Carmen
Jones (1954/Fox
Blu-ray)/Gene Kelly:
Dancing, A Man's Game
(1958/Omnibus/E1 DVD)/One
Direction: Reaching For The Stars
(2013/Inception DVD)/The
Stone Roses: Made Of Stone
(2013/MVD Visual Blu-ray + DVD)/You
Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
(2012/Resnais/Kino Lorber DVD)
Picture:
B/C/C/B- & C/C+ Sound: B-/C/C+/B- & C+/C+ Extras:
C-/C/D/C/C- Main Programs: B-/B-/C/C+/C+
Now
for a new set of music-based releases you should know about...
Otto
Preminger's Carmen
Jones
(1954) was a big hit for 20th
Century-Fox and is the definitive film that shows what a great star,
actress and performer Dorothy Dandridge really was. A variant of
Carmen with a modern twist as reinterpreted by Oscar Hammerstein II,
she was a force to be reckoned with staring opposite a young, on the
rise Harry Belefonte and impressive Pearl Bailey making for a
one-of-a-kind late Classical Hollywood film that was groundbreaking
for its time and not just for its African American cast.
As
a musical, it is pretty solid and at 105 minutes, does not waste much
time on anything, as Hammerstein was more than capable of keeping
things going. Preminger wanted to be with Dandridge off-screen, but
she was unhappy with him and he made her life a living hell, but you
would never know that for how good she is here. He would go out of
his way to ruin her career and life, but eventually started to
undermine himself in a tragic tale of two careers that peaked too
early. She suffered the most, however, yet this is a great record of
her greatness and all serious film fans should see this one at least
once.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra, but we have covered
several versions of Carmen including a traditional performance in 3D
(!) which you can read more about, then go to links to our other
coverage starting at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11530/Carmen+in+3D+(Opus+Arte+Blu-ray+3D)/Persuasi
Gene
Kelly: Dancing, A Man's Game
is an impressive 1958 classic TV special that was an episode of the
great (and too often forgotten) NBC series Omnibus that has the
actor, dancer, choreographer, director and legend begin joined by the
likes of Mickey Mantle, Johnny Unitas and Sugar Ray Robinson to show
that the stereotype of dancing only being for women is just that.
Bold
for its time, the 55 minutes here is as ambitious and filled with so
many great points, ideas and moments that it is a classic and
brilliant moment in the arts in all of TV history as Kelly shows why
he really was a genius in the art form. It is sometimes jaw-dropping
to see him in action and how he takes the complexity of dance and
makes it as simple as a casual conversation. One of the most
important Hollywood stars of all time, this shows him as himself and
gives us a rare glimpse at the heart and soul that made him so
unforgettable. In some ways, this is as valuable and as important as
ever in an era with wars against people, against the arts and against
anything that means achievement. Glad to see it on DVD!
An
illustrated booklet on the show is the only extra, but it is a good
one.
One
Direction: Reaching For The Stars
(2013) is not to be confused with the 3D project for the British boy
band who has become a hit in the U.S. since we apparently ran out of
tired, formulaic, generic, boring, safe, dull, played-out, formulaic
(you don't have to be a so-called hater to feel this way) vocal group
that can barely sing. I am not expecting The Beatles, Blur or
Radiohead, but these guys make Peter & Gordon sound like Biggie &
Tupac!
This
compilation piece of the band on tour (yawn) only runs 64 minutes,
yet that is way too long considering the extremely forgettable nature
of the so-called songs at hand. One member already had a calamitous
relationship with Taylor Swift, who gets a few songs out of every
boyfriend experience she has once she dumps them. She is obviously
running out of guys to burn through too.
So
they have fans and I bet many of them are fine ladies, but how long
until they become the next Jonas Brothers? Also known as 1D (as in
one dimensional?), I bet some critics realize the original Monkees
deserve apologies for all the insults aimed at them.
There
are thankfully no extras.
Shane
Meadows' The
Stone Roses: Made Of Stone
(2013) is easily a better work about a band simply buy being smarter
and being about an act with talent who was ahead of their time
instead of following every tired trend around. We get new interviews
and like so many of thee projects (including many outright concert
releases) has a classic band getting to together again to see if they
still got it. The problem with any such release is that such works
can play like badly expanded VH-1 specials of a similar approach.
In
this case, the new concert and interview footage is interesting until
they make way too much of it into fake black and white, which makes
zero sense and looks awful. It makes their older selves seem several
times more older, inadvertently making the older footage of when they
were starting look that much better. Yes, we have another band the
labels mishandled and no one around was strong enough to give the
kind of support they needed to help them succeed. We get the story,
which is as much about them as it is the music industry and this also
shows how much things have changed; not always for the better either.
It runs 96 minutes that are sometimes more awkward than they needed
to be.
Extras
in both format releases include a feature length audio commentary
track by Producer Mark Herbert and Director Meadows, Fan Footage,
Bonus Live Music Performances, a Rehearsal Clip,
Behind The Scenes clips and an Original Theatrical Trailer.
Alain
Resnais' You
Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
(2012) might not seem to fit at first, but it brings together some
great French actors of the past who have been assembled to watch a
new production of Eurydice happen, but a group of actors (playing
themselves) who have done the play for a director who has since
passed is asked to judge who should get the main roles in the new
production. Instead, they start to relive their work in the earlier
versions in new alternate realities as Resnais pushes the idea of a
film within a film into new territory.
From
there, it becomes similar to his New Wave stream of conscious films,
but the results are mixed unless you really like the actors and the
play. There are many spaces suddenly without music, but Mark Snow's
score is used with irony and still reminds us of the musical presence
of Orpheus. Not for everyone, but worth your time if you are
curious.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra, but you can read more
about Orpheus at these links:
Marcel
Camus' Black
Orpheus
(1959) on Criterion Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10180/Black+Orpheus+(1959/Criterion+Collection+Blu-ra
Opera
and Ballet versions of the classic tale on Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9571/Orphee+&+Eurydice+(Roberto+Alagna+dramatic+op
The
1080p 2.55 X 1 AVC @ 38 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer
on Carmen
Jones is
easily the image champ here as presented in a solid restoration of
the older, wider CinemaScope shoot that makes it further unique.
With color by DeLuxe and not Technicolor, there are some color limits
and the print can show the age of the materials used, but this is far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film on DVD or
any other format and considering with some limits of the older
lenses, impresses as the film heads for its 60th
Anniversary.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Roses
is the second best presentation here, but that is by default with its
mix of old film, analog video and new HD (including too much faux
black and white HD) that is edited jut well enough, but is not always
as effective when all is added up. The
anamorphically enhanced DVD version is much weaker and often hard to
watch.
Thus,
the third best presentation is the 2.35 X 1 anamorphically enhanced
image on Yet,
shot in real 35mm anamorphic Panavision of Director of Photography
Eric Gautier. A.F.C., with 500-speed Kodak film. This can have a
generic backside, but looks pretty good overall and is pushed in ways
we do not see enough with this stock. Bet this would look better on
Blu-ray or on film.
That
leaves us with the two other titles in last place, the awfully mixed
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Direction
with its patchwork of bad digital and analog video and the 1.33 X 1
image on Kelly
from a black and white kinescope of the show, giving it as excuse for
its definition limits. Direction
and Roses
do not have that excuse.
As
for sound, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 4.0 lossless mix on Carmen
Jones
and both lossless PCM 2.0 Stereo and lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Roses
Blu-ray tie for first place as far as best sonics are concerned. The
former shows its age as expected and can be towards the front
channels, but is well recorded for its time, while the latter (which
should have had a lossless 5.1 mix of some kind) has a mix of solid
music recording, studio recording and so-so live recordings of music
and talk, so you can imagine it can get choppy and the DVD version of
Roses
is a bit more restricted sounding by comparison, enough to rate
lower.
The
lossy, quiet Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM 2.0 Stereo on the Yet
DVD and same mix on Direction
are not as good, tying for second place with the Roses
DVD, but Direction
is the sloppiest of the three. That leaves the lossy Dolby Digital
2.0 Mono on Kelly
the poorest here by age and the limits of TV sonics in its time and
in kinescope form, yet it is still less sloppy than Direction
is.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
