eve 2015—billed as The End, even though the Crue has since reformed—brings back those good old days, hitting on every phase of the band’s career: they began as a Kiss wannabe, became huge arena-rockers, then stumbled through new singers and drummers before returning to the original lineup. No true fan will be disappointed with this hit list, including much time-capsule material: “Looks That Kill,” “Girls Girls Girls,” “Dr. Feelgood” and “Home Sweet Home” all contain big hair, makeup, tight pants—from the band and their sleek female dancer-singers. The 4K video and surround sound, are crisp and clear; extras include band interviews and closeup footage of the flame-throwing bass and drum rig.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Doom Patrol—Complete Final Season 

(Warner Bros)

In the final season of this weird but always watchable superhero series, the disposable, deplorable  outcasts once again take on the mantle of being simultaneous saviors and survivors, battling adversaries from without and within. The terrific ensemble, led by April Bowlby, Brendan Fraser and Dianne Guerrero, stays on the edge of being tongue-in-cheek and unabashedly sentimental throughout, and this unlikely blend prevents it all from becoming too sappy or satirical. This season’s dozen episodes look remarkable in hi-def; extras include three featurettes.

Drive-Away Dolls 

(Lionsgate)

I had just watched LaRoy, Texas, the latest Coen brothers’ rip-off, when I encounter a new movie by one Coen brother (Ethan) and his wife (Tricia Cooke)—it’s so cartoonish and insistent on being a piece of blackly comic juvenilia that it has the feel of something from the early Coen years a la Blood Simple or Raising Arizona. It’s also no better than those two films, with annoying characters acting annoyingly while spewing offbeat, deadpan, obnoxious lines of dialogue. On the plus side, Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan make an amusing pair of lesbian friends on the run with some inept crooks’ stash in their trunk of their rental car, and the movie’s only 84 minutes long. It has a very good Blu-ray transfer; extras comprise three making-of featurettes. 

Monolith 

(Well Go USA)

The nameless protagonist tries to resurrect her flailing career by hosting a podcast about conspiracy theories—and is soon caught up in an insane alien conspiracy that she realizes she is also intimately involved with. Matt Vesely’s initially taut thriller unfortunately loses it about two-thirds through, but Vesely and writer Lucy Campbell’s portrait of conspiracist thinking hinges on Lily Sullivan, the only person onscreen (there are voices on phone calls), and she responds with a brilliantly crazed portrayal. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; lone extra is a behind the scenes featurette.

CD Releases of the Week

Frederick Delius—Hassan 

(Chandos)

English composer Frederick Delius (1862-1934) wrote music of great variety, from the tone poems In a Summer Garden and A Song of Summer to the operas A Village Romeo and Juliet and Fennimore and Gerda and the choral works Sea Drift and A Mass of Life. His incidental music for the prose play Hassan comprises about an hour’s worth of a colorful if at times meandering musical atmosphere that’s heightened when accompanied by a chorus or, in its most memorable moments, the haunting tenor voice in the melancholy final scene. This estimable recording combines the stellar singing of the Britten Sinfonia Voices, the first-rate narrator Zeb Soanes, and the fine playing of the Britten Sinfonia, all led by the adept conducting of Jamie Phillips.

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich—Symphony No. 5 and Orchestral Works 

(BMOP/Sound)

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s music is full of bountiful imagination, and this disc, comprising one of her very best works and three other orchestral pieces, shows her at the pinnacle of her artistry. The centerpiece of this superb recording is her Symphony No. 5, which I was fortunate to hear at its 2008 Carnegie Hall world-premiere performance by the Juilliard Orchestra. It’s an inventive, zesty, vital achievement, buoyed by Zwilich’s brilliance at writing melodically and vigorously for the orchestra as both an ensemble and a group of first-rate soloists. The other works on this disc range from the effervescent opener, the perfectly titled Upbeat!, to the subtle coloring of two concertos: Concerto Elegia for flute and orchestra and Commedia dell’arte for solo violin and string orchestra. Flutist Sarah Brady and violinist Gabriela Diaz are perfection in their showcase works, while Gil Rose skillfully leads the Boston Modern Orchestra Project throughout.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Sally & Tom”

Sally & Tom

Written by Suzan-Lori Parks; directed by Steve H. Broadnax III

Performances through May 12, 2024

Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, NYC

publictheater.org

Sheria Irving and Gabriel Ebert in Sally & Tom (photo: Joan Marcus)

Among contemporary playwrights, you’d think Suzan-Lori Parks would be the one to have an original and startling take on the complicated relationship of founding father Thomas Jefferson and enslaved Sally Hemings. But, with Sally & Tom, Parks has created an intermittently lacerating but mainly mild play about one of the most fraught subjects in our fraught national history.

To grapple with and have a contemporary dialogue with the historical subject at hand, Parks introduces a scruffy off-off-Broadway troupe putting on a play titled The Pursuit of Happiness—it was originally called E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One), something that Parks gets some decent mileage out of—in which the relationship between T.J. (as Jefferson is so-called) and Sally is dramatized from a distinctly 21st-century point of view. 

The play-within-a-play is written by Luce, who plays Sally, and directed by Mike, who plays T.J. Luce and Mike are a couple bound by their art and their advocacy but who are starting to get tired of begging for money and shouting their words into mostly empty theaters—perhaps belatedly realizing that leftist politics onstage is an echo chamber.

Parks would seem to the perfect playwright to dig into these parallel provocations: studying a beloved American’s indefensible personal life and if it’s possible to make genuine art in these divided times. But she instead creates distance from the task at hand. Sally & Tom has three distinct levels: T.J. and Sally in The Pursuit of Happiness; Luce and Mike as lovers and artists; and the other players in the troupe, whose backstage interactions might be amusing to those who work in the theater but which are a combination of easy laughs and cheap melodramatics that simply pad the running time.

Such a dramatic and comic imbalance dilutes what Parks is saying about the pedestal our Founding Fathers have been put on; the unfairness of history being written by white men; and the agency of a woman like Sally, who bore seven of Jefferson’s children but was never freed by him, even on his deathbed, unlike both Washington and Franklin, as is mentioned in the play. (Jefferson’s daughter Patsy freed Sally and others after her father died July 4, 1826—significantly the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—along with John Adams in one of history’s best coincidences.)

To be sure, there are fleeting moments of precise observation and ringing insight, but Sally & Tom really only flashes to vivid life in the speeches that climax each act. Act one ends with a long and winding soliloquy by T.J. (of which Gabriel Ebert, who’s most engaging as both Mike and Tom, gives a persuasive reading), which treads the fine lines of self-pity, self-absorption, and self-analysis, thanks to Parks’ acuteness at studying this extraordinary man with extraordinary flaws. 

Even better is the monologue Parks has written for Sally (the gifted Sheria Irving, who’s superb as both Luce and Sally, rises to Shakespearean heights here), in which she—and by extension Parks—grapples with her own place in a history she has officially never been part of, even if recent Jeffersonian history has started to grant her space there. Sally eloquently describes her conflicting emotions:

I want to push his hands off. Tear away whatever of myself makes him want me. And yet, the horror of him wanting me keeps me from other horrors. Some might say we were docile. I say we were resilient. And we pass that down to you. And there were so many things we wanted to say. But didn’t. So many things we wanted to do. But didn’t. We should have burned the whole place down. Instead we built it up.

Sally’s thoughtful, poignant plea overcomes some of the preceding two-plus hours’ repetitiveness.

Steve H. Broadnax III’s direction nicely corrals the three disparate story threads into a nearly cohesive whole, and the ensemble amusingly handles the doubled roles of the other performers and their characters. Riccardo Hernández’ scenic design, Rodrigo Muñoz’ costumes, Alan C. Edwards’ lighting, Dan Moses Schreier’s sound design and Schreier and Parks’ music adroitly dip us in and out of each segment. 

But the final coup de theatre, a list of Monticello’s enslaved names appearing on the back wall, is a visual sledgehammer that unnecessarily underscores the play's bluntness, despite its lofty intentions.

April '24 Digital Week III

Streaming/In-Theater Releases of the Week

The Absence of Eden 

(Roadside Attractions/Vertical)

In writer-director Marco Perego’s sketchy melodrama, Shipp, a rookie border agent with a conscience, must deal with the cynical Dobbins for a partner; a girlfriend, Yadira, who may be undocumented; and an undocumented Mexican woman, Esmee, who is trying to protect a young child. Perego tries to be even-handed in his study of these flawed characters, but his vision is no deeper than that of a driver looking through his windshield in the pouring rain without wipers on. The director’s wife, Zoe Saldaña, gives a committed performance as Esmee, Grant Hedlund is a persuasive Shipp and Adria Arjona is an impassioned Yadira, but they are performing in a vacuum, since the film is so thin dramatically and politically that it suggests a first draft.

Blackout 

(Dark Sky)

If you haven’t had your fill of werewolf movies yet, along comes writer-director Larry Fessenden with his typically astringent take on the nocturnal creature feature, as an artist in a small town thinks that he may be the one who is behind several recent overnight maulings. Fessenden keeps a sense of humor about his material, along with a smattering of social commentary, but there’s little here that we haven’t seen before—An American Werewolf in London anticipated the jokey but gory genre more than 40 years ago—yet it does have its occasional successfully tense moments.

Food, Inc. 2 

(Magnolia)

In 2008’s Food, Inc., director Robert Kenner teamed up with investigative authors Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser to tell a cautionary tale of how Big Agriculture has made it nearly impossible to eat healthfully. Nearly two decades later, the sequel has arrived to tell an even more alarmist story that encompasses the disasters of the recent pandemic, notably that Big Ag corporations carved out exceptions to the many COVID restrictions to keep their factories going—at the cost of sick workers, among other things. As Kenner, codirector Melissa Robledo, Pollan and Schlosser show, this is not a left-right issue, but one that affects all of us, and they allow several individuals (including U.S. senator Cory Booker) to discuss new and innovative ways of food production that might lead toward more food sustainability.

Irena’s Vow 

(Quiver Distributing)

The astonishing true story of Irena Gut Opdyke, a Polish Catholic nurse who was able to hide 13 Jews in the house of a prominent Nazi for whom she worked, is vividly dramatized in Louise Archambault’s feature from a script by Dan Gordon, based on his own play that played briefly Broadway in 2009. Like the play, Gordon’s script is too melodramatic, even saccharine at times, but the humane, believable Irena of Canadian actress Sophie Nélisse rescues this low-key study of an ordinary person who almost backs into becoming a heroine. 

Resistance—They Fought Back 

(Abramorama)

This deeply felt documentary chronicles several instances of successful Jewish resistance against the barbarism of the murderous Nazis throughout Europe that counteracts the prevailing narrative that the Jews were just meek victims. Directors Paula Apsell and Kirk Wolfinger adroitly mix testimony from survivors and their descendants alongside discussion of historians to underline the heroic actions of so many. With narration and other voices by Corey Stoll, Maggie Siff and Lisa Loeb, among others, this necessary portrait illuminates how goodness was able to, at times, overcome evil. 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

The Devil’s Honey 

(Severin)

When her boyfriend Johnny dies on the operating table at the hands of neglectful Dr. Wendell Simpson, vengeful young Jessica kidnaps Wendell and subjects him to torture of the physical and emotional kind, which morphs into a twisted sexual relationship. Italian director Lucio Fulci’s 1986 drama is often risible but always watchable, as he’s unafraid to get down and dirty with his characters—whether it’s the opening music-studio salvo between Jessica and Johnny as he plays his horn or the increasingly creepy interactions between Jessica and Wendell. There’s also the stunningly erotic presence of Blanca Marsillach, the Romanian actress who plays Jessica persuasively. The film looks quite good in 4K as well as on Blu-ray; extras include interviews with Fulci, Marsallich and costars Brett Halsey and Corinne Clery as well as an alternate opening.

The Great Alligator 

(Severin)

Not many would bring up this 1979 monster movie as one of the better rip-offs that arrived in the wake of Jaws, but Sergio Martino’s waterlogged thriller is demented enough to keep one watching, despite the silly dialogue and acting—especially by poor Barbara Bach, who looks properly embarrassed throughout. The plot—an island god, seeking vengeance, takes the shape of a supergator to take down the natives and tourists at a tropical resort—is also ridiculous but keeps one interested for a relatively brief 90 minutes. The UHD transfer is good enough, as is the Blu-ray; extras include several interviews with cast and crew, including Martino, and English and Italian audio tracks are included.

Rambo—Last Blood 

(Lionsgate)

If this is truly the final go-round for John Rambo, as this 2019’s title surely promises, then we’ve had worse before—I gave up after the awful third entry—and this, the fifth go-round, has Rambo going after the drug cartel criminals who have kidnaped and forced into sexual slavery the granddaughter of the woman who comanages his horse ranch. Director Adrian Grünberg knows that Rambo’s—and Sylvester Stallone’s—bread and butter is action, the more violent the better, and this entry checks all the boxes, from the xenophobic treatment of Mexicans to some creative ways of taking out Rambo’s enemies when they attack him at home for a satisfying if predictable conclusion to the series. The UHD transfer is sparkling; extras are a substantial production diary and musical score featurette.

CD Releases of the Week

Benjamin Britten—Violin Concerto 

(BR Klassik)

Just weeks after listening to Baiba Skride tackle the youthful Violin Concerto by English composer Benjamin Britten (1913-76), I got to hear another formidable take on that masterpiece, this time in an excellent recording by soloist Isabelle Faust, who easily dispatches the technical demands of this masterly workout for her instrument. Jakub Hrůša intelligently conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Rounding out the disc are a few enticing chamber works by Britten that predate his concerto, including the world premiere recording of Two Pieces for violin, viola and piano, nicely played by Faust, her violist brother Boris, and pianist Alexander Melnikov. 

Paul Moravec—The Shining 

(Pentatone)

Despite being based on Stephen King’s original 1977 novel—which Mark Campbell’s libretto follows fairly faithfully—Paul Moravec’s opera must deal with the proverbial elephant in the room: Stanley Kubrick’s chilling 1980 film classic that jettisoned much of King’s book and remains The Shining of choice for me. That long shadow includes Kubrick’s music choices: his innovative and original use of works by 20th-century modernists Bartók, Ligeti and Penderecki are are one of the main reasons why the film remains disturbing and indelible. Moravec has gone in a different direction; the rumblings of menace always bubble under the surface of his score but often hold back the terrors that beset the Torrance family once father Jack becomes haunted by the Overlook Hotel’s ghosts. Though it still effectively tells the tale, especially in its quieter moments like the touching finale, this adaptation falls short of the incendiary and baroque visual and musical explosion Kubrick created. Gerard Schwartz ably conducts the Kansas City Symphony and Lyric Opera of Kansas City Chorus, while the main roles are well taken by Edward Parks (Jack), Kelly Kaduce (Wendy), Tristan Hallett (Danny) and, best of all, Aubrey Allicock (Hallorann).