Being
Canadian (2015/Candy
Factory DVD)/The Best
Democracy Money Can Buy
(2016/Cinema Libre DVD)/Brain
Games: Season 7 (2016 aka
The Final Season/National
Geographic/Fox DVD Set)/Living
In The Age Of Airplanes
(2016/National Geographic/Terwilliger Blu-ray)
Picture:
C/C/C+/B- Sound: C+/C+/C+/B- Extras: D/C/C-/C+ Main
Programs: B-/C+/B-/B-
Here
are the latest special interest releases for your consideration....
Robert
Cohen's Being
Canadian
(2015) has the hit TV sitcom writer, et al, going back to his home
country to try to define what exactly separates it and distinguishes
it from the rest of the country. Touring in a road trip, he
interviews people along the way and we get extensive inserts of both
important figures from within the country and interviews with many
Canadians from the entertainment industry (quite a few of them) that
you may or may not know are from there.
This
includes Michael J. Fox, The Barenaked Ladies, William Shatner, Paul
Shaffer, Mike Myers, Seth Rogen, Alanis Morrisette, Howie Mandel,
Alex Trebek and many others, plus the mention of others who were not
interviewed. Running 89 minutes, this actually takes a while to pick
up, but eventually pays off and is a great tribute to the underrated
territory people worldwide (especially in the USA) need to know more
about. This one is worth a good look.
There
are no extras.
David
Ambrose and Greg Palast's The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy
(2016) has Palast gone wild by going after corrupt money behind the
scenes of voting, gerrymandering, related rip-offs and more important
news we should know about. However, the main program is sometimes
overdone and over the top in its 111 minutes, which backfires a
little bit. That is why though I've heard of Palast, I can see why I
have not seen him enough. Despite this, he makes some great points,
exposes some awful schemes and comes up with an important new way to
look at voter suppression just in time for the 2016 Election.
Too
bad not enough people will see this in time, but some of what he
exposes in detail we fortunately know generally, but proving it by
showing it in said detail is a plus. When he does not try so hard,
like many of the segments in the extras, he does better. Hope we see
more of him soon either way.
Extended
interviews and bonus featurettes that are well done are the extras.
Our
final two entries are produced by National
Geographic. Brain
Games: Season 7
(2016) is also its Final Season as host Jason Silva wraps up his
interesting series of challenges, experiments and exposes on how the
brain works in ways that are always unexpected. We get sic episodes
this time and though this might sound like a silly show to some at
first, it is sincere and effective as you watch, though I would only
be able to take so much of this, it is very worthwhile and it is on o
those moderate hits that will likely be more appreciated later moe
than it is now.
Behind
The Scenes on all 6 episodes are the only extras.
Finally
we have Brian J. Terwilliger's Living
In The Age Of Airplanes
(2016) that is hosted by no less than Harrison Ford, runs only 47
minutes, but shows how human flight is the most important innovation
and development of all time... or pretty close to it. It does this
by showing the mobility (or lack thereof) by human for millions of
years, then comes flight and it changes everything, maybe even moe
than the Internet for the same reasons.
Maybe
this could have been longer, but for what it has to show and say, it
gets to the point and quits while its ahead. The footage is often
impressive and this was more engaging at its best than even I
expected. Definitely worth a look and for its length, you cannot go
wrong.
Extras
include a paper pullout on the film including informative text, while
the Bu-ray adds 12 bonus featurettes.
All
three DVDs are here in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image
presentations, but Canadian and Money have soft,
roughness to them including video noise, video banding, cross color,
faded color, staircasing and digititis that Brain never runs
into. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital
High Definition image transfer on Airplanes
also has some minor flaws, but is the most consistent, has some great
shots and is easily the playback champ.
As
for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Canadian
and Money
fare better than their image and tie with the slightly more refined
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Brain
sounding just fine throughout. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 7.1
lossless mix on Airplane
is well mixed and presented, but rarely are those tracks engaged,
though Harrison Ford is always clear-sounding.
-
Nicholas Sheffo