African Cats (Disneynature Blu-ray w/DVD)/The
Battle For Marjah (2011/Athena/Acorn Blu-ray/DVD Set)/Bill Moyers: God & Politics (Athena/Acorn DVD Set)/Dear Uncle Adolf (2010/First Run DVD)/Gettysburg (2011/Scott Free/History
Channel Blu-ray/DVD)/Lee & Grant
(2011/History Channel DVD)/Nostalgia For
The Light (Icarus Blu-ray)/On The
Road with Charles Kuralt: The Americana Collection (Acorn DVD Set)/Wonders Of The Universe (2011/BBC
Blu-ray)/Wrong Side Of The Bus
(2009/First Run DVD)
Picture: B & C+/B- & C+/C/C+/B- & C+/C+/B-/C/B-/C Sound: B & B-/B- & C+/C+/C+/B-
& C+/C+/B-/C+/B-/C Extras:
B-/C+/B/C/D/C-/B/B-/D/C+ Documentary:
B- (Moyers, Light: B/Kuralt: B+)
This latest round of documentaries return to subjects we
have covered often before, including a few that continue various documentary
series.
The
latest Disneynature release is African
Cats narrated by Samuel L. Jackson for the nearly 90 minutes this solid
entry in the series looks at lions, tigers and the like. Though we may have seen this kind of thing
before, this is still very well done and a quality presentation. It also reminds us how vital, important and
beautiful these creatures are. Extras
include the DVD version, a Jordin Sparks Music Video interactive Filmmaker
Annotations and two featurettes: Disney
& Nature and Save The Savanna.
Though we
have been inundated with the U.S. conflicts in The Middle East, including too
much of what can rightly be called “war porn”, finer works like Anthony Wonke’s
The Battle For Marjah (2011) is one
of the few distinct looks at what is really going on overseas as we join a U.S.
Marine operation on February 15, 2010 to go into Marjah and what it takes to
make a mission successful. Uncensored
and raw, it gave me another level of respect for the Corp to add to the one I
already had, the troubles they go through and what they are facing in ways our
news media either does not get or is not reporting properly. If you must choose among many releases on the
subject, this is one of the few to go out of your way for. Extras include an illustrated 12-page booklet
with brief histories on the war and its players going back centuries plus
warfare facts, plus a timeline of the Afghanistan War and biographies of Ben
Anderson and Photographer Goran Tomasevic.
The
latest in the Athena/Acorn DVD series Bill
Moyers: God & Politics is as impressive as any of them with a classic
mini-series of three episodes and bonus DVD with three programs that update the
situation: Is God Green? From Moyers On America, Talking About God from NOW
with Bill Moyers and Interview Segments with social critic/agnostic Wendy
Kaminer and Benedictine nun/social psychologist Sister Joan Chittister. You also get bios of Moyer and various
evangelical leaders. As usual, Moyers
asks the tough questions, some profound ones and gets to the point. You can find out about even more of the
Moyers DVD releases by checking out the ones we have covered at this general
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=moyers
Michael
Kloft’s Dear Uncle Adolf (2010) is
yet another fascinating chapter on just how mad the Nazi regime was, including
the mad followers that made it possible.
This one focuses on the crazy, insane fan mail Hitler received and just
how crazy it got. In some cases, there
are people begging for help, for others it was worshiping him as if he were a
god and shows just how high the crazed ecstasy over him became. Some even are Jews giving themselves away not
knowing his true agenda, signing their own death warrants. I like how they had to dig into this archive
and found out just how massive the mail was and how it became another leg of
the larger propaganda campaign. It is
also chilling. Definitely see this
one. The only extra is a frame-by-frame
profile of other First Run WWII Nazi DVDs and they have a solid series of them.
Patricio
Guzman’s Nostalgia For The Light (2010)
is another key documentary work from the director of Salvador Allende and The
Battle Of Chile (both reviewed elsewhere on this site) has a dual purpose:
celebrate the amazing legacy of those who go to The Atacama Desert to see the
stars as professional and avid astrologers and to know the land they visit also
has a past that includes genocide of scientists after the 1973 military coup of
Chile, 19th Century explorers & miners and political prisoners
and pre-Columbian mummies. This runs about
90 minutes and is very impressive. Extras
include five additional short related to the main format.
The
latest BBC science documentary is Wonders
Of The Universe (2011) but is oddly not listed as one of their BBC Earth
series despite having Professor Brian Cox (not the great character) also
talking about astronomy and adding the origins of the universe. Even including the computer animation, this
still looks good and is a mini-series running 212 minutes. Cox is a great host who knows what he is
talking about. There are no extras.
Programs
on The Civil War are highly played out, but the new Ridley & Tony
Scott-produced Gettysburg is one of the more competent if
belated entries in the subject matter and regular History Channel special Lee & Grant (both 2011) is
competent if not as thorough, though the DVD includes addition scenes. I might have enjoyed both more if I had
already been inundated with so many programs on the subject in the last 15
years, but as they stand, they are as good as any of them that we have covered
(and a few I have seen that we did not) so fans will enjoy both even with any
overlap.
The huge
new On The Road with Charles Kuralt –
The Americana Collection is simply a compilation of the three sets we
covered before Acorn issued as follows:
One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9403/On+The+Road+With+Charles+Kuralt
Two
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9951/On+The+Road+With+Charles+Kuralt
Three
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10477/On+The+Road+with+Charles+Kuralt
I would
much rather recommend this whole set than the three separate editions because
these sets are that loaded with great programs.
Kuralt was great and the more the better. If you are going to get any set, you might as
well get all of them.
Finally we have Rod Freedman’s Wrong Side Of The Bus (2009) which is the story of a Jewish man
named Sidney Bloch who lived under the South African system of Apartheid and
returns to the scene of the crime(s) as it were trying to find closure,
redemption and deal with his own issues of guilt and/or reinforce his denial of
his own prejudice and brings his son Aaron along for the ride. The best part of this is how it is another
much-needed record of how bad things were and into the 1980s, mind you. The contrast between now and 40 years ago
ranges from sickening to chilling.
He meets
with heroes of the resistance against the evil system, survivors of it and
people he has not seen for ages.
Unfortunately, Sid is not always personally honest and his son (who
narrates the final program) amazingly calls him on it when he sees his
shortcomings and own issues. Sid is not
always likable and the documentary could have been edited in a manipulative way
to be phony and make this a lie by making him more likable than he is, but it
is more honest and the result indicts Sid on some level as well as the many
others who conformed to create the ugly nightmare that South Africa once
was. Glad I saw it.
Extras
include a nine part bonus interview section (45 minutes total), but a study
guide listed on the back of the case is not on the disc and on our DVD-ROM
could not find it either.
The 1080p
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Cats should be and is the best picture performer of this bunch by
being the only progressive scan HD release here with only minor detail issues,
while the 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image Marjah, Gettysburg and Wonders are not too far with some nice
image moments, though Light suffers the most and performs the poorest
comparatively. All have motion blur
issues, but they are minor, especially on Cats.
The anamorphically enhanced DVDs
versions of Cats, Marjah and Gettysburg
are about as good as you could expect them to be, but none are a match for the
Blu-ray versions. Adolf and Grant fare as
well as anamorphically enhanced DVD-only releases, but Bus here the same way is
softer and the 1.33 X 1 image on Kuralt
and Moyers are the softest with Bus being a low def video shoot and the
others being old analog professional NTSC tapings and all three with more than
their share of aliasing errors
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Cats, followed by Marjah
and Gettysburg are the best sound
mixes followed by the DTS 2.0 Stereo on Wonder
and Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Light
which is not bad and articulate for a lossy format. All the DVDs here are Dolby Digital 2.0 mixes
that are usually at least simple stereo, but have their monophonic moments,
especially Bus, while the Kuralt and Moyers sets are monophonic all the way.
- Nicholas Sheffo
