The Borgias The Final Season (2013/aka Season
Three/Showtime/CBS Blu-rays)/The
Brontės Of Haworth (1974/Acorn DVDs)/The
Brontė Sisters (1979/Cohen Film Blu-ray)/River Kings (1991/Umbrella PAL Region Free Import DVDs)/Smileys People (1982/Acorn Blu-ray Set)/Tales Of The City: 20TH Anniversary
Edition (1993/Acorn DVDs)
Picture: B/C/B/C-/B-/C Sound: B/C+/B-/C/B-/C+ Extras: C/D/B/D/B-/B- Main Programs: C+/B-/B/C/B/B-
PLEASE NOTE: The River Kings Region Free PAL Import DVD
can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website
address provided at the end of the review.
Here is
our latest round of TV dramas, including a feature film version of one and a
return of most from previous coverage
The Borgias The Final Season (2013/aka Season Three) has been a very well liked and popular Showtime
Network drama about the corrupt Catholic Church and Pope Alexander (Jeremy
Irons) as gangsters of sorts (think Sopranos)
and has been more successful than a competing series of the same name (in the
review of the First Season below), so it worked. However, the makers are wisely quitting while
they are ahead and wrap things up as well as possible. For our coverage of the first two seasons and
to get what is happening in the show, try these links:
Season One Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11488/Nurse+Jackie+%E2%80%93+Season
Season Two Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12117/The+Borgias+%E2%80%93+The+Sec
Unlike
the enthusiasm of my colleagues, I was not and am not as big a fan of the show,
though it is a top rate production and I understand its appeal. The cats is good, the show looks good and the
scripts are at least literate, but I found it all obvious from the start and am
only impressed they kept it going this long.
The last 10 episodes are here across three Blu-ray discs and CBS has
done a nice job of releasing the show.
If you have not seen it yet, start from the beginning and see for
yourself what you think.
Bloopers
and the first pilot episode of the new hit Ray Donovan are the only extras.
Out of
print for a few years, the great 1974 British TV Mini-Series The Brontės Of Haworth is back on DVD
from Acorn and it is the same exact set we covered years ago at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/477/Brontes+of+Haworth
That
includes text this tome on the Brontės as the only extra this time and the
series holds up very well and since that previous DVD version, Michael Kitchen
has become a bigger star, so it is a curio it was not before. He plays Branwell, the bother of the three
sisters and does a great job in his role, now more apparently than ever before.
It is a
series that should stray in print and worth going out of your way for and runs
260 minutes.
The same
territory is covered in a different, but also very effective way in the
two-hour 1979 French feature film The
Brontė Sisters directed by André Téchiné and is one of the earliest films
(along with Ridley Scotts directorial feature film debut, The Duelists) among the first films to be influenced by the massive
innovations and achievements out of Stanley Kubricks 1975 Revolutionary War
epic Barry Lyndon down to an
appearance by the author of that book here, Kubrick veteran Patrick Magee in a
key role and the same kind of honest, cold, true approach and designs that made
the Kubrick film so stark and palpable.
Cohen
Films have issued it in a fine Blu-ray that surprised me again as all their
releases have. It is an underseen film
and one worth (re-)visiting with great performances by Isabelle Adjani,
Isabelle Huppert (soon to do Heavens
Gate) and Marie-France Pisier as the sisters and Pascal Greggory as
Branford, an aspect of the tale the film deals with more focus on than its fine
TV counterpart. It is a gem of a film
that far exceeds so many of its generic TV counterparts and is one of the best
foreign film Blu-ray releases of the year.
Dont miss it!
Extras
include a nicely illustrated booklet on the film that only has cast text, while
the Blu-ray adds two scholars on the film and Brontes in a feature length audio
commentary track, a vintage hour-long Behind The Scenes featurette is here and
we also get the Original Theatrical Trailers.
Switching
to Down Under, but still the far past, we next look at the drama/comedy River Kings, an Australian TV
Mini-Series from 1991 with Tamblyn Lord as 16-year-old Shawn Hunter trying to
make his way in the rough world of water-bound commerce in the 1920s. Running four parts, it runs the whole range
of good scenes, bad scenes, predictable scenes and formula that tries to make
it appeal to a wide audience. That
backfires in the long run and I wish it had stayed with the more realistic,
less predictable approach, though the characters up to no good are often shown
that way uncompromised, which is a plus.
However,
this runs 201 minutes and in all that, it should have been shorter or tried to
add some other aspects of the time to keep it richer and more memorable. At least it is an ambitious production.
There are
no extras.
Next we
have the Blu-ray release of the TV Mini-Series Smileys People from 1982, which is a sequel to the 1979 Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy
Mini-Series, both with Alec Guinness as master spy George Smiley. The original has already been issued on
Blu-ray and you can read more about it at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11561/Robin+Of+Sherwood:+Set+Two+(Jas
We
previously reviewed this sequel series on Acorn DVD at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1542/Smiley%27s+People+(British+Mini-seri
This is
the first time any sequel Mini-Series (or telefilm for that matter) has hit
Blu-ray in any market, but it is worth it and it plays much better than the DVD
version by looking and sounding better, which makes it more involving.
This time
around, Acorn has added new extras too.
Repeated extras include text on the production, character, spy terms and
on Le Carré, plus an interview with Le Carré done at the same time as the one
for the previous set is as much of a must-hear as the first and runs
19:30. New extras include 62 minutes of Deleted
Scenes worth seeing after seeing the series.
The upgrade all around is appreciated and it will even make sense if you
see the feature film remake of the first book with Gary Oldman.
Finally
we have Tales Of The City: 20TH Anniversary
Edition, an outright reissue of the 1993 TV Mini-Series we covered from
Acorn years ago in its original DVD release at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1438/Tales+Of+The+City+(TV)
This is
the same package with the same exact extras.
Overdue on Blu-ray, this set will have to do until then, but it is a key
TV event and is popular enough to justify this reissue.
The visual
champs here are the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Borgias and especially the 1.85 X 1 digital
High Definition image on Sisters
that look first rate. The former is
consistent with some styling holding it back on each episode, but that is the
look of the show. Sisters is looking very impressive for its age with a transfer from
a fine 35mm film print and has detail and depth that is subtle, always there
and shows the complex way in which Director of Photography Bruno Nuytten
delivered these amazing images. Next to
them is the 1080i 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image in the episodes of People which are all shot on 16mm film,
have their own fine atmosphere and if this were 1080p, would likely have more
detail. As it stands, it is superior to
the previous DVD edition and has atmosphere never seen before, unless you saw
it on a film print.
The 1.33
X 1 color images on Haworth,
Tales and especially River that are softer than they should
be with aliasing errors, noise, staircasing and other flaws. River
is often unwatchable despite being in, or because of the PAL format showing
more flaws. These all need some
restoration work.
The Dolby
TrueHD 5.1 on Borgias is the sonic
winner here with fine, warm soundfields on all episodes presented, while the DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono on People
and PCM 2.0 Mono on Sisters tie for
second place as sonic runner-ups that hold up very well for their age. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Haworth and lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Tales
are next up for having good sound, but might sound better lossless. That leaves River sounding weak and a few generations down with a lossy Dolby
Digital 2.0 mix that is barely stereo if that, so be careful of volume levels
and volume switching on this one.
As noted above, you can order the import version of River Kings exclusively from Umbrella
at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
- Nicholas Sheffo
