City Slickers
Mitch (Billy Crystal) is losing his edge at work. Choices in life are narrowing, his hair is falling out and he’s reached the age when the peak years are in the rearview mirror. Will a cattle drive with his buddies rejuvenate him? The humor in City Slickers (1991) is often in the pregnant pauses. The new Collector’s Edition includes deleted scenes, a handful of short features and audio commentary by director Ron Underwood and cast.
Egon Schiele: Death and the Maiden
Director Dieter Berner caught the youthful vitality of his subject, fin de siècle artist Egon Schiele, by casting a young actor, Noah Saavedra. Studying photographs of the painter, Saavedra learned to live in Schiele’s body. Death and the Maiden also focuses on the women he painted, starting with his sister Gerti (Maresi Riegner) and presents a vivid picture of Vienna’s thriving culture in the years before World War I. Death, decay and doom permeated Schiele’s canvases.
Yes - Yessongs
In its heyday, Yes embodied rock music’s move toward the grandiose and the elaborate with gatefold LP covers adorned with Roger Dean fantasy paintings and side-long album tracks. The British band was at its prog peak when this 1972 concert was documented at London’s Rainbow Theatre. The players came out in spangles and capes and proceeded to execute the intricacies of their current album, Yessongs. The lineup included elfin-voiced Jon Anderson and master guitarist Steve Howe.
Les Parents Terribles
Jean Cocteau was a poet, playwright, novelist, stage designer and painter, but is best remembered as a filmmaker. Of his career as director, the darkly humorous Beauty and the Beast was his masterpiece. But Les Parents Terribles (1948) is an overlooked gem, fluidly executed with a story that hovers between comedy and tragedy. A smothering mother plots to break up her son’s affair by revealing that his girlfriend is his father’s mistress. Only in France?
