December '25 Digital Week III

In-Theaters/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Blue Moon 

(Sony Classics)

Ethan Hawke throws himself into playing Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart—one-half of the immortal team of Rodgers and Hart, creators of such indelible musicals as Babes in Arms and Pal Joey—in Richard Linklater’s mostly inert biopic that concentrates on one day in Hart’s life, the opening night of Oklahoma, the first collaboration of Hart’s former partner Richard Rodgers with Oscar Hammerstein II. Set at the venerable theater restaurant Sardi’s, the film has a certain interest for musical theater fans (especially when a young Stephen Sondheim, a protégé of Hammerstein, appears), but Robert Kaplow’s script tries to cram too much into its single setting, taking away from its focus on Hart, who would be dead a few months after this night. Hawke does immerse himself poignantly in the songwriter’s messy personal life, and he’s the main reason to watch until the predictably tragic end.

Sentimental Value 

(Neon)

Danish-Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s latest melodrama explores a fractured family, as film director Gustav returns home after his ex-wife Sissel’s death to tell his two adult daughters—Agnes, a wife, mother and historian; and Nora, a temperamental stage actress having an affair with a married colleague—with the news that he’s making a film (with famous American actress Rachel Kemp) about his mother’s torture as a Nazi resistance fighter leading to her suicide when Gustav was young. The complications of family history rear their heads throughout, but Trier concentrates on too many loose ends, like standard-issue stage or on-set sequences that do little to illuminate matters. Stellan Skarsgård is perfectly cast as the boorish but boyish Gustav, Elle Fanning is an excellent Rachel and Renate Reinsve a fine Nora, but Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas steals each of her scenes as Agnes. Trier should have focused on her instead.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

David Byrne’s American Utopia 

(Criterion)

Director Spike Lee and cinematographer Ellen Kuras capture David Byrne’s groundbreaking 2019 Broadway show combining music and movement in exhilarating fashion, centered on Byrne’s unique stage presence, a savant leading his congregation in the holy gospel of song, with Annie-B Parson’s expressive choreography and Bob Sinclair’s inventive lighting visually complementing Byrne’s songs—from early Talking Heads to his recent solo material—accompanied by a dozen musicians, singers and dancers. Criterion’s new release comprises a 4K disc of the film, which looks and sounds immaculate; and two Blu-ray discs of the film and two extras: a 55-minute documentary about the show featuring Byrne, Kuras, Parson, and Sinclair, and a short Byrne and Lee conversation, socially distanced, from 2020.

Boogie Nights 

(Warner Bros)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature, made in 1997, is now considered a classic—unaccountably, in my view; this shrill, cartoonish, shallow look at the L.A. porn scene of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s fails as both a satire of and affectionate tribute to its dim denizens. In a cast of banal caricatures, Mark Wahlberg and Burt Reynolds come off best; following his auspicious debut Hard Eight, this overstuffed would-be epic is the first of similar films that have dotted Anderson’s career—Magnolia, The Master, Licorice Pizza, One Battle After Another—but I realize I’m in the minority. It all looks great in 4K; extras include commentaries by Anderson and by the cast, American Cinematheque Q&A and deleted scenes.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

Maria Roumagnac 

(Icarus Films)

Two legends of the silver screen—Marlene Dietrich and Jean Gabin—appeared for the only time together in French director Georges Lacombe’s doomed soap-operaish romance between a shop owner very popular with men and a working-class building contractor, whose jealousy over her sexually adventurous past (and present) pushes him over the edge tragically. Despite the stiffness of the characterizations and the dialogue—especially in the climactic court sequence—the onscreen chemistry between Dietrich and Gabin more than compensates. The restored 1946 B&W film looks ravishing on Blu. 

DVD/CD Release of the Week

Nicola Porpora—Polifemo 

(Chateau de Versailles)

Italian composer Nicola Porpora (1686-1768) wanted to challenge reigning opera genius George Frideric Handel at his own game in London, and the result was this 1735 Baroque epic romance populated by the goddess Galatea, the Cyclops, and ordinary men including Ulysses, whose appearance presages a conflict between the gods and the mortals. This live performance from Versailles in 2024 is colorfully over-the-top both vocally and visually; it’s too bad that it’s only a DVD instead of superior sharpness of a Blu-ray. Still, it’s nice to have a visual record of this performance, along with three CDs housing the audio recording.

Broadway Musical Review—“The Queen of Versailles” with Kristin Chenoweth

The Queen of Versailles

Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by Lindsey Terrentino

Directed by Michael Arden; choreographed by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant

Performances through December 21, 2025

St. James Theater, 246 West 44th Street, NY

queenofversaillesmusical.com

Kristin Chenoweth in The Queen of Versailles (photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Proof that lightning does not strike twice, the latest Stephen Schwartz musical starring Kristen Chenoweth already posted its premature closing date on Broadway, while an earlier collaboration you might have heard about, Wicked, keeps going. But The Queen of Versailles is a cautionary tale for collaborators about what not to do when creating a Broadway musical.

It’s to Schwartz’s credit to try something original, and the story of Jackie Siegel, as seen in the eponymous 2012 documentary film directed by Lauren Greenfield, certainly qualifies. (Has there been another Broadway musical based on a documentary?) Greenfield’s film explores Jackie’s and ultra-rich husband David’s conspicuous consumption with both sympathy and bemusement, something difficult to finesse in a big-budget stage musical. 

So Lindsey Ferrentino’s book and Schwartz’s songs try and have it both ways. We root for Jackie as she lucks into getting rich after some bad decisions, but as she and David start to throw around their money on a mansion nicknamed Versailles, it becomes increasingly difficult to spend time with them, especially since David is so heartless a millionaire villain, and F. Murray Abraham plays him as a comic caricature.

Chenoweth, on the other hand, remains enjoyable and funny, which makes Jackie less nuanced and, when she’s in financial and personal doldrums—the 2008 recession brings mansion construction to a halt, then her teenage daughter Victoria commits suicide—there’s a gaping dramatic hole that no amount of teary songs—including the Act I finale, “This Is Not the Way,” which Chenoweth carries effortlessly—can fill.

This might have worked shorter, making Jackie’s roller-coaster ride faster. Instead, it lumbers around for a bloated 2-1/2 hours, with sympathy gone and dramatic comeuppance obvious. Even appearances Louis XIV to make explicit the parallels between the Versailles of the 17th and 21st centuries are less amusingly pointed as they recur.

Needless to say, director Michael Arden’s slick staging can’t reconcile the inherent messiness of the subject and Schwartz’s and Terrentino’s treatment, while the first-rate trappings—Dane Laffery’s clever sets and video design, Christian Cowan’s tongue-in-cheek costumes, Natasha Katz’s brilliant lighting—only obscure the dramatic emptiness.

Chenoweth, of course, dominates any show she’s in, but that only shows up the rest of the cast. Abraham’s David has a few amusingly nasty moments and Nina White’s Victoria has the needed pathos, but they are shunted aside by the hurricane at the center. Even though Chenoweth gives it her all, she can’t save The Queen of Versailles from being guillotined.

December '25 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Hamnet 

(Focus Features)

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

Happy Holidays 

(Film Movement)

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

Little Trouble Girls 

(Kino Lorber)

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

Rosemead 

(Vertical)

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

In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week 

Man Finds Tape 

(Magnolia)

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

Streaming Release of the Week

After the Hunt 

(Amazon MGM)

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

CD Release of the Week 

Saint-Saëns— L’ancêtre

(Palazzetto Bru Zane)

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

Off-Broadway Play Review—Martyna Majok’s “Queens”

Queens

Written by Martyna Majok; directed by Trip Cullman

Performances through December 7, 2025

Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 West 55th St, New York, NY

manhattantheaterclub.com

Marin Ireland and Anna Chlumsky in Queens (photo: Valerie Terranova)

In her sprawling, messy play Queens, Martyna Majok shows real sympathy for and insight into the women—mostly immigrants, living at one time or another in a basement apartment in the eponymous borough—whose relationships, hopes and fears ring even truer now during the second Trump administration than when the play premiered, during the first Trump administration.

Renia, from Poland, runs things, first helping out the (unseen) landlord after arriving then eventually taking over the place herself. Other women drift in and out over the years the play covers (from the months after the terrorist attacks in 2001 to the early summer of 2017), including Pelagiya, from Belarus; Aamani, from Afghanistan; and Isabela, from Honduras. Later, Isabela’s daughter Glenys shows up as well as Inna, a young Ukrainian woman looking for her mother, who left Inna back home for a new life in America, and another woman from Poland, Agata, who gives Renia a surprising update about her family.

Queens opens with a bang—literally, as the newly-arrived Inna confronts Renia on the street and punches her in anger—and soon settles into a realistically belligerent tone, as these women remain on edge even during good times. Personal difficulties, biases, disagreements and misunderstandings rear their heads, and alternating events 16 years apart show that these women are always dealing with external political forces beyond their control.

Majok smartly concentrates on the women as individuals and not as symbols, although the charged atmosphere makes it almost inevitable that soapbox speechifying is included. But the strength and solidarity of the play’s eight women are never in doubt, even as pettiness or insecurity makes them antagonists.

One of those eight appears only in a flashback to Ukraine, just prior to Inna leaving for the U.S. Inna babysits for Lera, who returns home from an evening out trying to impress young American men in the hopes that she can join them in America. Instead, Inna hijacks Lera’s would-be sugar daddy in an implausible scene and ends up being the one to leave Ukraine, although she quickly realizes she’s been conned.

Happily, Majok otherwise keeps contrivance to a minimum and, even if some of what the women face is melodramatic, it often rings true. The production couldn’t be bettered. Trip Cullman directs resourcefully on Marsha Ginsberg’s realistically bedraggled set of the women’s apartment, lit magisterially by Ben Stanton. And the eight performers are splendid, led by Marin Ireland’s stoic Renia; this is a cast so authentic individually and collectively as to bring out the humanity of the play more subtly than Majok. 

Kudos to them for not only mastering difficult Eastern European accents, for the most part, but also learning to speak Polish (Ireland and Anna Chlumsky, as Agata) and Ukrainian (Julia Lester, as Inna, and Andrea Syglowski, as Lera). Despite its faults, Queens is a memorable theatrical melting pot.

December '25 Digital Week I

CD Release of the Week 

Taylor Momsen’s Pretty Reckless Christmas 

(Fearless)

Sure, it’s a calculated move, but why not? Taylor Momsen—lead singer of one of the best rock bands around right now, the Pretty Reckless—played, at age 7, Cindy Lou Who in the annoying movie adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, with Jim Carrey in green prosthetics as the dastardly villain. A quarter-century later, Momsen returns to full-throatedly sing “Where Are You Christmas,” which she warbled in the movie (and which Faith Hill made into a holiday perennial). 

The new version, backed by her band, rocks nicely but would have been even better if they really cranked it up. It returns at the end, slightly changed, as “Christmas, Why Can’t I Find You,” which allows the adult Momsen to cede her EP’s opening and closing voices to her younger self. The other songs are fun holiday originals: the finger-snapping “I Wanna Be Your Christmas Tree,” with its hilarious double entendres like “Stuff that turkey with your Pepperidge Farm/Cover it in gravy and all your charm”; the irresistible power pop of “Christmas Is Killing Me,” with its immortal couplet “Christmas is killing me/Someone stop Mariah Carey”; and the, well, very bluesy “Blues for Christmas,” all of which let Momsen show off her incredibly versatile voice. But now that she’s gotten Cindy Lou out of her system, here’s hoping the new year brings a new Pretty Reckless album on the order of the group’s killer recent single, “For I Am Death.”  

In-Theater Release of the Week

A Private Life 

(Sony Pictures Classics)

Jodie Foster gives an impressive performance, primarily in French, in Rebecca Zlotowski’s typically genre-bending study of a divorced analyst dealing with professional and personal crises: she has a strained relationship with her son, his wife and their young baby, while she follows up on her suspicions of a longtime patient’s supposed suicide. Always good with actors, Zlotowski follows suit here: supporting Foster’s accomplished turn are Daniel Auteil as her frisky ex, Vincent Lacoste as their chip-on-his-shoulder son, Virginie Efira as the dead patient and Mathieu Almaric as her grieving widower. But the script by Zlotowski, Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé has characterization problems and plot holes that prevent the movie from really taking flight.

Streaming Releases of the Week 

The Best You Can 

(Sony)

Pairing real-life husband-and-wife Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick as Stan (a single father with a musician daughter, Sammi) and Cynthia (married to the much older Warren—who’s beginning to show signs of dementia) has its charms, especially in the easy rapport of the couple’s scenes together in what may or may not become an affair. Yet writer-director Michael J. Weithorn doesn’t know what to do with the rest of his sitcomish comedy-drama, so good actors like Judd Hirsch (Warren) and Brittany O’Grady (Sammi) are left adrift. 

Reflection in a Dead Diamond 

(Shudder)

The latest contraption from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani—French husband and wife writers-directors based in Belgium—blends James Bond spoofing with bloody revenge melodrama: a retired spy, John D (played by Fabio Testi and Yannick Renier as his older and younger incarnations), remembers his youthful exploits when his fascinating new neighbor disappears. Cattet and Forzani always bring their A game to their often dazzling visuals, although they inevitably overdose on gorgeously composed shots at the expense of their tale. 

WTO/99 

(Foghorn Features)

In 1999, Seattle was the location for a meeting of the nascent World Trade Organization, which looked to negotiate new trade deals to link the world economy and generate prosperity, but strange bedfellows like unions, chambers of commerce and liberal activists declared the WTO antithetical to human rights, the environment and labor and came to protest in the tens of thousands. Director Ian Bell has painstakingly assembled a compelling and eye-opening look back at living history: that volatile moment presaging the unholy mess we find ourselves in, told exclusively through archival footage from TV news reports and amateur home videos.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

The Long Walk 

(Lionsgate)

Stephen King’s short novel about a dystopian U.S. where the eponymous event takes place, with the lone survivor winning a jackpot—an unoriginal but workable premise on the page—has been turned into an enervating film by director Francis Lawrence and writer JT Mollner, who do little with the anti-dramatic storyline of young men walking alongside soldiers who shoot anyone who falls off the pace. Flashbacks to our main protagonist Garraty’s home life with mom and dad (Judy Greer and Josh Hamilton, both wasted) and occasional closeups of blown-off heads don’t alleviate the tedium. Cooper Hoffman (Garraty) and a cast including Charlie Plummer and David Jonsson try to bring individuality to this faceless crew, but Mark Hamill’s cartoonish antagonist makes that nearly impossible. The film looks great on Blu; lone extra is a 75-minute making-of documentary.