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Category:    Home > Reviews > Documentary > Technology > Communications > Innovation > Politics > Biography > Murder > Skydiving > BASE > 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

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


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