Blu-rays of the Week
Cameraperson
(Criterion)
Kirsten Johnson has shot many seminal images over the past few decades, and
Cameraperson is her own “greatest
hits” package gleaned from footage of films she has photographed for great documentaries
like The Invisible War, Pray the Devil
Back to Hell and the Oscar-winning Citizenfour,
along with her own “home movies” of herself and family. Though there’s a sense
of randomness to this project, there are powerful glimpses of people in such
far-flung places as Bosnia, Nigeria, and Brooklyn, providing further proof (if
any was needed) that she’s made important contributions to many indispensable
films. The Blu-ray looks first-rate; extras include interviews, roundtables and
Q&As.
(PBS)
The intrigues in and around a Union Army hospital in Alexandria, Virginia during
the Civil War have escalated during this drama’s second season, which plunges
further into the medical and personal lives and relationships among the
soldiers and other army personnel, doctors and nurses, civilians and slaves.
After seeming out of place last season, Josh Radnor has grown into his role as
Union doctor Jed Foster, aided by equally strong performances from Mary
Elizabeth Winstead as nurse Mary Phinney and, as a Confederate couple dealing
with treason and grown daughters, Gary Cole and Donna Murphy. The season’s six
episodes look gorgeously realistic on Blu; extras are 20 minutes of deleted
scenes.
Psychomania
(Arrow)
In the tradition of such biker flicks as Easy Rider and The Wild One,
this 1973 British entry ups the ante with a group of zombie bikers terrorizing
the local populace, but director Don Sharp has made a pretty muddy film with
little drama, scares or thrills. That it’s played relatively straight doesn’t
help, as it keeps the film to one dull gear for nearly its entire 91-minute running
time. The film has nicely filmic grain in hi-def; extras include new and
archival interviews and a featurette.
(HBO/Cinemax)
When Mac Conway returns home from Vietnam, he discovers that his gorgeous
wife Joni is having an affair, thanks to a mysterious dude who also recruits
him as a hitman: the early 70s in America is presented with shrewd surreality
that underlines the relentlessly downbeat vision of adultery, betrayal and
murder. Logan Marshall-Green is perfectly cast as Mac, South African actress Jodi
Balfour is a revelation as Joni, and the writing and direction ratchet up the intensity
throughout. The hi-def image is quite good; extras include deleted scenes,
featurettes, commentaries and music videos
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Ermanno Olmi has made immeasurably finer films—from his early Il Posto and The Fiances to later masterworks One Fine Day and The Profession
of Arms—but this 1978 epic may be his most beloved: winner of the grand
prize at Cannes, this nuanced and insightful drama follows a group of Italian
peasants over the course of a year. Finely wrought, with amazingly lived-in
performances by an all-amateur cast, it has its creator’s characteristic
humanity and generosity in abundance, despite its overlength. Criterion’s otherwise
excellent hi-def transfer is a bit cooler color-wise than I remember it when I
originally saw it, but that’s not a deal breaker; extras include Olmi
interviews, a South Bank Show episode
on the film’s making; director Mike Leigh’s intro and new cast and crew
interviews.
(Decca)
Giacomo Puccini’s final opera, completed after his death, is diffuse
dramatically but contains some of his finest music, the latter of which is
shown off in spades in this absorbing 2015 staging by director Nikolaus
Lehnhoff at Milan’s La Scala. Conductor Riccardo Chailly presides over a startlingly
dramatic performance with grand and soaring vocals by soprano Nina Stemme (in
the title role), tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko and soprano Maria Agresta. The hi-def
video and audio are strong.
DVDs of the Week
Blush
(Film Movement)
In Michal Vink’s appealng study, teenage loner Naama finds herself
irresistibly drawn to free-spirited Dana, and their relationship, which soon
goes from friendly to physical, is yet another difficulty in a constricted
family life that includes a rebellious older sister. Superb performances by Sivan
Noam Shimon and Jade Sakori as the two young women anchor a sensitive drama
that explores its thorny subject with tact and subtlety. The lone extra is a
short, This Is You and Me, directed
by American April Maxey.
(Film Movement)
Neither the enervating mess of her sophomoric sophomore feature Everyone Else nor the overblown
pretentiousness of her breakthrough Toni
Erdmann, Maren Ade’s 2005 debut is an engagingly slight comedy about a
brand new teacher in over her head. It’s incredibly clumsy at times, with
choppy editing and mediocre acting, but there’s enough of a glimmer of talent
that makes it more disappointing that Ade hasn’t continued to make more—rather
than less—interesting movies. The lone extra is Estes Avenue, a short by the U.K.’s Paul Cotter.
CD Release of the
Week
Weinberg—Chamber Symphonies/String
Quintet
(ECM)
Polish-Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996), whose music has
gained wider currency since his death, has had many champions, none more
stalwart than violinist Gidon Kremer, who has played and recorded many Weinberg
works, and whose stalwart ensemble Kremerata Baltica tackles five of Weinberg’s
most imposingly satisfying pieces on a must-hear two-CD set. Weinberg’s four
chamber symphonies and piano quintet are performed with a superb ear for detail
that doesn’t ignore the overall conceptions of these dramatic and yearning works.
Weinberg has been one of the happiest discoveries of the past decade: may
Kremer and others continue to bring forth his musical riches.
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