February '14 Digital Week IV

Blu-rays of the Week

The Films of Lionel Rogosin, Volume II

(Milestone/Oscilloscope)

Lionel Rogosin’s cinema came from the heart, and this release comprises a pair of the maverick director’s historically and culturally important features: 1959’s Come Back, Africa is an illuminating snapshot of living under the evils of South African apartheid, and 1970’s Black Roots looks at beauty and tragedy in America through stories and songs by musicians like Larry Johnson and Wende Smith. Both films, painstakingly restored, look smashing on Blu-ray, while extras include a Martin Scorsese intro and Rogosin audio interview; Rogosin’s Africa making-of, An America in Sophiatown; Roots making-of, Bittersweet Stories; and the documentary, Have You Seen Drum Recently?

Mr. Nobody

(Magnolia)

Jaco van Dormael makes few films—only two since his 1991 debut Toto the Hero—but he never skimps on imagination: this at times dazzling, often dizzyingly innocuous exploration of one man’s lengthy life (and the paths he might have taken) is given 155 expansive minutes to tell…well, not much. Despite solid work by Jared Leto in the title role and Diane Kruger and Juno Temple as women in his life and a splendid visual design, the movie’s a superficial sci-fi mash-up. The hi-def transfer looks superb; extras include deleted scenes, making-of featurettes and the 139-minute 2009 theatrical cut.

Muscle Shoals

(Magnolia)

How a tiny Alabama swamp town was ground zero for some classic recordings of the past several decades is what Greg “Freddy” Camalier’s exquisite music documentary explores. Groups from the Rolling Stones to the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and singers from Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan to Paul Simon all made classic singles and albums at the unique studio—and interviews with many of those artists, other fans like Bono and Alicia Keys, and the men who ran the place, the Swampers (immortalized on “Sweet Home Alabama”) are on board to discuss the history and influence of the place. The Blu-ray image is top-notch; extras include deleted scenes and interviews.

The Secret Policeman’s Ball—USA

(Eagle Rock)

After decades of these celebrity-studded comedy shows—with musical interludes—in London, America finally hosted its own in 2012 at Radio City Music Hall, bringing together scattershot stand-up routines and sketches by Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Russell Brand, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Silverman and Paul Rudd, with tunes by Coldplay and Mumford & Sons. The draggy 135-minute event is punctuated by slightly desperate appearances by some of the former Monty Python troupe, who briefly perk up the entire show. The Blu-ray image is decent; extras include backstage interviews.

You Will Be My Son
(Cohen Media)

Many French films get remade in the U.S., but this insightful dissection of the volatile relationship between a master vineyard owner and the adult son who was never good enough for him will doubtfully get the Hollywood green light. That’s all to the good since powerful performances by Niels Astrup (father), Lorant Deutsch (son), Anne Marivin (son’s wife) and Nicolas Bridet (estate manager’s son, everything the real son is not) would be hard to recreate. This immersive psychological portrait by co-writer/director Gilles Legrand flirts with thriller territory but never rings false. The Blu-ray image looks terrific; extras include deleted scenes and interviews with Deutsch and Legrand.

DVDs of the Week

American Experience—1964

(PBS)

Beginning just weeks after the JFK assassination—which paralyzed the country—1964 was a pivotal year in American culture and politics, as this entertaining “cliffs notes” PBS program shows. From the arrival of the Beatles and the ascension of Cassius Clay to the LBJ presidency and Barry Goldwater’s conservative movement, and from the escalating civil rights struggle to the nascent feminist movement, 1964 encapsulates 12 important American months in two hours, with a selection of archival footage and new interviews that complement each other compellingly.

Disco and Atomic War

(Icarus)

During the Cold War, citizens of Tallinn, the capital of the then Soviet republic of Estonia—the closest Iron Curtain city to the “evil” West—were able to watch Finnish television despite their overlords trying to jam the signals. That they could watch American TV shows like Dallas and hear banned rock and disco music helped finish off the Communist state. Directors Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma, who grew up during those tumultuous times, have made a wacky but perceptive documentary that provides a different viewpoint of those heady days.

The Oyler House

(First Run)

Mike Dorsey’s personal glimpse at the stunning Southern California home famed architect Richard Neutra designed and built for the Oyler family may be only 45 minutes long, but its themes of architecture, history, family and natural beauty are brilliantly woven into its structure. Illuminating interviews with Neutra’s sons, with Richard Oyler—who asked Neutra to build the house in 1959—and with its current occupant, actress Kelly Lynch, are interspersed with gorgeously photographed views of this extraordinary building and its surroundings. Extras include deleted scenes and a house walk-through by Lynch and Oyler.

Search—The Complete Series

(Warner Archive)

This bizarre sci-fi series didn’t last long (1 season, 23 episodes, in 1972-73) but its original premise about probes—robots used by a worldwide surveillance group—can be seen as prescient in a century dominated by the NSA and Edward Snowden. Starring first-rate TV actors like Burgess Meredith, Hugh O’Brian, Doug McClure and Tony Franciosa, and with special guests like the era’s ubiquitous Bill Bixby, Sebastian Cabot, Stefanie Powers and Barbara Feldon, Search is definitely worth searching for—once you start watching, don’t be surprised if you make your way through all six discs.

Twice Born

(e one)

Sergio Castellito’s heavy-handed drama about how horrific events in the Bosnian civil war forever shattered the lives of even those who were not yet born features gripping performances by Penelope Cruz, Emile Hirsch and Saadet Aksoy, all of whom have to deal with melodramatic flip-flops manufactured by Castellito’s wife, screenwriter Margaret Mazzantini. This overlong film is hamstrung throughout its length by often ludicrous machinations. Extras are interviews with Castellito, Cruz, Hirsch and Aksoy.

Off-Broadway Reviews: "The Tribute Artist," "Transport"

The Tribute Artist

Written by Charles Busch, directed by Carl Andress

Performances through March 30, 2014

59 E 59 Theatre, 59 East 59^th Street, New York, NY

primarystages.org

Transport

Book by Thomas Keneally, music & lyrics by Larry Kirwanh, directed by Tony Walton

Performances through April 6, 2014

Irish Rep, 132 West 22^nd Street, New York, NY

irishrep.org

Halston, Harris and playwright Busch in The Tribute Artist
(photo: James Leynse)

Cross-dresser extraordinaire Charles Busch conjures a clever concept for his latest farce, The Tribute Artist: he plays Jimmy, a drag queen pretending to be his elderly landlady Adriana after the widow unexpectedly dies in her beautifully appointed Greenwich Village apartment, where he is staying. With help from his good friend Rita, a lesbian real-estate agent, Jimmy hopes to sell the place for millions before anyone catches on to the ruse.

But unexpected hijinks ensue. Adriana’s niece Christina, with her transgender teen kid Oliver sin tow, shows up, insisting she’s the rightful heir when her “aunt” dies; they are joined by Rodney, an ex-tryst of Adriana’s whom Oliver finds on Facebook and invites over. And that’s just the tip of a very convoluted iceberg.

Busch is a veteran comic writer whose dialogue often has bite (or at least bark), and the inherent silliness of the situation is always a given. It’s unfortunate, then, that he so often takes the path of least resistance, like a lazy series of jokes about drag queens and desperately alluding to campy old Hollywood movies to increasingly less funny effect.

The clotted plot (which I only summarized) hinders the humor from flowing smoothly; indeed, scenes extend beyond their miniscule life by frantic overexplanations that do nothing but add to the running time, so Busch ends up turns his own play into a drag, if anyone remembers the other meaning of that word.

Anna Louizos’ gorgeous set suggests a multi-million-dollar piece of Village property and Gregory Gale’s costumes are delightful. Carl Andress directs as broadly as Busch writes, and if Busch has done this role countless times, he can still deliver one-liners and double entendres like no one else.

Julie Halston, as Jimmy’s sidekick Rita, hams too much even in this muggable context; contrast her with Mary Bacon’s Christina, a small-town mom trying to handle the Big Apple. Bacon’s skillful, subtle portrayal garners more credible laughs as well as sympathy. Cynthia Harris (Adriana), Keira Keeley (Oliver) and Jonathan Walker (Rodney) round out an ensemble that nearly saves The Tribute Artist from itself.

The cast of Transport (photo: Carol Rosegg)

Thomas Keneally—whose fine books The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Schindler’s List became classic films directed by Fred Schepisi and Steven Spielberg, respectively—has impeccable credentials as an historian, specializing in his own country, Australia.

So his book for the musical Transport—which follows the travails of mid-19^th century Irish women who, convicted of various crimes, were shipped off to the penal colony of New South Wales (not yet Australia) to help propagate the species with male convicts already there—seems a can’t-miss proposition.

But Keneally’s book isn’t up to the task, mainly because a musical isn’t the right form: history book, novel or film—either fiction or documentary—would better encompass such tragedy. Collaborators Keneally, composer Larry Kirwan and director Tony Walton are unable to develop the epic scale of human misery and, conversely, humane uplift with sufficient artistry.

We are left with fragments of a superior show about women banding together to defiantly survive a hellish voyage and a merciless captain’s mistreatment. (Males like a priest and doctor are more sympathetically sketched: but the captain has a last-minute change of heart.) The Irish Rep’s cramped stage allows a sense of the cruel treatment and shoddy conditions to come through, but with only four women to stand in for hundreds onboard, the story’s vast scope is trivialized.

Walton’s savvy direction and set design can’t overcome Kirwan’s songs—blustery ballads, romantic duets and a jig or two to nod toward Irish music—which include platitudinous lyrics of the Moon-June variety. A game septet of actors, especially the intensely focused and beautiful-voiced Jessica Grove, does its best to keep Transport from running aground.

Off-Broadway Review: Donald Margulies' "Dinner with Friends"

Dinner with Friends

Written by Donald Margulies, directed by Pam Mackinnon

Performances through April 13, 2014

Laura Pels Theatre, 111 West 46^th Street, New York, NY

roundabouttheatre.org

Pettie, Burns, Shamos and Hinkle in Dinner with Friends
(photo: Jeremy Daniel)

Donald Margulies’ marvelous Dinner with Friends is such a psychologically and dramatically acute play that—despite its 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and rave reviews for its New York premiere—it appears to be less than the sum of its parts. Margulies’ artful construction of his tragicomic drama about how the disintegration of one marriage leads to soul searching in another fits together so smartly that it comes off (to some, anyway) as a mere clever conceit. But this remarkable play is anything but, as the Roundabout’s unmissable revival demonstratively shows.

Married couples Gabe & Karen and Tom & Beth have been best friends for 12 years, since the former couple set up the latter during a Martha’s Vineyard weekend. The play begins as Beth blurts out to her two friends after a scrumptious dinner that Tom—missing since he’s away on business—wants a divorce because he’s screwing a stewardess. (Turns out she’s a travel agent.) After he discovers that Beth spilled the beans without him there to defend himself, Tom goes to their house late that night to tell his side of the story because, as he says, Beth—who spoke first—now has the upper hand: he’s right, as Karen’s disgust at his arrival shows.

The play covers a lot of narrative ground in two hours—even showing that fateful Vineyard introduction to begin Act 2—but its magnificence stems from its covering (and uncovering) fertile psychological terrain in such a natural and unforced way that it might appear facile to the undiscriminating.

The dialogue among these four heartrendingly real people (always a Margulies strength) is penetrating, poignant and often priceless in its humor. Take this tart exchange when Karen reacts negatively to Beth’s news that she is getting remarried…too soon, for Karen’s taste.

KAREN: I spent years trying to get away from my family and my last ten doing everything I could to make a family of my own. I thought if I could choose my family this time, if I could make my friends my family.

BETH: Congratulations. The family you’ve chosen is just as fucked up as the one you were born into.

Or Gabe and Karen discussing Tom’s revelation that Beth was cheating early in their marriage.

KAREN: We saw them practically every weekend in those days, when would she have had time to have an affair?

GABE: I don’t know—during the week?

Margulies’ ability to create three-dimensional characters—also on display in Collected Stories and The Model Apartment to Brooklyn Boy and Time Stands Still—is second to none. And in director Pam Mackinnon’s keenly-observed staging—greatly assisted by Allen Moyer’s superlative sets, whose fragmented look underscores what these two relationships are becoming—the cast is unsurpassable. Darren Pettie’s Tom adroitly treads a fine line between unredeemable and believably contradictory; as Beth, Heather Burns gives a textbook lesson in delicately playing a wife unmoored from her husband: no tics or mannerisms, just a naturalness that’s as becoming as it is affecting.

Marin Hinkle, as Karen, expertly navigates the landmines which appear as her well-ordered world buckles when her friends break up, forcing her to reevaluate her own marriage. And Jeremy Shamos’ Gabe is a subtle psychological portrait of a man who—as Karen tellingly notes—doesn’t say much. Whether silent or speaking, Shamos gives an honest glimpse of a husband who realizes that, while his marriage might not be perfect, it’s his life and he’ll try and make it work.

Donald Margulies is a peerless observer with fresh insight into familiar subjects, and Dinner with Friends is a particularly rich mine of discovery for his characters—and for us.

February '14 Digital Week III

Blu-rays of the Week

Afternoon Delight

(Cinedigm)

What could have been a plot comprising familiar clichés—frustrated wife meets stripper whom she tries to help, only to ruin her own—is instead, in director Jill Soloway’s sure hands, an unnerving study of people dealing with personal disappointment. The movie ends too predictably, but prior to that, Soloway and her cast—Kathryn Hahn, Juno Temple, Josh Radnor and Jane Lynch—have made a worthwhile adult drama full of painful humor. The Blu-ray looks first-rate; extras are a commentary and deleted scenes.

The Best Man Holiday

(Universal)

Director Malcolm D. Lee demonstrates that Tyler Perry doesn’t have a monopoly on soulful saccharine: this reunion of beloved characters is smartly filled with likable performers (Saana Lathan, Terrence Howard, Nia Long) who keep the soap opera silliness from getting completely out of hand. But several false endings and an eye-rolling NFL game sequence make it tough to take it seriously, even if it obviously pleased a lot of people—so your mileage may vary. The Blu-ray image looks fine; extras include Lee commentary, gag reel, extended/deleted scenes, making-of featurette.

Gravity

(Warners)

A dazzling technical achievement—special effects, sound design and photography combine for a hell of a popcorn movie—this 91-minute rollercoaster ride keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. But this thin drama about astronauts in danger in outer space is, despite Sandra Bullock’s committed performance, not nearly the game changer critics, audiences and the Academy would have you believe: director Alfonso Cuaron cleverly visualizing his conceit, but when talk turns to Best Picture and Best Director, I ask: huh? The hi-def image is excellent; extras include hours of featurettes. (release date February 25)

Killing Kennedy

(Fox)

Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s best-seller spawned this routine recreation of what led JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald to that fateful November day in Dallas. Although Rob Lowe’s Jack and Ginnifer Goodwin’s Jackie are caricatures, Will Rothhaar’s Oswald and Michelle Trachtenberg’s Marina Oswald are credible portrayals that are the most authentic thing about this by-the-numbers reenactment. The hi-def transfer looks good; extras include interviews and a making-of featurette.

DVDs of the Week

The Cheshire Murders

Glickman

(HBO/Warner Archive)

Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s chilling documentary Cheshire Murders devastatingly shows how a horrific multiple murder destroyed and tore apart more than one family; logical questions are asked, like did the police response exacerbate the situation, and will the death penalty give closure or bring back the victims? (We know the answers.) Glickman, James Freedman’s affectionate documentary, tells the fascinating life story of Marty Glickman, the Jewish track star who was barred from competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics who later became a beloved Knicks and Giants broadcaster.

Classic English Literature Collection—Volume 2

(PBS)

This mega-box set collects four adaptations of great English books that are distinguished by fine performances and handsome production values: an intense Jodhi May dominates Henry James’ eerie Turn of the Screw; Rafe Spall and Elizabeth McGovern star in E.M. Forster’sA Room with a View; Freddie Fox takes the title role in Charles Dickens’ unfinished last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood; and Billie Piper is an outstanding Fanny in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. These great-looking and accomplished films might be conventional but are well worth watching. Extras comprise a selection of memorabilia that includes the four authors’ illustrations and hand-written letters.

The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology

(Zeitgeist)

Slovene psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek’s provocative filmic analysis, shown in The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, returns in this follow-up, which comprises singular readings of everything from The Sound of Music to A Clockwork Orange. However, that director Sophie Fiennes has to go out of her way to have him in amusing settings like in front of the mirror in Taxi Driver or the boat from Jaws is a sign that his thought-provoking theses can’t support a 135-minute long film: their hit-or-miss quality eventually wears thin. The lone extra is a 30-minue Fiennes and Žižek Q&A.

Pussy Riot—A Punk Prayer

(Cinedigm)

There are less obvious ways to get a Russian dictator’s attention, but protest punk group Pussy Riot skipped any subtlety by making its blatant anti-Putin statement in a Moscow church, virtually guaranteeing their imprisonment (two members got two years for “hooliganism”—another had her sentence commuted and two other members left the country). This straightforward documentary, which follows the trials, is interesting without being very illuminating. Extras include interviews.

Stage Reviews: Britten's 'Billy Budd' at BAM; 'After Midnight' on Broadway

Billy Budd

Composed by Benjamin Britten; directed by Michael Grandage

Performances February 7, 9, 11, 13, 2014

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn, New York, NY

bam.org

After Midnight

Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle

Tickets on sale through August 31, 2014

Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 West 47^th Street, New York, NY

aftermidnightbroadway.com

Britten's Billy Budd (photo: Richard Hubert Smith)

Aside from the Met Opera’s revival of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Benjamin Britten Centenary in New York barely took notice of what was, along with works by Richard Strauss and Hans Werner Henze, the greatest opera oeuvre of the 20^th century. But the Brooklyn Academy of Music partially rectified that situation—albeit a month late—by welcoming England’s Glyndebourne Opera, whose electrifying Billy Budd again proves beyond doubt Britten’s theatrical and dramatic mastery.

No Britten stage work (with the possible exception of his final operatic masterpiece, Death in Venice) so brilliantly explores the composer’s recurring theme of the destruction of innocence as Billy Budd, which was adapted from Herman Melville’s novella about an angelic midshipman fated to his tragic demise when he clashes with the inscrutably evil Claggart on board the British warship Indomitable, helmed by the benevolent Captain Vere.

It’s Vere who is the emotional center of any Billy Budd, since Britten originally wrote the role for his lover and best interpreter, velvet-voiced tenor Peter Pears. Happily, director Michael Grandage’s gripping production boasts an indelible Vere in the form of tenor Mark Padmore, whose nuanced portrait of a proud man fiercely torn between military duty and morality is unforgettably moving. Jacques Imbrailo, as Billy, sings with great beauty and intelligence: his final mournful aria has rarely sounded so poignant. Claggart might be evil incarnate, but Brindley Sherratt sings the part with the requisite nuance to develop the character’s ambiguities.

The men of the Glyndebourne Chorus—which has a major role in this all-male opera—sound majestic throughout, particularly in the thrilling pre-battle scene that’s as exciting as anything Britten ever wrote. It’s all been skillfully conducted by Sir Mark Elder on Christopher Oram’s gigantic unit set, a cross-section of the ship that makes palpable the claustrophobia overwhelming the characters and their story. Would that this Billy Budd could run for more than a mere four BAM performances: it deserves to weigh anchor in New York City awhile longer.

I saw a scintillating show called Cotton Club Parade in 2011 as part of City Center’s Encores. Now rebranded After Midnight for an open-ended Broadway run, the show is as good as—maybe even better than—I remembered.

This spectacular revue, set in Harlem of the early 1930s, recreates a typical Cotton Club show of that era with the amazing Jazz at Lincoln Center All-stars performing tunes of Duke Ellington (who led the Cotton Club house band back then), Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, among others,; terrific dancers filling the stage with their wondrous art; and the wonderful singers—several doubling as dancers—whose vocal stylings bring a glorious musical age to vivid life.

With the onstage band often acting as foil to the performers, After Midnight rolls out its 26 musical numbers, tumbling in one after another, each a mesmerizing set piece for dance, song or both, from the explosive Ellington opener, “Daybreak Express,” to the joyous Ellington finale, “Cotton Club Parade.”

Dule Hill, our debonair guide for the evening (speaking texts by Langston Hughes), sings and dances with infectious enthusiasm; the redoubtable Adriane Lenox brings down the house—twice!—with boozily hilarious versions of “Women Be Wise” and “Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night”; Phillip Attamore and Daniel J. Watts are tap dancers of amazing variety; and American Idol alum Fantasia Barrino—whose last appearance was February 9—soulfully performs standards “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “Stormy Weather”. (K.D. Lang replaced her starting tonight, and Babyface and Toni Braxton will do the honors in March.)

The music, in Duke Ellington’s original arrangements, can’t be beat, while director Warren Carlyle’s inventive choreography keeps everything moving—but it’s the performers whose singing and dancing make After Midnight essential Broadway entertainment.

February '14 Digital Week II

Blu-rays of the Week

The Artist and the Model 

(Cohen Media)

In Francesco Trueba’s wistful drama—similar in story to the recent French film Renoir, about the last days of the French impressionist—a French sculptor’s late career gets a boost by an unexpected arrival: a nubile young model. Jean Rochefort’s sly, understated portrayal of an elderly artist whose entrenched ideas of art and life are unbalanced by a new girl is complemented by Aida Folch’s sultry muse; Italian screen siren Claudia Cardinale gives strong support as his sympathetic wife. Trueba’s unerring eye and Daniel Vilar’s luminous B&W photography are illuminated by an exemplary hi-def transfer. Lone extra is a short Trueba interview.

Austenland

(Sony)

This mildly appealing comedy parodies Jane Austen fandom in the guise of Jane Hayes (always adorable Keri Russell), so smitten with her favorite author, her heroes and heroines that she leaves everything behind in America to visit England and live out her fantasy: it doesn’t go as planned, obviously. Diverting but incredibly lightweight, this trifle breezes by on Russell’s natural winningness; too bad it also relies on Jennifer Coolidge’s bull-in-a-china-shop persona. The Blu-ray looks very good; extras include a commentary and cast Q&A.

Diana 

(e one)

This biopic is, almost unavoidably, chintzy soap opera, even if director Oliver Hirschbiegel tries taking the high road and avoid the tabloid gutter. The problem is that Princess Di’s sad story is tabloid fodder no matter how you tell it. Naomi Watts gives an honorable performance even if she’s never quite able to show us the inside of Diana’s obviously tortured psyche. The hi-def transfer is fine; extras comprise cast/crew interviews and fashion booklet.

The Jungle Book

(Disney)

The last Disney feature made while Walt was still alive, this wondrous 1967 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling book about the orphan boy Mowgli is a rare instance in which everything—the dazzling animation, the immensely hummable songs, even the Disney-fying of Kipling’s dark story—coalesces into a family friendly classic. And on Blu-ray—in a terrific hi-def transfer—one of Disney’s true classics looks as good as ever. Extras include commentary, interviews, alternate ending and intros.

Scorned 

(Anchor Bay)

Annalynne McCord, as a vengeful girlfriend getting back at her man and best friend—who’ve been carrying on behind her back—gives an explosive performance that goes so gleefully over the top that director/cowriter Mark Jones or cowriter Sadie Katz’s crude revenge picture seems better than it is. Viva Bianca makes an appealing other woman, Billy Zane is a blank as the adulterer, but McCord gives her all and keeps things watchable even as it careens further into ludicrousness. The Blu-ray looks good.

Successive Slidings of Pleasure

Trans-Europ-Express

(Redemption/Kino)

The films of Alain Robbe-Grillet—an experimental novelist best known for his screenplay for Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad—are interesting more for their narrative games-playing than any psychological or dramatic coherence; 1966’s Express and 1974’s Slidings are the first of his films to be released on Blu-ray. Although some find depth in them, mainly they are attractive-looking, self-referential larks helped by the presence of Jean-Louis Trintignant and the gorgeous actresses Marie-France Pisier, Olga Georges-Picot and Anicee Alvina. The hi-def transfers are splendid; extras are amusing Robbe-Grillet interviews.

The White Queen 

(Anchor Bay)

Although this handsome production about the internecine 15^th century Wars of the Roses copies what distinguished series like The Tudors and The Borgias—including plentiful sex and royal intrigue—it pales in comparison to those. An accomplished cast that includes Rebecca Ferguson, Amanda Hale and Janet McTeer works hard and often effectively, but often at the service of subpar storytelling: it’s a pity, considering the drama inherent in the source material. The hi-def images look spectacular; extras include behind the scenes and background featurettes.

DVDs of the Week

Dallas—Complete Season 2

(Warners)

The second season of this seminal evening soap opera’s reboot had to deal with the death of Larry Hagman, who created the venerable villain JR Ewing. But the writers wrangled an intriguing plot out of Hagman’s (and JR’s) death, and the result is an entertaining guilty pleasure, even if holdovers like Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy are better at this sort of thing than newcomers like Josh Henderson and Jesse Metcalfe. Extras include commentary, extended episode, deleted scenes, featurettes and Hagman/JR appreciation.

Miss You Can Do It  

(HBO)

A beauty pageant in Kewanee, Illinois, which features young girls who have physical disabilities, was created by Miss Iowa 2008 Abbey Curran to allow those with special needs (like Curran) to be appreciated for themselves. Ron Davis’s heartwarming documentary gets up close and personal with Curran, several pageant contestants and those who love and support them; despite its laudable lack of sentimentality, it will bring a tear to the eye of anyone who sees it.

Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight

(HBO)

Stephen Frears’ docudrama about Muhammad Ali’s four-year battle to avoid going to Vietnam, which went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1971, matter-of-factly dramatizes how eight white justices (the lone black judge, Harry Blackmun, recused himself for non-racial reasons) dealt with this controversial and symbolic case. Frears smartly shows the real Ali in interwoven film clips, and the story itself is reenacted persuasively by the likes of Frank Langella, Christopher Plummer, Harris Yulin and Fritz Weaver. It’s not earthshattering but shows us an important piece of our recent history.

The Summit 

(IFC)

K2 mountain has attracted fearless mountain climbers precisely because it’s so dangerous to conquer—and this impressively mounted documentary explores how and why some survived (or didn’t) a particularly trying climb in 2008: 18 climbers reached the summit but only 7 survived to tell their stories. Director Nick Ryan and writer Mark Monroe inventively juggle archival footage, emotional interviews and even hair-raising reenactments—that last is always a dicey proposition—to create a profound, even moving exploration of why certain people risk their own (and others’) lives for a thrill.

CD of the Week
Ottorino Respighi—Violin Sonatas

(Brilliant Classics)

Famous for his hugely popular Roman orchestral tone poems—The Fountains of Rome, The Pines of Rome and the Roman Festivals—Italian composer Ottorino Respighi also composed attractive chamber music, and this disc displays the melodic gracefulness that Respighi had in his bones. His two youthful sonatas and six pieces for violin and piano, all sheerly pleasurable works, are performed by violinist Fabio Paggioro and pianist Massimiliano Ferrati with finesse and muscle.

Off-Broadway Review: The New Group's "Intimacy"

Intimacy

Written by Thomas Bradshaw, directed by Scott Elliott

Performances through March 8, 2014

Acorn Theatre, 410 West 42^nd Street, New York, NY

thenewgroup.org

Austin Cauldwell, Ella Dershowitz and Daniel Gerroll in Intimacy 
(photo: Monique Carboni)

In the world of playwright Thomas Bradshaw, perversions lurk just beneath the dullness of quotidian life, like David Lynch’s specious Blue Velvet. But, as in Lynch’s film, there are scant insights, along with tedious reenactments of perversions that don't resonate and, even more damagingly, don't penetrate—in either sense.

Bradshaw’s latest, Intimacy, outdoes his previous play, Burning, by upping the ante; the earlier play preoccupied itself with anal sex, while Intimacy encompasses that and much more: vomiting, defecation, flatulence, two ejaculations, and sexual activities from self-stimulation to frottage, or dry humping, are all in a wisp of a plot linking three suburban families and pornography.

Matthew—a smart 17-year-old whose dad James grieves his wife’s death in a car accident by finding religion—spies on his hot next-door neighbor, 18-year-old high school senior and porn actress Janet. While her mother Pat knows about (and approves of) her activities, her father Jerry (despite his liberal attitudes) doesn’t know, at least until James shows him a magazine she’s in, which freaks him out. Meanwhile, Matthew begins hooking up with virginal schoolmate Sarah—whose bisexual father Fred works as a handyman at James’ house—and they start having sex without any penetration.

Bradshaw renders these relationships cartoonishly, especially at the end, when the play completely drops the pretense of any kind of reality (or surreality) and collapses under the combined weight of the playwright’s desperation and crudeness. The first act sets up the linkings among the characters, building climactically to Matthew’s decision to make a porn film and not only have Janet star but also, improbably, his dad (who’s funding it), her parents and Sarah’s dad. The second act pretty much comprises the scenes making up said porn film—titled, apparently without any irony, Intimacy—with a tacked-on coda that provides a tacky happy ending for its newly liberated and paired-off characters.

Perhaps Bradshaw felt that his play would work better by foregoing attempts at insight or psychological consistency, since he caricatures his septet of characters mercilessly. What we end up with is a septet speaking in banalities when not spouting platitudes, and given to ill-considered outbursts as when Pat ticks off what Janet calls “abstract statistics” about gun ownership: why would she have so much knowledge at her fingertips? Bradshaw never makes it a plausible part of her being, instead using it to get cheap laughs from a knowing liberal audience.

Then there are the many facile, easy ironies, like Pat discussing feminism while cleaning the toilet after Jerry has her look at his latest defecation because he thinks he might be physically ill, or when Jerry talks about porn and James starts in with a heartfelt prayer. Such toothless reminders that there’s never plumbing of any depths show that tactlessness and unsubtlety are the rule, which some audience members clearly appreciate: there are laughs galore for even the laziest piece of dialogue or dredged-up bit of plotting.

Not helping matters is how flatly, even indifferently enacted this all is by performers asked to literally bare themselves onstage—physically far more than psychologically. Even the incredibly brave (if foolhardy) Ella Dershowitz’s Janet, who walks around in the altogether, has her entirely bare body the subject of her dad’s Freudian fantasy as she keeps mentioning her “shaved pussy”: although we see the body part in question, the character herself isn’t laid bare in any meaningful way. And Scott Elliott’s smooth direction relies too much on visual "shocks" like snippets of actual porn shown on TV (including a clip of Deep Throat) and various bodily fluids flying everywhere.

In sum, Intimacy—though wallowing in scatology, obscenity, racism and pornography—remains, plentiful nudity notwithstanding, disappointingly impersonal—and skin deep.

February '14 Digital Week I

Blu-rays of the Week

A Case of You

(IFC)

Once again it’s time to extol the virtues of Evan Rachel Wood, an actress incapable of a false note in any of her performances—especially here, since surrounding her is an inoffensive but forgettable rom-com that’s too cutesy to be effective. A mopey Justin Long (who co-wrote with his brother Christopher and even more mopey co-star Kier O’Donnell), an unbelievably hammy Peter Dinklage and a phoned-in Vince Vaughan can’t ruin Wood’s golden appearance, happily. The hi-def transfer looks good; extras include interviews.

City of Angels

Two Weeks Notice

(Warners)

If you’re remaking a classic like Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, I guess you should make it as unrecognizably sappy as possible, which is what 1998’s City of Angels does, underscored by Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage’s lack of chemistry; best is a soundtrack featuring U2’s “If God Would Send His Angels” and the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris.” 2002’s Two Weeks Notice, a paper-thin comedy, glides by on Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant’s star power, even if writer-director Marc Lawrence nearly sabotages it all with gimmicky silliness. Both Blu-ray transfers look fine; extras include commentaries and music videos (City) and commentary, making-of, deleted scenes and gag reel (Notice).

Dreamworld

(Sneak Attack)

Here’s another inconsequential rom-com about a faltering animator who falls for a slightly annoying but endearing young lady whom he accompanies on a road trip to Pixar. Whit Hertford isn’t very interesting either in the lead or as co-writer, while Mary Kate Wiles is too eccentrically goofy to charm as much as her character is supposed to. The hi-def transfer looks decent; extras include a commentary, blog and short films.

Fanny Hill/The Phantom Gunslinger

(Vinegar Syndrome)

Of these mild ‘60s artifacts, Russ Meyer’s adaptation of Fanny Hill—nicely photographed in B&W—is easiest to digest, even if its attempts to ape Tom Jones are mainly inept: Leticis Roman’s inadvertently sexy heroine only intermittently scores. Albert Zugmsith, who produced Fanny, also directed and produced Gunslinger, a western that starts promisingly but soon falls apart. The hi-def transfers look good; extras (on DVD only) are two interviews.

The Fifth Estate

(Touchstone)

Even a story as movie-ready as the Julian Assange/Wikileaks scandal doesn’t quite work on film, despite director Bill Condon’s obvious effort to rescue it from overfamiliarity: like Aaron Soprkin’s The Newsroom, we are asked to get emotionally involved in old news, however persuasively recreated. Fancy computer-screen visuals seem a desperate bid to appeal to a younger crowd, while Benedict Cumberbatch’s amazing transformation into the arrogant Assange makes the film feel like a documentary at times, which is at odds with the bells and whistles. On Blu-ray, the transfer looks terrific; extras include special effects featurettes.

Jules and Jim

(Criterion)

Made in 1962, Francois Truffaut’s third feature surpasses his arresting debut The 400 Blows with its surehanded treatment of a difficult subject: a ménage a trois between two men and a woman (in the sensational form of Jeanne Moreau at the height of her allure). Truffaut’s command of the medium was never greater—and he never approached this masterpiece again in his remaining two decades, sadly. Criterion’s luminous Blu-ray exquisitely shows off Raoul Coutard’s B&W photography; extras include commentaries, archival Truffaut interviews and segments from French TV programs.

Metallica—Through the Never

(Blackened)

Hungarian director Nimrod Antal provided the visual flash and muscle for the metal superstars’ 3-D concert movie, but he’s also to blame for a ridiculous-looking “frame” of surreal segments that lessens the show’s visceral power. At least longtime fans will love the song selection, which skimps on recent stuff in favor of full-throated blasts of vintage Metallica. The Blu-ray image looks splendid, while the sound pummels; extras include a 75-minute making-of doc, interviews, Q&A and music video.

Mother of George

(Oscilloscope)

Despite director Andrew Dosunmu’s low-key approach, this story of a Nigerian wife in Brooklyn who goes to extremes to get pregnant because her mother-in-law feels she’s beneath her beloved son is too contrived for its full dramatic effect to work. Still, there are lovely performances by Isaach de Bankolé (husband) and especially Danai Gurira (wife), and Bradford Young’s burnished cinematography looks award-worthy on Blu-ray. Extras include audio commentary, deleted scenes and featurette with interviews.

DVDs of the Week

Brutalization

Erotic Blackmail

(One 7 Movies)

Wakefield Poole’s Bible

(Vinegar Syndrome)

A pair of 70s exploitation films, Brutalization and Blackmail have little to offer except an early gang-rape sequence and the presence of Emmanuelle’s Sylvia Kristel in the former film (whose real title is the less sexy Because of the Cats). Wakefield Poole’s Bible—which is definitely not your parents’ good book—lacklusterly dramatizes scenes like Adam & Eve and Samson & Delilah, but despite an attractive cast (Georgina Spelvin is Bathsheba), it’s more a curio than a truly erotic soft-core flick. Bible extras include Poole’s commentary, interview and deleted scenes.

The Courtship of Eddie’s Father

The Jimmy Stewart Show

(Warner Archive)

Bill Bixby and Brandon Cruz had great chemistry as a widower and young son in the beloved sitcom Courtship; the third season set (1971-2) also showcases superb guest stars like Carol Lawrence’s free-spirited Soviet, Sally Struthers’ free-spirited artist and Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara’s needy neighbor couple. One of our most beloved movie stars, Jimmy Stewart never looked comfortable starring in his own sitcom, as this lone season (also from 1971-2) set shows: his endearing persona came off better on Johnny Carson.

Dolmen

Sebastian Bergman

(MHZ)

The tense, Brittany-set crime drama Dolmen—which follows an increasingly convoluted murder investigation by detective Marie, who’s returned home for her wedding after years away—is distinguished by its atmospheric locales and Ingrid Chauvin’s multi-shaded performance. Similarly, Rolf Lassgard is stunning as a psychologically scarred criminal profiler in Sebastian Bergman, a gritty procedural that starts slowly but soon becomes addictive.

It’s Not Me, I Swear

(First Run)

Nuit #1

(Koch Lorber)

These Quebec-set films give a glimpse at French-Canadian cinema. Philippe Falardeau’s It’s Not Me (2008), a penetrating but lighthearted look at a 10-year-old boy’s tribulations, has a terrific performance by young Antoine L’Ecuyer. Anne Emond’s Nuit #1 (2011), which looks at how a one-night stand affects both principals, is shallower than it thinks, but the acting—notably by the fearless Catherine de Lean—gives it some gravitas.

CD of the Week

Benjamin Britten—Britten to America 

(NMC)
Early in his career, Benjamin Britten was composing music for radio shows, films and theater, and some of these rarities appear on an interesting disc that displays yet another facet of the composer whose centenary was commemorated this past year. Although the fragmented nature of these works is unavoidable, there are moments of great beauty in his scores for two plays by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, The Ascent of F6 and On the Frontier, along with a BBC/CBS radio series, An American in England. Maybe these aren’t essential Britten compositions, but for Britten completists, this release should be something of a godsend.