Digital Week – November 1st

This incredibly belated sequel does the bare minimum—rah-rah jingoism, exciting fighter-pilot sequences—but director Joseph Kosinski doesn’t bother to go any further, as the interchangeable scenes in flight school among Maverick’s students show. The original movie was nothing special but at least had an interesting rivalry between Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer (who appears briefly here). And poor Jennifer Connolly, nearly always a refreshing presence in any movie, can do little with her contrived romance with Cruise, who cruises by only on movie-star wattage. There’s a first-rate UHD transfer; the Blu-ray disc includes 80 minutes of on-set featurettes and interviews.

Jan Schmidt-Garre’s riveting documentary looks at three intense classical/opera singers: Albania’s Ermonela Jaho, Canada’s Barbara Hannigan and Lithuania’s Asmik Grigorian. With access to these remarkable women for rehearsals and warmup exercises before singing, respectively, Tchaikovsky, Satie and Puccini, Schmidt-Garre has made an insightful portrait of committed artistry (“Fuoco Sacro” means “sacred fire”). Hi-def video and audio are first-rate; extras are extended scenes of their warmups, along with musicmaking.

In Fernando Leon de Aránoa’s aggressively second-rate satire, Javier Bardem skillfully portrays of the head of a company manufacturing scales who will do anything to ensure he wins another award for his wall, whether shaming and firing longtime loyal employees or screwing the new intern who happens to be the daughter of longtime friends. As Aránoa’s script moves along its predictable trajectory, Bardem anchors the movie as a three-dimensional character and not simply the cardboard villain he’s written as. There’s a superior hi-def transfer; extras are two interviews with Bardem and Aránoa.

Softcore purveyor Just Jaeckin made elegant features like this 1978 entry about the editor-in-chief of a women’s magazine hosting a “last romantic lover” contest who falls for the winner, the lion tamer of a rural circus company. Of course, Jaeckin is greatly helped by his lead actress, the breathtaking Dayle Haddon, who speaks French and English fluently and makes the editor a tantalizing bundle of independence, professionalism and charm. Some of it’s risible, like the circus vs. sophisticated subject, while suave actor Fernando Rey is wasted as the lion tamer’s father, but it’s still highly watchable. There’s a good hi-def transfer; extras are an audio commentary, new interviews with Jaeckin and Haddon and footage from a Jaeckin tribute.

In the latest season of this HBO Max series about young superheroes, Robin returns to Gotham as a dangerous adversary after a particularly nasty end, and the other titans must regroup to stop him—he’s now known as Red Hood. The capable and energetic young cast helps put this over despite its inherent silliness. All 13 episodes of the third season—the fourth is on the way—are included on three discs; extras comprise several featurettes and interviews.

American soprano Nadine Sierra dazzlingly demonstrates why lustrous singing, accomplished acting and winning charm make her one of this generation’s few triple-threat opera performers as Violetta, the consumptive tragic heroine in Giuseppe Verdi’s classic romance, here seen in Florence, Italy, in fall 2021. Davide Livermore directs a stylish modern-dress version of the opera, but it’s the musicmaking (Zubin Mehta leads the orchestra and chorus) and performances, with Sierra’s overwhelming dramatic and sonic presence, that makes this a satisfying production.

French director Patrice Leconte has made stylish studies of strangely compelling and unbalanced relationships for decades, and while the films in this set—2001’s “Felix and Lola” and 2002’s “Love Street”—are not up to his best, like “Monsieur Hire” or “The Hairdresser’s Husband,” they are as elegantly made as ever. Philippe Torreton and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Felix and Lola and Laetitia Casta, Patrick Timsit and Vincent Elbaz in “Love Street” make Leconte’s assiduously oddish characters palatable even through the overall weirdness. Both films look great on Blu-ray; each has a commentary by reviewer Wade Major.

For seven seasons, Liev Schreiber passionately played Ray Donovan, the fixer who can save any politician or celebrity, but whose family life’s a mess that he’s not able to handle. This set collects all 82 episodes of the Showtime drama series, along with the superfluous two-hour “Ray Donovan: The Movie,” which premiered earlier this year. Along with Schreiber’s best performance, there’s fine acting by Jon Voigt along with an array of guest stars throughout the show’s run. The comprehensive 29-disc set also includes more than two hours’ worth of special features.