Barry's stats
- Review count13
- Helpfulness votes1
- First reviewFebruary 25, 2009
- Last reviewOctober 14, 2012
- Featured reviews0
- Average rating3.4
Overall rating
5
/
5
A truly delicious "Elixir"
PostedOctober 14, 2012
A classic opera with a beautiful score, not excessively silly plot (for a comic opera, that is!) and marvelous cast, in a traditional production without gimmicks. Netrebko (even if her voice was less than perfect), Polenzani, Kwiecien and Maestri turned in superb performances in this highly appealing Bartlett Sher staging. What more could one ask? Better catch this while you can! Under Peter Gelb's often misguided management, the rest of the Met's season seems destined to bring us more than one of his ill-fated, gimmicky, new-fangled travesties. Pity!
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
4
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5
Bolshoi's "Le Corsaire"
PostedMarch 17, 2012
Can there be too much of a good thing? This production proves the answer is YES! As a mercy to its audience, the 3 hour, 35 minute run time should have been cut by AT LEAST one hour -- by removing shamelessly repetitious set pieces which do not advance the (already paper thin) plot by even one mm. Given the length of this performance, starting even 7 minutes late was unpardonable. Do you want people to starve? Do you expect area restaurants to be open at 10:42 PM? Also, I must add that the BAM Rose Cinema is not a sufficiently civilized venue for such entertainment. We much prefer the "Big Cinema" on 59 St. Manhattan for its comfortable seating, pleasant facilities and desirable location. If only it would show these productions at 1 PM instead of two hours earlier!
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
2
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5
Silly anti-Soviet fantasy
PostedDecember 3, 2011
John Hodges' 'Collaborators' is a silly fantasy which imagines a joint literary effort by Stalin and Soviet playwright Mikhail Bulgakov. It is neither as clever nor as insightful as it pretends to be and follows a long, reactionary British tradition of conflating Stalin's counter-revolutionary regime with Bolshevism and authentic communism. Hodges' only significant insight is his grasp of the politically corrosive and corrupting role of material privilege on otherwise honest people. There's not enough here, though, for genuinely important theater. Too bad!
No, I do not recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
2
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5
Amusing but shallow
PostedJune 9, 2011
I pity Woody Allen. Has he EVER made a film that would satisfy his aspiration to join the pantheon of immortal film auteurs? I think not. Nor will "Midnight in Paris" do so. Like most (all?) of his films, it is an exercise in self-indulgence, focusing shamelessly and tiresomely on his own fantasies and foibles. Despite some wit and amusement, there is nothing of substance here, nothing that approaches concern with the real world. Chatter about the meaning of life and love does nothing to illuminate those issues. The most astonishing aspect of this film is that the actress with whom Gil finally unites bears a strong resemblance to Mia Farrow! Is the whole enterprise mainly an effort to win her back?
No, I do not recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
5
/
5
A hidden treasure
PostedJune 8, 2011
The performances were excellent on every count - conductor, orchestra, soloists, host. And camera!- the video coordinator deserves special applause for focusing on orchestra sections and players as they were featured, making this an exciting visual experience concert halls can hardly match.
All arts organizations should be doing this!
Too bad one ticketing outfit reported this was sold out, leaving our theater only half full.
All arts organizations should be doing this!
Too bad one ticketing outfit reported this was sold out, leaving our theater only half full.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
3
/
5
Turandot minus the extras
PostedJuly 23, 2010
I was shocked to find that the "Summer Encore" showing of "Turandot" was a severely truncated version of the original simulcast. The truly glorious advantages of the Met simulcast experience over what one sees in the Opera House -- the between-act interviews with the lead performers, stage manager, costume designer and other production personnel, the impressive back-stage views of the scenery changes -- all of these were CUT from the "Encore"! Worst of all, there wasn't even an intermission! I gladly would have paid the full price in order to retain the full "Live in HD" experience. Does the Met's web site indicate that the "Summer Encores" omit all these wonderful features? I doubt it.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
3
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5
Doomed to repeat their political mistakes
PostedApril 30, 2010
This new Chilean film, based on the diary of one of the inmates, relates the story of a group of prominent political prisoners in the 1970s. After the government of elected "Socialist" President Salvador Allende was ousted in 1973, in a CIA-engineered coup d'etat led by army general-turned-dictator, Augusto Pinochet, ten surviving members of Allende's cabinet were consigned to a navy-run prison camp on the cold and forbidding Dawson Island, in the Strait of Magellan, an area infamous for some of the world's worst weather.
As a prisoner-of-war movie, "Dawson Island 10" works reasonably well. Despised as "Communists" and traitors by most of their captors, the inmates are forced to perform hard labor under punishing conditions and are routinely insulted and degraded. The living conditions portrayed in the film, however (comfortable-looking beds and bedding), are at odds with the descriptions of squalor that appeared in later authoritative reports. The prison commandant, an old-school naval officer, is shown to give lip service to honoring the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and to believe that he is "rehabilitating" his captives, turning them into "better people" through hard labor. The film indicates that, with time, he develops a degree of respect for their intelligence and abilities. (They repair his malfunctioning radio.) It also shows him resisting subordinate army officers who agitate repeatedly for solving the growing problem of prison overcrowding by executing some or all of the prisoners. Instead, he has them build more barracks. (A notable exception to this prisoner protection was the transfer of ailing former Defense Minister, Jose Toha, to the Air Force War Academy in Santiago, where he suffered endless tortures and died by hanging.) Even if the film's potrayal of the commandant's humanity is accurate, it would be completely mistaken to assume that this behavior was typical of the Chilean navy. Its Admiral Merino was one of the coup leaders and the Naval War Academy in Valparaiso was one of the regime's most notorious torture centers.
The most egregious omission of "Dawson Island 10" is its failure to analyze the suicidal politics of Allende & Co. in their "peaceful, parliamentary road to socialism." One of the former cabinet members speaks glowingly about their desire to "take power without firing a shot." No one speaks out against this idiocy. Several of them, bemoaning their fate, cry out: "how did this happen?", "what did we do wrong"? It was all I could do to restrain myself from yelling out, at the top of my voice "you let the bloody fascists take power!". It was not only these prisoners who learned NOTHING from the overthrow of the Allende regime. The film makers seemed not to have learned the appropriate lessons as well. The deeply Stalinist and reformist idea that capitalism can be overthrown from WITHIN the system is one of the deadliest political illusions in today's world. As Karl Marx said after the overthrow of the Paris Commune of 1871, "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes." It is necessary to smash that state machinery and replace it with one that advances the interests of the working class. If that lesson is learned, the Chilean martyrs will not have suffered in vain.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
1
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5
Discouraging piece of trash
PostedApril 29, 2010
Given that the FEATURED film (made in Cuba) in the 2010 Havana Film Festival in New York portrays an early 20th century Havana pimp as a national hero(!), one gets the impression that, as far as the Cuban Ministry of Culture (which passes on the selection of films sent to the HFFNY) is concerned, almost anything goes. This impression is strengthened by the increasing number of trashy films that have found their way into this festival in recent years, including the (made in U.S.) offering under consideration here, whose mistranslated title ("desarrollo" means "development," not "overdevelopment") barely hints at the overcooked, overwrought and thoroughly bizarre nature of this film. Only fools and sycophants would accept the notion that this film's absurd excesses are "merely" emanations from the mind of its protagonist, a pathetic and sleazy bourgeois intellectual, in self-imposed exile from Cuba. The film's few (and fleeting) positive moments come in the protagonist's recognition of the murderously hollow and racist nature of U.S. "democracy" and his nostalgia for the essential decency of the society he has abandoned.
Is the exploitation of female flesh now an officially-embraced emblem of Cuban (and Cuban-blessed) cinema? If so, that does not augur well for the future of the once-inspiring Cuban revolution. For shame, Havana bureaucrats, for shame.
No, I do not recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
3
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5
Cuisine as politics? Hardly
PostedApril 29, 2010
Bearing a mistranslated title (which should have been "Of Pots and Dreams"), this film succeeds best as a colorful and eye-catching sampler of Peruvian cuisine and culture, both at home and abroad. Will that cuisine achieve the world-wide distribution of the Mexican or the Japanese? Time will tell. (This is the evident hope of the film makers, whose portraits of Peruvian restaurant pioneers in several world capitals completely overlooked the decades-long Peruvian-style roast chicken phenomenon in New York City.) The peculiar conceit of Cabellos et al., however, that promotion of their native cuisine can serve as a means of revolutionizing their society is wildly misguided and stupendously silly — an unwelcome intrusion of pathetic political naivete in an otherwise charming film.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
3
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5
Good production, needs better performers
PostedOctober 30, 2009
A solid, competent production of -- sad to say --a relatively static opera. Slimmer, more attractive lead performers would have been an improvement. Dolora Zajick, who "owns" the role of Amneris, should relinquish her 20 year lease. For me, the most enjoyable performances were those of Amonasro and the High Priest. With all the hype, the Met should do better.
No, I do not recommend this movie.
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