Digital Week – July 23

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 cliches 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.

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 six (“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.

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.

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.

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.”

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. 

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.