Summer 2009 Online Movies

Summer 2009: Online Movies

by John Gallagher

ONLINE MOVIES: The internet is packed with terrific films – many viewable for free. The venerable YouTube is full of surprises, including William Wellman’s rare 1928 BEGGARS OF LIFE, probably Louise Brooks’ finest American film, impossible-to-find early Paramount Gary Cooper vehicles ONLY THE BRAVE, THE MAN FROM WYOMING and SEVEN DAYS LEAVE (all 1930), Willis O’Brien’s color-tinted pioneering dinosaur drama THE LOST WORLD (1925), plus hundreds of original trailers and clips. Just do a search for your favorite actor or director

Hulu (www.hulu.com) provides hours of viewing pleasure at no cost. They’ve just added both seasons of the genius Edgar Wright-Simon Pegg BBC TV series SPACED, an endlessly inventive show that provided the seeds for SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ. Other titles currently viewable include Don Siegel’s THE BEGUILED (1971) starring Clint Eastwood, Eastwood’s little known BREEZY (1973) starring William Holden, Polanski’s not-available-on-DVD masterpiece CUL-DE-SAC (1966), Scorsese’s LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988), Mankiewicz’ THE HONEY POT (1967), two versions of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1936 and 1992), Wellman’s THUNDER BIRDS (1942), Wyler’s DEAD END (1937), CASINO ROYALE (1967), the original TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1973), Mario Bava’s BLACK SUNDAY (1960) and BLACK SABBATH (1964), Demme’s SOMETHING WILD (1986), Penn’s THE MISSOURI BREAKS (1976), Forman’s HAIR (1979), lots of Corman AIP’s with Vincent Price, a gaggle of British Hitchcocks, plenty of documentaries including THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK and SUPER SIZE ME, and Hollywood blockbusters like AIR FORCE ONE, ROB ROY and PRIMAL FEAR. There’s a tremendous amount of TV as well, including LOST and SNL.

And don’t forget to keep checking in at the Warner Archive where new selections for download or purchase from the MGM, Warner Bros., and RKO are constantly appearing. Recent highlights include Wellman’s silent comedy THE BOOB (1926) starring 21-year-old Joan Crawford, Michael Curtiz’ 20,0000 YEARS IN SING SING (1933) with Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis, and a batch of 50s and 60s Warners titles. Visit the archive at http://www.wbshop.com/Warner-Archive/ARCHIVE,default,sc.html.

WARNER HOME VIDEO: The Woodstock Music and Arts Festival was the defining event of a generation sociologically and musically. It immortalized Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, and Crosby, Stills and Nash, and made superstars out of newer artists like Santana, Joe Cocker, and Ten Years After .Michael Wadleigh made a brilliant documentary about the event, assisted by Martin Scorsese (three years before his breakthrough MEAN STREETS) and editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who would become Scorsese’s regular editor with RAGING BULL). Celebrating the 40th anniversary, WHV has released WOODSTOCK: 3 DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC: THE DIRECTORS CUT 40TH ANNIVERSARY TWO-DISC COLLECTION … and it’s as auspicious as its title. Wadleigh thoroughly covers the event, from the audience to the locals, the prep to performance to aftermath. His documentarian’s eye is especially keen in capturing the personal stories of the concert-goers, giving us a time capsule for 1969, and his coverage of the music (he was also one of the film’s main cinematographers) is spectacular.

I spent time with Michael Wadleigh at the 2008 Oldenburg Film Festival, where he was honored with a retrospective of WOODSTOCK and his horror gem WOLFEN, drilling him with questions about WOODSTOCK, most particularly the absence of The Grateful Dead from the movie. He told me the band was not at its “best,” and when he showed it to Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, was thanked by the guitarist for not putting it in the movie! Now you can judge for yourself since WHV has included their performance in a fantastic set of extras featuring never before seen performances by The Dead (“Turn on Your Lovelight”), Jefferson Airplane (3/5th of a Mile in Ten Seconds”), Santana (“Evil Ways”), and Creedence Clearwater Revival, Country Joe McDonald, Canned Heat, Mountain, Paul Butterfield, Johnny Winter, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker and Sha Na Na. The bonus disc also contains 15 featurettes, including excerpts from Hugh Hefner’s 1970 interview with Wadleigh on Playboy After Dark. The Ultimate Collectors DVD is even richer in extras, with 18 more unseen performances, and extensive interviews with concertgoers, promoters, musicians and crew (including Scorsese). This is the WOODSTOCK set we’ve been waiting for, a must-have collector’s item.

WHV’s DIRECTORS SHOWCASE: TAKE FOUR revives five missing-in-action titles, all worthy selections. BEYOND RANGOON (1995) is an underrated entry from John Boorman (POINT BLANK, DELIVERANCE, EXCALIBUR), a tense political thriller starring Patricia Arquette as a young woman caught in a civil war in Burma (now Myanmar). M. BUTTERFLY (1993) is an excellent version of the Tony Award-winning play by David Henry Hwang starring Jeremy Irons, beautifully directed by David Cronenberg (2005 NBR Billy Wilder Award honoree), with a new interview with the director. Michelangelo Antonioni, the great post-modern stylist of L’AVVENTURA, L’ECLISSE and LA NOTTE, followed his 1966 English language debut success BLOW UP with his first American picture, the counter-culture classic ZABRISKIE POINT (1970). Filmed partly in Death Valley, it is vintage Antonioni with painstakingly precise direction and a palpable sense of ennui, this time addressing the youth revolution of the era. Originally rated “X” (like contemporary movies MIDNIGHT COWBOY and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE), for its notorious desert orgy scene, the film is presented in a pristine print, with music by Pink Floyd, Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead, John Fahey, The Youngbloods and The Rolling Stones. Hugh Hudson was forced to rush post-production on his Revolutionary War epic REVOLUTION (1985) to meet release deadlines; the resulting movie was one of the decade’s greatest film fiascos, widely derided for Al Pacino’s alleged miscasting as a Scotsman who turns rebel to fight the British. Warner enabled Hudson to re-configure the picture to his original vision, including restored feature-length narration by Pacino, and it is a whole different show. The movie’s cinematography and period detail were always impeccable, but now in REVOLUTION REVISITED, the film emerges as a dramatically effective epic. There’s a fascinating new conversation between Hudson and Pacino; REVOLUTION is worth another look.

After a distinguished career as an editor (Norman Jewison’s THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT), Hal Ashby directed a marvelous series of films, including THE LANDLORD, HAROLD AND MAUDE, THE LAST DETAIL, SHAMPOO, BOUND FOR GLORY, COMING HOME, BEING THERE -- some of the best from one of the best decades in American cinema. His string of hits was broken with the barely released SECOND HAND HEARTS (1981) and 1982’s LOOKIN’ TO GET OUT, starring and co-written by Jon Voight, with Ann-Margret and Burt Young, photographed by Haskell Wexler. A newly discovered version of the latter film is another revelation, a comedy about two gamblers (Voight and Young) who lose a bundle in New York City and head to Vegas to score. Voight and Young have a wonderful chemistry, and the movie is loaded with the kind of character detail and editorial expertise that signifies Ashby’s work; it deserves a better reputation and this disc of the extended version will go a long way in achieving proper recognition in the Ashby canon. Voight, Young, Ann-Margret and co-writer Al Schwartz reminisce about director and project in a new featurette.

The major distributors keep delving admirably into their catalogues with some real treats for movie buffs.

Warner Home Video’s MAX FLEISCHER’S SUPERMAN 1941-1942 contains the seventeen animated shorts by the master animator and creator of Betty Boop and Popeye. The adventures of the Man of Steel are stunningly realized, with intelligent writing and wonderful animation, still exciting after all these years. They’re gorgeously restored from the original masters, replacing decades of poor dupes that never did justice to the superlative Technicolor photography. Extras include “First Flight: The Fleischer Superman Series,” “The Man, the Myth, Superman,” and a preview of DC Universe’s upcoming animated feature GREEN LANTERN.

One of Fritz Lang’s finest, MAN HUNT (1941) from 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment, is a gripping suspense thriller about a British hunter (Walter Pidgeon) on a quest to kill Hitler, with George Sanders as his Gestapo nemesis and Joan Bennett as his romantic interest. Patrick McGilligan, author of the definitive Lang biography The Nature of the Beast, provides excellent audio commentary; there’s also a featurette about the making of the picture, original theatrical trailer, restoration comparison, and advertising and stills galleries.

Sony dips into Columbia classics with two volumes of ICONS OF SCREWBALL COMEDY. Volume One includes William Seiter’s IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK (1935) starring Jean Arthur and Herbert Marshall, Wesley Ruggles TOO MANY HUSBANDS (1940) with Arthur, Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas, Alexander Hall’s MY SISTER EILEEN (1942) with Rosalind Russell, Brian Aherne and Janet Blair, and Hall’s SHE WOULDN’T SAY YES (1945) again with Russell. Hall is a really neglected director (his most famous film is HERE COMES MR. JORDAN), and he is represented in Volume Two with the 1940 Loretta Young-Ray Milland vehicle THE DOCTOR TAKES A WIFE. The other titles are the Irene Dunne-Melvyn Douglas THEODORA GOES WILD, directed by Richard Boleslawski, Richard Wallace’s A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (1943) with Loretta Young and Brian Aherne, and Charles Vidor’s TOGETHER AGAIN (1944), reuniting Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer from McCarey’s 1939 LOVE AFFAIR. The screwball comedy was practically invented at Columbia, with Hawks’ TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934), Capra’s IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) and Leo McCarey’s THE AWFUL TRUTH (1937) – all available from Sony on DVD – and it’s wonderful to have these lesser known comedies for viewing. These are delightful, charming pictures, with the rich supporting casts typical of Hollywood’s Golden Age, including Lionel Stander, Charles Coburn, Edmund Gwenn, Leo Carrillo, George Tobias, Harry Davenport, Elizabeth Patterson, even The Three Stooges! Sony’s ICONS OF SCI-FI: TOHO COLLECTION will bring back fond childhood movies of the kaiju eiga (crazy cool Japanese monster movies) we loved to watch on TV as kids. THE H-MAN (1959), BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE (1960) and MOTHRA (1961) are fully restored and presented in their proper aspect ratios, in both Japanese and English versions. MOTHRA and BATTLE both have commentaries.

Sony corrects the egregious absence of HUSBANDS (1970) from the DVD market with a long overdue release. John Cassavetes directs his screenplay about three friends (Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, and Cassavetes himself) going through a mid-life crisis after the death of a pal. HUSBANDS is a Cassavetes masterwork, with stunning performances (especially by Oscar-snubbed Gazzara), an absolute must-see classic.

Marshall Fine, author of Accidental Genius, the best book on Cassavetes, does the commentary, and there’s a featurette, “The Story of HUSBANDS: A Tribute to John Cassavetes,” featuring an interview with Gazzara. Ben’s screen debut, Jack Garfein’s THE STRANGE ONE (1957), is also available from Sony, based on the Calder Willingham play END AS A MAN. Ben electrified Broadway audiences in the show, and it led to his casting in the original Kazan stage production of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF in which he created the role of Brick, and the original production of A HATFUL OF RAIN in which he originated the part of Johnny Pope. The young Gazzara has a field day in THE STRANGE ONE as the martinet bully Jocko De Paris at a Southern military school, with a supporting cast that includes Pat Hingle and George Peppard. The Great Gazzara offers fascinating reminiscences in a featurette.

Universal Home Entertainment has one of the best releases of the year – the PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD COLLECTION with eight bawdy entertainments from Paramount Studios in the early 30s (Universal owns the Paramount catalogue from 1929 to 1949). Broadway legend George Abbott directs Tallulah Bankhead in THE CHEAT (1931), a remake of the 1915 Cecil B. DeMille landmark potboiler; her performance is excellent, hard to conciliate with the caricature she became. The deliciously titled MERRILY WE GO TO HELL (1932) teams Sylvia Sidney and Fredric March in a story probably inspired by the alcoholic antics of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, under the direction of Dorothy Arzner, one of the very few female studio contract directors (and a great influence on the young Francis Coppola when she was his instructor at UCLA film school in the 60s). HOT SATURDAY is a sizzling melodrama about small town scandal, starring the forgotten Nancy Carroll, a pre-cowboy Randolph Scott, and a callow Cary Grant in his screen debut, directed by the able craftsman William Seiter. Claudette Colbert excels in TORCH SINGER (1933), directed by Alexander Hall, as a woman forced to give up her illegitimate child, only to search for her after she gains stardom as a chanteuse. It’s a fine example of the popular Depression-era “fallen woman” genre. Mitchell Leisen’s MURDER AT THE VANITIES (1934) is a hoot, quintessential Pre-Code, with Victor McLaglen investigating crimes at a Follies-style Broadway show, with plenty of flesh on view, double-entendre wisecracks galore, and the notorious production number “Sweet Marihuana.” Erle Kenton’s SEARCH FOR BEAUTY (1934) is the real discovery here, a screwball comedy about two Olympic champions (Buster Crabbe and 16-year-old Ida Lupino in her first American film) tricked into endorsing a risque magazine and promoting a resort for nubile young athletes! A so-so documentary is included as a bonus feature, but more interestingly there’s a reproduction of the actual Production Code that came into effect in late summer 1934. DeMille’s campy CLEOPATRA (1934) is available in a 75th anniversary edition, with commentary by F. X. Feeney, featurettes on the director and leading lady Claudette Colbert, along with the same Pre-Code featurette from the above mentioned collection. The title was already released a couple of years ago as part of THE CECIL B. DeMILLE COLLECTION, so it’s kind of a shame that Universal didn’t dig deeper into the vaults to release some of the gold that’s sitting there unavailable to viewers. They partially remedy the situation with four new releases in their “Backlot Series.” Wild Bill Wellman’s BEAU GESTE (1939) is one of the great adventure movies of any decade, the French Foreign Legion classic starring Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston as the gallant, devoted Geste brothers, Brian Donlevy as their brutal commandant, and Susan Hayward in her first important picture in little more than a bit. Alfred Newman’s rousing score and the sparkling black and white cinematography of Theodor Sparkuhl and Archie Stout on Arizona desert locations add to the quality. Henry Hathaway’s folk tale THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE (1936) is a nice surprise, the first contemporary three-strip Technicolor picture, with Fred MacMurray as an engineer in the middle of a Hatfield-McCoy-style family feud in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Queen of 30s urban dramas Sylvia Sidney, stars against type as a country girl, with Henry Fonda making a strong early impression as a backwoodsman in only his fourth film. Arthur Lubin’s ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES (1944), starring Jon Hall in the title role, is (for 1944 Universal) a lavish popcorn adventure, lushly photographed in Technicolor, and displaying the charms of B-movie siren Maria Montez. Finally there’s David Miller’s powerful drama LONELY ARE THE BRAVE (1962) starring Kirk Douglas (reportedly his favorite role) as a modern cowboy on the run, with Walter Matthau as his pursuer and Gena Rowlands as his romantic interest. The first three titles are extra-less, but LONELY has a good featurette with Kirk, Gena, Steven Spielberg and Michael Douglas talking about the movie, and a featurette on Jerry Goldsmith’s score.

Lots of good news for silent film lovers. Kino’s THE JOHN BARRYMORE COLLECTION gathers four features starring The Great Profile, considered by many to be the premiere screen actor of the Twenties. His brilliance is evident in a number of early talkies (SVENGALI, ARSENE LUPIN, GRAND HOTEL, DINNER AT EIGHT TOPAZE, COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW, TWENTIETH CENTURY) but by 1935 decades of dissipation had taken their toll, and after romantic scandal, a revolving door of rehabs, and self-parody in movies, radio and the stage, he was dead by 1942 at the age of 60. He is at his prime in the Kino box set, starting with his famous turn as DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1920), the perfect Barrymore role as he transforms from strikingly handsome and urbane Jekyll to primitive brute Hyde and back again. Mastered from a 35mm negative, with a score performed y the Mont Alto Motion picture Orchestra, this is by far the best DVD version (the title is in the public domain and there are many inferior releases). Extras include a rare 1909 recording of the transformation scene, the 1925 one-reel spoof DR. PYCKLE AND MR. HYDE starring Stan Laurel, a clip from the rival 1920 version starring Sheldon Lewis, and an illustrated essay on the long history of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic on film. SHERLOCK HOLMES (1922) is the only title here new to DVD but it’s a pip, with Barrymore expertly enacting Conan Doyle’s super sleuth. Kino has mastered a 35mm restoration by the George Eastman House Motion Picture Department, returning an important silent to public view. The Sam Goldwyn production values are top-rate, and the supporting cast includes Griffith heroine Carol Dempster, Louis Wolheim (ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT), and in their screen debuts, Roland Young and William Powell. Barrymore earned a lucrative contract from the Warner Brothers in 1924, starring in a big budget series of spectacles that put Warners on the map -- BEAU BRUMMEL, DON JUAN, WHEN A MAN LOVES (all available from the Warner Archive) – but was loaned out to United Artists in 1927 for two high-end romantic adventures, both included in the Kino set, TEMPEST (set during the end of the Czarist reign in Russia) and BELOVED ROGUE (one of Barrymore’s best as he essays the role of medieval Parisian rogue poet Francois Villon), featured an early 70s introduction by Orson Welles.

KINO continues to release a steady stream of award-wining international indies: Jeffrey Lau’s martial arts romantic comedy CHINESE ODYSSEY 2002 (2002), presented by Wong Kar-Wai; Kevin Rafferty’s outstanding documentary HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29 (2008) about the legendary Vietnam era football game; Erwin Wagenhofer’s revealing doc on word hunger, WE FEED THE WORLD (2005); Amos Gitai’s superlative ONE DAY YOU’LL UNDERSTAND (2008), with the iconic Jeanne Moreau in drama about family secrets; and the brilliant and brutal LOS BASTARDOS (2008), directed by Amat Escalante, clearly influenced by the work of Michael Haneke, especially FUNNY GAMES.

PHE: Two classic Westerns are the latest releases in Paramount Home Entertainment’s Centennial Collection series. One of the most Fordian of John Ford films, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962) is a lyrical masterpiece from the winter of the venerable director’s career. John Wayne, James Stewart, and Vera Miles were never better, with a supporting cast including Andy Devine, Woody Strode, John Qualen, Edmond O’Brien, John Carradine, Lee Van Cleef, Strother Martin, and stealing the show, Lee Marvin as the penultimate Ford villain. Disc One contains an audio commentary by Ford expert Peter Bogdanovich, along with his archival recordings with Ford and Stewart, and there’s also selected scene commentary by the filmmaker’s grandson Dan Ford, with his archival recordings of Ford, Stewart and Marvin. Disc Two has a thorough seven-part featurette on the picture, theatrical trailer, and extensive galleries.

Howard Hawks’ EL DORADO (1967) is a virtual remake of his 1958 RIO BRAVO, also starring Wayne as the lone lawman taking on a gang of baddies, helped by an alcoholic gunman (Robert Mitchum in this film, Dean Martin in RIO BRAVO), a grizzled old man (Arthur Hunnicutt here, Walter Brennan in the first picture), and a trigger happy kid (a young James Caan following in the footsteps of Ricky Nelson). It’s still a terrific Westrern, with Wayne and Mitchum a formidable team. Disc one has two commentary tracks, one by Bogdanovich, one with Richard Schickel, Hawks biographer Todd McCarthy, and EL DORADO actor Ed Asner. Disc Two gives us another lengthy featurette on the movie, a vintage featurette from 1967, a remembrance of Wayne by long-time Paramount exec A.C. Lyles, theatrical trailer and galleries.

FLICKER ALLEY continues their exceptional line of silent film DVDs with two releases: UNDER FULL SAIL: SILENT CINEMA ON THE HIGH SEAS and a double bill of restored John Gilberts, King Vidor’s BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT (1926) and Emmett Flynn’s MONTE CRISTO (1922). Produced in association with the Blackhawk Film Collection, UNDER FULL SAIL consists of four films that preserve the legacy of masted windjammers on the high seas. SHIP AHOY (1928) is a documentary record of the lumber trade, THE SQUARE RIGGER (1932) an early sound short filmed as part of FOX’S MAGIC CARPET OF MOVIETONE depicting life aboard the school ship “The White Frigate. ”AROUND THE HORN IN A SQUARE RIGGER (1933) documents the 1902 record-breaking voyage of the Parma from Australia to England, but the my favorite is the 1927 feature THE YANKEE CLIPPER, directed by Rupert Julian (the original PHANTOM OF THE OPERA), a sea-faring adeventure movie recreating the race from Foo Chow to Boston for the China sea trade. William Boyd, Elinor Fair and Frank “Junior” Coghlan star in the Cecil B. DeMille production filmed at sea for six weeks with cast and crew aboard the 1856 wooden square-rigger Indiana. There’s musical accompaniment on the silents, a ten-minute sequence from Elmer Clifton’s DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS (1922), a remembrance by Frank Coghlan about THE YANKEE CLIPPER, and a booklet detailing the Dennis James scoring of CLIPPER.

Long considered a lost film, a sole surviving print of BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT was discovered in France in 2006. As Flicker Alley points out in their notes, 80% of all silent films are lost, yet occasionally there is a miracle. This set is one such miracle. A key title in King Vidor’s filmography, and an important John Gilbert picture, emerge in a gloriously restored version (along with stills, titles and footage from the original trailer to cover the missing shots). An expensive MGM production supervised by Irving Thalberg, it’s a tremendously entertaining medieval adventure film, with Gilbert expertly taking his place alongside the 20s’ pre-eminent swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks. The other miracle is MONTE CRISTO, an early version of Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, with Gilbert as Edmond Dantes (produced by Fox, the crew included young Wild Bill Wellman as an assistant director). This title was found in the Czech Republic, with titles reconstructed (like BARDELYS) from the original script. As a bonus, historians Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta provide a 30-minute interview with Leatrice Gilbert Foutain, daughter of Gilbert and silent star Leatrice Joy, and author of the Gilbert bio Dark Star. The Gilbert mythology tells us that his career was destroyed by a voice unsuited to sound; in reality, he was the victim of personal enmity from his boss L. B. Mayer, who seemed determined to sabotage the actor with weak material. This is an important DVD set, helping restore Gilbert to his proper standing as one of the great film actors.

Jean-Luc Godard’s UNE FEMME MARIEE/A MARRIED WOMAN (1964) has long been the missing link in American availability of Godard’s peak early 60s period. Now it’s available from Koch Lorber and lives up to its reputation. Macha Meril (BELLE DU JOUR) stars as the title character in this day-in-the-life drama. Learning she’s pregnant, she’s unsure if the father is husband Philippe Leroy (LA FEMME NIKITA) or lover Bernard Noel (LA RONDE). The production back story is an interesting one – asked by the Venice Film Festival if he’d have a film ready for the event, he wrote the script, directed the picture and delivered the movie in just one month!

HARDWARE: Every aspiring actor and director, for that matter anyone who likes to shoot video, absolutely must pick up the Flip Ultra HD recorder from Pure Digital Technologies. It’s a revolutionary device, small as a Blackberry, with two hours of recording time. It plugs into your computer’s USB port and downloads a software program that enables you to organize, edit and share your videos. I use it extensively in my private coaching sessions, then email the video to my students; I shot an actor friend’s audition for a new movie, and his agent in Australia had it in her email inbox an hour later! The Flip is truly miraculous … but how much? The retail price is $199.99! It’s available at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, wal-Mart and TheFlip.com.

MUSIC: In keeping with the spirit of Woodstock Nation, here are a couple of CD recommendations. CROSBY, STILLS & NASH: DEMOS (Atlantic/Rhino) is a treat for CSN freaks, original demos from 1960-70 of fourteen songs, including “Marrakesh Express,” “Almost Cut My hair,” “You Don’t have to Cry,” “Déjà vu,” “Music is Love,” “Long Time Gone,” “Chicago,” and “Love the One You’re With.” Even stripped down to basics, the harmonies soar, the melodies uplift.

JOHN A. GALLAGHER

jgmovie@gmail.com