January '24 Digital Week II

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Maestro 

(Netflix)

That Bradley Cooper’s biopic about conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein is a labor of love is not in doubt; details are right, from Cooper’s looking amazingly like Bernstein to his time spent on the podium, particularly an excerpt from Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony that was shot in Ely Cathedral in England, where it was actually performed. But concentrating on such minutiae sucks the life out of Maestro, since Cooper seems to be giving a Saturday Night Live impression of Lenny, and his film plays like a greatest-hits list of scenes only about his musical career and volatile marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre. That the film’s Lenny and Felicia are apolitical is inexcusable whitewashing; even a brief scene would have gone a long way toward making this portrait more honest. Still, Carey Mulligan gives another of her effortlessly spellbinding performances as Felicia, keeping the film on course whenever Cooper the director goes off the rails, visually and narratively.

Household Saints 

(Kino Lorber)

As long as she sticks to a realistic portrait of two immigrant families in New York’s Little Italy from the 1940 to the ’60s, Nancy Savoca’s 1993 film is richly illuminating. But when she attempts to get fancy after the main plot kicks in—the daughter, Teresa, of the main couple, Joseph Santangelo and Catherine, wants to devote the rest of her life to Jesus Christ—Savoca is unsure whether to play it straight or for laughs. She ends up trying to do both, but the combination makes for an uneasy and bumpy couple of hours. Fortunately, Savoca’s marvelous cast, headed by Tracey Ullmann (Catherine), Vincent d’Onofrio (Joseph) and particularly Lily Taylor (Teresa), rescues the movie from becoming too maudlin.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

The Devil’s Partner 

(Film Masters)

Another in a series of restored and rediscovered lost “classics” comprises two fun genre exercises, starting with Charles R. Rondeau’s The Devil’s Partner, a truly weird attempt at supernatural thriller about an old man whose pact with the devil allows him to return as a malevolent young man. There’s also another 1960 “gem,” Roger Corman’s Creature From the Haunted Sea, about a monster of the deep preying on divers and adventure seekers. Both films are cheaply made but entertaining in spite of their obvious shortcomings. They both look fine in hi-def; extras include the theatrical and TV versions of both films, commentaries on both films, an interview with Corman and the third episode in a series about Corman and his cohort, Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story.

DVD Release of the Week

Neil Diamond—The Thank You Australia Concert, Live 1976 

(Mercury)

Neil Diamond ended his 1976 Australian tour with an outdoor concert for tens of thousands of his fans that was televised on Australian TV; this DVD re-release of the nearly two-hour performance presents it mostly uncut (unlike its recent, much shorter showing on PBS). Many of Diamond’s most enduring songs are featured in energetic performances, including “Holly Holy,” “I Am I Said,” “Crackling Rosie,” and “Sweet Caroline”—the latter happily long before it was ruined by fans as a mindless singalong. The only dull moments come courtesy a suite of tunes from the Jonathan Livingston Seagull soundtrack, but that doesn’t dim the luster of an otherwise terrific concert. Video and audio are acceptable but unremarkable; extras are footage of Diamond performing the song “Morningside”; a substantial interview with Diamond for Australian TV; an intro by David Frost; and amusing on-stage commercials by Diamond during the show.

CD Release of the Week 

Ruby Hughes—End of My Days 

(BIS)

Welsh soprano Ruby Hughes returns with another beautifully curated collection of songs, following her strong recital disc Echo from 2022. This time, she and the members of the Manchester Collective (a shape-shifting ensemble) created this program during the first round of COVID lockdowns in hopes of performing it to uplift audiences. The songs, beginning with Errollyn Wallen’s mournful but sturdy “End of My Days,” are both reticent and hopeful, perfectly mirroring the conflicting emotions of that time. Composers as varied as John Dowland, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are heard from, all brilliantly played by the collective and sung with her usual expressiveness by Hughes, especially on the benediction of a finale, Deborah Pritchard’s “Peace.”

October '22 Digital Week II

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Hail Mary 

(Cohen Film Collection/Quad Cinema)

Jean-Luc Godard’s second film from 1985—the other, Detective, is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the film noirs he grew up watching—is among the just-deceased master director’s most remarkable creations. Banned and picketed when it was first released by those who believed it sacrilegious, the film is a typically Godardian exploration of a young virgin mother, and shows how faith, beauty and art have been co-opted by the chaotic everyday existence of modern life. Hail Mary is preceded by the short The Book of Mary, an equally stunning study of a young girl by Godard’s frequent collaborator—and life partner—Anne-Marie Mieville. This is the penultimate of four weekly screenings at Manhattan's Quad Cinema of Godard classics in memory of the great director, who died last month at age 91.

My Old School 

(Magnolia Pictures)

It’s not often you can say that truth is really stranger than fiction than in this diverting documentary about Brandon Lee, whose time at a Glasgow High School in the 1990s is dissected by many classmates (including the film’s director, Jono McLeod), and includes no less than actor Alan Cumming, who lipsynchs Brandon’s responses in a recorded interview. Just what Brandon did I won’t divulge, but the reveal is surprising enough that McLeod’s trickery—Cumming’s deadpan appearance and the animated sequences a la Daria—at times makes this intriguing character study less than the sum of its illuminating parts.

Three Tall Women 

(CBC Gem/Stratfest@Home)

In Edward Albee’s last great play (which I saw at its 1994 New York premiere), that remarkable actress Martha Henry gives a colossal performance in the central role of A, a 92-year-old looking back on her life—and, amazingly, she gave her brilliant portrayal just weeks before she died, a year ago, at age 83. Albee’s wit has rarely been so razor-sharp, and his verbal infelicities are kept to a minimum, which was not the case for many of his other post-Virginia Woolf dramas. Director Diana LeBlanc’s Stratford Festival revival also has superior acting by Lucy Peacock (as B) and Mamie Zwettler (as C), but this is a powerfully emotional memorial to one of Canada’s grand dames of the theater.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Beast 

(Universal)

Jaws transplanted to the African bush, Baltasar Kormákur’s thin but tense feature clocks in at an economical 90 minutes, and the first 30 are actually a fairly clever setup for the ensuing hour of monstrous lion attacks on Idris Elba and his daughters, which unfortunately become increasingly repetitive as we go along. Still, the CGI that transforms stunt doubles into marauding big cats is impressively done, as Elba proves his bona fides as an action hero. The hi-def transfer looks terrific; extras include a deleted scene and on-set featurettes.

Going Places 

(Cohen Film Collection)

French director Bertrand Blier would win 1978’s Best Foreign Film Oscar for Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, an aimless, coarse satire about a frigid wife who can’t respond sexually to either her husband or the stud he brings on board yet a callow teenager does the trick. But Blier made his initial splash with this 1974 comic drama, a similarly dishonest film about a pair of aimless drifters who physically and emotionally demean every woman they come across. Despite winning performances by Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as the men and a redoubtable trio of actresses—Bridgette Fossey, Jeanne Moreau and the spectacular Miou-Miou—as their marks, Blier’s first attempt to shock middle-class audiences out of their complacency—which he would try to do to diminishing returns throughout his career—mostly falters. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; the lone extra is an engagingly informative commentary by film professor Richard Pena.

Mack & Rita 

(Lionsgate)

Diane Keaton is her delightfully daffy self in Katie Aselton’s middling take on Big or 13 Going on 30, as a young woman turns 70 after undergoing a past-life regression. There’s not much to writers Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh’s conceit, but Keaton—who not only looks smashing in her uniquely inspired Annie Hall-ish outfits but displays her still potent comic chops—is assisted by an able group of performers from Wendy Malick, Lois Smith and Loretta Devine to Elizabeth Lail, who’s likeable and winning as Keaton’s younger self to make this enjoyable. The film looks good on Blu; extras are two on-set featurettes that pointedly don’t feature Keaton.

Mark of the Vampire 

(Warner Archive)

In this terse 1935 vampire flick, director Tod Browning supplies humor and thrills in equal measure, including a terrific fade-out joke featuring Bela Lugosi, and there’s an eerie atmosphere that’s nicely balanced by a light-heartedness that fits the material. In addition to Lugosi, there are nicely observed portrayals by the likes of Lionel Barrymore. The excellent hi-def transfer accentuates the moody B&W imagery captured by cinematographer James Wong Howe; extras include an audio commentary as well as a vintage cartoon and short.

DVD Releases of the Week

Ed Sullivan’s Rock and Roll Classics 

(Time-Life)

This worthwhile 10-disc set, although only skimming the surface of the riches residing in The Ed Sullivan Show’s vaults, demonstrates how valuable Ed’s Sunday night variety show was as a showcase for the best and most popular pop/rock/soul/R&B artists of the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s. The discs are broken down by theme: the British Invasion, Psychedelic Rock, etc., but they’re just an excuse to include performance clips—most live stage appearances but some primitive versions of what were later called music videos—by everyone from the Beatles to the Beach Boys, the Temptations to the Supremes, Vanilla Fudge to Steppenwolf, and the Rolling Stones to Herman’s Hermits. The video and audio quality isn’t great, but these clips are mainly for historical purposes anyway. Only eight discs feature Sullivan Show music clips; the ninth disc features The All Star Comedy Special, with dozens of Sullivan’s comedian guests, and the tenth comprises two episodes from the series The History of Rock’n’Roll. Interview extras include the Lovin Spoonful’s John Sebastian, the Mamas and the Papas’ Michelle Phillips and the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn. 

Melrose Place—The Complete Series 

(CBS/Paramount)

This evening soap opera about young people living in a West Hollywood apartment complex—executive-produced by Aaron Spelling (who did the same for Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed in the final decade of a legendary career stretching back to the ’60s)—became a hit during its initial run from 1992-99 and either jumpstarted (or reignited) the careers of such performers as Courtney Thorne-Smith, Josie Bissett and Heather Locklear. If you’ve always wanted it, this gargantuan boxed set collects every single episode (226 in total) from all seven seasons on 54 discs, along with many extras including featurettes and audio commentaries by series creator Darren Star.

CD Releases of the Week 

Michael Tippett—The Midsummer Marriage 

(BBC) 

English composer Michael Tippett (1905-98) composed several operas over a long and eclectic career but never equaled by the musical and dramatic invention of this, his first opera (although the harsh spareness of his second, the tragic King Priam, comes close). First premiered at Covent Garden in 1955, Tippett’s mystical romance—kind of an abstract Midsummer Night’s Dream—has a surfeit of psychological acuity rare in an operatic work despite Tippett’s own convoluted libretto, but it’s the musical aspect that puts this into rarefied air. This new recording, recorded last year in London’s Royal Festival Hall, is adroitly conducted by Edward Gardner, gorgeously played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and splendidly sung by the London Philharmonic and English National Opera choruses as well as the soloists led by the inimitable leads Robert Murray and Rachel Nicholls.

Ellen Taafe Zwilich—Cello Concerto & Other Works 

(Delos)

Ellen Taafe Zwilich writes music of bountiful imagination, and this disc of several orchestral works cements her reputation as among our very best contemporary composers. The newest work on this excellent recording, Zwilich’s 2020 cello concerto, was premiered during lockdown and is a remarkably vital achievement, buoyed by brilliant soloist Zuill Bailey. The other pieces are equally vigorous, highlighted by the delightful Peanuts Gallery (1996), a subtly colored workout for pianist Elizabeth Dorman and the Santa Rosa Symphony (led by conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong) in six tongue-in-cheek movements mirroring Charles Schultz’s beloved characters: Schroeder, Linus, Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Peppermint Patty and Marcie. 

October '20 Digital Week III

VOD/Virtual Cinema Releases of the Week 

American Dharma 

(Topic/First Look)

Errol Morris has made a cottage industry of sitting down with the likes of Robert McNamara, Donald Rumsfeld and now trump’s evil genius, Steve Barron, loathsome by any standard but, at least as grilled by Morris for his latest documentary portrait, endlessly fascinating. Morris shrewdly enters Bannon’s worldview through old film clips, since the subject himself peppers his talk about his time as trump’s leading advisor (at least until his downfall) and spokesman for a nationalist platform that’s permeating far too many countries. But looking at bits of Stalag 17, The Searchers and Chimes at Midnight only goes so far and, for all his sharp questioning and skepticism, one has the uneasy feeling that Morris should have been even tougher on one of the planet’s truly despicable people.

Seat 20D 

(First Run Features)

When her son Alex died onboard Pan Am flight 103—destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland—sculptor Suse Lowenstein wanted to honor her son’s memory, and that of the others who were killed, in a tangible and permanent way. So she created Dark Elegy, life-size sculptures of herself and other grieving mothers, shown naked and in the positions they fell into upon hearing the awful news. Jill Campbell’s moving documentary explores how Lowenstein transformed tragedy into art, and how she is looking for a permanent place for her surprisingly controversial work, which currently resides on her property in Montauk, Long Island.

White Noise 

(The Atlantic)

It’s difficult watching Daniel Lombroso’s documentary about the biggest names—i.e., worst progenitors of racism—in the alt-right movement, whose anti-immigrant, anti-globalist, anti-intelligence stances mark the trio as opportunists at best and bigots at worst. If they were characters in a novel, Richard Spencer, Mike Cernovich and Lauren Southern would seem laughable—but in the real world they are taken seriously, as evidenced by their distressing popularity among their benighted followers. So, Lombroso shows, we have to take them seriously—if only as a cautionary tale—however ludicrous, contradictory and hypocritical they are.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Fortunio 

(Naxos)

L’ange de Nisida 

(Dynamic)

These rarely heard operas—French composer Andre Messager’s Fortunio, from 1907; and Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti’s L’ange de Nisida, from 1840—are not very memorable either dramatically or comedically, yet there are many moments where the music soars. And both operas receive wonderful 2019 stagings: Denis Podalydes directs Fortunio in Paris and Francesco Micheli directs L’ange in Bergamno, Italy. Both works look and sound vividly immediate in hi-def.

Sergeant York 

(Warner Archive)

Howard Hawks’ 1941 paean to an American hero who singlehandedly forced a German battalion to surrender during WWI is wartime propaganda of the highest order, unapologetically demonstrating that even an ordinary American can outdo others. This is rousing, old-fashioned entertainment—though a tad overlong at 134 minutes—with a lead performance of high star wattage by Gary Cooper and an equally memorable turn by Joan Leslie, in her first starring role at age 16, as York’s love Gracie. The film looks splendid on Blu; extras include historian Jeanine Basinger’s commentary, 40-minute documentary from 2003, Sergeant York: Of God and Country, narrated by Liam Neeson; and a vintage short and cartoon.

Sunrise at Camponello 

(Warner Archive)

Based on Dore Schary’s play about how FDR’s polio diagnosis nearly derailed his nascent political career in the 1920s, saved only by his own will, his wife Eleanor and his political aide Louis Howe, Vincent J. Donehue’s adaptation is often stagebound but is never less than engrossing. Ralph Bellamy (FDR), Greer Garson (Eleanor) and Hume Cronyn (Howe) give intelligent performances, further bolstering this glimpse at how such a serious ailment was successfully hidden from the press and the entire country for decades. The color location photography by Russell Harlan looks sumptuous in hi-def.

Vikings—Season 6, Part 1 

(Warner Bros)

In the latest season of Vikings, Bjorn takes over as leader of an exhausted populace after a battle royale with his brother Ivar, who takes the Silk Road to an eventual arrival in Russia, where the czar is even more ruthless in his dealings with his own people. The battle has been joined in these 10 exciting episodes, with formidably physical acting and first-rate production values. Visually, the series continues to look strikingly good; extras include audio commentary, featurette and deleted scenes.

DVD Releases of the Week

The Audition 

(Strand Releasing)

Nina Hoss—who has given magnificent performances in films by Austrian director Christian Petzold—gives one of her subtlest, most unsettling portrayals as violin teacher Anna Bronsky, who pays a little too much attention to her newest student at the expense of her husband and teenage son, also a violin student. Director Ina Weisse (who cowrote the script with Daphne Charizani) shows a real understanding of the stress of music conservatories and her psychologically rich portrait of an artist under pressure is quite mesmerizing thanks to Hoss’ usual brilliance.

Cobra—Complete 1st Season 

(PBS)

This absorbing six-part drama series chronicles the scary aftermath of a geomagnetic solar storm that knocks out power all over Europe and simultaneously shows the inner workings of the British prime minister and his cabinet as they try and get a handle on what’s becoming perilously close to anarchy throughout the country. A solid cast, led by Robert Carlyle as the PM, Victoria Hamilton as his chief of staff, and David Haig as the antagonistic home secretary, is undermined only by the often bathetic personal problems of the leaders as they also work on problems of global import. Extras comprise several short featurettes with cast and crew interviews.

Flesh and Blood 

(PBS)

A fantastic cast breathes vivid life into this familiar tale of family dynamics, mistrust, jealousy and hypocrisy, predicated on a crime cannily not revealed until the final minutes of the final episode. Francesca Annis and Stephen Rea are the widowers who find love—or do they? Imelda Staunton is the neighbor who explains to the investigators just what happened—or does she? And Claudie Blakley, Russell Tovey and Lydia Leonard are Annis’ bewildered children who don’t understand why she’s taken with this new man—is it really love or something else? Creator-writer Sarah Williams’ four-part series is slickly entertaining—and it leaves room for a sequel.

The Soul of the Midnight Special 

(Time/Life)

Midnight Special was one of many late-night shows in the ‘70s that was wall-to-wall music, and this five-disc set collects thrilling live performances from the best soul artists, including one-off  collaborations like Gladys Knight and B.B. King teaming for a torrid “The Thrill Is Gone” and Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin pairing up for an equally impassioned “Takes Two to Tango.” Other highlights are the terrific Bill Withers doing his signature songs, “Ain't No Sunshine” and “Lean on Me”; Billy Preston performing his number-one hit, “Will It Go Round in Circles”; James Brown groovin’ his way through incendiary performances of “Sex Machine,” “Get Up Offa That Thing” and “Cold Sweat/Papa's Got a Brand New Bag”; and smashes from the Ohio Players (“Love Rollercoaster”) and the Miracles (“Love Machine”). Extras are several new and archival interviews with the O’Jays, Gladys Knight, Patti Labelle, George Benson, James Brown and Maurice White, among others.

CD Releases of the Week

Piano Concertos—Ammann, Ravel, Bartók 

Prokofiev—Symphonies 1, 2 and 3 

(BIS)

These recordings provide fresh interpretations of some familiar works. The German-born Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger displays his formidable technique performing Maurice Ravel’s elegant left-hand concerto and Béla Bartók’s dazzling Piano Concerto No 3—and he even gives a technically staggering reading of a new concerto, subtitled Gran Toccata, by Swiss composer Dieter Ammann. Susanna Malkki and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra provide fine accompaniment.

Sergei Prokofiev’s symphonies run the gamut from sweetness and light to vinegar and darkness, with his astonishing melodic facility coupled to an acidly satiric bent. His first three symphonies—the delightfully Haydnesque No. 1, the gripping and unnerving No. 2, and the heightened drama of No. 3—are performed with the perfect balance his music demands by the Bergan Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Andrew Litton.

October '20 Digital Week I

VOD/Virtual Cinema Releases of the Week 

Aggie 

(Strand Releasing)

Agnes Fund, one of the art world’s most illustrious benefactors, is the subject of a shining profile by her daughter, director Catherine Fund; Agnes candidly discusses her astonishing legacy as art collector and philanthropist—she sold a Roy Lichtenstein painting for $165 million to help fund the Art for Justice Fund to address mass incarceration—as well as trustee and leader of institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, where she was president for 11 years. There are also revealing interviews with artists and associates like Marina Abramović, Abigail Disney and Dorothy Lichtenstein, Roy’s widow, along with family members, all in awe of Aggie, who’s still going strong at age 82.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Babyteeth 

(IFC Films)

The plot is all too familiar—teenager Milla falls for a shady older guy, causing her parents no end of consternation—but writer-director Shannon Murphy transcends her story’s typical trajectory by injecting it with humor, trenchant observation and an extraordinary performance by Eliza Scanlen as Milla, whose relationship with her family has already been strained by her cancer diagnosis. At two hours, the film is way overlong and repetitious, but the realness that Murphy and Scanlen bring to Milla’s plight is impressive. The film looks fine on Blu.

Don Quichotte/Don Quixote 

(Unitel)

French composer Jules Massenet’s thoughtful, dramatic opera of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic novel comes across, in Mariame Clement’s 2019 Bregenz Festival staging, as a ridiculous and unintelligent gloss. Each scene takes place in different settings (the opening adheres closest to the original, then we get a windmill scene in a bathroom, the Don in a Spiderman suit and a final scene in a modern office), which only confuses the issue. Singers Gabor Bretz as Quixote and Anna Goryachova as Dulcinea, his love interest, are wonderful but are diminished by Clement’s self-indulgent deconstruction of a classic work into a #MeToo screed. Hi-def video and audio are first-rate.

Eskapist 

(BelAir Classiques)

Danish choreographer Alexander Ekman’s full-length modernist work might have been revelatory in the theater, but its use of film, narrator and a dream-like state seem oddly piecemeal and stridently eclectic on video, and set to music by Mikael Karlsson that’s less descriptive than distracting. Still, Ekman’s movements are often beautiful and thrilling, and his dancers are uniformly terrific, which mitigates the silliness of the overall Concept (with a capital C). Hi-def video and audio are superb; lone extra is a short Ekman interview.

Genesis II/Planet Earth 

(Warner Archive)

These made-for-TV features from Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry follow Dylan Hunt, a scientist who awakes from suspended animation in the year 2133 to find a world trying to rebuild decades after a devastating nuclear war. The actors are different—Alex Cord in 1973’s Genesis II and John Gavin in the 1974 followup Planet Earth—but it doesn’t much matter since the focus is on the group PAX (descendants of the 20th century NASA scientists with whom Hunt worked), an underground group trying to rebuild civilization. For their era, both films are watchable sci-fi entertainment but Planet of the Apes they are not. Both films have fine new hi-def transfers.

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project—Volume 3 

(Criterion)

In the latest volume of Criterion’s worthy ongoing project of international films getting a deserved resurrection, there are two flat-out masterpieces: from Cuba’s Fernando Solas, the intensely dramatic and political 1968 triptych Lucia; and from Brazil’s Hector Babenco, the chillingly potent look at a young boy on the streets of Rio, 1980’s Pixote. The other four films are less memorable but still worth a look: from Indonesia, Usmar Ismail’s After the Curfew (1954); from Mexico, Juan Bustillo Oro’s Dos Monjes (1934); from Mauritania, Med Hondo’s Soleil O (1970); and from Iran, Bahram Beyzaie’s Downpour (1972). All six films have brand-new hi-def transfers; some (Lucia, Pixote, Soleil O) look better than others (After the Curfew, Dos Monjes, Downpour), depending on existing materials. Extras include Scorsese intros for each film, new and archival interviews and Babenco’s prologue for the U.S. release of Pixote.

The Secret—Dare to Dream 

(Lionsgate)

Based on the runaway best-selling “power of positive thinking” book, this mawkish romance stars two engaging performers, Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas, who do their best to sell an eye-rolling love story that hits all of its shopworn bases without any style, originality or even helpful humor. Instead, writer-director Adam Tennant is content to let it all putter along sans any plausibility in the wooden characterizations and one-note relationships. There’s a pleasing hi-def transfer; lone extra is a brief making-of.

DVD Releases of the Week

Beyond Perfection 

(Unitel)

The great Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who has a mythical status among dedicated fans, is the focus of this illuminating and even amusing documentary by German filmmakers Syrthos J. Dreher and Dag Freyer, who started this project 30 years ago. Their frustration getting an interview with the notoriously reclusive and controlling Michelangeli leads to them contacting his friend and sometime conductor Cord Bargen (Michelangeli died in 1995 at age 75), who opens his own vaults to discuss the performer’s perfectionism—which one time led to him forcing a video/audio team to destroy all recordings of one of most celebrated performances. The resulting documentary insightfully studies the private sphere of a world-class artist.

Penny Dreadful—City of Angels 

(Paramount/Showtime)

In this spinoff of Penny Dreadful, malevolent forces clash in 1930s Los Angeles, raising hell in a provocative drama about fascism and racism that also seems subtly influenced the classic film Chinatown. City of Angels’ 10 riveting episodes are so superbly directed and acted (by a formidable cast led by Nathan Lane in one of his best performances as a cynical Jewish detective with a Mexican-American partner—Daniel Zovatto, also quite good—and Natalie Dormer, excellent in three very distinct roles) that they would work handily even without the ultimately superfluous supernatural frame. Extras are three brief featurettes.

September '20 Digital Week III

VOD/Virtual Cinema Releases of the Week 

I Am Woman 

(Quiver Distribution)

Australian Helen Reddy, one of the biggest pop stars of the 1970s, had several hits including “Delta Dawn,” “Ruby Red Dress” and her biggest, “I Am Woman,” which became an international anthem during the era of the Equal Rights Amendment (which failed to pass, although a belated push for its ratification is happening now). Director Unjoo Moon’s biopic hits all the predictable notes—early failure followed by huge success, which leads to a messy marriage and a reevaluation of how fame affects one’s personal life—but is held together by an authentically great performance by Tilda Cobham-Herveym who makes Helen more complicated and sympathetic than the naïve woman thrown to the showbiz lions that the script points toward. 

Sibyl 

(Music Box Films)

At first, director Justine Triet is in complete control of this humorous study of a therapist gradually drawn into the world of moviemaking when neurotic actress Margot demands Sibyl become her therapist to finesse the on-set tenseness with her costar and on-set lover Igor and the director (Igor’s real-life lover). The cast includes Virginie Efira as Sibyl, Gaspard Ulliel as Igor and Sandra Hüller as the director—the latter overdoes it, ruining would-be funny and piercing sequences—but is led by the exquisite Adèle Exarchopoulos, who breathes such luminous life into the caricatured Margot that she dominates the movie, even when it takes a turn into increasingly implausible territory no reputable therapist would be dragged into, leading to a disappointing copout ending.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

Flying Leathernecks 

(Warner Archive)

Nicholas Ray made this standard-issue 1951 war movie about a marine air squadron fighting the latter stages of the war in the Pacific against the Japanese, who must deal with their own leaders and one another as well as the enemy. In essence, it’s a nominal John Wayne vehicle, as Wayne—as large a piece of non-acting granite as there ever was—butts heads with Robert Ryan, who’s his superior (both in the film and as an actor). Ray’s most interesting contribution is using actual color combat footage to give a sense of verisimilitude the rest of the movie lacks. On Blu-ray, the vividness of the Technicolor process really jumps off the screen.

DVD Releases of the Week

The Best of Cher 

(Time Life)

This nine-disc set collects the TV specials, episodes from her variety show and televised concerts that Cher starred in from the ‘70s through the ‘90s, including 10 episodes of her 1975 show Cher; her specials Cher…Special (1978) and Cher…and Other Fantasies (1979); and her 1991 and 1999 Las Vegas extravaganzas. Best is the very first episode of Cher, which aired on February 9, 1975 and guest-starred Elton John, Bette Midler and Flip Wilson; where else can one experience Cher and Elton duet on “Bennie and the Jets” and Cher, Bette and Elton trade vocals on “Mockingbird” and “Proud Mary”? The many extras include disc nine’s full-length documentary, Dear Mom, Love Cher (2013); clips of Cher on Dick Cavett’s and James Corden’s talk shows; interviews with Bob Mackie (of course), Cher’s executive producer George Schlatter and Cher herself; and her performance of the national anthem at the 1999 Super Bowl.

For They Know Not What They Do 

(First Run Features)

In this heartrending documentary, Christian families struggle with the fact that—to their eternal horror—loved ones sometimes come out as gay, upending their safe, religiously self-satisfied lives, sometimes even (as we see happening to one family) with fatal consequences. Director Daniel Karslake compassionately allows these people to discuss how they processed their reactions and the nearly impossible to reverse consequences that came afterwards. But there are also hopeful stories, like Sarah McBride, a young trans woman who has overcome difficulties and tragedy to finally get her parents’ love and support and speak at the 2016 Democratic Convention. 

A Tramway in Jerusalem 

(Film Movement)

Israeli director Amos Gitai, always unafraid to tackle thorny questions about his home country that have no easy answers, returns with this episodic and typically complex journey, literally: the tram is on a rail line that connects Jewish and Palestinian neighborhoods. Alongside glimpses of the locals who share the trams—who interact at times cordially and at others antagonistically—there are foreigners like French actor Mathieu Amalric, who plays a tourist visiting with his young son, both of them mesmerized by an oud player aboard the tram. Amalric is later laughed at for his naïve views on Israel. The lone extra is a substantial one: a 35-minute film by Gitai, A Letter to a Friend in Gaza, another sober reflection on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

CD Releases of the Week 

Lang Lang—Bach’s Goldberg Variations 

(Deutsche Grammophon)

When Lang Lang set his sights on J.S. Bach’s greatest solo keyboard work (and a touchstone for pianists like Glenn Gould and Andras Schiff), he convinced his record company that he should release two recordings —one from the confines of a studio and the other from a church in Leipzig, where Bach lived and died. Since his interpretation spans 90 minutes, that’s two discs apiece, so that’s a four-disc set for a single work. Listening to both performances demonstrates how idiosyncratic a pianist Lang Lang is, and the liberties he takes, especially some exceedingly slow tempos, make these sometimes irritating journeys never less than fascinating.

Simone Dinnerstein—A Character of Quiet: Schubert and Glass 

(Orange Mountain Music)

While quarantining in her home in Brooklyn, pianist Simone Dinnerstein decided to make a recording, pairing three etudes by Philip Glass and Franz Schubert’s massive final sonata. Although their sound worlds couldn’t be any more dissimilar to my ears—Glass’ minimalism has never made much of an impression—Dinnerstein’s playing, attuned to both composers’ singular styles, has made the Glass works positively enticing. But the great Schubert sonata is another thing entirely, as Dinnerstein easily traverses Schubert’s deliberate juxtapositions and repetitions while scaling this imposing musical mountain, whose view from the top—at the tremendous finale—is breathtaking.

August '20 Digital Week IV

VOD/Virtual Cinema Releases of the Week 

Desert One 

(Greenwich Entertainment)

In Barbara Kopple’s incisive, often gripping documentary about the disastrous U.S. rescue mission that, in 1980, failed to enter Iran and free the American hostages held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the personal stories of those involved are given equal time and weight. Through interviews with President Carter and Vice President Mondale, hostages and family members and mission commanders and those who took part in the attempted rescue, we see and hear what happened in close to real time, and Kopple’s brilliant use of astonishing archival footage from the crash site highlights this sobering chronicle of recent American history.

Tesla 

(IFC Films)

Michael Almereyda’s biopic of Nikola Tesla, the unsung hero of electricity—his alternating current was superior to Thomas Edison’s direct current but Tesla never got proper recognition (or corresponding wealth) for his genius—has moments of insight, particularly in Ethan Hawke’s serious but not unhumorous portrayal. But the director’s scattershot approach, which includes particularly grating anachronisms like Google, makes this an unsatisfying biography, despite nice supporting turns from Jim Gaffigan as George Westinghouse, Rebecca Dayan as Sarah Bernhardt and Eve Hewson as J.P. Morgan’s daughter.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Endeavour—Complete 7th Season 

(PBS Masterpiece)

A new decade (the 1970s) dawns in the series’ latest season as detective inspectors Moore and Thursday reunite to solve a new batch of crimes, even if there is still an underlying antagonism between them. With locales as divergent as Oxford and the canals (and opera house) of Venice, season seven is as diverting as ever, and the intertwined complexities of our heroes (via the top-notch performances by Shaun Evans and Roger Allam) makes one await the next set of Endeavour adventures. The hi-def transfer is excellent; extras are interviews and on-set featurettes

Enter the Forbidden City 

(Cinema Libre)

Director Mei Hu’s sumptuous historical epic traces the beginnings of the Peking Opera to the 18th century Qing dynasty, as one of the empire’s most celebrated performers—banned from performing in the capital due to bad behavior—fights his way back to the pinnacle of the stage by performing in front of the emperor. While melodramatic in the extreme, the film colorfully recreates a part of Chinese musical history not often seen or heard, and with exquisite photography, sets and costumes, Mei Hu has fashioned a stirring spectacle. Needless to say, the film looks splendid on Blu.

Pat and Mike 

Without Love 

(Warner Archive)

These Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicles are as different as night and day. 1945’s Without Love strains as it gets the classic acting duo together for a contrived tragicomedy that wastes Hepburn while showing how effortless Tracy is even in less than ideal circumstances. 1952’s superior Pat and Mike teams them as a great athlete (Hepburn) who takes on a veteran promoter (Tracy) to manage her career, and the result—if always predictable—is humorously diverting, thanks to the couple’s onscreen rapport and Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin’s clever script. Both B&W films have exceptional hi-def transfers; Love extras are a vintage cartoon and short.

Toni 

(Criterion)

French master Jean Renoir made this authentically stripped-down 1934 tragedy in the south of France, the actual location of a true-life tale of murder told with mainly amateur actors; the resulting choppy but riveting drama gets more tense as it approaches its inevitable conclusion. Criterion’s usual fine edition has a superlative new hi-def transfer of this historically important B&W film, a Renoir intro, episode of the French TV series Directors of Our Time about Renoir (directed by Jacques Rivette), audio commentary and new video essay.

The Trip to Greece 

(IFC Films)

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon return for their fourth—and supposedly final—go-round touring Europe, annoying each other and eating superb meals along the way, and if this entry is more of the same—amazing scenery, delectable dinners, good-natured banter and dueling impressions—the stars have such undeniable chemistry that the formula still works. Michael Winterbottom directs with his usual light hand, and even obvious running gags like Greece the country vs. Grease the movie find laughs; if the eventual plot divergence of comedy (Brydon) and tragedy (Coogan) is hackneyed, it doesn’t ruin an otherwise pleasurable journey. The spectacular Greek scenery—and food—looks even more delicious in hi-def.

DVD Release of the Week

Blue Bloods—Complete 10th Season 

(CBS/Paramount)

The latest season of this long-running police drama probes the family of NYC police commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck), whose sons are NYPD detectives, daughter an assistant DA and father a retired commissioner. Through this season’s 19 episodes (production of the final three episodes was halted due to the pandemic), the stoicism of Selleck—a comforting presence for many viewers during his storied TV career—and the always Bridget Moynihan (daughter) and Len Cariou (father) carries this derivative but well-performed procedural. Extras include deleted scenes, featurettes and a 200th episode celebration.

DVD/CD Boxed Set of the Week 

Michael Gielen Edition, Vol. 9—Beethoven 

(SWR)

German conductor Michael Gielen—who died last year at age 91—is commemorated by this massive boxed set that brings together four decades’ worth of his various Beethoven recordings, mainly the nine symphonies (some heard more than once) but also the majestic C Major Mass and other orchestral works. The highlight is a DVD of his 1987 performance of Beethoven’s epic Eroica Symphony, played in a fleet manner (only 45 minutes!). But the nine CDs have their share of gems as well, such as a lovely reading of the Pastoral Symphony and the most recent recording in this set, an emotional 2007 performance of the Mass.