Dreams
Rewired (2015/Icarus
DVD)/The Kennedy Films of
Robert Drew & Associates
(Primary
(1960)/Adventures On The
New Frontier
(1961)/Crisis
(1963)/Faces Of November
(1964)/Criterion Blu-ray)/Sunshine
Superman (2014/Magnolia
Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/B/B- Sound: C+/B-/B- Extras: C/B/B- Films: B+/A-/B
Documentaries
can be informative as well as affirmative and life-affirming in all
kinds of ways without ringing false. Next up are two new must-see
gems and a collection of four classics upgraded in a way that could
not be soon enough...
Dreams
Rewired
(2015) is
a stunning compilation film that Manu Luksch, Martin Reinhart &
Thomas Tode have put together with no less than the amazing Tilda
Swinton narrating this exceptional journey on how the dreams of
individuals and mankind have slowly changed and stretched into areas
only barely imagined, running only 85 minutes but is far more
fulfilling when all is said and done as we start with what the idea
of an optimistic dream is and how the landmark work and dreams of
innovators and artists constantly refined and opened up so many new
possibilities to make dreams come true.
Of
course, many nightmares also arose out of all this progress and the
film never ignores this, but it marches on to the next breakthrough,
next hope, next innovation, next idea and next dream that opens up a
floodgate to the next era, plateau and possibility of a future.
Icarus
has landed this amazing gem for DVD and I consider it one of the
must-see new documentaries of the last few years. I still cannot
believe what the makers have achieved and just on a level of
cinematic journey, it is amazing. As a total work, it is highly
impactful and highly recommended.
A
12-page booklet is included as a good extra here.
The
Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates
collects four classic films featuring the landmark president in
action, works that have only grown in profound value over the years
as our political discourse has become more ravaged. Fortunately, two
of them were issued years ago on decent DVD editions we reviewed, so
you can see our coverage of them at their respective links, but as
the real America has been drifting away in a sea of anger and
questionable spending, they need to be screened, re-screened,
discovered and rediscovered.
Primary
(1960)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/658/Primary+(Documentary
Adventures
On The New Frontier
(1961)
runs 52 minutes-long and the no-interview strategy continues to great
effect, though there is some pontificating as Kennedy now reigns in
the Oval Office and we get this rare look inside... one that would be
cut way too short.
Crisis
(1963)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/659/Crisis:+Behind+A+Presidential+Commitment
Faces
Of November
(1964) is
only 12-minutes-long and shows the depressing fallout of the JFK
assassination, the pain, the loss, the dream cut short and the shock
that it was almost unreal. Little did anyone know more
assassinations were on the way, along with social upheaval, Vietnam,
other continuing the Kennedy Dream and a counterculture that would
save the country from the same darkness Kennedy would have had he
lived.
When
I heard all these firms were coming to Criterion
Blu-ray, I took it as an amazing event, but actually seeing the films
and looking and sounding this good, feeling this warm and showing us
the truth of what we really lost, the films are even more relevant
than when I covered them many years ago. With the ugly, underhanded,
destructive political discourses going on and getting worse each day
with the 2016 Presidential Campaign, it is nice to see what a mature
political discourse used to look like nationally... the real America!
Extras
include an essay by documentary film curator and writer Thomas Powers
called Capturing The Kennedys in a high quality booklet with tech
info, while the Blu-ray adds an alternate, twenty-six-minute cut of
Primary
that was edited down by filmmaker Richard Leacock, a feature length
audio commentary on the Leacock edit of Primary
with Leacock and filmmakers Robert Drew and D. A. Pennebaker recorded
in conversation with film critic Gideon Bachmann in 1961, new
documentary Robert
Drew in His Own Words
featuring archival interview footage, new conversation between
Pennebaker and Jill Drew, Robert Drew's daughter-in-law and the
general manager of Drew Associates, Outtakes from Crisis,
along with a discussion by historian Andrew Cohen, author of Two
Days in June,
new conversation about Crisis
featuring former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and Sharon Malone,
Holder's wife and the sister of Vivian Malone, one of the students
featured in Crisis,
new interview with Richard Reeves, author of President Kennedy:
Profile of Power and footage from a 1998 event at the Museum of
Tolerance in Los Angeles, featuring Drew, Pennebaker, Leacock, and
filmmaker Albert Maysles.
Last
but not least is Marah
Strauch's Sunshine
Superman
(2014), an incredible look at the life and times of Carl Boenish, a
man who lived life and loved skydiving. He was a product of the JFK
optimism and decided to take his love of jumping to the next stage.
Not only was he an excellent, skilled filmmaker who was filming all
of his jumps in totally professional form on 16mm color film to show
us something no one had ever seen before, but he wanted to find new
ways to do it and therefore, new kinds of jumps to shoot. This led
him to, along with his team, to invent what we now know as BASE
jumping and he became a forerunner of the extreme sports we know now.
This
is partly a biography of him and those arounds him, but also a
character study that extends to the time, the sport, the attitudes
and the era in which the events take place down to an exceptionally
excellent choice of hit records of the time, including the title song
(Donovan's memorable hit) and a few classics I am thrilled the makers
got the rights to. Alex Gibney co-produced and so much about this
one works that I only wish it were longer. Up there with Dreams
Rewired,
this is one of the new must-see documentaries of the last few years
and a great tribute to an unrecognized innovator, dreamer and legend
in Carl
Boenish. See it!!!
Extras
include the Making Of featurette Flying
Dreams,
an Original Theatrical Trailer and two of Carl Boenish's remarkable
stunt films: Sky
Dive!
and Master
Of The Sky.
Wish there were more here.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Dreams
is a nice mix of all kinds of old film footage, but most of it looks
really good, plus there are also more than a few lengthly clips in
1.33 X 1. Of course, some film clips are from classic feature films
(Potemkin,
L'Inhumaine,
et al) that have been remarkably restored & saved in recent
years, but one easily gets the point when they show up.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfers on all four Kennedy
films are remarkable HD upgrades from the original/surviving 16mm
elements that can show the age of the materials used a bit on grain
and the limits of the smaller frame as expected, but these are far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the films and are
excellent HD transfers from their original 16mm sources.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Sunshine
can also show the age of the video materials used, but the older
color 16mm footage looks great and often outdoes the newer HD
shooting extending to the bonus 16mm films included. Nice!
The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Dreams
has plenty of monophonic sound and other clips are from silent films,
but this is cleverly sound designed with Swinton's narration laid in
very well.
The
lossless PCM 2.0 Mono on the Kennedy
films are all from optical sound sources, save Primary from a
magnetic soundmaster, all cleaned and fixed-up with great care and
far surpassing the sound we've heard in any previous presentation of
these vital works.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Sunshine
is a mix of simple new interview recordings, older usually monophonic
interview audio and hot records in stereo. Though what is here is
well mixed and presented, but is only so much here that can take any
advantage of the multi-channel there possibilities. It
is fine, but has its limits, though you can tell the older sound was
as cleaned up as it could be and the stunt film audio was as well
preserved as the great film images.
-
Nicholas Sheffo