Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe
Called Quest (2011/Sony DVD)/Composing Outside The Beatles Lennon
& McCartney: 1973 - 1980 (Chrome Dreams/MVD DVD)/The Grateful Dead Movie (1977/Shout! Factory Blu-ray w/DVD)/Ray Charles: Live In France 1961
(Eagle DVD)
Picture: C+/C+/B-/C+ Sound: C+/C+/B/C+ Extras: B/C/B/B- Main Programs: B/B/B-/B
What
follows is an impressive group of music releases you will want to catch up
with.
Actor
Michael Rapaport makes an amazing directing debut with Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest (2011),
a new documentary that is the best single work about Hip Hop I have ever
seen. Opening with the group older and
in conflict from a recent show, we backtrack to the beginning and how they slowly
became one of the most important acts in the history of the genre. In some ways, we could see their work and the
work of their contemporaries at the time as the peak of the genre, but this is
also a history lesson, character study and always involving work whether you
know about or even like Hip Hop.
Rapaport gets access to the group, their friends and other major figures
in the genre throughout and once it starts, it never stops like all the best
films on music. Expect to hear more
about this one as it makes the home video rounds and catch it as soon as you
can. Extras include Deleted Scenes, Bringing The Beats To Life featurette
about the great animation in the film, On
The Red Carpet featurette and a terrific feature length audio commentary by
Rapaport.
As vital
and compelling is Composing Outside The
Beatles Lennon & McCartney: 1973 - 1980, which continues the first
volume (covering 1967 1972) we covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9234/Composing+Outside+The+Beatles+%E
By this
time, The Beatles had split and the famous writing team was not even talking to
each other. Lennon was making his
abstract music with Yoko Ono and some great solo music, while McCartney went
from a bare-bones solo debut that received a mixed result to launching his
second band Wings. The makers do an
amazing, detailed job of their successes and failures all the way to the time
Lennon is assassinated and they never pull any punches, which makes this
must-see documentary filmmaking complete with all the original music
licensed. Extras include extended
interviews and text biographies of the participants.
For more
Beatles, try these links, which will lead you to even more:
Cant Buy Me Love book
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6334/Can%E2%80%99t+Buy+Me+Love
Complete Ed Sullivan Show DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10289/The+4+Complete+Ed+Sullivan+Show
The
always popular The Grateful Dead Movie
(1977, directed by Leon Gast) is back and this time, it has made it onto Blu-ray. Filmed during their 1974 concert tour, which
was almost their last, it is a vital record of the success of the band and
captures their unique position of popularity with fans as loyal and diehard as
any band in the world (even now) in the final counterculture years. It is also one of the key counterculture and
Ro0ckumentary films, though not always discussed as such. I think it does a great job of going back and
forth between fans and great music performances, though it eventually is more
for fans than not. Extras include a
feature length audio commentary by Supervising Editor Susan Crutcher and Film
Editor John Nuff and a bonus DVD with more including 95 minutes of extra
concert footage that was not included in the film, bonus songs form the camera
original 16mm film negative, visible lyrics on all songs, A Look Back documentary film, Making
Of The DVD documentary film, Making
Of the Animated Sequences documentary film, extensive photo/stills
gallery, multi-camera and multi-track audio demonstrations, TV commercials for
their 1974 album Mars Hotel for
which this tour is based and an illustrated booklet with technical information
and essay.
Finally
we have Ray Charles: Live In France 1961
filmed extensively at the Antibes Jazz Festival covers his performances on July
18th and 22nd, while we get additional performances
filmed on the 19th and 21st in the bonus section
including classics like One Mint Julep,
Georgia On My Mind, Whatd I Say, My Bonnie, Ruby, Yes Indeed and I Wonder. It is some great
footage of the genius at work during his last years at Atlantic Records and
never ceases to amaze. I live the
audience reactions too. An illustrated
booklet with technical information and an essay is also included as an
additional extra.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Grateful was shot on 16mm film and looks fine here in the archival,
final 35mm print used. I am so glad the
great, brilliant promoter Bill Graham insisted on film instead of analog video
as this does such a fine job capturing the band and the times. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Tribe is a mix of new film and HD
footage with older film and analog video footage and likely would look better
on Blu-ray, while the 1.33 X 1 image on Beatles
has the same kind of mix and Charles
also shows its age with the black and white 16mm having some minor flaws, but
looking good otherwise. Hope to see this
on Blu-ray someday.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix on Quest is a mix of
everything from concert sound at its best to old monophonic audio at its least,
but all is often at least stereo, but this likely sounds better on Blu-ray as
well. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1
lossless mix on Grateful comes in
both original theatrical mix off of the 4-track magnetic stereo master and
multi-channel recording of the film, while a second DTS-MA 5.1 is especially
designed for Blu-ray home theater playback along with a PCM 2.0 Stereo mix for
certain purists and as a third alternative.
Bonus concert footage is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 mixes. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Beatles is as good as it is going to
get as well as the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Charles, witch has been cleaned up and adjusted as much as possible
to make up for distortion and compression issues inherent in the master tapes.
- Nicholas Sheffo
