Film Festival Roundup—DOCNYC 2024

DOCNYC 2024

In theaters through November 21, 2024

Online streaming through December 1, 2024

docnyc.net

DOC NYC, now in its 15th year, is the largest documentary festival in America: more than 200 films unspool during the festival, including more than 50 premieres. Of course, with so many entries, it’s impossible to do anything but get a sampling; here’s a handful I was able to see.

Blue Road—The Edna O’Brien Story

Of the festival’s opening night, centerpiece and closing night films, I caught the Opening Night selection. Blue Road—The Edna O’Brien Story, a compelling study of the great Irish author. Alongside Jessie Buckley beautifully narrating in O’Brien’s own words, director Sinéad O’Shea interviews admirers like actor Gabriel Byrne, other authors, disciples and O’Brien herself (before her death this summer at age 93) to present a full-bodied portrait of an artist who made many people deeply uneasy through her grit and honesty but who eventually gained the respect of and lionization by the literary world.

Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue

Other films explored the lives of remarkable women. In Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue, the incredible career of the woman editor who crashed what was an exclusive men’s club to turn the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue into a cash cow is recounted by Jule’s daughter, director Jill Campbell. Jule unsurprisingly comes across as feisty and no-nonsense; it’s not surprising she shepherded the lucrative swimsuit issue for more than three decades as well as introducing the world’s first supermodels. As intimate as this story is—Jule died after being extensively interviewed, in 2022 at age 96—the most touching moments come from reunions with several models including Carol Alt, Roshumba Williams, Stacey Williams and especially Elle Macpherson.

A Photographic Memory

A Photographic Memory (opens in NYC Nov. 22) is Rachel Elizabeth Seed’s fascinating film about her mother—photographer and journalist Sheila Turner Seed, who died when Rachel was only 18 months old. The intrepid daughter burrows into her mother’s personal and professional history to piece together a cinematic memoir. And she does: accessing interviews her mom did with luminaries Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks and Cecil Beaton, along with talking with her father, British photographer Brian Seed, and tracking down friends and colleagues who can fill in the blanks, Rachel has indelibly depicted this fierce and formidable woman for posterity.

Spacewoman

The eponymous heroine of Spacewoman, astronaut Eileen Collins, was the first American woman to command a space shuttle flight, Columbia in 1997. Hannah Berryman’s first-rate doc explores Collins’ career in the space program and how her dedication led to strained family relations, especially with her daughter Bridget, who gives an honest account of their difficult past relationship. (Interestingly, Eileen and husband Pat’s son Luke is rarely mentioned or shown, but he appears briefly with his sister.) It’s a straightforward bio with a riveting protagonist at its center.

Anxiety Club

In Anxiety Club, several comedians open themselves up to director Wendy Lobel’s camera about their personal angst even more than they do onstage. Mark Maron is the only performer whose standup I was familiar with, so his cutting self-absorption is familiar (yet still funny). But of the rest—including Eva Victor, who seems more grounded than the others (I hope she is!)—getting the most camera time is Tiffany Jenkins, who’s so petrified of losing her children that she can barely stand to be away from them for even a short time. Her therapy sessions to break this mental stranglehold are memorable if uneasy to watch, but they’re of a piece with the anxiety she documents in a series of very popular and humorous YouTube videos.

Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse

In Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse, the veteran comic illustrator—best known for the graphic novel Maus, his incisive and deeply personal allegory about his father, a Holocaust survivor, with the Jews shown as mice, the Poles as pigs and the Nazis as cats—gets his due in this illuminating look at a career full of lacerating observation. Directors Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin record Spiegelman’s thoughts about how his childhood in Rego Park, Queens, informed his worldview and artistry as well as his wife, French editor Françoise Mouly. 

Ernest Cole—Lost and Found

Raoul Peck’s Ernest Cole—Lost and Found (opens in NYC Nov. 22) vividly resurrects the career and legacy of the South African photographer, more than three decades after his premature death. Cole lived the daily horrors of Black South Africa under the racist Apartheid regime, documenting them with his camera. Moving to the U.S. in 1966, he published the book House of Bondage that chronicled what he experienced, becoming an international sensation—and it was unsurprisingly banned in his home country. Cole expected America to be different, but when he started taking pictures here, he was shocked to see racism ingrained through Jim Crow laws, similar to South Africa. LaKeith Stanfield narrates as Cole’s own voice, but Peck rightly concentrates on Cole’s powerful photographs throughout the film. Cole asks “Am I a traitor to my country?” in response to the apartheid state news’ description of him, and Peck denounces that vicious smear in the strongest possible terms, giving this pioneering artist a deserved posthumous tribute.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

Last but definitely not least is Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (now playing), Belgian director Johan Grimonprez’s insightful cinematic essay that revolves around the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, which happened with the complicity of Belgium, England, and the U.S. But that’s only one piece of a complex feature encompassing how Western countries reacted to the rapid decolonization of Africa. It’s not easy to elucidate the convoluted political situation in the Congo, but Grimonprez’s ambitious mosaic provides fascinating context for these historical events as it tells equally riveting dual stories: the fraught atmosphere of colonialism and Communism alongside the recruitment of Black musicians as unwitting cover for backdoor machinations to prevent supposed Communist takeovers. These artists included Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Nina Simone—none aware that they were being used as decoys for their U.S. State Department handlers’ nefarious ends.

October '24 Digital Week IV

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Black Box Diaries 

(MTV)

This startlingly sorrowful yet ultimately optimistic documentary by Shiori Itō, a Japanese journalist, recounts her struggle after accusing legendary journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi of a 2015 sexual assault—her bravery is in stark contrast to Japan’s buttoned-down social, sexual and political reticence. Itō bares herself emotionally and psychologically dealing with the slowly turning wheels of justice: the MeToo movement gives her traction, but she must push herself to keep going amid a countersuit by Yamaguchi, who was very close to then prime minister Shinzo Abe. Propelling this incredibly intimate account is Itō’s unflinching honesty as both filmmaker and subject.

Magpie 

(Shout Studios)

Daisy Ridley is credited with the idea for this story of marital betrayal—Ridley plays Anette, who’s married to Ben (Shazad Latif) and whose young daughter Matilda (Hiba Ahmed) is cast in the role of beautiful movie star Alicia’s (Matilda Lutz) daughter in a new film. One parent must accompany Matilda while on the set at all times; when Ben does, he begins a relationship with the glamorous Alicia—or does he? Director Sam Yates and writer Tom Bateman have made an efficient by-the-numbers thriller that leads to an obvious but satisfying twist that justifies sitting through the 90-minute buildup. The uniformly excellent cast is led by Ridley’s frazzled but always protective mother and wife.

Your Monster 

(Vertical)

Poor Melissa Barrera—the breakthrough star of In the Heights and Scream VI is now stuck in a one-note rom-com/Beauty and the Beast mashup. Yes, you read that right: after a cancer diagnosis, Laura is dumped by her longtime boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) and soon finds herself with a new roommate, the beastly Monster (Tommy Dewey, looking like Ron Perlman in the 1980s TV series), who’s a manifestation of her simmering anger over her current predicament. What could have been a perfectly good short is drawn out by writer-director Caroline Lindy into a repetitive and often risible 95-minute feature; even the usually charming Barrera is misdirected into being as annoying, even enervating, as possible, which is obviously not Lindy’s intention.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Borderlands 

(Lionsgate)

This latest attempt to translate the mindlessness of playing a video game into a big-screen adventure with actual characters and an interesting plot doesn’t work simply because it’s too reminiscent of the post-apocalyptic elements of the Mad Max series, which does this sort of thing far better. The cast, comprising big names like Cate Blanchett, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Hart, is game but turned into a routine and flattened crew by cowriter-director Eli Roth, who at least stages a series of impressive action sequences that, nevertheless, become stale after awhile. The UHD transfer accentuates the stunning visuals; extras include several making-of featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Beast Within 

(Well Go USA)

In this intriguing variation on the werewolf theme, young Willow (Caoilinn Springall, giving a miraculously mature performance) and her mom Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings) live in a walled-off compound deep in the forest with her dad Noah (Kit Harington), who undergoes a scary physical transformation that Willow is first traumatized, then increasingly empowered, by. Director Alexander J. Farrell and co-writer Greer Ellison rely more on atmosphere than originality, but the film does have an effective ambiguous ending that makes one look at the previous 100 minutes in a different light. 

Creature with the Blue Hand/Web of the Spider 

(Film Masters)

If you want to see a couple of early features starring the Polish enfant terrible, actor Klaus Kinski, this double bill is for you: 1967’s Creature with the Blue Hand and 1971’s Web of the Spider feature Kinski in relatively subdued mode. In the strangely inert Creature, based on an Edgar Wallace story, Kinski plays an escaped mental patient who might be committing several murders, while Web has him playing none other than Edgar Allan Poe in a stylish haunted house tale. Both films have been resurrected with decent hi-def transfers and an array of extras, including commentaries on each feature; a bonus feature, 1987’s The Bloody Dead, related to the original Creature, with a commentary; and featurettes on Wallace and Kinski.

Don’t Change Hands 

(Severin)

Corsican director Paul Vecchiali, who has been nearly forgotten—if he was remembered at all when he died last year at age 93—made this enjoyably sleazy softcore (with hardcore inserts) comic mystery in 1974—it follows Melinda (the great French actress Myriam Mézières), a private detective who’s hired by an heiress who’s being blackmailed with X-rated flicks starring her estranged son. It’s as goofy as it sounds, but Mézières is always delectable and Vecchiali’s directorial hand is light, even in the plentiful and often amusing sex scenes. The film looks good on Blu; extras include new interviews with Mézières, actor Jean-Christophe Bouvet and screenwriter Noel Simsolo, an appreciation by director Yann Gonzalez and a featurette on Vecchiali’s career. 

Made in England—The Films of Powell and Pressburger

(Cohen Media)

For three decades and 20 films, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made some of the most enduring works in British cinema, which include many indelible images, from those of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and Black Narcissus (1947) to The Small Back Room (1948), The Red Shoes (1949) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). David Hinton’s informative documentary dissects their partnership and why it ended (Powell made films himself, including the overrated cult item Peeping Tom, in 1960). Then there’s Martin Scorsese, an unabashed Powell and Pressburger fan, who not only narrates but acts as our on-camera host, even comparing what he did in some of his films with what they did in their pictures (a word he loves). Scorsese is always a terrific raconteur and knowledgeable commentator on film history, but Made in England needs a little less Marty and a little more Powell and Pressburger. There’s a solid hi-def transfer, with many of the P&P excerpts newly restored.

October '24 Digital Week II

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

The Apprentice 

(Briarcliff Entertainment)

If you’re expecting this to be a risible takedown of Donald Trump—after all, the poster tagline is “An American Horror Story”—think again: director Ali Abbasi and writer Gabriel Sherman have, with some success, made an amusingly and terrifyingly entertaining ride through the beginnings of Trump World, when Donald hitched his wagon to the revolting Roy Cohen, eventually outfoxing the master himself. There’s an authentic ’70s “NYC is dying” vibe whenever the material degenerates to mere melodrama or rom-com parody, but front and center are three on-target performances. Maria Bakalova is a razor-sharp Ivana, Sebastian Stan a surprisingly sympathetic Donald and Jeremy Strong an outsized, wonderfully villainous Cohn.

Omni Loop 

(Magnolia)

Mary-Louise Parker is her usual delightful self in this otherwise aggressively dull sci-fi fantasy by writer-director Bernardo Britto, who steals brazenly from Groundhog Day to create a silly story of a dying scientist with a black hole in her chest who hopes that time travel with cure her. (No—seriously.) Parker and Ayo Edebiri (who’s so good in The Bear) have terrific chemistry, and Harris Yulin contributes a fun bit as an ornery old professor, but the movie spins its wheels in a desperate attempt to find Meaning, when simply lowercase coherence would be enough.

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 

(Warner Bros)

Wes Craven’s 1983 horror entry has gained stature over the past four decades despite being mainly a crudely effective horror film about a teenage girl’s nightmares getting intruded on by the now-legendary Freddy Krueger, who enters the real world and starts a killing spree. Craven directs with a sledgehammer, but it works for the most part, particularly the ending, which makes up for many other shortcomings (mainly the script and acting). Both the theatrical and uncut versions look excellent in UHD; extras are two commentaries, interviews, three featurettes and alternate endings.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Maxxxine 

(Lionsgate)

Writer-director Ti West and actress Mia Goth reunite for another go-round, this time following porn actress Maxine (from their 2022 collaboration X) looking for legitimate stardom as the lead in a Hollywood horror flick, circa 1985. There’s an intriguing if contrived premise here, yet the problem is that West and Goth are so busy trying to evoke a specific era that there’s rarely room for anything original—it’s a jumble of nods to VCRs, pornos and slasher flicks, with amusing overacting by Kevin Bacon, Michelle Monaghan, Lily Collins, Elizabeth Debicki and Goth herself. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; extras include three featurettes and a West Q&A.

Meeting the Beatles in India 

(Unobstructed View)

Canadian director Paul Saltzman retraces his steps back to 1968 India, when he there at the same time as the Beatles during their legendary stay with the Maharishi—he took a series of intimate photographs of them that were forgotten for decades until his daughter discovered them, leading to this documentary about the importance of that earthshaking visit musically and in the world of meditation. Saltzman interviews several individuals related to India (Patti Boyd) or meditation (David Lynch), and it comes across as self-indulgent, real Beatles fanatics (like me) will eat it up. The film looks quite good in hi-def; extras include nearly an hour of extra footage. 

The West Wing—Complete Series 

(Warner Bros)

When Aaron Sorkin was on, there was no better dialogue writer in TV, the movies and theater in the 1990s (remembering that his breakthrough play, A Few Good Men, opened on Broadway in 1989), as the first four seasons of this beloved series about a liberal White House filled with progressive idealism demonstrates. Sorkin left after the fourth season, and the final three seasons get less interesting, even if Sorkin’s sanctimony is toned down—luckily, the complete series set has been packaged so that Sorkin’s seasons and the other three are in separate boxes. The buzzy cast is led by Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford and Rob Lowe. The series, whose 154 episodes are included on 28 discs, looks good in hi-def; extras include interviews, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes and commentaries.

Blu-ray/CD Release of the Week 

Def Leppard—One Night Only: Live at the Leadmill 

(Mercury Studios)

British rockers Def Leppard return to their stomping grounds for a 2023 benefit concert at the Leadmill nightclub in Sheffield, where they began more than 45 years earlier, for a raucous hour-plus set surprisingly heavy on earlier tunes—especially from their 1981 release High ’n’ Dry—alongside their anthemic MTV-era hits. This version of the band still has four members from its late-’80s heyday, led by vocalist Joe Elliott, still in fine voice; vets Vivian Campbell and Phil Collen make up the blistering two-guitar attack. Best songs of the night are the pair of slow burners, “Too Late for Love” and “Bringing on the Heartbreak.” The entire concert is included on CD as well; the hi-def video and audio are topnotch.

DVD Release of the Week

Curb Your Enthusiasm—Complete Series 

(Warner Bros/HBO)

After 12 seasons over a quarter-century, Larry David’s irascible alter ego finally rode off into the sunset, always getting into as much trouble as he possibly can—nearly always self-inflicted, of course, but David was always self-aware enough not to care. For me, at least, a little of David’s clever but narrow observational comedy goes a long way, so most viewers’ comic mileage will obviously vary widely. Still, there are many priceless moments throughout: the ultimate highlight for me will always be the first episode of the penultimate season 11, when Larry ruins Albert Brooks’ “living funeral” by discovering that Brooks has been (oh horror of horrors!) an unrepentant COVID hoarder of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. The 24-disc set includes all 120 episodes; the many extras include a gag reel, interviews and featurettes.

CD Releases of the Week 

Braunfels—Jeanne d’Arc: Scenes from the Life of Saint Joan 

(Capriccio)

German composer Walter Braunfels (1882-1954) is best known for his playful opera The Birds (1913-19), based on ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes’ play—along with other music by the half-Jewish Braunfels, it caused enough of a stir that the Nazis banned it. This opera, composed in 1938-43, is an often gripping account of Joan of Arc: war hero, convicted heretic burned at the stake, and eventual Roman Catholic saint. The most memorable writing is for the chorus, especially in the final scenes of Joan’s death, while other sequences of Joan with the men she leads to battle and those who condemn her for heresy, are intelligently but conventionally written. This excellent recording is from a 2013 Salzburg production, with Juliane Banse as a strong Joan, the Salzburg Bach Chorus is in impressive form and Manfred Honeck conducts the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in a fine reading of Braunfels’ serious, sober score.

Woolf/Vavrek—Jacqueline 

(Pentatone)

British cellist Jacqueline du Pre was legendary for her intensely emotional performances until multiple sclerosis cut her down in her prime—she died at age 42, in 1987. In Canadian-American composer Luna Pearl Woolf’s 2020 chamber opera, du Pre is represented by two performers, a soprano and a cellist, both embodying fractured aspects of Jacqueline’s life and artistry in an effective conceit captured by Royce Vavrek’s libretto. In this captivating recording, soprano Marnie Breckenridge sings with honesty and intimacy, while Matt Haimovitz’s cello equals her in musical strength, making for quite a powerful duet. The main problem is that an audio recording presents only half the opera, as it were; video would allow us to see as well as hear the fascinating intertwining of singer and musician.

September '24 Digital Week I

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Didi 

(Universal)

Harkening to the heyday of John Hughes, writer-director Sean Wang’s expressive, insightful distillation of the teenage experience is—at least in most movies like this—seen as universal, however different is kids’ background and upbringing. Wang introduces Chris, a Taiwanese American teen annoyed with his mom, scared of his grandmother and hating his older sister. He’s a geek with a small circle of friends and a crush on a girl named Madi (the charming Mahaela Park), with whom he hopes to have his first kiss—until he, being a goofy teen, screws things up. Wang writes and directs with a sympathetic eye and this specific adolescent era (it’s 2008 and the kids are using AOL messenger and flip phones) is shrewdly observed. The persuasive cast is led by Izaac Wang’s authentically gawky Chris and Joan Chen as his embarrassing but loving mom. 

I’ll Be Right There 

(Brainstorm/Universal)

Edie Falco gives a beautifully restrained portrayal of Wanda, a middle-aged woman juggling many  personal issues—her ex, who has a new family, can’t afford to pay his half of their pregnant daughter’s upcoming wedding; her son is a complete screw-up; she breaks up with her slightly dull if well-meaning boyfriend while she’s having a fling with a younger woman; and her overbearing mother is glad that what she thought was cancer is “only” leukemia. Director Brendan Walsh and writer Jim Beggarly intentionally stack the deck against Wanda, making her the problem-solver for everyone but herself; but, although stretched thin after 95 minutes, Falco (nicely complemented by Jeanne Berlin, Bradley Whitford and Michael Rappaport) plays it so subtly and perfectly that we become invested in her despite the dramatic weaknesses.

#UNTRUTH—The Psychology of Trumpism

(Bronson Park)

The mental and existential maladies that inhabit Donald Trump are explored in this intriguing if diffuse documentary by director Dan Partland, who speaks to the usual TV  pundits/historians/psychologists (including talking-head George Conway, congressman Joe Walsh and former RNC chairman Michael Steele)  explicate about how and why Trump remains a threat to democracy with his authoritarian bent and even kowtows to other dictators. But since everything is recounted for the umpteenth time, even if as persuasively as it’s done here, those who should watch it will consider it the ultimate untruth of a deep state and its colluding media.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

The Watchers 

(Warner Bros)

Following in the clunky footsteps of her father M. Night Shyamalan, Ishana Night Shyamalan debuts as a feature director with this well-made but derivative horror entry about four people trapped in a prison of sorts in the middle of the deep, dark woods, where seemingly malevolent entities known as watchers will not allow them to escape. There are a few hair-raising twists and turns and an ending that is more bittersweet than bitter, but even fine performers like Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell and Olwen Fouéré can’t overcome the built-in limitations of the tale and the teller. The UHD image looks spectacular; extras are four featurettes and deleted scenes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

L’elisir d’amore/The Elixir of Love 

(Opus Arte)

A pair of Gaetano Donizetti operas, one comic, the other tragic, present both sides of the Italian master’s well-worn but entertaining bel canto style. This most amusing rom-com gets a fizzy 2023 Royal Opera House staging in London by Laurent Pelly. Donizetti’s merry music is ably played by the Royal Opera Orchestra and Chorus led by Sesto Quatrini, and there are finely-wrought comic performances by Bryn Terfel as Doctor Dulcamara, Liparit Avetisyan as the pining Nemorino, and the redoubtable American soprano Nadine Sierra—the most attractive singer in opera today, in both senses—as the strong-willed heroine Adina. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio; extras are interviews with the cast and creative team.

Lucie de Lammermoor 

(Dynamic)

Donizetti’s operatic tragedy about a young woman caught up in feuding families who goes mad is best known in its original Italian-language version, but the French version is heard in Jacopo Spirei’s staging last year at the Donizetti Opera Festival. Best about this production is the excellent Italian soprano Caterina Sala, who brings down the house with her immaculate singing and intense acting. Spirei’s production otherwise puts this warhorse through its paces well enough; Pierre Dumoussand leads the orchestra and chorus in an effective reading of the score. There’s quite good hi-def video and audio. 

Succession—The Complete Series 

(Warner Bros)

This compelling and hilarious series about ultrarich corporatists chugged along for four highly watchable seasons, including the shocking but inevitable plot twist early in the final season that finally pointed to a real conclusion that the title always hinted at. The tension between an ultra- successful media corporation’s founder, Logan Roy, and his adult children, all of whom are unworthy to take the reins—sons Kendall, Roman and Connor as well as daughter Shiv—reaches tragicomic heights worthy of Shakespeare. Superb writing is complemented by magisterial acting by Brian Cox, who plays the Lear-like Logan, to Jeremy Strong (Kendall), Kieran Culkin (Roman), Sarah Snook (Shiv) and the scene-stealing J. Smith-Cameron as the family’s shrewd associate Gerri. All 39 episodes are included on 12 discs, and the hi-def image looks dazzling throughout. More than 20 bonus features include “Inside the Episode” featurettes, character recaps and cast and crew interviews.

CD Releases of the Week 

Fauré—Nocturnes 

& Barcarolles 

(Harmonia Mundi)

Although the large-scale works by French master Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)—the opera Pénélope, grand cantata Prométhée and his famous Requiem—are brilliantly realized, the composer seemed to work even more effectively in smaller forms, as witness his mighty chamber music—his piano trio, quartets and quintets; cello and violin sonatas; and string quartet are all masterpieces, along with several volumes of magnificent solo piano music. Just months after Lucas Debargue’s CD set tackled the complete piano works—which are filled with intimacy, subtlety and expressiveness—another French pianist is heard on disc playing several of his nocturnes and barcarolles, forms that the composer returned to again and again throughout his long career. Aline Piboule plays these elegant works with an impassioned clarity that brings out their stylistic similarities as well as striking differences. 

Schoenberg/Fauré—Pelléas et Mélisande 

(Alpha Classics)

A famous symbolist play by Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck, Pelléas et Mélisande was adapted by composers ranging from Jean Sibelius to Claude Debussy, whose extraordinary opera is the most famous—and it deserves every accolade, for it’s a one-of-a-kind masterwork. This disc comprises the orchestral accounts by composers who are antithetical—20th-century provocateur Arnold Schoenberg and 19th-century master Gabriel Fauré (again). Schoenberg composed some of his most luscious music for this tragic but compelling story of a fatal romance, while Fauré’s suite of incidental music for a stage production of the play is marked by his usual precision and quiet eloquence, embodied in the famous Sicilienne, one of his most ravishing melodies. Conductor Paavo Jarvi leads the Frankfurt Radio Symphony in propulsive accounts of both works. 

August '24 Digital Week I

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

The Beautiful Summer 

(Film Movement)

Director/co-writer Laura Luchetti’s empathetic and sensitive coming-of-age saga follows the introspective 17-year-old Ginia (played, in a starmaking turn, by the terrific Yile Yara Vianello), who is simultaneously confused and excited by her attraction to Amelia (persuasively embodied by Deva Cassel, daughter of Italian actress Monica Bellucci and French actor Vincent Cassel), who’s a headstrong model for local artists. With a 1938 Turin setting that is both evocative and quietly chilling—Il Duce Mussolini’s fascists are hovering in the background—Luchetti’s gorgeously realized feature was one of the happiest surprises of this year’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema series at New York’s Film at Lincoln Center in June.

Electric Lady Studios—A Jimi Hendrix Vision 

(Abramorama)

The creation of Electric Lady Studios—immortalized on Jimi Hendrix’s classic album Electric Ladyland—is the subject of John McDermott’s entertaining documentary, which lands us in late ’60s Greenwich Village alongside Hendrix’s legendary engineer-producer, Eddie Kramer, and others involved in the planning, construction and running of the first artist-owned music facility in rock. Hendrix music is generously played and the talking heads (which include John Storyk, the studios’ architect; and two of Jimi’s band members, Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox) are chatty and revealing in this valuable chronicle of an indispensable music studio, later populated by the likes of John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie and the Clash.

Modernism, Inc. 

(First Run)

Director Jason Cohn’s enlightening account that explores how architect Eliot Noyes transformed American design in the mid-20th century smartly condenses a knotted history of design into something digestible, spirited, but never dumbed down. Fond remembrances and paeans from his family members, colleagues and historians blend with well-chosen vintage footage to present this nuanced portrait of Noyes’ ongoing importance to contemporary design, from his playful but norm-shattering designs for IBM and Mobil to his family’s unique home.

War Game 

(Submarine Deluxe)

Although this documentary’s stated aims are lofty, even necessary—simulating a possible insurrection on January 6, 2025, four years after the real-life attempted coup to overturn a lawful presidential election, with many actual politicians and government insiders playing a fictional presidential cabinet and advisors—what we’re actually watching ends up less than the sum of its parts. Directors Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber turn this plausible doomsday scenario into an effective if derivative pulse-pounding thriller, but the reality of what happened on January 6, 2021 is still too raw to make this well-intentioned cautionary tale more than an intriguing but manipulative curio. The best moments are unfiltered comments by real veterans Chris Jones, Kris Goldsmith and Janessa Goldbeck (CEO of VetVoice, which originated the staging of this scenario), who emotionally discuss how imperative saving democracy is. More of their reality and less of the actual war game would have made this a more powerful—though, admittedly, entirely different—film. 

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

June Zero 

(Cohen Media)

In Jake Paltrow’s accomplished anthology feature, which tells the fragmented stories of several ordinary people on the periphery of the 1962 execution of Nazi Adolf Eichmann (which occurred just after midnight on June 1, hence the film’s title), is burnished by intelligence and sympathy. The three tales, which move from humor to horror, are followed by a bittersweet epilogue, as Paltrow takes the measure of a young nation grappling with shared traumas that nevertheless leave room for triumph over tragedy. Paltrow’s 16mm images look quite striking on Blu-ray; too bad there’s no interview or commentary that contextualizes this complex historical drama. 

CD Release of the Week

Gerhard—Don Quixote (Complete Ballet)

(Chandos)

Roberto Gerhard (1896-1970) isn’t as well-known as fellow Catalan composers Xavier Montsalvatge and Federico Mompou, but his music is just as original, especially in his melding of popular and classical forms with a more rigid 12-tone method. His delightful zarzuela/operetta, The Duenna, might be the best example, but his other stage works have the same captivating variety. The works on this disc all originated in the 1940s, after Gerhard left his beloved Spain following the civil war and settled in England. There’s the attractive suite for the ballet Allegrias as well as the complete ballet Don Quixote, one of Gerhard’s most enchanting and gorgeous scores. Rounding out this recording is Pedrelliana, originally written in 1941 but revised 13 years later; it’s a heartfelt memorial to Gerhard’s beloved teacher Felipe Pedrell. Juanjo Mena leads the BBC Orchestra in vigorous renditions of this often exuberant music. 

July '24 Digital Week III

Streaming Release of the Week 

Fresh Kills 

(Quiver Distribution)

Who knew that actress Jennifer Esposito—heretofore best known for supporting roles in movies and recurring roles in TV series like Spin City and Blue Bloods—would write and direct a richly authentic slice of Italian-American life, from the point of view of two daughters growing up in a Staten Island household with a father who happens to be a Mafioso? Esposito obviously knew, and her film keeps the organized crime clichés at bay while treating the women in this milieu with freshness and zesty humor. Esposito is also winning as the girls’ mother Francine, as is Annabella Sciorra as her antagonistic sister Christine, while Odessa A’zion and Emily Bader, as daughters Connie and Rose, give breakout performances.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Rocky—Ultimate Knockout Collection 

(Warner Bros)

The original Rocky, winner of the 1976 best picture Oscar and directed with precision by John G. Avildsen, remains the ultimate rags to (almost) riches fairy tale nearly a half-century later. Too bad the sequels got progressively more gimmicky, from II’s perfectly plausible rematch with Apollo Creed to III’s comic version of fighting Mr. T (as Clubber Lang) to IV’s “us vs. them” Cold War battle with Russian Ivan Drago. At least Avildsen returned for V, which had some of the original’s grit, but number 6 (Rocky Balboa) had Stallone at the helm for the series’ dullest entry. Stallone becomes less appealing with each successive movie and Talia Shire—heartbreaking in the original—has little to do as the stories progress (and Adrian was killed off for Balboa), but there are the always exciting boxing sequences. This set brings together all six films—and the director’s cuts of IV and Balboa—which look superlatively grainy throughout. An extra Blu-ray disc collects the extras, mostly from the original movie but also an hour-long Making of Rocky vs. Drago: Keep Punching, with Stallone himself as our guide. The Balboa disc also includes a Stallone commentary, deleted scenes and various on-set featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Anselm 

(Janus Contemporaries)

German director Wim Wenders returns to the 3D format that worked well for his documentary Pina, about choreographer Pina Bausch, which showed dancers gracefully moving in space; but Anselm, displaying German artist Anselm Keifer’s paintings, installations and sculptures, only intermittently suggests the impressive spaciousness of his works. The rest of the 90-minute doc is a decent primer on the artist’s life and art, both controversial in his native country, where he has been accused of being a Nazi sympathizer and a Nazi. Wenders’ eye, of course, is unerring; but for all the 3D segments showing Keifer’s works’ sheer monumentality, seeing the artist riding around on his bike or a tree branch glistening with snow isn’t the most essential use of the technology. The hi-def image is vividly rendered whether on the 3D or basic Blu-ray disc; lone extra is a 15-minute Wenders interview.

Donizetti—Alfredo il Grande 

(Dynamic)

Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti—famed for classic operas like L’elisir d’amore, Lucrezia Borgia and Lucia di Lammermoor—had a huge failure with this music drama about the ninth-century Alfred the King, who led the Saxons in what is now England. After its 1823 premiere, the opera took two centuries to be restaged, in this 2023 production from Bergamo, Italy; director Stefano Simone Pintor gives it the heft of an historical epic, but the music and characterizations often lack drama or depth. Still, the playing by the Orchestra Donizetti Opera and Coro della Radio Ungherese under conductor Corrado Rovaris and the lead performances of Antonino Siragusa (Alfredo) and Gilda Fiume (Amalia) help somewhat. There’s a first-rate audio and video transfer.

Have You Got It Yet?—The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd 

(Eagle Rock)

Syd Barrett’s shadow loomed large over Pink Floyd since the late ’60s—while only in the band a short time, his colorful personality and mental illness informed its best works: The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. In Roddy Bogawa and Storm Thorgerson’s enlightening documentary about his life, death, and legacy, the legend of Barrett “the mad genius” is put into context; the directors they never lose sight of Barrett the person, troubled soul, friend, colleague, lover and brother. Among those who discuss Barrett are his Floyd mates Roger Waters and David Gilmour, both obviously still affected by his demise, while psychological experts explain the vagaries of mental illness and how drugs like LSD can warp one’s mind. Bogawa and Thorgerson explore Barrett’s decline tactfully, thoughtfully, and sympathetically. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer; extras include a commentary, Bogawa interview, featurettes on Barrett’s’s art and lyrics, and two Gilmour concert performances of the tune “Arnold Layne.”

True Detective Season 4—Night Country 

(Warner Bros)

After a couple of dud seasons, this detective series returned to, if not quite the heights of the first season, at least watchability, as creator Issa López smartly—if unoriginally—sets the show in Alaska, in darkness literal and metaphorical. The plot weirdly melds horror and sci-fi about unexplained deaths at a remote base. The explanation is ultimately unsatisfying, the atmosphere is vaguely sinister, but it’s held together by formidable acting by Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as the investigators. There’s a good Blu-ray transfer; extras are several making-of featurettes. 

DVD Release of the Week 

All Your Faces 

(Icarus Films)

In France, restorative justice brings together victims and perpetrators for therapy sessions that theoretically help both parties. Writer-director Jeanne Herry ruthlessly explores how these justice workers set up such important face-to-face meetings as well as their effect on the lives of everyone involved. With two cases as the centerpieces—victims meeting convicted felons and Chloé wanting closure with the estranged brother who sexually abused her as a child—Herry’s very talky film remains involving for two hours thanks to unsentimental writing and precise direction. In a large cast that’s riveting, realistic and often moving (there’s Leïla Bekhti, Élodie Bouchez, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gilles Lellouche and Denis Podalydès, for starters), the standouts are Miou-Miou—Herry’s real-life mother—as Sabine, horribly shaken after her mugging, and Adèle Exarchopoulos, who deservedly won the Cesar for best supporting actress for her remarkably assured yet emotionally vulnerable Chloé.  

CD Release of the Week

Beethoven—Triple Concerto

(Decca)

Beethoven’s imposing concerto for violin, cello and piano has always attracted superstar soloists, and when the stars themselves align—as they do for this recording that features the wonderful stylings of violinist Nicola Benedetti, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, who sound transcendent together and apart—the musical results are simply magical, with Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Philharmonia Orchestra providing sensitive accompaniment. Rounding out this first-rate disc are eloquent readings by the trio of several Beethoven folk song arrangements (with bass-baritone Gerald Finley) and the Kreislers’ evocative “Londonderry Air.”

July '24 Digital Week II

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

The Boy and the Heron 

(GKids/Studio Ghibli)

After the sublime 2013 memory piece The Wind Rises, the great animator Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement; but 10 years later, along comes this often inscrutable, heavily symbolic but tremendously affecting feature—don’t hold its Oscar for best animated feature against it! During WWII, young Mahito’s mother, a nurse, dies in a hospital fire—after his father marries her sister and they move to her country estate, Mahito’s grief and guilt are embodied in a talking heron, who takes him to an anthropomorphic world where he must fight for survival—and for closure with his mother. Only Miyazaki could make something so sentimental and borderline risible and make it funny, touching and trenchant simultaneously. Needless to say, the animation looks amazing in 4K; the accompanying Blu-ray’s extras comprise storyboards, music video for the song “Spinning Globe” and interviews with composer Joe Hisaishi, producer Toshio Suzuki and supervising animator Takeshi Honda. There’s also an English-dubbed version with the voices of Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, Florence Pugh, Willem Dafoe and Mark Hamill; stick with the original Japanese for authenticity.

Twister 

(Warner Bros)

This silly but watchable 1996 disaster thriller pits tornado chasers vs. Mother Nature—and, more often than not, nature wins: director Jan de Bont and writers Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin (Crichton’s then wife) for the most part lose, especially when it comes to such howlers in the dialogue as, when a twister barrels down toward them, one character yells out, “Let’s run for it!” Well, duh. The $100 million budget obviously went to the vast array of technical effects, well-done but not overwhelmingly impressive (especially now, where some seams show in 30-year old technology). Actors like Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz, Todd Field, Cary Elwes, Lois Smith and Philip Seymour Hoffman try their best but are defeated by ridiculous plotting and the twisty effects. The 4K image looks quite detailed; extras include a new retrospective featurette and bonuses from earlier releases: three on-set featurettes, music video for Van Halen’s song “Humans Being” (Eddie and Alex also contribute a moody instrumental, “Respect the Wind”) and a commentary by du Bont and effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Challengers 

(Warner Bros)

If a menage a trois among a female tennis player turned coach and the male tennis pros in her life, each on opposing career trajectories, sounds like fun, director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes make sure to scuttle that possibility. This impossibly cutesy rom-com is crammed with flashbacks within flashbacks to try and present some variety, but even Guadagnino knows it doesn’t help, 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, always beginning or ending at the wrong time, as if the music cues are slightly off. The threesome enacted by Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist is more authentic on the court (they all look and move like tennis players) than off, where 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 hi-def image looks excellent but, as with so many new releases, there are no extras.

Kidnapped—The Abduction Of Edgardo Mortara

(Cohen Media)

The latest film by the world’s greatest living director, 84-year-old Italian master Marco Bellocchio, is yet another of his gripping and operatic dissections of historical subjects that touch on politics and religion—this time he tells the horrific but true story of a six-year-old Jewish boy torn from his parents’ grasp because a former housekeeper said she baptized him when she thought he was dying as an infant. With his usual sweeping flair and acute observation, Bellocchio fills the screen with indelible images that not only cast a wide net on anti-Semitic mid-19th century Italian (read: Catholic) society but also the excruciating pain and loss felt by the Mortara family as their beloved son and brother remains forever out of their reach. Bellocchio builds his film on two towering performances—by Barbara Ronchi as the boy’s mother and Enea Sala as the young Edgardo, one of the strongest child performances I’ve ever seen. Supremely well-chosen music by Rachmaninoff and Pärt complement a superb original score by Fabio Massimo Capogrosso. The haunting but gorgeous final shot of mother and son is as unforgettable as the rest of this masterpiece; Francesco Di Giacomo’s glistening cinematography is accentuated beautifully on Blu-ray. Extras are a short Bellocchio intro and 20-minute director interview.

The Last Stop in Yuma County 

(Well Go USA)

I’ve never been a fan of the real Coen brothers’ films, so warmed-over Coens—which is what this aggressively, even nonsensically nihilistic drama about a bunch of nonentities who end up offing one another (along with several unfortunate bystanders) at a rate even the brothers wouldn’t countenance—comes off even more contrived. Too bad writer-director Francis Galluppi is more concerned with getting these people together and letting bad luck take care of them until it doesn’t matter who’s standing at the end. The film looks fine on Blu; lone extra is a making-of featurette.

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week

Eno 

(Film First)

In his eminently watchable documentary about legendary music producer Brian Eno, Gary Hustwit borrows Eno’s own way of creating for the film’s structure, as certain ideas, visuals or bits of music lead to other, sometimes not entirely successful tangents. Eno talks quite engagingly and candidly about his life, career and thoughts about the importance of art to nourish the human brain, both in new footage as well as vintage interviews. There’s also priceless footage of Eno at work, both alone doing his ambient music (like the original Windows 95 “jingle”) and with some of his biggest collaborators, from Roxy Music and David Bowie to U2 and the Talking Heads. One gimmick is that the film—at least in its first run at Film Forum in NYC—will never be the same twice, rearranged and completely different footage making a “new” film each time, a fitting metaphor for its enigmatic, endlessly fascinating subject.   

The Blue Rose 

(Dark Sky)

Anyone with fond—or not so fond—memories of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, in which two women sleepwalk through a surreal Hollywood, will relive that film during every minute of George Baron’s unabashed copy, which the director makes no bones about, even referencing Lynch in his discussions of his own film. The difference is that Lynch’s fully developed visual sense can make such dicey material work at times, whereas the best Baron can do is emerge as an instant epigone aping the Lynchian style without any substance. 

Janet Planet 

(A24)

Annie Baker, who has won awards for her (overrated) plays, makes her screen writing and directing debut with this at times insightful but mainly insufferable exploration of the relationship between Janet, a hippie-ish single mom, and Lacy, her restless 12-year-old daughter. As in her plays, Baker writes clever dialogue that’s not as meaningful as she intends; her assiduously oddish characters often claw at stretches of meaninglessness, whether in their words or silence. As a director, she alternates establishing shots and glaring closeups to snippets of music from Laurie Anderson to Bach that populate her eclectic soundtrack. Her distaff cast, comprising Julianne Nicholson, Zoe Ziegler and Sophie Okenedo, performs sensitively, while the men, embodied by Bill Paxton and Elias Koteas, are pretty much ciphers.

CD Release of the Week 

Czech Songs—Magdalena Kožená 

(Pentatone)

Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, who has this music in her very bones, beautifully sings a smartly programmed recital disc of vocal works composed by her compatriots. As usual, she sounds natural and focused while performing cycles by the great but underappreciated Bohuslav Martinů and the great but more appreciated Antonin Dvořák, alongside a welcome taste of the unjustly obscure Hans Krása and Gideon Klein (who were both murdered in Nazi camps). Tastefully accompanying the always elegant Kožená is the Czech Philharmonic, under the baton of her husband, Simon Rattle.