August '26 Digital Week I

CD Release of the Week 

Paul McCartney—The Boys of Dungeon Lane 

(Capitol Records)

Now 84, Paul McCartney has released his first album since 2020’s lively McCartney III, which he recorded during the COVID lockdown. The Boys of Dungeon Lane has gotten some of the best reviews of McCartney’s storied career, although to these ears it’s an unsurprisingly tuneful but often familiar-sounding attempt that doesn’t approach his best work, from Ram and Band on the Run to Tug of War and Electric Arguments. But it sits comfortably ahead of lesser efforts like Wild Life, Pipes of Peace and Off the Ground. 

The album’s title is a line from “Days We Left Behind,” the most nakedly autobiographical of Paul’s compositions here, a beautifully realized reminiscence of earlier times that uses his aged, cracked but still formidable voice to great advantage. Not far behind in the nostalgia sweepstakes is “Home to Us,” a charming if slight duet with Ringo Starr (who also drums on the track, and whose jam with producer Andrew Watt was the genesis of this song) about growing up in a run-down part of Liverpool, with cute backing vocals from, of all people, the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde and Texas’ Sharleen Spiteri. “Down South,” describing a bus trip out of Liverpool, revisits the observations of two songs from McCartney’s 2013 album New: “On My Way to Work” and “Early Days.” 

It all goes down very smoothly and often indelibly in the mostly one-man-band approach McCartney and Watt employ; the jam on the opening “As You Lie There” is a good example of Paul’s genius at arranging—although, as usual, it’s his effortlessly melodic bass playing on songs as disparate as “Ripples in a Pond,” “We Two” and the insanely catchy “Never Know” that makes The Boys of Dungeon Lane a cut above other legacy artists’ new music. 

When we get to the quartet of melancholic but powerful ballads that ends the album—“Life Can Be Hard,” “First Star of the Night,” “Salesman Saint” and “Momma Gets By”—we realize that, if these are the final songs Paul has recorded in an unparalleled six-decade-plus career, it’s quite an unabashedly emotional statement to go out on.

In-Theater Release of the Week

Late Fame 

(Magnolia Pictures)

Based, of all things, on a posthumously published novella by the great Viennese author Arthur Schnitzler (who also wrote Traumnovelle, which Stanley Kubrick adapted as his last film Eyes Wide Shut), this low-key character study stars a perfectly cast Willem Dafoe as Ed Saxberger, who wrote a forgotten book of poems decades earlier and who’s been an anonymous post office employee since then—until he is recognized by a group of pretentious young artists that want to give him the long-awaited notoriety they think he deserves. Kent Jones directs economically, Samy Burch’s script has finely-etched characterizations and dialogue, and the rest of the cast—especially a dazzling Greta Lee—superbly backs Dafoe. But there’s simply not enough here for a 95-minute feature, which spreads everything—and everyone—thin.

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

Mars Attacks! 

(Warner Bros)

Director Tim Burton could never be accused of coddling the masses, as his cheerfully cheesy 1996 spoof of sci-fi movies—which was released several months after the insipidly self-serious alien invasion blockbuster Independence Day—delightfully demonstrates. In a large and jokey cast, Jack Nicholson shows off his unique ability to be hilariously over the top in the dual roles of the harried U.S. president and a shady Vegas casino owner, while there are also delicious turns by Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Pierce Brosnan and Michael J. Fox. Even the goofily gory special effects help make this a dopey but hip satire. The film’s bright colors explode in 4K; extras are two new featurettes with screenwriter Jonathan Gems and some of the film’s technical crew.

Streaming Releases of the Week 

The Drama 

(A24)

Writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s darkly comic look at Emma and Charlie, an engaged couple navigating pre-wedding jitters, has some insightful and funny moments, but when Emma confesses to the worst thing she’s ever done, contrivance precariously hangs over the rest of the film. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson make this couple charming, vindictive, self-pitying and impassioned, but they fight an uphill battle as Borgli directs with a sledgehammer, making what happens during the preparations and reception more obvious and less pointed as the film goes along. When their photographer keeps saying she’ll “shoot” them or when Emma’s dad gives a reception speech that makes clear he doesn’t know how she became deaf in one ear, you know you’re dealing with a director who stacks the deck, which for a film like this, is fatal.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

Good Manners

(Distrib Films US)

In Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra’s disturbing modern 2018 fairy tale, nanny and housekeeper Clara becomes quite close to her boss, single mom-to-be Ana, and as their relationship grows more intimate, she discovers that Ana might have been impregnated by a werewolf. That revelation is the jumping-off point for a film that, after switching gears halfway through, turns out to be startling, unsettling and risible simultaneously. Even though it outstays its welcome—and could be shorn of 20 minutes, particularly scenes like a young boy being stalked as prey—it’s brilliantly done. The film’s colorfully unnerving look shines on Blu-ray; extras are a two-minute making-of featurette; the shorts A Stem (2007), directed by Rojas and Dutras, and Doppelganger (2012), directed by Rojas; and commentary by critics Shelagh Rowan-Legg and Carolyn Mauricette.

Book Reviews—Wings, Scorsese, Miyazaki, Hirschfeld's Sondheim

Wings—The Story of a Band on the Run 

(Liveright)

As part of Paul McCartney’s ongoing Wings reclamation project—which began with the music compilation and documentary Wingspan back in 2002 and continues this year with the release of the Amazon Prime documentary Man on the Run—this first-person account chronicles Paul’s entire ’70s trajectory, from leaving the Beatles and releasing two initially derided but now beloved albums, McCartney and Ram, before he and Linda embarked on putting together a new band with—aside from ever-loyal Denny Laine—a revolving cast of drummers and lead guitarists. 

Editor Ted Widmer judiciously compiled new and archival interviews with Paul, Linda, Denny, other band members, the McCartneys’ children, Paul’s brother Mike, and others like Dustin Hoffman—who relates the famous anecdote of Paul whipping out an acoustic guitar and conjuring up “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)” right in front of the actor—to present a thorough decade-long history of Wings. After Paul’s 1979 Japanese drug bust came the unceremonious dissolution of one of the biggest hitmaking groups of the decade and led to Paul’s resurgence as a formidable solo artist and as a keeper of the Beatles’—and, of course, Wings’—flame. 

Martin Scorsese—The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work 

(White Lion)

Now six decades into a career that still continues to surprise, director Martin Scorsese has been tagged with the label as a maker of mainly gangster pictures, since GoodFellas looms so large in his oeuvre. But, as Ian Nathan’s closely argued appreciation of his more than two dozen films (so far—he’s currently making What Happens at Night, once again starring his favorite late-career actor, Leonardo DiCaprio) adroitly demonstrates, there’s much more to Scorsese than that. 

After all, he’s adapted novels by Edith Wharton (The Age of Innocence), Nikos Kazantzakis (The Last Temptation of Christ) and Dennis Lehane (Shutter Island), along with creating music documentaries about the Band, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison. Then there’s that startling character study, the underappreciated The King of Comedy, which may well be his most enduring film. OK sure, for every Mean Streets, Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, there are busts like New York New York, Cape Fear or Bringing Out the Dead, but Nathan skillfully chronicles Scorsese’s wide-ranging oeuvre as unique in American movies, with plentiful color images from the films underscoring his points. 

The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki 

(Frances Lincoln) 

Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki has made a dozen features over 45 years, and his elegantly artful onscreen stories are simultaneous mythic and humane, starting with his feature debut, 1979’s The Castle of Cagliostro, and continuing with his international breakthrough, 1988’s Princess Mononoke, all the way up to his—supposedly—final feature, 2023’s The Boy and the Heron. This beautifully designed volume, which includes a plethora of color film stills alongside Miyazaki’s own sketches for projects made and unmade, thematically groups the auteur’s subjects by section. 

Nicolas Rapold’s text nicely weaves the many threads of Miyazaki’s influences and inspirations (as the subtitle makes clear) and the sheer beauty of the filmmaker’s fantastical imagery—often centering on anthropomorphic creatures who befriend intelligent but lonely young children—is what is most memorable in a splendid career that’s filled with highlights like the wrenchingly autobiographical The Wind Rises (2013).

Hirschfeld’s Sondheim 

(Abrams Comic Arts)

Last fall, Strokes of Genius, a superb exhibition of caricatures by the great Al Hirschfeld, was on display last September at the Oak Room in Manhattan’s fabled Algonquin Hotel. The small exhibit was populated by classic Hirschfeld sketches of entertainment legends from Louis Armstrong to Aerosmith. Also included were several of his drawings that were the highlights of so many Sunday New York Times’ Arts and Leisure sections, including several works illustrating shows by Stephen Sondheim.

This slim but elegant volume (the first of what is purported to be many “poster books” of Hirschfeld drawings) collects more than 50 sketches of Sondheim’s Broadway triumphs (and misfires), including those that were part of the exhibit: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sunday in the Park With George, Passion, and Putting It Together. More than two dozen images that take up entire pages can be removed from the book as ready-made frameable prints. David Leopold, creative director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, has written a nicely focused commentary on the drawings and shows; the book’s introduction is by none other than Sondheim veteran Bernadette Peters and the foreword is by theater reviewer Ben Brantley.

A new exhibition, Hirschfeld's Icons, which features his indelible caricatures of superstars from Liza Minnelli to the Beatles, will be on view at the Algonquin Hotel April 28 to May 8.

Album Review—Paul McCartney and Wings, "One Hand Clapping" (Capitol)

When Paul McCartney released his first Archive Collection set in 2010—Band on the Run, often considered his greatest post-Beatles work (for me, it’s just behind Ram)—he included One Hand Clapping, a long-unseen 50-minute TV documentary from 1974 about Wings, including interviews and live performances at Abbey Road. The quality of the video and audio was lacking, but at least it was officially released (bootlegs had proliferated for awhile).

Fourteen years later, remixed by Steve Orchard, the music from One Hand Clapping gets a shiny new audio release—little can apparently be done for the video quality that was seen on the archive set—and McCartney fans can listen to this superbly played, often raw collection of live songs, comprising solo Paul, Wings, that other band he was in and a few vintage tunes.

The band—comprising Linda on keyboards and backing vocals, stalwart Denny Laine on guitar and vocals, Jimmy McCullough on guitar, Geoffrey Britton on drums and Paul on nearly everything else—begins with the percolating instrumental, “One Hand Clapping,” followed by boisterous run-throughs of Wings and solo classics “Jet,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Band on the Run,” “Live and Let Die,” “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five,” “Let Me Roll It” and “Junior’s Farm.” A hard-hitting “Hi Hi Hi” closes the performance.

In between, amid several song snippets and medleys like “The Long and Winding Road”/”Lady Madonna” and “C Moon”/Little Woman Love,” Paul—either by himself or with his crack band—takes on old favorites like “Baby Face” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” along with two hidden gems from 1971’s much-maligned Wild Life: the title track and “Tomorrow.” On his truncated solo rendition of “Let It Be,” Paul accompanies himself on harmonium, giving it a more funereal feel. Laine gets his sole lead-vocal turn with a solid take of the early Moody Blues hit, “Go Now.” 

When Paul tosses out the wittily tongue-in-cheek “I’ll Give You a Ring,” some fans might be surprised that it emerged a full eight years before it appeared as the B side of the single of “Take It Away” from Tug of War. But here it is, already fully formed, another example of Paul pulling perfect pop melodies out of thin air, then apparently sitting on them since he’s also written other memorable tunes in the meantime.

Another underappreciated classic, the taut rocker “Soily,” is best known as the incendiary encore on 1976’s Wings Over America. That Paul decided to have “Soily” climax the shows on his first world tour since leaving the Beatles shows how much faith he had in it—and his band—at the time. (Let’s forget that he hasn’t included it in his setlists since.) Although I prefer the balls-out version on Wings Over America with Paul at his screaming best, this energetic blast through it is no slouch either.

My lone quibble: If the 83-minute performance can’t fit on one CD, why not include the six additional songs from the sessions that Paul played solo versions of—’50s chestnuts “Twenty Flight Rock,” “Peggy Sue” and “I’m Gonna Love You Too” alongside the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and Paul’s “Blackpool” and “Country Dreamer”—on the CD release as well as the “special” vinyl edition? It always seems bizarre to prioritize vinyl over digital in 2024.