Bee Gees – One Night Only (1997/Eagle SD Blu-ray)/Going Underground: Paul McCartney, The Beatles & The Counterculture
(2013/Chrome Dreams/MVD DVD)/Level 42
Live (1992/MVD DVD)/Scorpions:
Moment Of Glory (2000/Eagle SD Blu-ray)/Three Little Girls In Blue (1946/Fox Cinema Archive DVD)
Picture: C/C+/C/C-/C Sound: B-/C+/C/B-/C+ Extras: C+/C/D/C-/D Main Programs: B-/B/B-/C/C
PLEASE NOTE: Three Little Girls In Blue is only available from online from Fox
and can be ordered through our sidebar from Amazon.com.
Here are
our latest selection of music releases…
Eagle has
been building up a very large catalog of music titles, especially concerts, and
go out of their way to showcase their releases at every turn. Along with as many HD programs on Blu-ray as
any music label you can name, they have hundreds of DVDs and are the first
company to try something some might like and others night not. They have decided to issue some of their
standard definition (or SD) titles on Blu-ray in upscaled presentations,
something some Blu-ray players already do.
This has
its problems and especially with so much HD content (including endless
programming filmed on 35mm, 70mm or 16mm film), the results can look rough with
upscaling introducing artifacts and elements that can make a presentation look
worse. The 1997 concert Bee Gees – One Night Only is one of the
first title to receive this treatment, with Eagle rightly arguing you’ll get
the same image with better sound than DVD could ever deliver.
That is a
fair argument if you are an audiophile, but the video can still be a trying
affair. However, this presentation is
more satisfying thanks to the better audio and it is not a bad show either as
the trio shows they can still sing classics like Nights On Broadway, You Should
Be Dancin, Massachusetts, One, I
Started A Joke, et al, plus classics Barry Gibb penned for others including
the Theme from Grease, Islands In Te Stream, Heartbreaker and Guilty. This show works
better more often than not, even if it is not a home run, but with Barry the
only survivor, it is now a document of one of the most successful vocal trios
in music history and has a sad irony in viewing since I first saw it upon its
original release.
Extras include
a paper pullout, while the Blu-ray adds an Interviews featurette and three
bonus music performances. Also, watch
for Olivia Newton-John in the audience when the Gibbs sing Grease. Nice moment.
For more
on The Bee Gees on this site, start with this link…
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11103/The+Music+Legacy+Of+The+Bee+Ge
Next up
is the best release on the list and the only documentary, Going Underground: Paul McCartney, The Beatles & The Counterculture
(2013), another stunningly thorough Chrome Dreams/MVD DVD release tracing the
rise of Experimental Music and Psychedelic Music through England and how Paul
McCartney simply not moving to the country like his bandmates gave him top
access to a movement in the making that would change world music and culture
forever.
Dating
Jane Asher at the time and living in her basement despite his immense wealth,
he was writing hits for others and encountering the UK
counterpart to the Beat writers, some of the US originals of which were visiting
the country. McCartney got interested
very quickly along with the literature, publishing and dissonant music of the
time starting in 1965. As a result, he
would back the work of many of these people while on break form The Beatles and
then started to really pay attention to the music, resulting in landmark songs
with the band that quickly mainstreamed these innovations and gave The Beatles
their next artistic breakthroughs.
The
pother bandmates were not as quack to catch on at first, but that soon changed
and by the time the Summer Of Love happened in 1967, they were easily keeping
up with a fresh new group of bands, especially The Who and particularly Pink
Floyd. The makers are once again very
thorough here, delivering more incredible vintage footage, original vintage
music and great interviewees and scholars.
This time, it is the great Chris Ingram who has the best and most
insightful, as well as the most hilarious moments throughout in another
must-0see winner for all serious music fans.
I was once again very impressed.
Extras include
Extended Interviews in a featurette entitled The Other Side Of The Mirror: US & UK Psychedelia worth seeing
after the documentary.
Taped in
March 1992 after they had several big worldwide hits, Level 42 Live shows a band that was still in more than prime form
and ready to have even more hits and success, but as the music business was too
busy trying to make it on one hit wonders and fads, they never got the chance
to have more success as they deserved to.
Hot Water, Her Big Day, Lessons In Love and the classic Something
About You, this is a really decent, top rate concert whose only flaw is
that it is not longer. The band is in
amazing form with plenty of energy, musical prowess and more than enough talent
to annihilate most such bands to day.
If you
are curious or a fan, this DVD is worth your time and singer Mark King not only
delivers here terrifically, but still had the voice 7 years later when he went
solo. There are no extras unfortunately,
but I want to explicitly recommend King’s great solo Ohne Filter show from 1999 we reviewed many years ago, is still one
of the best in the series and you can read more about at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/647/Mark+King+(Level+42)+In+Concert+(O
The other
SD Blu-ray from Eagle is Scorpions:
Moment Of Glory (2000) which I reviewed even earlier than the Mark King
DVD. All the extras and content are the
same as the DVD covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/43/Scorpions+-+Moment+Of+Glory+with+th
Find out
more in the technical section below.
Finally
we have Bruce Humberstone’s 1946 Fox musical Three Little Girls In Blue now on DVD from the online-only Fox
Cinema Archives Collection. This
Technicolor bash was yet another way Fox was trying to compete with all the
other studios in the genre (especially MGM) by throwing in everything but the
kitchen sink. June Haver, Vivian Blaine
and Vera-Ellen are three country gals who just love to sing, dance and work on
their farm. But with only older men
around, the sisters decide to go man hunting in the city.
Before
this can become a simple Folk Musical (no inanimate object start dancing
either), they head to early 1900s Atlantic City and are following men and leads
as songs follow us and them. George
Montgomery and Frank Latimore are among the male support, while Celeste Holm
turns up as a city gal with some of the same ideas in mind. The songs may not be very memorable and
scenes not well defined, though there is a spectacular dream sequence with
Vera-Ellen that is as pricey as it is remarkable and it the highlight of an
uneven film that still has plenty of energy and ambition. If you love musicals and have never seen this
one, you’ll want to get it as the stars often overcome the limits of their
material just the same.
There are
no extras.
The upscaled
to 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Bee Gees and Scorpions
are not the upgrades one would wish for, but Scorpions is especially problematic as it always has been since its
DVD debut with all kinds of artifacts and flaws. It remains one of my least favorite HD
concert shoots ever, but Bee Gees
still has its share of staircasing and other issues looking not much better
than its DVD version (unreviewed, but I remember it looking a little less rough
than this) so these discs are really good for the better sound. However, the 1.33 X 1 on the three DVDs here
are not all better, save McCartney,
the one performer that really looks as it should. Level
42 is simply an old NTSC or PAL analog recording that shows its age and Blue should look great, but the print
only occasionally shows how great the 35mm three-strip, dye-transfer
Technicolor of this film would have looked which would be amazing. The film needs saved!
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Bee Gees and Scorpions
are not awful, but they are not always sounding as they should (some have
already reported getting decoding issues on select players), but the lossless
PCM 2.0 Stereo versions in both cases fare more cleanly and clearly. Bee
Gees benefits more than Scorpions
in this case, the latter of which did not impress me with its odd mix to begin
with.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on McCartney
and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Blue
tie for second place in playback with the former of the usually solid quality
we expect from Chrome Dreams releases, so that leaves the lossy Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo on Level 42 the
disappointment with weak, low-volume audio that sounds a generation down
despite the great performances.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
