Forever (Dael Orlandersmith)

This solo work, written and performed by Dael Orlandersmith, provides an unrelenting encounter with the pains of abuse and the (surprisingly) redemptive power of rock n roll, especially the punk variety.  This power is surprising because Orlandersmith is an African-American women raised in Harlem where Jim Morrison and Patti Smith are white kids without the street cred of the neighborhood's soul brethren.  The narrative, however, revolves primarily around her relationship with her mother whose years of physically and verbally taunting her daughter culminate in her self-centered response to Dael's rape.

Recommend with caveats (because of graphic depictions of abuse and rape)

The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum)

Our first film to see in 2015, The Imitation Game, was Morton Tyldum's highly fictionalized account of Alan Turing's contributions to deciphering Nazi code machine, Enigma.  Perhaps we were in the mood to view a somewhat sentimentalized account of misunderstood genius and were swept along with tripartite narrative, enough so that we didn't mind (too much) the obvious (even to us, the somewhat uninformed) historical inaccuracies (such as using correction fluid to change a typewritten document in 1951) or (even worse) Keira Knightley's presence in the film.  For useful accounts of the historical inaccuracies, see http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/ and www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/20/the-imitation-game-invents-new-slander-to-insult-alan-turing-reel-history.

Recommend with caveats.

A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg)

A Dangerous Method has all sorts of promise--the early years of psycho-analysis, the birth and dissolution of Freud and Jung's friendship, David Cronenberg--but none of that promise survives the drab script or Keira Knightley's atrocious acting.

Recommend with great reservation.

The Internal Comedy: Confessions of a serial killer (Michael Sturminger)

Featuring John Malkovich as Jack Unterweger, an Austrian serial killer. Strange hodge-podge of classical music and rant without any center.

Disappointing.  Recommend with reservations

The Ides of March (Clooney)

Engaging but not completely coherent.

Recommend with caveats.

Sarah's Key (Gilles Paquet-Brenner)

Mixed feelings about a highly emotional (and highly unlikely) tale.

Recommend with caveats

Mark O'Connor String Quartet

Mark O'Connor, violin
Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin
Gillian Gallagher, viola
Patrice Jackson, cello

O'Connor, String Quartet No 2 "Bluegrass" (2005)
--, String Quartet No 3 "Old-Time" (2008)

After three duets based on Americana music, the first half concluded with the String Quartet No 2. The introductory duets filled our ears with the rhythms and sonorities of native music and prepared is for the more complex combinations of the longer work. Though filled with some gorgeous moments, it did not make its structure readily apparent in the first listening. Despite the virtuosic performances, I was less than awed.

The second half of the program began with a 7-minute free improvisation by O'Connor that provided more clues about the quartet from the first half. Quartet #3, however, seemed to leave the improvisory mode behind with four highly structured movements that allowed the cello to provide the necessary bones. The second movement was my favorite. It was highly reminiscent of "Moondog," a sumptuous piece on the Kronos Quartet's Ancient Music album.

Encore: Appalachian Waltz, very lovely

Recommend with caveats.

Black Watch (Gregory Burke)

From its first appearance in the states in 2006, we had read and heard terrific reports of Black Watch but hadn't managed to get tickets during its initial foray to the states. In 2008, we stood in line for a couple of hours in London trying to get tickets to a performance there, but gave up when it became clear that out chances of getting tickets to the sold out performance were null. We knew the Scottish National Theatre was coming back to the states this year, but for the longest time the website didn't mention any stops in the NYC or Boston areas. Because we contemplated traveling to Chicago or Washington DC for a performance, we were delighted to discover that SNT would return to St. Ann's Warehouse in Dumbo Brooklyn.

Perhaps four years is too long to see a play. The anticipation builds, and expectations exceed anything a production could meet. We were very disappointed. The dialogue was very difficult to follow, and the narrative seemed, well, if not trite, then at least predictable.

I've linked Ben Brantley's most recent review. I wish I'd like it as much as he did. And I recommend it because so many other recommended it to me.

Recommended. With my own personal caveats.

Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti)

Lovely to see Natalie Dessay in this overwrought, umpahpah role once again.

Recommend for Dessay; otherwise forget it.

The Method Gun (Rude Mechs)

If seeing experimental theatre is hit or miss, this was a miss. Full of silliness and empty of structure, its humor depends upon the audience having prior experience with acting exercises. The final scene with the swinging lamps was luminous.

See the New York Times article linked to this post's title for a useful assessment of Rude Mechs' creative project.

I won't pass on another opportunity to see this ensemble; I simply hope the production is less solipsistic.

Recommend. With caveats.

White Material (Claire Denis)

Set in an unspecified sub-Saharan nation roiled alternatively, really concurrently, by corruption and rebellion, the film features Isabelle Hupert as an operator of a coffee plantation who stubbornly refuses to flee when chaos descends. Difficult to position her as the victim.

Recommend with this caveat: the films requires, but probably doesn't warrant, two viewings.

Comme Toujours Here I Stand (Big Dance Theater)

Perhaps if I'd seen the film on which it was based, Cleo from 5 to 7, I would have been able to follow and thus appreciate this production. I haven't, I didn't, and I don't. Mike had, did, and does.

Recommend with caveats.

Battle of Black and Dogs (Bernard-Marie Koltes)

Overwhelming production of a powerful, overwhelming play.

Recommend with caveats.

Mother

Shutter Island

Interesting suspense film that doesn't completely hold.

recommend with caveats

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call (Werner Herzog)

For the past fifteen or so years, Mike has kept a running list of "The 10 Most Depressing Movies." I've seen a few but not many on this list. Based on the two or three I've seen, I'm willing to bet the first 110 minutes of this film could displace one and find it's place mid-way through the list.

Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, the film bleeds the city of the saturated colors associated with Carnival and presents a bleak, gray urban nightmare of drug/alcohol addiction, prostitution, and gambling.

That said, I have to admit that the weakest part of the movie are the final 12 minutes when the sun and a rainbox of color returns; everything turns around and the ending is tied up neatly and happily. What was that about?

Recommend with caveats.

Sherlock Holmes

Good acting, thin plot. (When will we get beyond the need to pay homage to The DaVinci Code?) No matter, it's satisfying to look at Robert Downey, Jr. for two hours.

Recommended with caveats.

Quartett, Heiner Muller

Director Robert Wilson and actress Isabelle Huppert were enough to entice us make the mad drive from New Haven to Brooklyn during late-afternoon traffic. I'm not convinced the evening was worth the effort.

The primary difficulty was my limited French. Yes, there were supertitles, but our excellent seats meant I couldn't see both the stage and read the text at the same time. And because Wilson's stylized production sought to divorce what the audience saw from what the audience heard (which I guess is what I experienced in the extreme), I had difficulty grabbing ahold of anything.

I feel so plebian, so philistine.

Recommend. Sorta. With Caveats.

Phedre, Jean Racine (trans. Ted Hughes)

In the year of cougars, who could turn down a chance to see Jean Racine's Phedre, especially in a translation by Ted Hughes? The text did not disappoint, though Yale School of Drama's production did. The acting started at a high emotional pitch and had no where else to go. Plus there's the lethal problem of casting a young engenue (and what else will a director find at YSD?) as the fading leading lady.

Recommend. Caveats

In I, Juliet Binoche and Akram Khan

We made extraordinary efforts to see this production. In addition to purchasing the tickets months in advance, we cut short our work days to drive to Brooklyn during afternoon rush hour. We knew to expect something out of the ordinary: a performance piece that asked an actor to dance and a dancer to act. And that erasure of boundaries was certainly daring. Moreover many visual elements, especially the moving wall that gradually creeped on the audience and created a sense of cramped foreboding, were engaging.

But the dancer and the actor forgot to engage a playwright. Where the narrative wasn't trite, it was disjointed.

After all the efforts we'd made to see it, I wished the producers had made the effort to create a more compelling narrative structure.

Recommend, with caveats