Flesh
and Bone (2015/Starz/Anchor Bay
Blu-ray)
Picture: A+ Sound: B+ Extras: C
Episodes: A-
Claire
(Sarah Hay), a young girl runs away from home to join a prestigious
New York ballet company. She is a young ballerina who dreams of
becoming the number one dancer, or 'Prima' on Broadway. Immediately,
the head director see her potential and as the new rising star in the
ballet world. She soon learns the dark side of New York
entertainers, not only does she face tough competition and being
manipulated by the rich and powerful, she must keep her own dark
secrets from being discovered. Behind closed doors lies a world of
vice, deceit and corruption.
On
the new Starz cable TV series, Flesh and Bone (2015), Claire
enters a world where girls back stab each other daily, starve and
torture themselves for the sake of their art, and work in the night
as strippers and prostitutes. The Head Director is gay and has a God
complex, he makes the devil seem like Mother Theresa. The girls are
expected to then be prostitutes for their patrons, and their money
for the school comes from the Russian mob. On top of all that,
Claire is pursued to New York by her unwelcome, incestuous,
perverted, and violent former Marine brother.
This
series show the dark side of being an New York
entertainer/artist/actor. After talent, everything is based on looks
and who are you willing to sleep with. It is about the cutthroat
world that ballerinas live, staving them selves to the point of
sickness, only a little better than sex slaves for the rich. The
life a a ballerina is beautiful and short ...that everything is
sacrificed for that one glorious moment on stage. It definitely
shows why mothers shouldn't want their girls to become ballerinas (in
New York at least, unless they want them to become prostitutes) and
those who join the marines eventually become violent sex offenders.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital high definition image is surprisingly top rate
throughout, making it one of the best cable TV productions I've seen
to date pushing to look film-like (though darkish) despite being an
HD shoot, while the lossy Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix more than handles the
fine depth of the sonics and soundfield well. Extras include
Creating the world of Flesh and Bone.
-
Ricky Chiang
