Lloyd Schwartz

Cinerama Brought The Power Of Peripheral Vision To The Movies

Lloyd Schwartz — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:53:00 +0000

As early as silent film, directors attempted to create widescreen images. But in the 1950s it became a commercial necessity to give the multitude of new TV watchers what they couldn't get on a small screen. So even before CinemaScope, VistaVision, Todd-AO and Panavision, there was Cinerama — a process in which three projectors threw three simultaneous images onto a gigantic curved screen.

Mozart's Starring Role In 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'

Lloyd Schwartz — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:23:00 +0000

Sunday Bloody Sunday is one of those films that lets you into the lives of believable, complicated characters. A handsome, self-centered young artist played by the actor/rock singer Murray Head is having simultaneous affairs with both an older woman (played with infinitely nuanced self-irony by Glenda Jackson) and an older man, a Jewish doctor (the touching Peter Finch), two intelligent adults who have mutual friends and even know each other slightly.

Cecilia Bartoli's New 'Mission' Unearths Baroque Gems

Lloyd Schwartz — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:52:00 +0000

I never heard of the Baroque composer Agostino Steffani until last year, when the Boston Early Music Festival presented the North American premiere of Steffani's Niobe, an opera about the mythical queen who bragged so much about her many children, the gods killed them all in revenge. One of the leading roles, Niobe's husband King Amphion, was played by the early-music superstar countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, who sang the opera's most sublime aria — a hymn to the harmony of the spheres. I couldn't wait to hear Jaroussky again, and was eager to hear more Steffani.

What Happened To 'Baby Jane?' She's Turning 50

Lloyd Schwartz — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:54:00 +0000

Baby Jane Hudson is now 50 years old — or at least the strange and brilliant movie in which she's the main character is, just released as a beautifully remastered Blu-ray. Robert Aldrich's grotesque gothic tragedy is a cross between Gypsy, with its antithetical show-biz kid sisters, and Sunset Boulevard, with its decayed Hollywood glamour.

Baby Jane is a blond, curly-haired child star, a Shirley Temple wannabe, like Baby June in Gypsy. She's self-centered and more selfish than her plain sister, Blanche, who in the 1930s becomes a queen of Hollywood melodrama.

Always A Rose: Elliott Carter Remembered

Lloyd Schwartz — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 19:38:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRTfbViCmM8

60 Years Later, Still 'Singin' In The Rain'

Lloyd Schwartz — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:47:00 +0000

Hollywood is often at its best when it's making fun of itself, and few movies are funnier or more fun than Singin' in the Rain, the broadly satirical musical comedy about the transition from silent movies to sound.

Gene Kelly, who co-directed the film with Stanley Donen, stars as the stuntman turned matinee idol who falls in love with adorable Debbie Reynolds.

Tanglewood Celebrates 75th With Free Web Stream

Lloyd Schwartz — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:15:00 +0000

On July 20, 1958, at Tanglewood — the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra — pianist Leon Fleisher played an electrifying Brahms First Piano Concerto with the orchestra under its former music director, Pierre Monteux. This remarkable teaming has not been heard since then.

But the BSO has come up with an inspired way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Tanglewood.

'St. Matthew Passion:' A Monumental Bach Feast

Lloyd Schwartz — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:46:00 +0000

Facing Bach's St. Matthew Passion, I often feel a combination of anticipation and dread. It's a great work, profound in its humanity and spirituality, with sublimely beautiful music. But it's a long haul, and if it's not a good performance, well, I'm stuck. And it can be not-good in various ways: either too solemnly pious or too much an exercise in musical style rather than emotional drama. A new DVD recorded in 2010 at Berlin's great concert hall, the Philharmonie, would be of major interest under any circumstances.

'Car 54' Re-Release Drives An Old Fan To Reminisce

Lloyd Schwartz — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 15:53:00 +0000

I grew up in New York City, but I didn't watch Car 54, Where Are You? until I got hooked on it in syndication long after it was originally aired. So I was very happy to see the complete series of 60 episodes released on two DVD boxed sets. The episode in Season 2 titled "I Hate Capt.

A Gershwin Biopic That 'Ain't Necessarily So' True

Lloyd Schwartz — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:23:00 +0000

The movie Rhapsody in Blue, a biography of George Gershwin, was released only eight years after his death from a brain tumor at the age of 38. It's a good subject: Gershwin wrote some of the best popular songs ever produced in this country, but he also had ambitions to be a serious classical composer and wrote symphonic music, concertos and an opera — all of which are still performed.

He's played by Robert Alda, the matinee-idol father of M*A*S*H's Alan Alda, who went on to star in the original Broadway production of Guys and Dolls.