Becoming Santa (2011/Cinema Libre DVD)/Prep
& Landing (Disney DVD)/Tyler
Perry’s A Madea Christmas: The Play (2011/Lionsgate Blu-ray)
Picture: C+/C+/B- Sound: C+/C+/B Extras: C-/C/C Main Programs: C+/C/C
The glut
of holiday titles continues with three more barley passable entries.
Jeff
Myers’ Becoming Santa (2011) is the
best here by default and a documentary on a scho0opl that shows men how to be
Santa Claus and how many of them will actually dye (even growing their hair and
bears in advance) all the hair on their face and head white to play the
role. Running 93 minutes, it is a little
long but interesting look at the holiday that nicely deconstructs it as too
many bad releases try to mystify, remystify and mystify again a holiday that
does not need anyone’s help. So much for
the mythical “war on Christmas”. Extras
include trailers for other Cinema Libre releases.
At a
miniscule 22 minutes, Prep & Landing
is a brief animated tale of two elves trying to get the holiday together for
Santa. For fans only of such things, I
guess the extras are supposed to make up for this and include two bonus short,
a three-part Kringle
Academy training video, a
faux newsreel and 3 “ads” from the North Pole.
OK…
Finally
we get Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas:
The Play (2011) which goes on for 2.5 hours and is everything we have seen
in a Perry/Madea stage play including unmemorable song after unmemorable
song. Should a young lady be independent
or co-dependent, are some people too uppity for their own good and can God help
any of us when we are such a dysfunctional wreck during the holidays? The latter never seems to help Madea, but
that is part of the joke we gather. For
fans only, extras include Bloopers, a Making of featurette and piece with the
cast.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 DVDs are a little soft and weak, but watchable for what they
are, yet they could have looked a little better. I expected more flaws with Santa as it is a
documentary with much location shooting.
The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Madea is better and has more color
range, but still also has its own detail issues. Being on a stage and not having to move the
camera around as much helps.
The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo on Santa is not
as laced with location audio issues as expected, while the Dolby Digital 5.1 on
Prep is too much towards the front
channels and the lossy codec is noticeable throughout. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix
on Madea is a little towards the
front speakers, but that is not always the case as the sound design is better
than expected and warm too. It may be
the best of the Perry Play series to
date in that respect.
- Nicholas Sheffo
