The
American Plate: A Culinary History In 100 Bites
(Hardcover Book by Libby H. O'Connell/2014/History Channel/Source
Books)/In Real Life
(2013/First Run DVD)/Jingle
Bell Rocks!
(2014/Oscilloscope DVD)/1,000
Masterpieces: 300 Minutes Of Art
(2014/Naxos/ArtHaus Blu-ray)/World
Series 2014 Collector's Edition: San Francisco Giants
(MLB/A&E/Lionsgate Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
X/C+/C+/B-/B- Sound: X/C/C+/C+/B- Extras: D/C-/C+/C-/C+
Book: B- Main Programs: B-/B/B/B+
Here
are some special interest releases in the documentary field worth
your time...
Libby
H. O'Connell's The
American Plate: A Culinary History In 100 Bites
may be a new hardback book, but I thought it could be included here
being tied to a cable TV network, being very thorough on its subject
and the format is talk about a type of food, its history, then add a
recipe. This works very well and the book is very informative, but
if you don't like all the dishes (I would not eat most of this if
available), it will not go much beyond a good read. If you have an
extensive enjoyment of all kinds of food, you're going to love this
book.
It
has some monochromatic illustrations, the font & style are nice
and it does make a great gift, running over 300 pages. I also liked
certain observations and it covers things like fast food and how U.S.
food consumption has grown over the decades. All in all, this is a
fine book worth a good read.
There
are no extras, though books sometimes actually do.
Beeban
Kidron's In
Real Life
(2013) is an interesting work about the downside of the internet and
how in particular it may not be helping children learn, but instead
playing like an extended version of TV that is making mush out of
their thinking and lives. Running 89 minutes, it shows how much of
the Net has become the wasteland it did not need to become and how
profiteers are taking advantage of the huge audience to offer the
same lowest-common-denominator junk regular TV used to be criticized
for prior to the evils of 'reality TV' and hate TV.
Of
course, parents not monitoring what they do on PC/PC portable devices
plus that usual electronic babysitter factor was inevitable, but the
interactive nature here TV never had and other junk factors paint a
disturbing picture of a new expanded sense of damaging apathy new
generations (plus many older ones for that matter) face with
computers gone rotten in content. I thought this started the
conversation well and even Julian Assange has interesting things to
say on the subject. Give it a look.
A
trailer is the only extra.
Mitchell
Kezin's Jingle
Bell Rocks!
(2014) covers the wide spectrum of one of the most underdiscussed
music genres of all time: Christmas Songs. Through the obsession of
one fan who eventually finds he is not alone, we see its history and
experience the many oddities from the pre-Rock Era, to how that era
meant everyone and their grandmother would literally go and cut a
record in the genre if so inclined (only classic Disco music can
match the results) and that the 45rpm singles are often wackier than
the outright albums.
Doctor
Demento, John Waters, Run of Run-DMC, former Def jam executive Bill
Adler, Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne and Jazz
legend/Schoolhouse Rock! co-creator Bob Dorough are among the great
interviewees, but everyone has fun, funny, interesting and
informative things to say making this easily one of the best holiday
releases of the season. Sometimes a real riot, go out of your way
for it!
Extras
include Questions for El Vez, Bill Adler & Sara Moulton on being
married to a collector stuck in this particular season, Moira Dedrick
on Chris Dedrick and the band Free Design and Deleted Scenes.
1,000
Masterpieces: 300 Minutes Of Art
(2014) offers some of the greatest paintings ever made from museums
all over the world in mini-featurettes throughout, but we only really
get 30 of them in 10-minutes-long segments. Using the same music
over and over and over again, consistent is not always a good things
and though the segments are well written and the works well shot, we
get no 'Play All' option. This makes seeing all of them more
grating, but it is a good collection that makes you think and that is
why I still highly recommend it. Works include classics by
Rembrandt, Warhol, Goya, Gauguin, Munch, da Vinci, Caravaggio,
Delvaux, Dali, Hopper and O'Keeffe.
Previews
for other Blu-rays are the only extras.
Finally,
we have World
Series 2014 Collector's Edition: San Francisco Giants,
which is an expansion of the single Blu-ray we recently covered at
this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13173/Aftermass+(2014/CARTS+DVD)/The+Definitive+W
This
great 8-disc set has extended key games and continues a series of
grand box sets A&E started in the DVD era of baseball box sets
that are highly collectible and thorough efforts to show how hard
fought the games were to the championship. Oddly, few sports have
followed in offering such comprehensive sets, but MLB delivers once
again and to have even 720p HD of these games is a nice plus,
especially for fans.
Whether
you count the three additional audio tracks to the games, you also
get Sleevestat inserts with more info on the games that is a booklet
inside the Blu-ray set case. We'll count the extra soundtracks just
the same.
The
1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Art has all
some motion blur despite the paintings not moving, but slight
staircasing and other minor errors are present. You get even more of
this in the 720p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on
the Giants set as expected for a lower form of HD, but it is
still good enough to tie the other Blu-ray entry on this list for
overall playback quality. Color in both cases is not bad. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image in the two DVDs even have a
few more such issues and tie for second/last place in picture
playback, but look about as good as one could expect for the format.
Jingle
in particular might be more fun in HD.
As
for sound, the Giants
set has DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes for its
main TV audio tracks,
as do the three alternate soundtracks, but they are not as full
sounding, though still as clear as they are going to get. That makes
it the sonic champ in the list. The rest of the titles have
lossy Dolby Digital mixes, with 2.0 Stereo on the Art
Blu-ray and
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on both DVDs. Despite the 5.1, Life
comes up short and average in sound with the tracks having location
audio issues, plus more than a few moments of simple stereo or mono
to boot.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
