New Year Movie Reviews

Not to be confused with the more famous Vienna New Year's Day concerts, this is a recording of the Berlin Philharmonic's New Year's Gala from December 31, 1997. The concert was billed as "Dances of Life, Love and Death," a homage to Carmen. Beginning with six of the most famous selections from Bizet's opera, the all-star cast features mezzo-soprano Anne Sophie Von Otter, baritone Bryn Terfel, and tenor Robert Alagna. Other than being passionately romantic, there is no direct link between Carmen and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, but a warm-hearted performance by pianist Mikhail Pletnev requires no excuse. Delivered with fiery virtuosity by violinist Gil Shaham, Pablo de Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy then transforms Bizet's melodies into a concentrated instrumental extravaganza. The mood continues with Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole and De Falla's Ritual Fire Dance, with the closing Hungarian Dance No. 5 by Brahms maintaining the theme by gypsy association. This is a wonderfully sultry concert for a cold winter's day, conductor Claudio Abbado delivering pure romance, winning uplifting performances from his fabulous gallery of musicians and stellar soloists.

The DVD is presented at 16:9, anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs. There is no option for standard 4:3 viewing. When viewed on a "standard" television, the program is squeezed and distorted, making everyone too tall and thin. On a widescreen TV, the picture, while vastly superior to VHS, shows grain and is not always well focused. The sound, in both PCM and Dolby Digital stereo, is excellent. Unless one counts the useful booklet, there are no bonus features. --Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk

The television broadcast from Vienna of the New Year's Day concert has attracted to the podium across the past 40 years or so a number of starry conductors, but none more so than Carlos Kleiber. In this 1989 concert, he brings to life the music of the Strauss family in an extraordinarily vital manner. The program blends favorites like the waltzes--"Accelerations," "The Blue Danube," and "Artist's Life"--with less common pieces like "The Dragonfly" polka in which Kleiber's arm at one moment seems to be drawing the insect's flight path! There's one break from tradition in that there is no dancing in this film. Director Brian Large knows the music inside out, providing close-ups at key moments such as the lovingly shaped introduction to the "Artist's Life" waltz, which begins with a breathtakingly played account of the opening tune on oboe. Play this at the end of a weary day and be transported to another world of unadulterated musical luxury. --Adrian Edwards

This DVD contains three holiday titles from Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass.

The Year Without a Santa Claus
Even Santa can suffer a case of the holiday blues. In this 1974 stop-motion holiday family favorite, a sparkly eyed Mrs. Claus (voiced by Shirley Booth) sings and tells about the year her hubby felt too weary and too unappreciated to prepare for his annual Christmas rounds. Mickey Rooney stars as the voice of Santa, a rosy-nosed puppet who travels incognito to Southtown in search of his tiniest reindeer, Vixen, and two well-meaning elves. Seems Mrs. Santa sent them to find proof of Christmas spirit--but all they've discovered is ambivalence about Santa's year off. Luckily, when Santa arrives and befriends a buck-toothed lad named Ignatius Thistlewhite, spirits begin to lift rapidly. Adult fans of this cousin to the 1970 television special Santa Claus Is Coming to Town will remember it as the Heat and Snow Miser movie. Their vaudevillian theme songs, complete with trombone and piano riffs, are hard to forget, but other treasured musical moments include "I Believe in Santa Claus," "I'll Have a Blue Christmas Without You," and "Here Comes Santa Claus." --Liane Thomas

Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
The wondrous story of Christ's birth is told by an unlikely source: Nestor, a gentle donkey with incredibly long ears and a first-hand knowledge of life in a stable. This simple tale, which takes place in the days of the Roman Empire, is about a humble couple about to take a long journey to Bethlehem and a small, insignificant donkey that is destined to help them along. By all outward appearances, Nestor does not deserve such a privilege. Stable animals tease him incessantly for his long appendages until, finally, he is cast out of the barn into the winter cold. Snow and ice bring about even greater calamity for Nestor until he receives a dose of divine goodness. Nestor meets Tilly, a heavenly cherub (voiced by Brenda Vaccaro) who imparts guidance to the despairing burro and tells him that soon he will be chosen to participate in a miracle involving a star, a baby, a lowly stable, and some travelers named Mary and Joseph. Short and sweet, this stop-motion Christmas gem from Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass is narrated by Roger Miller. Get out the hanky for an understated holiday classic that will appeal to families of all ages. --Lynn Gibson

Rudolph's Shiny New Year
Rudolph is legendary for saving Christmas, but did you know he saved the New Year as well? While Santa Claus is recuperating from his December sleigh ride, he receives a letter from an old friend, Father Time. Seems that Baby New Year is missing, and if the little tyke isn't found, Old Year will continue forever--a catastrophe for Father Time, whose job it is to keep things moving forward. A search party is essential, yet with such thick fog, there's only one reindeer fit for the job. "Rudolph with your nose so bright, you've six days left to set things right," says Santa. Trouble hits immediately when Rudolph discovers that Aeon the Terrible, a big-beaked monster bird, is also searching for the missing baby. Rudolph gets help from a giant whale and a good-natured caveman, who dish up plenty of song and dance in between narrow escapes in their race against the end of the calendar year. Sound far-fetched? Perhaps, but it contains as much magic as its predecessors, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, all produced and directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr., and written by the esteemed Romeo Muller. The same stop-motion animation we've grown to love is here as well, and narrator Red Skelton has as trusted a voice as Burl Ives and Fred Astaire. While the New Year holiday will never be as celebrated as Christmas, this title is a welcome addition to any Rankin and Bass collection of holiday films. --Lynn Gibson

Live Dead: The Grateful Dead in Concert is a great sampler of live performances from the latter third of the Grateful Dead's career. Like all Dead performances, there's a fair amount of chaff with the wheat, but among the three discs--Ticket to New Year's, View from the Vault, and Downhill from Here--fans will find many gems, as well as extra footage not available on VHS. Ticket to New Year's, taped on New Year's Eve 1987 at the Oakland Coliseum, is among the band's best filmed performances, featuring a robust "Terrapin Station," a (blessedly short) Space and Drums that segues sweetly into the stoner fave "Dark Star," and an unflinchingly bluesy "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," sung by Jerry Garcia with clear-eyed wistfulness. View from the Vault, taped July 8, 1990 (16 days before keyboardist Brent Mydland died of an overdose), in Pittsburgh, offers both great versions of Dead classics (including "Eyes of the World," "Let It Grow" and "He's Gone") and an intimate look at the dynamics that few could notice when attending a stadium show, including wonderful interplay between Garcia and Mydland. Downhill from Here, shot in the summer of 1989 at Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin, features cheesy, unnecessary video effects. It is redeemed by Garcia's blistering guitar solos during "Deal" and "China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider," a spacey pairing of "Uncle John's Band" with "Playing in the Band," and the tender ballad "Standing on the Moon." --Dave McCoy and Anne Hurley

One of the saddest times for Deadheads since the death of Jerry Garcia is New Year's Eve. The Dead's legendary performances in the Bay Area ushered in a couple of decades worth of new years, and even if you couldn't make it, it was comforting to know the band was carrying on the tradition. Well, that tradition is gone, but there's a video experience that comes pretty darn close--The Grateful Dead: Ticket to New Year's, taped on New Year's Eve 1987 at the Oakland Coliseum. It's a creatively photographed and extraordinarily performed concert film that ranks among the best Dead performances on video, packed with delightful surprises. Some of the best: a robust "Terrapin Station," a rare rendition of the stoner fave "Dark Star," and an unflinchingly bluesy "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." The effect of the whole performance is that of a bittersweet valentine to a way of life that may be gone but is still beloved. --Anne Hurley

Since 1941, the first great event in the classical calendar has been the New Year's Strauss concert by the Vienna Philharmonic. January 1, 2000 marked the end of the "Strauss year," 1999 being the centenary of the death of "Waltz King" Johann Strauss II and the 150th anniversary of the passing of his father, Johann Strauss. The previous May, the Vienna Philharmonic gave an outdoor Johann Strauss Gala, though only "The Blue Danube" waltz and "Radetzky March" overlap with this New Year's Concert. Here the orchestra gives an infectiously warm and confident performance, from the opening "Lagunen" waltz to the utterly exuberant "Eljen a Magjar!" polka. Mixing well-loved gems with such rarities as the "Albion" and "Hellenen" polkas, this music-making is a real delight, the lavishly garlanded hall as ravishing to the eye as the music to the ear. In homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, "The Blue Danube" is wittily shot as a series of graceful aerial pans across the outside of the Musikverein concert hall and over Vienna itself. Riccardo Muti, conducting his third Vienna New Year's concert, thoroughly enjoys himself, and it is clear everyone else does too. --Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk