Photo courtesy of Transmission Films
The Nightingale (2018)
Recently released on Blu-ray and DVD: The Nightingale, 16 Bars and "I Got You Babe: The Best of Sonny & Cher."
The Nightingale (IFC Films/Shout! Factory)
In The Nightingale (2018), Clare (Aisling Franciosi) is an Irish convict in 1825 Australia. Trapped at a British army outpost garrisoned by drunks, she’s held captive by the outpost’s commander. After he and his men rape her and kill her husband and baby, she plans revenge.
Writer-director Jennifer Kent’s previous film, The Babadook (2014), is a great horror thriller. In The Nightingale, the horror is entirely of human origin in a story that examines quarrelsome states of servitude that set men over women, officers over soldiers, English over Irish, white over black. With the help of an Aborigine, Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), Clare embarks on an odyssey to hunt down the commander across forest and hills—a landscape where genocide is casually committed against indigenous people. Clare and Billy find it hard to get along and get past their cultural assumptions, but they learn something about what it means to be human.
16 Bars (MVD Visual)
At Richmond City Jail, prisoners can participate in a unique music therapy program. Arrested Development’s Speech leads a two-week workshop in which the hip-hop star helps inmates craft their thoughts into raps and songs and records the results on a laptop-driven studio. The documentary 16 Bars looks at the results of Speech’s mentorship as inmates articulate the trauma, violence and hopelessness behind their arrest. Most express themselves through rap; one chose outlaw country balladry.
“I Got You Babe: The Best of Sonny & Cher” (TimeLife)
Sonny was the comic relief to sultry Cher throughout “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” (1971-1974). Although brightly colored by contemporary pop art, the format played within the conventions of TV variety shows. There was humor based on the personae of its stars, hits accompanied by a brassy orchestra, silly costume skits and old-time guest stars (Jimmy Durante?). The best moments reveal Cher’s acting talents. The five-DVD set includes 10 episodes and an interview with Cher.
